Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Totoro(s)


If you've seen the film My Neighbour Totoro, this'll probably make sense to you straight away. It's a wonderful film by Hayao Miyazaki, about two young girls living in the countryside for the first time. It's quite hard to explain why the film is so much fun, but 'enchanting' is very much the right word for it.
It features three woodland spirit... things of different sizes. The largest of these is Totoro, although I'm not sure if that's a name or a description, and it may of may not include the two smaller ones, but for my purposes I'm going to call them all Totoro.
So the plan is, I'm going to make a set of the three Totoros. There's a few patterns out there for these, and the best seems to be these ones:

http://heavens-hellcat.livejournal.com/420.html


I haven't been able to find a pattern for all three, and I'm particularly keen that they all be in proportion to each other. That's a little tricky because the big one is a lot bigger than the smallest(about 9 times, by my reckoning), but I think that's reflected really nicely in the animation, the size is reflected in the level of detail, which is something I'm really keen to carry across. And to be honest I just prefer to make my own patterns anyway, it's much more fun.

So that's the plan, I'm gonna knit me a family of Totoros. I'm not sure yet what I'll do with them, so if anyone has ideas, or would be keen to provide a loving home to a family of troll-thingies...?

Hugh.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are you going to convert the crochet pattern to knit and will you felt them? That would be great. BTW, you might enjoy reading some FAQ about the movie and the characters:

http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/totoro/faq.html#little

when you're finished, I hope you'll post pictures!

Jhadur said...

Ah yay, so they *are* all called Totoro!

Nope, I won't be converting the crochet patterns, I'll write it from scratch. I kinda prefer it that way, and I think the blue one would work slightly better as intarsia than worked as seperate pieces.

And I'll definitely post pictures, but I'm not too sure about patterns, I'm not sure what the copyright implications would be. But it seems a shame not to, and I think there might be some exceptions if it's not for money...?

Hugh.

Yi Knits said...

The crocheted Totoro is very cute, however, i think the ears should be a bit smaller...^^ Totoro is super cute!

Anonymous said...

Did you finish all three Totoros yet? I saw your later post with two almost completed. Very nice work!
I found your site while searching for a crochet pattern for the grey (largest) Totoro. I've made the white and blue ones for my daughter (a surprise for the holidays), but haven't been able to locate a pattern for the largest one. I'm not confident enough in my crocheting skills to attempt to enlarge an existing pattern, but like you, I want them all to be proportional.

Deb said...

I didn't really mean to be anonymous, I just hit the wrong button!

Jhadur said...

Hi Deb :o)
I actually haven't -- the first two have been finished for a long while now, but I have still yet to do the biggest one.
I've been putting it off because the shaping for the large one will be a lot more involved than these two, he has facial features and separate limbs and things.
But yeah, I should really get on and finish this project. I have grey yarn and everything!

If you want to scale them up, I'd suggest just multiplying everything by 3, that should make it fairly straightforward?
And good luck, hope your daughter enjoys them!