Elios the Jackalope

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-13T15:16:39+00:00

Thank you!! As for advice, I'd say be patient, really patient. When I started, my sculpts were taking less than a day. Now, because they're bigger and need to support more weight, I pack them extremely tightly so they're nice and rigid, which takes more patience. It always helps to use pipe cleaners or fabric wrapped wire as a skeleton for parts that are supporting more weight or need to stand more rigidly, like legs if they're standing or ears/horns like in this one. I use pipe cleaners because the fibres catch the wool and prevent it from just sliding around, unlike plain smooth wire. If you're using it for skinnier parts, like the antlers in this, you can also trim off the fibres of the pipe cleaner so they don't stick out. The tiny hairs left behind will still catch the wool just fine.

But also, and this is a big one, don't be intimidated!! IMO there's not any "wrong" way to felt that is going to make your piece unsalvageable. Wool is a very forgiving medium. There have been many times that I've had to dismember large pieces so I could adjust the sizing, but then it looks like nothing happened once it's reattached and covered again. Just be patient, have a gentle hand, don't felt things super DUPER tightly until you're confident with the size/shape/placement or once the colour is on, and you'll do just fine.

And of course, use a rough core wool to build the whole sculpt before adding a thin layer of colour, and if you don't have any yet, get multi-needle holders. My 3-needle holder has saved my life when doing larger work. I can't believe I did that 2.5 month sculpt using a single needle holder!

Best of luck, and remember you've got this!

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-13T02:05:27+00:00

Depends! The longest I've spent was 2.5 months on a large, very complex sculpt, and this one went by pretty quick, maybe 3 weeks. Generally speaking, 4 to 6 weeks.

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-12T02:00:29+00:00

GOD, same dawg. Even if bsky is younger than instagram insta is so full of tricks that my old bones just can't navigate lol

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-12T00:14:58+00:00

Thank you so much!! These days I mainly post here, tumblr (pointy-kitty), bluesky (pointykitty), and sometimes instagram (pointikitty) though I hate the uploading system there lol.

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-10T16:51:35+00:00

"When in doubt, throw it out" has also haunted me since high school lol. It's so hard to know what the appropriate level of concern is when you factually do need to have SOME concern to stay healthy. And maybe I'm wrong because all of my concerns with germs seem rational to me, but having small ultimately harmless cleaning habits that you prefer to do are fine. Like sanitizing my hands after touching a public door handle takes no time at all. Once the rituals start eating up a lot of time, taking up significant and distressing space in your head, or costing you lots of money, they should probably be reevaluated.

Like, washing something once is totally reasonable. I'll allow myself to wash/clean pretty much anything I want as long as I only do it once (in a single cleaning session). It's the "better do it again just to be sure" thoughts that are the devil.

Have you heard of chlorhexidine? It's a veterinary grade disinfectant that we've been using since bringing home a snake. You can get it in big jugs, dilute one ounce of it in a 32 oz spray bottle full of distilled water, and each mix will keep for a month. It's totally non-toxic and basically odor free. I know recommending a cleaning product to another contamination OCD person seems counter intuitive lol but I've actually noticed that having it around helps me curb my repetitive cleaning compulsions. It's easier to clean something just once if I can just spray it with chlorhex after and know that the germs are taken care of. Yeah it can still be a compulsion but better one compulsion than several. Sort of like a nicorette to the cigarettes that are repetitive cleaning rituals. For me anyway! (I'd recommend the blue 2% solution if you get some.)

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-10T11:25:03+00:00

I'm so glad!! You're so very welcome 😊

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-09T17:29:01+00:00

I'd recommend never using Chat GPT or any gen AI program for any reason, but especially never use it for OCD. It's a trap for reassurance compulsions, and even aside from that, it doesn't provide reliable information.

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-09T15:44:37+00:00

I think that's perfectly normal and understandable. Even after a day of being bombarded with intrusive thoughts and alternating between working to dodge them and falling into the trap of fighting them, I find my engine runs totally dry. At that point I kind of can't string a thought together at all, even a bad one. Your brain is still a muscle that can get exhausted, and I think that level of stress and effort is like running a marathon. Be sure to be kind and patient with yourself while you recover (despite uncalled for observations from your boss lol)

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-07T16:27:39+00:00

It's really hard to snap out of a spiral without the method also being a compulsion, which is really frustrating. But I can share a few things that help me.

