I’ve been posting a bit here and there about opening a new store, but haven’t fully dove into promoting it quite yet, and the reason for that is because I wanted to order some products for myself and touch them with my own fingies before I can faithfully recommend the items for other people to buy.

Just recently, I received my first order from Wooacry (the manufacturer that produces the goods sold through ACG), and wow, it is cool to see my art work printed on this super cute, soft & squishy stuff!  I intentionally ordered these specific items because the soft plush goods like this are what I’d like the focus of my store to be.  Although, of course, you can also find small & simple art prints in the form of stickers, trading cards, and postcards with my art as well.  And Wooacry’s most popular products are their acrylic keychains and standees, which I’ll make available, too.  I didn’t feel the need to “test” the quality of those with samples, since there are hundreds of other artists using this manufacturer with plenty of photos where you can clearly see that the acrylic is plenty sturdy and the printing quality is crisp, clear, and colorful.

So my attention is on Wooacry’s soft, plush items today, which are my personal favorite things in their catalog, and where I think the soft colors and cute & kawaii art style of my work really makes the most fabulous, tactile impact. 🌻

☝️ Before all else, I wanted to point out how open and transparent Wooacry is about embracing human labor rights and sustainability!  View their announcement about their SMETA certification here (an audit that ensures ethical labor standards, safe factory conditions, and fair wages), and their announcement about FSC certification here (a responsible forestry certification that ensures sustainable wooden & paper products).  You can view more about their ethics & environmental responsibility certifications on their About Us page (under the ‘Create Freely, Sustainably’ heading). 🌟

Now, let me show you what I bought! \(^o^)/

Subject: Mama Pitch from Kirby’s Dream Land 3, drawn by me!
Product: 10cm Plush Badge

This is a plush pin!!  It’s constructed like a “can badge”, the usual sort of round metal pins that you commonly see, but covered with the same soft pile fabric used for plushes, and with a thick layer of padding underneath.  This leads to a VERY soft pin that is SO satisfyingly squishy – an awesome stress relief or fidgety toy that you can attach right to your bag or shoulder strap to comfort you throughout the day.

I’m sure you’ve already observed this, but THE SIZE IS HUGE!! 😱  Which is exactly the impact I wanted to make with this design.  Mama Pitch here needed to be larger than her baby bird, Pitch, so that I could display them side-by-side.

This pin is so big, it completely covers my palm! It’s 4in/10cm in diameter. This isn’t even the largest size that Wooacry offers – you can construct these up to 16cm. I can’t see myself needing to make anything larger than the 10cm one, and even then, only for super-special jumbo designs (maybe a giant pizza pin?!).

Subject: Pitch from Kirby’s Dream Land 3 (and a few other Kirby games), drawn by me!
Product: 5.8cm Plush Badge

This is the plush pin size I will focus on for most of my products.  It’s a reasonable 2in/5.8cm, and is made with the same soft pile fabric and layer of padding inside.  The smaller size is a little more convenient to hold and smush, making it somewhat more satisfyingly squishy than the larger size, even though the cushy padding inside is the same.

I’ve already made a note to future me to keep important details such as eyes even further away from the edge of the bleed line indicated in the print file. 💪  I did stay inside the warning lines with this piece, and even then, his eye slid further over than I expected, so it’s just something to keep in mind for future.

Now for a not-so-soft item that still manages to be very fun to fiddle with…

Subject: A Heart-Star, the collectible item rewarded after each level in Kirby’s Dream Land 3, drawn by me!
Product: 5.8cm Lenticular Round Badge

It’s hard to photograph the shifting design, but I think you get the idea.  In the game, this object morphs between a pink heart and yellow star, and I thought making a lenticular pin would be the perfect way to capture that. (´▽｀人)   It turned out reeeeaaally cool! 🌟  This item is available in my shop right now – you can purchase one for yourself if you like it!

