Customer Reviews

Teddy Bear Art: How to Design & Make Great Teddy Bears

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a professional teddy bear artist who has sold internationally, I must say I owe a lot of my education to this book. While I have read just about every teddy bear making book out there (once you get started, it's addictive), I never found another quite as good as Teddy Bear Art. In this guide, Jenniger Laing addresses the true spirit of making artist teddy bears -- designing your own patterns. You can never be a complete artist until you can do this, and Laing will give you a good push in the right direction. She discusses each aspect of each pattern piece individually, shows you how to make changes in your finished product by altering the pattern, and finally tells you how to put all the pieces you've created together to make sure they'll fit -- before cutting your valuable mohair. She also addresses series of bears and ideas of names, collections of materials, and more. Again, this is the best book I have read on creating your own patterns from scratch and truly becoming a teddy bear artist.

However, if you are simply seeking already made patterns for bears to make, this is not the book for you. There are only three patterns in this book and they are not the primary goal of this book.

For those who want to learn how a teddy bear is really created, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Jennifer takes you step by step through the process from visualization to completion of your own teddy bears. Detailed instructions and tips on pattern-making, cutting, sewing, needle sculpture, and the always challenging job of stitching the nose. Jennifer also takes you through the world of being a teddy bear artist and the business aspects to consider. I found this book very enjoyable and extrememly helpful.

I found this book to be somewhat helpful, but less so than I had hoped. I was quite surprised to find the book poorly edited, (to say the least!) with several typos, the body pieces for one of the patterns mislabeled, and general inconsistencies in the way the diagrams are labeled. Still, the book did give a basic outline of the steps involved in designing a bear--although there are blaring gaps, such as giving SOME proportions, but not all: the body in general should be twice as high as the head, yet no mention of how wide the body should be (about 2/3 the height, by the way) . So I would say this is a book which will get you started, but may leave you with a few unanswered questions. And, as I said, the book is quite poorly written and edited-maybe a second edition will be forthcoming which will be improved.

This book covers absolutely everything, from designing your own bear to putting it together and dressing it. It has patterns for a few bears and its the book you must have if you want to become a bearmaker without spending a lot of money on workshops

Jennifer's book is packed with a lot of useful information for beginners and experienced bear makers. This book contains information to help those who want to design their own bear patterns, as well as plenty of information for people learning how to make their first bear. A must for all bear artists.

This is NOT a review. Please correct the title of the book as it appears on your website. The last word SHOULD BE: BEARS

This word is meant to be plural, or more than one. It is not meant to be a possessive. OUCH!

HOW TO DESIGN & MAKE GREAT TEDDY BEARS

About time we had such a great book. It tells all you need to know on how to draft your own patterns and how to make real artist bears. Good tips on setting up your own business etc. Easy to follow, and includes great patterns as a bonus! Highly recommended.