custom Gengar plush

i definitely learned alot along the way, this is a totally alien medium to me, & im going to talk about how i did what i did but its by no means my way of claiming a 'correct' methodology.

my main concern was trying to mix more of the original beta sprite gengar into the look; furry, a bit bulkier, & creepier with smaller rounder eyes. i really didnt like the commercial gengar plushes available, i felt like they all missed the mark. especially with the spikes. i feel like the anime/cartoon spikes were just an artistic representation of what would actually be fur. i think it was exaggerated from the original sprite while the furry body was phased out completely into some wierd purple skinned bauble.

i also wanted to get a retractable tongue in there instead of the static satin stitched sardonic grin the other plushes have.

in retrospect, i didnt give enough consideration to the volume the fur would add, as well as the roundness the stuffing would affect. the result is a stubbier limbed creature than i intended, but i think its a respectable earnest first attempt. 

the original paper model i made to cut the templates from was alot closer to my intended figure.

i started by sketching my best guess as to what the design would actually be flattened, then used masking tape to assemble the pieces, refining as i assembled, cutting away excess & using the tape to add where it was lacking.

once i had an agreeable paper model, then came the next hurdle: strategically placing new seam lines that would both allow the fur to "grow" in the proper directions, & be conducive toward the desired shapes without too much seam puckering/bunching.

i also had to keep in mind the order the pieces/seams would be sewn/assembled/turned.

eventually i finalized what i call v1.0, leaving the stomach/throat & tongue for later. (i had planned on stuffing the body to be able to design those pieces in real space as opposed to the conceptual paper version).

i like the original 2nd gen teeth, i have no issue with the single center tooth. theres no reason it would need to have humanoid tooth patterns or bilateral symmetry. it may not even be tooth enamel as we know it. id rather rationalize the original design than force my own changes on it. this is also why i did just x3 fingers/toes, i see no reason to force a thumb like you see in 4th/5th gen on. theres plenty of intelligent fauna with no thumbs.

the next step was to transfer my designs to the fabric. i wanted to use satin for the palms, bottom of the feet, inner ears, & throat/tongue, fur for the body, & faux leather for the eyes & teeth.

i started with the fur, staying vigilant of the pile direction as well as trying to keep it as compact as possible to have as much backup fabric from the yard as possible. (i ended up only having to redo x1 ear).

i used an exacto knife to cut the pieces from the back "wrong" side of the fabric. i debated drawing the seam allowance, but in the end i just drew the shape border & eyeballed a 1/2" for the allowances. i ended up regretting this a bit because it made it harder to align the pieces later. but my eyeballed allowances were still pretty close, so it wasnt too bad.

i used pins to align the corners of neighboring shapes, but found the fur was too thick to pin the edges, so i mostly used clips for joining. this worked great for me. i removed clips as i sewed or just readjusted as i progressed. the pins came out as soon as the 1st stitch was in.

i actually started the first seam with a crappy generic sewing machine but it kept screwing up/jamming & i wasted several hours of my life adjusting/rethreading this piece of shit.

then i just decided to invest in a high quality sewing machine. usually my method is to procure the highest quality hardware/tool/material/software for any given thing i happen to be enthused with at the moment, that leaves any failures or shortcomings purely at my own feet with no gear to blame.

after some brief research, i settled on the 0.7amp hd6380 singer machine.

of course it sewed perfectly immediately/consistently which led me to various stages of sighing/eye rolling/facepalming due to all my wasted time with the shitty generic machine.

$60 vs $220.

so once i had the fur body sorted, i quickly threw together a stomach & tongue, which went faster now that i was more familiar with the templating process. i use heavy tracing paper & masking tape for the initial sketch model, cut the appropriate seams/darts into that, then transfer the flattened model to cardstock (saving for possible future use), then use that to trace onto fabric.

 i wish i had made it wider than exact though, it would have been better to have extra material to push out of sight. the mouth ended up having the corners exposing more throat than i wanted.

i cut a few pieces of thin plastic & sewed it into a black backing fabric for the teeth, then glued the teeth on. the only way to attach the teeth assembly to the body is in reverse & inside out, so basically blind. i got extremely close but it ended up being just a bit too far to one side.

i found that trying to get the appendages to be perfectly symmetrical was probably the biggest challenge. in the end i decided to just eyeball them to get close, & write off any discrepencies as "movement" of the creature.

i also shortened the arms & legs a bit at the last minute, which wasnt needed & i regret. ill have to trust my initial instincts more next time.

i also made a simple wire skeleton, which was supposed to be poseable but i made it too small so its pretty much just good for structure for the one pose..

