[Background Blog] Designing the Likulau Plush

Hey patrons! With the launch of the Likulau plush this month we thought we’d put together a special design blog to go along with it, so without further ado.

Starting Out

The first design illustrations for the Likulau plush were drawn up along with the Lin Hu plush which we Kickstarted back at the end of 2019 where producing the Likulau Plush was one of the stretch goals we reached.

Iteration

At this point we had a pretty big head start compared to the Lin Hu plush since we already had a manufacturer and they could use the design of the Lin Hu plush as a starting point. (Skipping the two years we spent getting to that point with Lin Hu) So we started the project and began the design iteration process.

Around March we got back the first photos from manufacturer of the initial prototype design they made based off our sketches. (March really was a busy time for us!) Right away you can see a lot of differences to the final design. The next step of this was providing feedback, asking for changes, and iterating over the design so we can bring everything up to the same high quality we set for ourselves with the Lin Hu plush at the start of 2020.

So when we placed photos of this plush side-by-side with the Lin Hu plush we realised the eyes were fairly inconsistent. Since the design of the eyes had changed during the design iterations made on the Lin Hu plush, we had to go back to draw over the Likulau designs and give him some more suitable eyes.

Above is the second revision of the plush with some new eyes drawn by Fruitz. You’ll see that the eyes are still fairly different from the final design however so we continued to work on that between prototypes.

Now there were a few adjustments made from this prototype. First, we wanted to remove some fur markings from below his eyes and add some strips above his nose missing from the pattern here. Next was his belt and necklace straps, which were a bit too wide, hiding the snake pattern on his chest.

Which brings us to the third prototype. At this point the eyes had been made bigger, the facial markings improved, and the belt and pants had been adjusted to show more of his fuzzy chest. You can also tell we did some experimentation with how the hair is brushed, it’s pretty fun to play around with. (It’s actually a slightly different material to the hair on the Lin Hu plush because that one wasn’t available at the time due to supply shortages)

Another detail that were missing at this point was the tassels on the clothes. Initially we weren’t able to get any sourced but we didn’t want to move forward without this so we managed to get them included for the next prototype.

This fourth one is pretty close to final. The clothes were improved by hemming the edges and adding the tassels to the pants and hoodie. In the right image you can see the material that’s used for the front half of the head where we adjusted the eyes so the pupils meet the inside to be a bit more consistent with the Lin Hu plush.

Production

And now with all the design finalised, we gave the go ahead to have the first batch produced! We work with a relatively small manufacturer so it takes around a month for each batch to be completed. There’s a lot of hand sewing and assembly involved after all. Jumping forward to the start of June, we had the final plushes on hand and all that was left was to produce the marketing assets.

[A cool thing about the plush that we don’t show off on the store page is the tag we designed this time around. Perfect if you’re giving a Kualu away as a gift!]

Publishing

For some products, we can take the photos at Pawprint Press in Shanghai, but in this case we wanted to follow on from the photography we did for the Lin Hu plush. So first we know there’s two components required, the photography of the plush and the announcement video time-lapse. Since we felt that Kulau suits a more rural environment, we sent him on a trip to one of our staff members in Australia!

A few weeks and a trip to Jamberoo later all the photos for the store page and the announcement trailer were completed. (And Kulau only blew over once during the time-lapse!) We’re really happy how these turned out so we hope you enjoy them too!

The Likulau plush is currently on pre-order for the second batch from store.pawprint.press. Now we just have to work out where to shoot the photography for the Yan Shu-Chi plush when that’s done!

- Studio Klondike