Tachikoma Crochet Pattern

Since my winter break has mostly started, I’ve been working on making a lot of crochet ornaments to give to my family as presents. I couldn’t find anything to make for my husband, so I decided to look for Ghost in the Shell inspired stuff since he keeps saying he wants to watch it again. Tried looking up a tachikoma pattern, and couldn’t find one. I found two images of crocheted tachikoma, one in another language (no pattern) and one from a livejournal user (also no pattern). So I decided that since I had all of winter break to screw around that I’d try to come up with my own pattern, and if it turned out okay I’d share it with all of you great people on the net.

Here are some pictures so you know what you’re getting into.

Tachikoma

Size

About 10″ length, 7″ width, and 6″ height

Materials

-yarn (I used caron simply soft) in red, blue, white, grey, and black (or whatever colors you want). I used scrap yarn, so the colors are a little off from the original.

-F crochet hook

-yarn needle

-stitch marker, unless you are very good at counting and remembering where you are at

-stuffing

Pattern

As you might have noticed the pattern isn’t completely accurate to the original television design. I simplified a lot of parts for my own sake as well as anyone trying to reproduce the pattern. I made a lot of parts with similar attributes the same way so that it wouldn’t be so hard to figure out all of the shapes. I feel like the pattern still gets across the essence of the character. If you would like to change anything feel free to. If you have questions on how you might adapt something to fit your own aesthetic better, feel free to ask and I can try my best to help. I’m not a crochet master, so I can only help so much.

Stitches

I’m not sure how others write stitches, so mine may be a bit confusing. If you’re more familiar with crocheting you’ll probably get it right away but find it annoying. When I say 2sc I mean single crochet two stitches in the same stitch. If I say 2 1sc I mean do a single crochet in the next two stitches. I write it this way as it’s easier for me to write it quicker while I’m coming up with the pattern. sc2tog is decreasing, and the bobble stitch I explain below.

Body Capsule

This is the back part, where the rider would technically go. You will need blue and red yarn. You will need to make bobble stitches for this part. You can get directions here to figure out how to do it. Start off with blue yarn.

R1: using the magic circle technique sc 6 on loop – 6

R2: 2sc in each stich – 12

R3: 3sc in stitch, 2 1sc* repeat – 20

R4: 1sc, 3sc in stitch, 4 1sc, 3sc in stitch, 4 1sc, 3sc in stitch, 4 1sc, 3sc in stitch, 3 1sc – 28

R5: 3 1sc, 3sc, 6 1sc, 3sc, 6 1sc, 3sc, 6 1sc, 3sc, 3 1sc – 36

R6: 4 1sc, 3sc, 8 1sc, 3sc, 8 1sc, 3sc, 8 1sc, 3sc, 4 1sc – 44

R7: sc in each stitch around – 44

R8: sc in each stitch around – 44

R9: sc in each stitch around – 44

R10: 7 1sc, *switch yarn to red, don’t cut blue string* bobble in red (2 dc in red in a single stitch, switch back to blue when pulling through last loop), sc (still in blue), switch to red and create a bobble (this time do 3 dc), 2 1sc in blue, bobble in red (3 dc bobble), 1 sc in blue, bobble in red (this time with 2 dc), 14 1sc in blue, bobble (2 dc in red), 1 sc in blue, bobble (3 dc in red), 2 1sc in blue, bobble (3 dc in red), 1 sc in blue, bobble (2 dc in red), 7 1sc – 44

This is how it looks before you pull the blue through. You switch yarn at this point and pull the blue string through all the dcs to make the bobble. This creates the red lights on the body capsule.

Here you can see the blue ready to go through the stitches.

The first two had 2 dc to make the bobble for the smaller outer lights. For the bigger middle lights you use 3 dc. You can see here what it looks like before yarning over with blue and pulling through.

This is the objective. Should be all downhill from here.

R11-19: sc around – 44

R20: 10 1sc, 2sc in stitch, 10 1sc, 2sc in stitch, 10 1sc, 2sc in stitch, 10 1sc, 2sc in stitch – 48

R21: sc around – 48

R22: sc around – 48

R23: 10 1sc, sc2tog, 10 1sc, sc2tog, 10 1sc, sc2tog, 10 1sc, sc2tog – 44

R24: 9 1sc, sc2tog* repeat – 40

R25: 6 1sc, 2 sc2tog* repeat – 32

R26: 5 1sc, 3 sc2tog* repeat – 20

*start stuffing as you go*

R27: 2 1sc, sc2tog* repeat – 18

R28: 1sc, sc2tog* repeat – 12

R29: sc2tog* repeat – 6

Tie off thread and hide tail.

Body/Head x2

You will need blue yarn and grey yarn for this part. Start off with blue.

R1: magic circle for loop and sc 6 on loop – 6

R2: 2sc in each stitch – 12

R3: sc around – 12

R4: 1 sc, 2sc* repeat – 18

R5: sc around – 18

R6: 2 1sc, 2sc* repeat – 24

R7: sc around – 24

R8: 3 1sc, 2sc*repeat – 30

R9: sc around – 30

R10: 4 1sc, 2sc*repeat – 36

R11: sc around

Tie off. Make two. Once you have two get your grey yarn and hold the edges together. On the outside you will sc around the edge through both outer stitches (through the whole loop). Go around the edge until it is almost closed, stuff firmly, then finish around and tie off.