i should have made it a bit too long, then i could just bend it to reduce length if needed.

the foam gap filler is also crappy, i think if i had made it long enough to be poseable the wire would just rip through the foam anyway. 

i should have used something like silicon hose instead.

i was counting on being able to shear away the fur but to my extreme dismay, my trimmers did absolutely nothing to the faux fur...

i ended up having to trim it all by hand with scissors. this was a fucking nightmare since i have zero experience cutting hair & my only reference was vague memories of You Dont Mess With the Zohan.

the eyes werent glued on yet. i used pins to trace the alignment, then hot glued some cotton behind the eyes to give them a slight roundness/bulge.

heres a couple candids of the finished product:

First ever plush attempt; Voltorb pin cushion

 Ive had a rough year, residence-wise, & have had to hiatus all my creative stuff, which in turn really bummed me out & made it harder & harder to get back into it.

 Sort of compounded with the lack of interest in something i worked super hard on, ive been scraping motivation from the walls of my well to reignite my engine.

 I mused about what would stimulate my interest the most, & thats usually learning something new that i can geek out on, ideally something that would contribute to my permanent bag of skills.

 I recently was able to secure a hopefully more permanent place to live at least for a few years or more. I wanted to make the place a little cozier since the only non-essentials i lug around with me when i move are my old paintings, my tools of the trade, & some pieces of furniture. 

 I had never gotten around to getting pillows for my secondhand couch, & wanted to treat myself. I had this idea that i really wanted a Gengar pillow. There were some available online that werent great, or just could have been better if they werent designed to be commodities. 

 As i dug a little deeper, i started seeing other more detailed versions they called plushies, then i found other pokemon characters & other homemade plushies that were really impressive, but i still couldnt find a Gengar that looked the way i thought it should look.

 It was then that i thought, why dont i just friggin make my own?? 

 I started reading about plush making. I already owned a cheap sewing machine for some ripped clothes i never got around to mending. Then i realized this could be that new thing to geek out on ive been waiting for.

 I researched everything i thought i needed to know, then the other stuff i didnt know i needed to research, then what supplies i needed to buy. Shopped for a few yards of fabric i thought would be the closest match to what i pictured in my head.

 Turns out, most people use minky for plushes, but i wanted to use satin & other unconventional fabrix.  In retrospect, i bought too much odds & ends & could have narrowed it down, but most of this sewing stuff is pretty cheap, so not a big loss. 

 I thought i should do some sort of test before embarking on such an ambitious project (for someone who literally has no experience with the medium). I thought that id need a pin cushion & it could be a simple first project. It was originally going to be a Pokeball, but thought it would be cool to make a Voltorb instead.

 I learned so much after completely & utterly botching my first attempt, just unspeakable lmao.

 The importance of proper seam allowance design cannot be understated. Planning where to start, where to end, where to leave a gap for flipping inside out, where to cut pinking/darts/gussets to avoid deformation, what to trim, & thats just for a single color pattern! Using x2 colours compounds everything, but i ended up using white thread to avoid changing to red mid seam (which i regret).

 I thought using a x5 dart sphere would be more invigorating practice than a x4 dart sphere. Then i thought id leave the top colour connected in a row, then same for bottom. In retrospect, i could have still left them connected even if i had added a bit more spacing to fold as a seam allowance. I thought that by leaving them connected i could avoid a full length visible seam, but after the first dart i realized that i would end up with "corners" at the ends of those seams, losing roundness. So i ended up trying to sew full seams anyway to maintain a round curve, but obviously ran into air since i butted the darts so close together.

 I had planned to do some needle sculpting for the eyes, but realized i didnt want to anchor the knot on the back surface since it was already distorted enough. I still did some really minor sculpting but hit the learning curve on hand backstitch embroidery pretty hard when trying to map my stitches for the eyebrows. Its deceptively cerebral to be mindful of where to pass the thread above & beneath the fabric & how tight to pull & the effect of adding multiple anchors & strategizing their positions according to how they may affect past stitches & stitches not even placed yet.

 I used a pleather material for the eyes, hot glued in position, detailed with a sharpie, then partially sewed onto the eyebrows.

 I managed to take my 2nd attempt to the finishline, its still ugly, but was really valuable experience earned. I added some ball bearings as a weight to the bottom, filled with polyfill, sewed the gap shut, then did a few touchup seams at those corners i mentioned earlier in white & red.

 Heres the result, it works as a pin cushion & i feel inspired/refreshed & excited to start the pattern design for the Gengar plush/pillow, i even started prelims for another plush/pillow after that.