Dino Loafs

Hey hey folks! Here's our other project we've been working on since January! To be honest these funny little guys have been in the works... for a While.

Tas doodled up concepts for these guys AGES ago (a year or two?? couple years ago??) as we were toying with potentially making plushies. I wasn't super interested at the time/worried about the logistics....... and then we did blankets and I somehow worked out logistics for those.

Here's some of their early doodle and designs:

(RYE)

(CROISSANT)

(MUFFIN)

(TOAST)

(???????)

A friend of ours has a trusted manufacturer for these guys so we were a bit more keen on trying them out this year. Honestly for 2024 we're throwing a lot of caution to the wind and trying things we've been meaning to for a long time and just committing to the experimentation. Its a bit scary in some cases, a lot of things can go wrong but there's no use sitting things out out of fear, y'know? We're also older now, with a lot more tools and a better understanding of the way things work in production. We know a bit more whats feasible and learning to trust our gut!

The process building these guys, honestly has been pretty smooth so far. There's definitely a little bit more of a back-and-forth for plushies than there are for pins or embroidery. But that's kind of par for the course when you're building a 3D guy out of 2D sketches!

Tas has given me the above concepts which I then turn into these guys:

The swatches for Croissant (orange guy) wound up being pretty much not at all the ones the manu used, but honestly that's okay they really nailed the colours for this guy in the prototype on the first shot.

We also started work on Rye (blue guy) first, got the first prototype and then started on Croissant but I'm being a bit more organised in this post and bundling the steps~

They came back to us with these photos for us to let them know if they were on the right track with the shape of these guys:

And then we gave them the a-ok after a few tweaks and back-n-forths. As you can see.... Croissant's tail's had a couple of tweaks and changes since these prototypes! I lowkey loooove this kind of process stuff and working alongside other artisans (folks manufacturing these guys) to get things to look good in a final product. I know absolutely nothing about plushie making so getting to learn how people Do It is really eye-opening!

Rye's wings were originally supposed to be material flaps you could wiggle around but Tas fell in love with the chunky wings this manufacturer gave us in the prototypes (and i have to admit they are extremely shaped and fantastic to hold). So we decided to keep them like this. I'm glad this deviation from the original plan was made, either accidental or intentional because it meant we got to learn about the process a bit more.

Once we ok-ed most of the prototype they offered to send it to us so we could look them over in person (there's only so much a camera can capture light and shape and weight. Its just easier to get them in hand).

Then we got the prototypes we have pictures of above but here's a couple more:

     That's where we're at now! We're launching the Kickstarter tomorrow and have a couple minor things to fix on these two (namely Rye is getting a bit of a darker navy blue head to match the artwork a bit more and Croissant is having their feet replaced so they're fabric and not felt & making the base of the tail thicker since this version feels a biit too flimsy as is.

And then its onto the NEXT design! Muffin (the purple with the crest) and (hopefully) we get to unlock Toast (the skeleton one) through our funding! I'm excited! YOUR excited! We're all excited! Yay!

If you want to check out the campaign we're giving newsletter & patrons peeping access through this link here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thejokingwallflower/dino-loaf-plushies?ref=cg1loh&token=9fee7ba2 

I definitely want to post a proper start-to-finish process for these guys once everything is said and done. Curious if that's something that interests folks here at all?

Cheers!

TWO posts in one day? wow I'm on a roll!