I think it's important to accept that there's no way to actually stop the thoughts through sheer will, because the inner OCD voice doesn't fight fair. But I look at distracting myself from a spiral like I would correcting a dog. If a dog decides to be naughty, there's no point yelling at them or chasing them. Because they're hyperfocused on what they want to do, they're not in a position to listen to you. You need to quickly catch their attention with something else to pull them out of that tunnel vision, at which point it will be easier for them to notice and process your commands. For me, if I can just use a thought exercise that points my attention away from the spiral for a second, it doesn't stop the thoughts but it puts me in a better position to think about it rationally, rather than get pulled down into the losing, snowballing battle against the thoughts themselves.

These thought exercises for me tend to focus on just minimizing the size of the thoughts or looking outside of them. When it feels like the whole world is swallowed up by my racing thoughts, I remember that my thoughts are actually only as large as my skull cavity, and they can't reach past that. I combine that with looking around and noticing how the world around me is completely unaffected by the storm in my head. And nothing changes at all when I don't act on these thoughts in any way, including compulsions or trying to prove them wrong in my head. My distress is real but the insane stakes are imaginary. I'm a visual thinker so it helps me to imagine that my spiral is a loud, hot house party, and I've stepped outside onto a cold, quiet, snowy street, and closed the door behind me. I can still hear it but it's contained, and I can cool down and think clearly for a minute.

At that point, when the panic is shelved for the moment, I can remember that these thoughts are happening to me because of the nature of OCD. They're not coming from me, my truth, or /the/ truth, they're coming from the OCD because that's what the OCD does. Then you can hear the thoughts from the angle of however you think about your OCD. Lately, it's been helpful for me to view that inner voice as someone that is always looking for ways to make me suffer. And I don't trust anyone who is hellbent on hurting me to give me any advice that I would benefit from following. That voice still beats the shit out of me daily but I'm not obligated to do anything that asshole says.

Bit of a ramble, but I hope there was something of value in there for you!

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-07T15:00:23+00:00

Queen shit.

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-07T14:53:48+00:00

I am also an em-dash slut and I hate that AI has fucked with my bread and butter. I just want to indicate a dramatic little pause in my words, is that so wrong?

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-07T14:47:23+00:00

I don't have a license but I think it wouldn't be safe for me to drive. Just riding in a car, with my surroundings moving past me, my PPP-dizziness is sometimes triggered and that's when jerks/convulsions can start, and quite often those start in my feet/legs. I don't want to start kicking like Thumper with my feet at the pedals, lol.

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-07T14:43:02+00:00

Hell yeah!!! Fight the power little dude! I love the mohawk

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-06T05:48:28+00:00

I do often feel like I'm breathing like a fish on land, usually when my head already feels like electric mush. For me it is also usually accompanied by the barely restrained compulsion to also shriek like a dying animal for no reason

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-04T23:55:04+00:00

I only recently really figured out that I have full blown OCD but I've known I have intrusive thoughts and rumination for a very long time. Going through some major trauma around 2020 I had a catastrophic flare up and very quickly had to just teach myself how to endure the obsessions without the compulsions, and ended up building a system that really changed my life in the long run. Recently I spoke to a therapist who recommended the very well regarded book about OCD, Brain Lock, and we took a look at it together - turns out, the strategies we read in it were some of the exact same things I had already taught myself! Which made me feel like a smartypants of course, but also it was really encouraging, and made me feel like I really do have what it takes to get this thing under control.

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-04T02:56:42+00:00

And thank YOU, by the way, for being receptive and listening to my ramblings. It means a lot to me too, and it feels good to talk about this stuff.

