Needle-Felted Wool Sculpture

Dwalin the Dwarf Needle-Felted Wool Sculpture (as seen in Peter Jackson's films of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit")


Dwalin is the sixth doll completed in our "Hobbit project". He is based on Graham McTavish's portrayal of Tolkien's character, as seen in "The Hobbit" films by Peter Jackson. After making the Throin and Bilbo dolls, Elizabeth and I decided that it would be a fun idea to make all of the dwarves from Thorin's company in "The Hobbit" films. We are working on multiple dolls at one time, because a few of them are very intensive as far as leather work or embroidery (Elizabeth's department!). To keep things going ahead, we've got three dolls "in the works" at any given point. This gives Elizabeth time to work on the hand sewing and leather, while I'm felting on a different doll.

Dwalin is a very soldierly, sturdy fellow who stands at the impressive height (for a dwarf) of 9-3/8" tall and weighs in at a solid 4 ounces. He was felted with .40 and .42 gauge needles and features some pretty fun fiber in his costume — along with a lot of leather, metal and embroidery work. I used ten different types of wool to make Dwalin, which has to be a bit of a record. The base of his body is made of dark brown Romney (though none of it shows), and his head and clothes feature Cotswold, Gotland, Lincoln, Finnish, Jacob, Merino and Blue-Faced Leicester wool. His hair is made from "All Cooped Up" wool hair. One of the very fun aspects of this doll is the wool used for his pants and over tunic. I needed different shades of Army Green, so we actually died the roving ourselves using Kool-Aid. It was amazing to see how the colors came out so natural and earthy-toned when using the grey and oatmeal base wool.

Definitely one of the most intricate dolls when it comes to non-wool accessories, Dwalin has a lot of extra touches. His boots feature leather windings and Mink fur cuffs to match the Mink fur collar. More intricate leather work creates his belt, harness and leather arm guards – all decorated in various metal findings, chains and buckles. Even his ears feature some fancy earrings.

One of the unique challenges while making this doll were the tattoos on his head. We experimented with several techniques and finally settled on sanding the top of his very firm head. The tattoos were drawn on using a Sharpie pen!