Foxface

The Hunger Games film is finally out, and we finally went to see it yesterday, so I’m full of the joys of spring/gladiatorial games between children 😀  Pretty sure everyone knows already how good this film is, so I won’t bother repeating it, except to say that I especially enjoyed the way they overcame the drawbacks of the first person narrative in film form. Very nicely done.

Also, let’s be honest, there was as much Foxface as I could have (realistically) hoped for, and Foxface is the best. In fact, she is so much the best that my second Hunger Games cross stitch is for her. There may be slight spoilers in the following.

The best ever

She is my favourite.

It’s nothing fancy, just Foxface and leaves and bushes (see the nightlock berries on the bushes? THAT’S CALLED FORESHADOWING GUYS). She’s wearing green because I was going by book canon. The knife is the one she took from the ruins of the Careers’ food store after Katniss had been at it, and the backpack (again, green as in canon) is the one she took from the feast. There was a lot of green in this picture. It’s a miracle I have any green thread left at all.

The most notable thing about it for me is that it’s the first cross stitch I’ve done where I’ve really designed the whole thing (except the font). That said, I still used references, and even though you can’t see much of those references in the final product (my fault, not theirs) I’m going to link those. I take this stuff very seriously – artists deserve credit for their work. If I was any good at stuff like that, I’d hope I’d be credited as well.

Before I started designing, I got to dig through piles and piles of awful/hilarious Foxface fanart before I found some good stuff to use. The pictures I have saved in my references folder are:

1

This is kind of a weird one, it’s one of those art meme things, but it was the first evidence I found of Foxface looking, well, foxy. Her eyes are green instead of amber in the picture (why yes, I am Pedantic!Fan) but it’s a sweet little pic. Mostly to give me hope that not all Foxface fanart is bad.

2

Another Foxface looking delightfully sneaky. She’s dressed a little too ninja, but you can’t have everything.

3

It was nice to see a lot of different styles and pick what I wanted from each (though you’ll probably look at the cross stitch and be like “…Yeah, don’t see any of these pictures in that.”), and loved the sharp lines of her profile.

4

Another different style. It’s still stylised, but more realistic than the anime art, which was kind of what I was going for.

5

One of my favourite Foxface pictures. Well, you can see why.

The biggest problem I found with all the fanart was that they depicted all the Tributes as being a bit too good, and maybe a bit too individual? I wanted to really keep in mind the fact that these 24 Tributes are literally children, given some rudimentary training, thrown into a specially landscaped arena with nothing but the regulation clothes on their backs, and expected to kill each other and/or fend for themselves. The only equipment and weapons they had was what they could find or make.

Foxface especially falls foul of this. Though she was clearly very intelligent, she probably knew hardly anything about wilderness survival except what she could work out in the arena – she came from a district full of power plants, not forests. What she did seem to do was pick up on Katniss’s survival skills and use her as a model for what to do. Which is why she trusted those berries.

So although I like the ninja style of some of her fanart, I don’t think it’s exactly canon-compatible.

Not that you’ll get any of this from the cross stitch anyway, haha, but you know.

Pose references:

1

This was the main pose I used, but I also saved a few more sneaking poses…

2

3

4

And of course the font:

Madrid from here. The fox tail (yes, that’s a fox tail) on the F is all mine, as you can probably tell.

WHAT WILL I SEW NEXT?

I’ve just finished a little IT Crowd Roy for a friend (pictures coming soon), as a twist on my first IT Crowd designs (my v first commission!). Next up I have my very second commission, designing to start ASAP. Next in the Hunger Games series will be everyone’s favourite, Rue.

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One Response to Foxface

  1. Pingback: Nur bei Grün den Kindern ein Kreuzstich | Sparrow & Dove

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