Okay, so I’ve been wanting to create my own line of something for a while now. I have ideas for plush tea bags, plush/vinyl mushroom guys, but I also want to make my own dollehs. I am very inspired by Craig McCracken (creator of the Powerpuff Girls, and art director on Dexter’s Labratory), Anna Chambers (amazing illustrator, and she has her own line of plushies), and Mizna Wada (amazing illustrator and plush/vinyl toy maker. She made Lollipop Girl and painted Blood Girl), but I also want to bring my own style too. (I hope I did!) Here are the first set of sketches that I drew:
L>R: Pink Victorian Mistress, Alice in Wonderland, Gothy Sad Girl, Dorothy Gale, Zombie Girl, Shy Heart.
L>R: Gloomy Girl, Victorian Mistress, Alice in Wonderland, Dorothy Gale, Snowflake Girl.
Next up, instead of diving right into making a plushie (which can be very frustrating for the first time around), I decided to make a felt “sketch” of what I wanted, so I could eventually make a pattern off of the sketch. This way I could see what size things needed to be to look good, and it gave me an idea of what worked, and what didn’t. Things can work great as an idea or on paper, but when translated to 3D, it can be a different story altogether… or even from the felt “sketch” to the final product could have things that won’t work (like the coloured streaks in her hair look kinda neat on the felt “sketch”, but they’re too small to sew onto the hair, so I went with the stitched look instead). The felt “sketch” is of my Absinthe Zombie Girl. I need to buy more grey felt to actually make her. 
So the next thing was, I made a pattern from Absinthe Zombie Girl, and decided to make my first plush doll based off of Emilie Autumn. It was soooooooo much fun making her. I made her all the way back in September (or was it August?), but work had such a *huge* crunch, that I didn’t have time to do make anymore of them. Now that I have the time, I can actually start making these for real. ^_^ I’m going to post her at the EA forum, and see what people think. 😛 Posted!
[Below is Miss Autumn herself… a big inspiration of mine. :)]
The next time I would like to use nice material for her dress, instead of felt. I made her striped socks out of strips of felt because I didn’t have any striped material at the time. 😛
I really like the way that Anna Chambers’ uses stitches instead of an outline or change of fabric, etc to show lines. So, I used her idea and added stitches in her hair to show swooping and swirling hair.
Then my second attempt was to make brown-haired Mushroom Girl. I’m happy with how her face and hair turned out, but I don’t like how her dress folds and creases weird. Next time I’m going to give her a skirt. I also made her striped socks out of strips of felt, but now that my striped fabric has arrived, I don’t have to do that anymore. ^_^
Then I decided that I really should work out what I wanted for the dress/skirt, and I came up with this (below). The doll body is the same fabric as the skirt. After the skirt is made, I hand sew it onto the body, giving the illusion that it’s all one piece.
I don’t actually have a name set in stone for what I’m going to call these dolls, or what their names will be (still working on all of that), but I have lots of ideas of more types of dollies I want to make. I guess you’ll just have to stay tuned. ^_~
That’s the end of the tour. Thanks for looking! ^_^
Emily Bee 