Valley rats are a very common little creature, they usually hide in rock faces during the day to avoid the searing heat, once the day cools down they will then come out to feed. Valley rats mostly feed on cacti with their favourite being the Valley Cactus, they have a technique to remove the spines from cacti with each technique unique to each colony, each colony of rats may consist of 50 - 500 rats. Their coat makes them easily blend into the surrounding landscape.
Valley rats are founds throughout the Valley of Fire region, down into Crooked Trawl and some parts of Central Highlands.
This is my second rat doll from my new rat sculpt, I wanted to make a darker coated rat this time and have a little bit more of a fantasy element to it. I recently got in some amazing faux fur, it has a woven backing instead of the normal acrylic type backing, this makes the fur exquisitely soft and so realistic. As for the tail, I was having the same contemplation about which material I should use, I decided to go with a faux suede which gives more of a realistic rat feel.
Puka has a resin face and feet that were cast from an original sculpture hand crafted by me. His body is made from a high quality woven faux fur which was designed and sewn by me, he has a wire armature inside making him fully poseable, his face and feet were furred by hand and painted in acrylic paints. His tail is made from a faux suede with a wire armature so it is poseable.
Puka is approximately 15 x 10cm head to tail.
This little guy will be up for grabs in my Etsy shop this Friday between 9-10am AEST. Alternatively you can check me out on my social media pages below. Also check out my Society6 and Redbubble shop for prints and more.