Cuddly Slugs: Part 2

Time for my next installment of stuffed slug creations.

In 2010, I made a total of three slugs.  The first one was already shown in the previous post.  The other two were Christmas-time slugs.  First, I made a slug for my niece, Lucy.  She lives in southern California, so I decided to make a slug from down there.  I chose Mexichromis porterae, since from my limited SoCal diving, this was one of my favorites.  It also had the nice property of being pretty colorful, and not being too complex for my sewing skills.  I think this slug came out quite well for a few reasons.  First, I came up with a pretty good way to construct a dorid with a colored border on the mantle.  Second, I found the perfect color of wide wale corduroy to make lamellated rhinophores :)

Portia the Mexichromis porterae

Photo by Clinton Bauder

By the way, I nicknamed this slug Portia.  I forgot to mention in my previous post that some of the early slugs had nicknames -- including Rusty the Rostanga and Dori the Doriopsilla.  I never came up with a good nickname for the Hypselodoris, so I referred to it as Hypsy.  I guess now that the species name has changed to Felimare californiensis, I could call it Felix.

Unfortunately Portia didn't exactly with stand the test of time.  One of her yellow stripes peeled off, which I guess was a consequence of using adhesive instead of stitching, and giving a hand-made stuffed animal to a very tiny human.

For the Capwell party, I used my excellent new dorid construction technique to make a Cadlina flavomaculata.  Cady turned out kind of huge, but I guess it's more to love.

Photo by Mark Lloyd

Cady the Cadlina

In 2011, I made what still seems like one of my most ambitious slugs yet, and I think my favorite slug yet (I know, I probably shouldn't have favorites, or at least not admit to it).  Drum roll please...

I made a Spanish shawl.  It was obviously way more complicated than a dorid.  The orange cerata have pipe cleaners in them to give them some stability.  That also means you can bend the cerata and "style" them in the orientation that you want, which is kind of fun.

More to come...

Photo by Clinton Bauder