Here’s a video that shows the transforming image a little more clearly:

Finally, here is the scene that these three items create together:

My artistic vision that inspired me to illustrate these items in the first place was to recreate a scene at the end of a level in Kirby’s Dream Land 3, where Kirby reunites the baby bird Pitch with his mama, who rewards Kirby with a heart-star.  (There are many similar scenes at the end of every level, I just picked these characters in particular because I wanted to draw chonky round birds).

What do you think, did I nail it?

I just thought that this would look super fun on the bag that I use for attending conventions!  Now I have this tribute to one of my most inspirational video games (the pastel colors and crayon textures of Dream Land 3 really made an impact) right on my bag.  Squishing the soft birdie pins will give me a lot of comfort and fidgety satisfaction while the bag is sitting in my lap during panels.

(Btw, the bag itself is from Bodyline, and the Kirby plush is an official keychain that a friend gifted me!)

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Now for a couple of extra items that I wanted to test out and touch with my own hands before I make similar products available:

Subject: Rocky from many Kirby games but particularly Kirby Air Riders, wearing the Pilot Cap accessory, drawn by me!
Product: Squeaky Manju Plush

The video contains text captions that reflect my thoughts, but I’ll summarize the key points here.  This product is awesome if you want to depict a character that’s perfectly round!  It’s satisfyingly big to hold and squish using both hands with a grip like a really big hamburger. 🍔  I’m particularly proud of the white fur of the pilot cap wrapping neatly around the front and back half of the pattern.

On the underside of this plush, I created a kinda weird quadruple-foot phenomenon, but that’s the fault of the way that I drew the front and back print files and not at all the fault of the manufacturer.  Just something important to keep in mind for future projects!

^ Drawing the feet like this caused the error.  If I make anything similar in the future, I think I can just not draw the feet on the back side at all and it will look fine.
If anything, it goes to show that the bleed template indicated in the print files is VERY accurate!  The feet are chopped up in exactly the way that those triangular cuts indicated. 👌 …Well, it’s easy to understand that in theory, but difficult to wrap your head around how it will get constructed in 3D while you’re doing the actual drawing. 😄

Subject: An original Mii Warrior named Walnut, from Miitopia, drawn by me!
Product: 9cm Mochikororin Plush

Speaking of wracking your brain to envision how a flat drawing will wrap around a 3D shape, creating the art assets for this one was roooouuugh for me. 😅  It turned out soooooo cute though. 🥺  His BIG OL’ EYES are soooooooooo saaaaaaaaddd 😭😭😆

The shape of this plush is sooo funny.  There are definitely some character designs that befit this cylindrical shape more than others.  Apparently this style is called “mochikororin” but I will be calling them “tummy plushes” (and relegate “mochikororin” to tags and search keywords rather than in the product name) because I think that’s more generally understandable.  And much like the “manju” plush, it is exceptionally satisfying to GRISP this creature in both hands and smuuush it around (I tried to exemplify this in the video).

The only “mistake” here is that the belt didn’t line up perfectly across the seams, but y’know, I don’t think that’s all that bad.  Slight misalignments are a normal and expected part of the manufacturing process and there isn’t any amount of optimizing the art in the print file that can possibly avoid it.  I’m also taking notes for future projects to make the eyes a bit smaller and closer to the center, because stretching the face across a convex shape stuffed with fluff will make your art unexpectedly wider than it appeared on your flat computer screen! 😆

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In summary, I’m really really happy with everything I ordered!!  The short pile fabric used on all of these products (other than the lenticular pin) is incredibly soft.  I CANNOT STOP TOUCHING AND SQUISHING THEM!!

The images printed clearly, with ever so slightly softened edges (caused naturally by the fabric fibers) that I think works very well with my cuddly art style (artists who want their art to look crisp at all times might not like it as much, but Wooacry provides plenty of metal badges and acrylic products to befit that preference).  It’s a unique quality of Wooacry’s service that their factory prints in RGB colors, which most of the time will accurately reflect the vibrancy of how your images look on your computer screen.  (CMYK printing is vastly more common and often turns out darker and less saturated than you expect.)

In short… I AM SO EXCITED TO MAKE TONS MORE CUTE & CUDDLY STUFF!!!!!!!! \(^o^)/