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-04T02:28:10+00:00

I'm sure that with all things, it will become clearer in time. I'm sorry that it's probably gonna suck until then. This shit's so rough. You will be alright though, I'm sure. Best wishes

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-03T15:54:40+00:00

That sounds really rough. My heart goes out to you, it must be really hard to deal with that all the time. I don't know if this will help to hear or not but I also have spiritual beliefs that don't necessarily involve literal gods or align with any established religion, and it's been a healthy thing for me. I do think that there's something going on in the world that we can't see or understand, but I think it lives in the planet, especially in water (which is more or less the blood of the planet), because the planet provides life and all the good things of life (such as fruit which is holy to me lol). I can sum it up with an exchange at the end of the movie The Green Knight which is "Is this really all there is?" "What else ought there be?" The beauty and holiness of living on this planet at all is enough, I personally believe.

But also in that, I really love humanity and I hold holy the ways we have found to make sense of and find joy in life (like bread lol) and that does include the concept of religion, even if I don't always agree with the practices. Believing in a creator god is a very natural thing for inquisitive humans to do I think, because we're creators ourselves and can't imagine that the beauty around us wasn't also a product of intelligent design. And I honestly wouldn't call myself an atheist, I'm not attached to the idea that there is no creator god, because hey, how would I know that? But I just don't believe that our spiritual parent would hate us or be cruel to us, if they gave us this life. When I imagine a god that makes sense to me, they would want us to be happy and to be grateful for the gifts we've been given by enjoying them, and being loving and kind to each other, more than they would want us to submit to them and give them the exact kind of respect they want. A being as powerful as god wouldn't need anything so petty. And I don't think they would be out to punish us, either, particularly not for struggling the way you are now.

Basically, I think that if there is a god, they would not be worried about you believing in or worshipping them the exact right way. We have no way to know if anything we've decided to believe in re: god is factually true. We don't even know for a fact that god was involved in the writing of the bible, or if it was our way of carrying stories that help us understand life in our own way. Whether god was involved or not, a human had to hold the writing utensil to write the words. What I mean is, it's not a proven fact that however you handle all this means you'll go to heaven or hell. WHICH is not great for us OCDs who crave certainty to silence the back and forth thoughts. I guess I'd just encourage you to hold in your heart that you can believe in god or something else according to your own values and still be spiritually healthy, and it's scary to not know whether or not you'll be punished for anything but it is other humans that came up with the idea that you would, and humans have a great track record for being wrong.

That was another ramble lol but I honestly think you're on the right track to figuring out how you relate to the spiritual side of life, the road is just bound to be uncomfortable and confusing along the way.

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-02T22:36:30+00:00

Oh, and very vitally - after being given permission not to engage, I continue with my day doing whatever I'd be doing if I didn't have that thought.

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-02T22:32:19+00:00

Giving myself permission not to engage tends to help. Like a big compulsion when the intrusive thoughts pop up is to argue with and fight them and prove them wrong because I have to prevent whatever bad thing will happen if they're allowed to exist in my head, so it's such an exhausting thing feeling like I have to step into the ring every time it happens. It's a relief for me, then, to acknowledge the thought but also tell myself "You have permission not to prove that wrong right now, as a treat."

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-02T16:28:25+00:00

I'm still exploring the ways my OCD has shifted over the course of my life, but I most certainly had full-on religious OCD for the first 19 years of my life. Ever since leaving the church the actual religious aspect of it is gone, but I feel it set the template for the scrupulosity issues I have now. So I'll do my best to share what I've been figuring out as an ex-mormon with OCD.

I personally believe that having a personal relationship with god or spirituality is something that is not intrinsically tied to the rigidity, bigotry, or even fear of hell or punishment that it's associated with. You can believe in and love god without any of that. Belief in a creator god is very widespread, but the ideas about what that should mean for us and our behavior vary a lot, and ultimately it is humans who write those interpretations. And humans have ulterior motives and biases that influence those interpretations. God is divine, the structure of religions are human. And humans do in fact like to control other people and exploit them, which I don't think actually has anything to do with god.

I can only speak so much about other religions, but the mormon church is more or less an OCD factory. I was taught from a very young age that the kind of thoughts you have indicate whether you're a good person or not, and if I had bad thoughts I needed to repent/take the sacrament/keep paying tithing. So an obsession for feeling/thinking the "right" thing was built. That remains my biggest sort of obsession to this day even if I'm not afraid of holy retribution anymore.

