So just before New Years, I decided to take breaks and do something a bit more hands on and crafty to get my creativity flowing!

For years we held onto a container of pony beads in assorted colors/sizes and didn't do anything with them for a long time, so I decided to sort them out to get inventory and see what I could make with them! :0 I especially wanted to try and do stuff with the Glow in the Dark beads teehee

Lizards

Wanted to start with something classic and simple, and decided to start with lizards! The smaller beads make them look Extra Creature and it was fun to come up with different themes and color combos :')

Splatoon Inkling Squids

After getting the hang of lizards I decided to go a step up and try to make my own Bead Buddies pattern based on the Inkling Squids in Splatoon! I'm actually hoping to refine the pattern in the future to share online, so I made quite a few modifications over the course of each iteration!

I was also used to the smaller beads and tried out the traditional sized pony beads to see how that'd turn out o: 

(Partway through I got different colored Glow in the Dark Beads and had to rethread everything to replace the dark blue accents with the new GitD beads)

Bipedal Buddies

Started branching out on other bead buddy ideas, as I found the family binder of Bead Buddy catalogs we collected during our childhood and it helped to reverse engineer some techniques! The first "prototype" I made became a bug character, where I then refined it and used it to make a dear friend's fursona Percy the Cat for her birthday! :)

3D Octopus

Going back to the Family Tome of Bead Buddies, I remembered wanting to make this 3-Dimensional Octopus that was in a catalog in my childhood, but the instructions were a little too complicated, so the urge laid dormant for all these years.

Until now...

PROBLEM WAS, I didn't have enough of the traditionally sized pony beads to make one, so I had to resort to my smaller sized beads, and the results were... interesting. :')

Because of the different width sizes of pony beads, they couldn't fill the form in right, so it turned more oval than anything. I did end up undoing the whole thing and freehanded the pattern a little to beef up the rows! While it's still pretty skinny it looks much better? (Shout out to Gab Smolder's LP on Scarlet Hollow to keep me company during the tedious process)

I'll try out the traditionally sized pony beads one of these days :'0

Wolf Headshot

While I contemplated the idea of creating more anthro/furry bead buddies patterns, I decided to first test out making my own wolf head bead buddy, since some "Animal Head Bead Buddies" looked a little too simple for me. I made 3 Variations trying to figure out how I wanted to handle the fur fluff! And they all became sparkledogs because I didn't have more neutral tones to make prototypes <:3c

It was satisfying making these while casually replaying the Beastars anime in preparation for the final season this year.

(clear beads on their muzzles are placeholders for when you're not ready to tie up and finalize the bead buddy)

Pokemon's Tinkaton

I won't lie, this one was a DOOZY @w@b ! For my friend's birthday I decided to create Tinkaton since I knew she was one of her new faves from Pokemon's newest Gen, and I thought trying to recreate the hair would be a lot of fun!

It was! But the transition from hair to head was a Lot of trial and error @0@

This was the first pass!

I literally had to take a break to come back to it and make a new one from scratch So I could still have visual reference to look back on for parts of the pattern that still worked!

While I eventually found the solution for the hair, I also have to shout out to my Twin Sis for also helping me 'redline critique' the finer details into her design.

Definitely happy with the final results :'D

(While my goal is refining and sharing any patterns I make in the future, tbh it'll probably be a while before I go back to officiate her pattern because she was a spitfire to work on)

Flamingo

After taking a break from making bead buddies, I wanted to start out again with something from the family bead buddy catalog, and I have an older sister across country that has a fondness for flamingos! While we still have a little belated Xmas present/care package to send her way, I decided to make this particular flamingo buddy to go with it SHHHH :)c I've seen quite a variety of flamingo themed bead buddies, and this one has to be my favorite.

Conclusion

And that should wrap up all the Bead Buddies I've made so far! I definitely hope to make more in the future, and maybe I'll make another compilation in the future!

Thanks for reading this far, I hope you found my bead buddies fun or nostalgic to look at :'D

 The pic at the top of the page is how my bead sorting started, Here's how it's going.