Part 1 - Getting Ideas
Having unique ideas of what to write about is getting harder all the time. I mean everyone writes about what they do and how they do it. Well, I thought I would try something at least a little different. I'm going to give you some thoughts about how I START working on a new project.
Every project is a little bit different, but since I create almost exclusively fandom plushies the first most logical step is to find a picture of what I'm making. I'm a heavy user of
Google Images and
Deviantart for reference pictures. Why would I use Deviantart? Well, I generally do this because there are some charcters/art etc that's rather well loved, but maybe for some reason I cannot find a full legnth image to start with. Fanart can be your friend. ^_~ Other times its simply because I didn't think to create a doll for a certain character and seeing what's popular there gives me a good idea.
This was the only image I could find that was "official" for this version of Vocaloid Miku. The rest of the design is me and ideas from others' fanart.
I'll admit, that coming up with something new is a bit more challenging for me. I prefer to work with other people's artwork and make it three dimensional. So I'd probably make a decent seamstress but never make it big in the fashion world. ^_~ I am eager to branch out and change my sewing styles. I've made no less than 75 of my fandom dolls so that's a LOT and despite it being over the course of several years, it still can get rather dull.
So I've been reading a lot of
Stuffed Magazine (highly recommend but I wish they were more consistent in publishing and more frequent than two to four times a year) and just trying to experiment. I've made two new body styles but I've had to put them on hold due to the volume of commission requests that I've had at the moment. I have finished a project using one of the new body types that I made. You can see the box-y body style I drafted
here. I was really proud of how he turned out. ^_^
This was my first attempt at revising a pattern that I had already. I'm still trying to decide how I want to do the clothing for this particular doll.
This is just the first part of how I start making my plushies. I intended to go into more detail regarding actually going through the steps of pre-construction such as collecting supplies and cutting everything out. I'll save that for my next big post. Is there anything that you think you would be interested in hearing about? I won't pretend to be an experiment by any means, but if I know the answer I'll be happy to answer or find the answer for you.