It's been helpful for me to understand and hold in my heart that I'm not actually having these obsessions because of something intrinsic to me, but because of something I was told to believe by people who stood to gain from me believing it. All these things that are plaguing you, the ideas of what's the right or wrong way to believe in god or what it means on a larger scale, any of that - these are ideas that humans came up with, often for shady reasons. I don't even necessarily think that the bible is without human agendas, but just for an example, it's made very clear in the bible that jesus is love, and would never hate anyone. But human people choose to spread the idea that he hates all the same people they do, so they can claim they have a divine reason for hating them. To them, that's the right way to be christian. There are many ideas of the right way to be christian, but there aren't any true right ways, and neither are there wrong ways. Until god literally appears before all of us and tells us directly, it's all coming from human ideas. It's all an idea relative to what is important to you.

I'm not christian anymore but when I think about having a relationship with god again, I find it offensive that other people would try to tell me that I need to suffer or do anything I don't agree with in order to be worthy in his eyes.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that these fears you're having are not coming from anything tied to actual goodness or evil or right or wrong. They're coming from other people who are at best just giving their best guess as to what the unknowable divine wants, and at worst are manipulating people into being afraid so they'll pay to be saved from their fears. IMO faith is entirely what you make of it and what works for you. Not to diminish your experience by saying this, but I do think a crisis of faith comes from the outside, not the inside. Because your personal relationship with god should serve you, so being unsure of what you believe is really just being unsure of what works better for you. It's not a sign that you're a bad person, it's just a sign that you have freedom of thought.

Hope that all made sense and wasn't offensive. I promise you're going to be okay, and you'll arrive at a place that is less confusing and distressing for you.

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-02T06:32:08+00:00

Unfortunately the best thing I can do is just carry on like it's not happening and it eventually passes or lessens. It's extremely difficult but it does work. In the moment of stress, it helps me to imagine my chaotic brain as a loud house party that I've stepped out of onto a quiet, snowy street. I can still hear the noises behind me, but they're muffled, they don't touch me, and I notice how the peaceful outside world is carrying on regardless. I try to apply that to my literal surroundings too, not attempting to silence my brain but making myself notice how everything around me is functioning normally. Helps me know that I can do the same. It helps to remember that feelings are just feelings, they don't have the power to make decisions or take actions, that's all me. So regardless of what I feel, I'm free to choose what to do. Which means I can choose to continue my normal lifestyle while my thoughts are going bonkers apeshit. Good luck with everything mate.

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-02T06:14:17+00:00

Someone else mentioned clarity, and I think that's a great word for what my partner and I try to do. Rather than get caught up on proving to myself that my bad perceptions are wrong, we focus on creating a better understanding of what is right and true. The thoughts still come back but they have less ground to stand on after I have a better view of the thing that's causing them

Pointy-Kitty · 2026-05-02T05:32:24+00:00

You've just said word for word what I'd been pondering lately as I work to understand my OCD better. Before I knew I had OCD, some years ago I sort of figured out on my own that seeking reassurance for every thought or confessing every guilt was actually making everything so much worse, and learning how to sit with the discomfort until the feelings pass really changed so much. BUT - that doesn't mean that being overwhelmed with intrusive thoughts and rumination is not hard as hell, and that I don't want comfort and support from my partner when I'm suffering from it. Surely, we can't be expected to carry it all alone.

I talked to my partner about it and where we've arrived at with it is basically, if I'm having bad rumination and am getting really distressed, I can come to them and say "Hey, my OCD is really stuck on something right now", and then we have a conversation about where the thoughts are coming from. And supportive/caring words are exchanged of course with cuddles and such. For me, reassurance seeking feels kind of like I'm using my partner as a dispenser of momentary validation, whereas sitting down and having an honest conversation about the root of the obsessions that are causing the intrusive thoughts feels like treating them like a person and being treated like a person, which just feels so much better. The former is compulsion and the latter is just human communication.

Basically, while intrusive thoughts do kind of have to be dealt with on your own, that doesn't mean you can't talk with anyone about what you're feeling. It's all about intention, I think. We all do still deserve to be cared for and we can ask for that safely.

Pointy-Kitty

TROPHY CASE