So I’ve been working on this bad boy for ages, and he’s finally finished! It’s a (belated) Christmas present for my boyfriend as Porco Rosso is his favourite Studio Ghibli character.
I had previously cross stitched some Totoros for his birthday in 2014 using patterns found on pintrest, however I thought I’d give Porco a go free-hand! I used this picture as a reference, and you can definitely see it’s influence, but when it comes to the actual cross-stitch pattern – that’s all me and I am so proud of that as it was bloody hard work, hence why it took me so long. The most daunting part of it was where/how to start. I deemed that his glasses and nose, somewhere central, was probably the best place to start so I sketched it out.
Fortunately Porco Rosso has a pretty symmetrical face, so once I’d stitched one side I basically had to flip it and repeat, it definitely worked.
Once I had my ‘starting point’ done with, I sketched out the rest of his face and just went from there. Why I did it in pen I do not know, the lesson learned for next time is to draw lightly in pencil. As I didn’t wash my cross stitch before I hooped it, you can unfortunately see some pen marks underneath the lighter threads, but shhhh!
I took work in progress photos at various stages, and it was really interesting to see how my design changed throughout the process. When I was flipping through them whilst editing, I thought it would make for a pretty interesting video;
The style of hoop had to be changed when I decided that I was going to go ‘mixed-media’, and felt the background colour instead of stitching it. I think it adds a little more interest and texture but I’m not sure how purists would feel. Do you like the mix of felt and stitching?
WonderfulWolf 
He looks amazing!
Thank you, I’m really proud of him!