Eyes, Body Capsule Bumps (side and bottom), and Stomach Plate (under Body/Head)

You will need white yarn for the eyes and body capsule bottom piece and grey yarn for the body capsule side pieces and body/head stomach plate. Btw, this is just my name for them, I have no clue what they are really called. You may have noticed the stomach plate is not accurate. I wanted to simplify the legs to be more functional which meant the stomach area is a little barren. You can add a special triangle piece (directions below) to fill in the gap from leg to middle, but I founded that it looked too crowded. I came up with about five different concepts and ended up just leaving it simpler, really it looks better.

You will make 4 white half circles and 3 grey half circles using the method below.

R1: using the magic circle create your loop and sc 6 – 6

R2: 2sc in each stitch – 12

R3: sc around – 12

Tie off. Leave a long thread for stitching it on.

Very easy. Now you can add some black stitching to three of your white half circles to make the eyes. I went around a stitch to make mine. A french knot would also look very nice if you can figure out how to do it around the stitches.

Go ahead and attach your bumps. Add stuffing while you sew them on. The eyes go on at 90 degree increments. You can think of it like West, North, and East (if north is the front). Stomach piece goes in the middle. White bump goes in middle bottom of body capsule. Two grey pieces go on sides of body capsule without lights towards the top middle.

Once you have the eyes placed you can take your grey thread and put some backstitches to the sides of the front eye to make your screws.

Joints x5

This is what I call the grey attachment pieces that connect the body/head to the body capsule and to the legs. You will make five. This piece can be altered if you want. I ended up making a peanut sort of shape. It creates a kind of ball joint type look. I put the open end towards the body/head, but you can always switch it. I thought it would bend better with the shorter half towards the body though.

R1: magic circle sc 6 – 6

R2: 2sc in each stitch – 12

R3: sc around – 12

R4: sc around – 12

*good time to start stuffing*

R5: sc2tog* repeat – 6

R6: 2sc in each stitch – 12

R7: sc around – 12

R8: sc around – 12

Tie off. Leave a long tail to sew on. Attach open end of joints to bottom (or vice versa). Think of the bottom like a hexagon with the front arms sharing a side. You want just a tiny bit of space between each leg. No more than a stitch though. It’s easiest to attach the back one, which will be at “South” to follow the previous metaphor. You can go ahead and attach the body capsule. It’s a bit heavy though, so you might want to attach it last.

Now if you really want to have something to bridge the gap you can create a little triangle.

Triangle

R1: chain 5, flip

R2: in second stitch to last sc2tog, sc2tog, chain 1, flip

R3: sc2tog

Tie off with long tail.

As you can see it ends up pretty thick which would leave no negative space between them. I tried other methods too of extending from the middle circle with points (like a star) and it just ruined the look of the middle section. I decided to just keep it simple and less cluttered by leaving it empty. Go ahead and try other methods if you think you can come up with something that works for you. :)

Legs x4

Now for the legs. You’ll need blue and grey. Start with your blue yarn.

R1: magic circle sc 6 – 6

R2: 2sc in each stitch – 12

R3: 1sc, 2sc* repeat – 18

R4: sc around – 18

R5: 1sc, sc2tog* repeat – 12

R6: sc around – 12

R7: sc around – 12

*good time to start stuffing*

R8: sc2tog, 10 1sc – 11

R9: sc2tog, 9 1sc – 10

R10: 2 sc2tog, 6 1 sc – 8

*switch to grey*

R11: sc around – 8

R12: 2 sc2tog, 4 1sc – 6

Tie off leaving long tail. Connect to remaning joints at side of leg. Have seam (where the rows met) towards the inside so they don’t show. They’ll get covered later by wheels so they won’t look so bad where the colors met.

Wheels x4

Use black yarn.

R1: magic circle 6 sc, slip stitch to first stitch – 6

Tie off leaving long tail. Attach to inside of bottom legs.

Arms x2

Use grey and blue. Start off with grey.

R1: magic circle sc 6 – 6

R2: sc around – 6

R3: sc around – 6

*switch to blue*

R4: 2sc in each stitch – 12

R5: sc around – 12

R6: sc around – 12

R7: sc2tog, 10 1sc – 11

R8: sc2tog, 9 1sc – 10

R9: sc2tog, 3 1sc, sc2tog, 3 1sc – 8

*switch to grey*

R10: 2sc, 1sc* repeat – 12

R11: sc around – 12

Tie off leaving long tail. Attach open end to remaining body/head space.

Mouth Piece & Antenna

You will need grey for the mouth piece and blue for the antenna.

R1: magic circle sc 4 – 4

R2: sc around – 4

R3: sc around – 4

R4: sc around – 4

Tie off leaving long tail. Attach mouth piece right below front eye under line and above arms. Attach antenna to top of body/head.

Finger Claws x6

You will use grey for this part.

R1: chain 4

R2: starting in second to last stitch sc in each, 2 more sc in end stitch

R3: continue by turning piece and sc in other side stitches

Tie off leaving long tail. Fold in half like a hotdog bun and stitch sides together to make a tube. Attach to arms.

That should be all. This took a long time to write up so it’s possible I forgot something. Let me know if you have questions or comments. Feel free to make this pattern to your heart’s content. I don’t mind you reproducing it or altering it. I don’t mind you selling them. Just don’t sell the pattern and if you do make one to sell, leave a reference back to me. Not only does it give me credit for the original idea, but it can give people a chance to look at other patterns they might also enjoy.

-W