StudioKlondike

[Background Blog] Designing the Amicus Plush

Added 2020-10-28 16:36:10 +0000 UTC

If you guys didn't already know, we worked with Pawprint Press and Echo Project to release the Amicus Plush over the past week or so! (store link if you want to check out how it turned out)

We're really proud of how this guy turned out so we wanted to write a bit about the whole process behind all the design and prototyping that went into making it happen.

Starting Out

So we first approached Echo Project about the idea of doing a plush around the same time as the release of the Likulau Plush and the Amicus Charms at Pawprint Pawprint Press. At this point HAPS started working on the design of the plush as seen above.

Producing The Plush

The next step once we had the basic concept for the design was working with the producers of the Nekojishi plushes to begin work on plush body itself. They're amazingly talented and pretty much got the design right on the first go! (Photos here are examples sent by the manufacturer since we didn't receive these prototypes directly.)

Now you may be noticing there's a bunch of stuff missing. For this plush, there was a bunch of components made outside of the plush factory, namely all the metal jewellery and other details on the Amicus Plush.

Since we wanted to do something a bit more special than just some fabric loops for this plush, we approached a jewellery manufacturer and started working on them to create some real metal jewellery for our little Amicus! Above you can see some of the design files for these parts.

Here's the first sample photos of the bracelets sent by the jewellery factory. They're made out of gold plated copper and they feel surprisingly heavy.

Next came the custom metal press stud for Amicus' cape. This one was a little trickier to get produced as it was quite a complex custom design which cost a lot to have produced, but we really think the extra effort was worth it in the end since it helps tie the whole look of the plush together.

We also experimented with gold plating the pin and filling it with different coloured resins to match the other jewellery, but it didn't really turn out well as the resin was hard to shape so we went with the first coating that's seen in the final release. (Waiting for this part also pushed back our order of the batch a bit so we decided to release the Amicus Plush under a pre-order)

One last thing included in the Amicus plush is a pouch of dried lavender flowers stuffed into the head of the plush. The variety of lavender we decided to go to here is called Space Blue. It's not as sharp as the kind of lavender smell you might regularly get but we think the unique scent is perfect for Amicus.

Once all the components are made, they were sent to the plush factory for assembly, including stitching of the cape to the press stud and stuffing the lavender into the head as a part of the production process. We also made a few small changes to the arms to make the jewellery fit a little bit better.

The Final Plush

And now we're at the final version of the design! While the outfit of Amicus was less complex than our previous two plush releases, we wanted to make sure every bit of it was up to the highest quality we could do! You can even pull off all the parts to get the metal pieces out of the way when you want to give him a big hug!