Well lets jump right in. Here's the Holly that we thought was finished and ready for delivery. Not too bad huh?
Well, Steve thought she looked like she had the body of a snowman. It HAD to be changed.
Then we discovered that Marty had really just misunderstood (how's that for a polite phrase) how long the eye and mouth strings had to be and they were each about two FEET too short. Since we'd already glued the head together, major head surgery was indicated.

Holly's head being reopened to allow for new eye strings.The whole process took about an hour -- Taking off the helmet, peeling back the fur, cutting the back of the head off, cutting off the old strings, tying on the new LONGER ones, gluing the back of the head back on and regluing the fur.

Meantime, Steve started making the upper part of the body shorter as well as restuffing her lower body to better dimensions. When the body was redone, it was reattached to the head, and the real Holly emerged.

Although Holly looked pretty much done in the first picture above, some of her accessories were yet to be finished. Here, Bill is working on her tool belt, painting it and its little pouches to match the paint on her goggles. The last few steps always seem to take the most time.

Here's a shot of just some of the tools we were using during Holly's final finishing.

Here's Holly done and strung. (She has 17 strings to make all of her various parts work). The helmet is finished, the goggle strap is attached, the pliers are in her hand, the tool belt is repainted and textured to match the goggles, she's short enough, and her eye and mouth strings are LONG enough. We think she's quite a special little character.

Here's Steve with Holly and her best buddy Quilly.

Another view of Holly.
If you would like to see a big picture of Holly, click here. (Use your "Back" button to return here).
We expressed Holly off to Ojai, and she's already taken part in the groundbreaking for a new park, (she even had her own little shovel to help with the ceremony).