Find or make a stuffy that's about the same size as Teddy. I used this Figment the Dragon stuffy. He's also 10" tall, and his mouth lines up almost perfectly with Teddy's mouth.
There are two JST connectors that lead to the switches inside Teddy's paws. Unplug these, then use a thread ripper to open him up until you can get the main part of the body out.
Turn Teddy's paws inside out and use a thread ripper to remove the switch. Also remove the piece of muslin fabric that's sewn to the inside of his paw to hold the switch in place. We'll use this same bit of fabric to install the switch into Figment's paws.
Open Figment in the same way, starting at the back of the neck. You'll need to remove a fair amount of stuffing. Set it aside for now, we'll tuck some of it back in so he stays nice and huggable.
I made a small hole at first and widened it bit by bit, to minimize the amount of sewing I needed to do at the end.
Turn Figment's paws inside out and hand-stitch the muslin pieces you pulled out of Teddy's paws onto the front side Figment's paws. Slip the switches inside and sew them in place, making sure the button presses from the front of the paws when they're turned right-side out again.
Use a utility knife to carefully cut Figment's pupils out. I stayed just inside the black section, to keep the fabric from unraveling and to give him a bit of "eyeliner".
I colored the inside of his eyes with a sharpie to cover up any white threads that were showing.
Make sure all the stuffing is out of Figment's face and slide the animatronic body into Figment's skin. Once it's inside, plug the JST connectors from the hands back in and adjust the face so that Teddy's mouth aligns with Figment's mouth.
Stuff Figment's stuffing back inside his head around the back, so his head skin fits tightly around the animatronics and the stuffing presses the mouth tightly against the front of Figment's face.
Sew Figment back up, starting with the back seam and finishing with the neck. He doesn't close fully around the animatronics, but that's fine - we need to leave the back open so we can reach the on/off switch and change the batteries. Just stitch him up as best as you can.
Figment's eyes are slightly closer together than Teddy's and I couldn't quite get them to line up. I fixed this by cutting a slit with my utility knife in between his eyes. I later covered this up by gluing on some purple jewels. Now he feels fancy, and his eyes line up perfectly with Teddy's.
Finally, I added a few stitches around the corners of his mouth to tighten up the fit around Teddy's mouth. This gave him a bit of a "facelift" and made the animatronic movement look a lot better.
Page last edited March 08, 2024
Text editor powered by tinymce.
