Plushies

I like to make things! All sorts of things. Lately I have been making GW plushies. Here they all are, in mostly chronological order.

Note: None of my plushies are for sale (I don't even have most of them anymore), nor are the patterns available. I'm doing this for my own enjoyment and I'd rather not run afoul of ANet's copyrights and whatnot.

Steve McBurneypants

Steve was my first GW plushie. I made him after reading in a bunch of forum threads about how people wanted a Charr plush, and since I had always enjoyed making stuffed animals when I was young I thought it might be a neat challenge. He is a Charr Shaman - this is mostly because I had a miniature one I thought I could use as a model. Later on, I realised the mini was far too low res, but luckily I found a full size one just standing around in an outpost in Nightfall.

The most difficult parts of making steve were the face (so many tiny layers, he actually has lips that pull back and teeth under them) and the costume (which took as long if not longer than the whole rest of him, not counting the face).

Steve's fate: I brought Steve to PAX 2007, on the second day. (Note: I (and my friends) hung out at the GW booth for an awful lot of my time at PAX.) I showed him to Gaile Gray, who was so busy that she had turned away to respond to someone else in the time it took me to take him out of the bag. Another employee (sorry I'm bad with names and there were just so many of them) saw him and got her attention back, and he was taken from me! Ok, I let them look at him. Then I was off looking at another part of their booth for some reason and Jonathan (not an ANet employee) comes up and says 'Gaile wants your charr'. She made me promise I'd make another for myself before she was willing to actually take him, though. He spent the rest of PAX hidden in their glass case, and now resides in a glass case in ANet's lobby. Or so I am told. They don't let us normal peeps in to check, but I may have sent a spy.

I spent the rest of PAX getting introduced to more ANet employees than I could possibly remember, as the maker of Steve. I met Katy Hargrove, the artist who started the Charr. She drew me an awesome sketch and told me that the texture I couldn't place was armadillo skin. Also, for any aspiring Charr artists, remember that they have *four* ears. It was great, but this is a page about plushies so I'll not get further into it.

Sally

Sally was me fulfilling the promise I had made to make another Charr for myself, and also my entry for the 2007 Halloween Art Contest. She is a Charr Hunter going trick-or-treating in a Gwen costume. Jonathan had a trick for me, we went out into an explorable and he kept the model still for me with pacifism while I ran around it taking pictures. Our first model died when I accidently clicked it (oops) but we let the second one go free when we were done with it. It made for some amusing shots. I was only able to reuse a few of the patterns from Steve, there are quite a few differences between the different classes of Charr and I also wanted to bend the limbs a bit. My favorite part of Sally's costume is the halloween bag, I actually printed the GW pumpkin onto fabric taped to a piece of paper. I then filled it with all the Halloween items available at the time (sweets came out later).

The most difficult parts of making Sally were the face (again) and figuring out how to do the embroidery on the dress.

Sally's fate: Sally went on to win me an Honourable Mention (woo! That's exactly what I wanted!) in the 2007 Halloween Art Contest, and she currently lives on my desk, still in costume, still holding her bag of halloween items. She is occasionally pulled out when someone wants to show off by association.

MiniCharr

These little guys were a fun little handstitched (nearly all my plushies are handstitched except for the occasional machine run on a long skinny thing since those suffer too much abuse getting turned inside-out) diversion for me while I was working on a much more complicated project (see next). They were an attempt to simplify the Charr plushies, making them more of a toy and less of a model.

The face is still the most complicated part, but the lack of lips makes it much simpler. They are about the size of a Christmas tree ornament and have hanging loops.

Fate of the minicharr: I have made four of them so far and all four have been given away. I sent one to Katy Hargrove and one to Gaile Gray (in special edition purple, unfortunatly my picture of it turned out blurry and I didn't find out until it was too late) and the other two went to friends. I plan to eventually make one for myself.

Charr Slippers

Another challenge from the forums! And what a challenge it was. It intrigued me enough that I wanted to try my hand at it, but I didn't want to be stuck having to keep them. (I like making things. If I kept them all I would have to start renting warehouse space.) So I sent an email off to Gaile Gray, who seemed to be the main proponent of this idea. She replied back right away and gave me her shoe size. Now that I had a willing victim, I was ready to go! Except for the final closing and a few stiches to hold things in place, I made these on the sewing machine, which is not something I am used to. The reasoning for it was that it was a lot of stiching (everything doubles - there's eight ears!) and they had to be rather sturdy if I wanted them to not fall apart when worn.

The hardest part of this one (uh-oh it's all face I can't say face) was figuring out the logistics of making something that had to fit a foot in, and sewing the teeth in. The teeth had to be stuffed, then sewn in with the inner lip and the inside mouth, and were right next to some other tricky bits. It was frustrating and had to be done four times. I'm glad I did it, and I'm very happy with how they turned out, but it is not something I'd jump at doing again.

Fate of the slippers: As planned, I sent these to Gaile Gray just before Christmas. (I barely made that deadline due to catching the flu, but I did! Horray!) I was sad that I didn't get to see them opened, and my mom was all "I can't believe you're giving them away!", but that is what they were for. They seemed to go over well though, so I am pleased.

Berserking Minotaur

Whoa. It's not a Charr. It's a Berserking Minotaur. I had told a friend about my top secret plans for my next GW plushie (which is also not a Charr) and she asked if she could commission me to make a plushie for my friend (her boyfriend), who apparently always liked the stuff I make. Now, I don't take commissions. But she offered to buy materials for two of these and my next project too, so that works. Since it was an interesting challenge and for friends, I decided to do it.

The most difficult part of this guy was the little tiny legs. He actually was able to stand up until I put the horns on, which put him way too far off balance. Also, I made the head too big, which resulted in the horns being too big. He's still cool though.

Fate of the Minotaur: This little guy was given away as a birthday present (another deadline hit! go me!) and seems to have gone over well. I need to stop giving these guys away when I can't see them recieved!

MiniCharr V2

The mini Charr have returned! Version two features all-new silicone claws and teeth, which are much sturdier than the original felt ones which tended to break apart. Felt just wasn't meant to be that skinny.

The first of these was sent to Josh Petrie, a relatively recent hire at ANet who I chatted with before he was hired on there. Bob (pictured) was sent to Josh in an envelope bearing only the delivery address, and no postage, and now has a bit of an anthrax-related reputation. I'm told he is also evil.

The second was sent to Regina Buenaobra, the new(ish) community manager for ANet. I found that she had experience rather a lot of the nasty side of the community and figured she ought to have some of the good to go with it. (Also, I am always looking for new victims to give plushies to.) She seemed quite pleased with it, so I am happy.

Ooze

Um. Yeeeah. So I'm planning something big, right? And we're all chatting at random and somehow the idea of an Ooze bean bag chair comes up. Yeah. That would be easy, thinks I, there's hardly any detail on an Ooze. The filling gets spendy though, yes you can use packing foam, but it won't last very long.

The idea stuck in my head, though, and in a bit of time I made the Ooze bean bag. Much more sane, and great for tossing.

Fate of the Ooze: It gets thrown a lot. Once it landed on my dog. She went back to sleep soon enough, though.

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