There were two manufacturers I recently tested plush items from; the first was Wooacry and the other is Vograce!

Vograce is a bit more well-known as manufacturer of convention artist booth-style merchandise, since they have been around for longer. Just like Wooacry, Vograce also has a SMETA certification ensuring ethical labor practices & fair wages, and an FSC certification for their paper and wooden products that ensures environmental sustainability.

Things are a bit more open-ended when you submit designs to Vograce compared to Wooacry. With these character plushies on Vograce, you can add any sew-on details you like, such as ears, hair tufts, ponytails, wings, and tails. On Wooacry, you are limited to the ear & tail styles that are selectable in the listing and cannot restyle them yourself (they provide a decent spread of kitty ears & tails, bunny ears & tails, etc., but you can’t make a custom shape for your character’s unique ponytail or dragon wings or something).

This open-ended customization leads to a change in the upload process between them as well. On Vograce, the file you upload must be in PSD format with its layers intact, the reason being that you need to have created enough room for bleed as well as indicating the sewing lines for those custom sew-on pieces yourself. It can be tricky to get the right bleed amount and make some vectored outlines if you aren’t familiar with the tools in your art software. So there’s a bit of a trade-off of more complicated file preparation if you want fully customizable 3-dimensional extra bits on your plush when you go through Vograce, as opposed to the simpler upload process of Wooacry (where you can add basic animal ears and tails but none of your own shapes).

Tbh, the communication with the Vograce team was a little odd… they ask you to include a mockup in the PSD file you upload, which I did, and they still got something wrong when they showed me the “here’s how it will look, what do you think?” mockup from their end (the bunny tails were backwards, with the shading facing in rather than being visible on the back). 😐 Like, what was the point of me putting time & energy into making a mockup at all if you were going to make your own mockup, and incorrectly at that…? Oh well, I’m grateful that they sent that message because I could point it out and correct them, but even just that little bit of back-and-forth communication caused a longer delay before production started. If I can avoid it, I’d prefer to stick with ordering items from Wooacry in the future instead of Vograce just because they’ve got their process so streamlined (an advantage of having only those basic animal ears/tails to choose from – the whole team is familiar with working with them and there’s no chance at all of extra bits or bobs to worry about being sewn backwards or upside down).

Anyway, here are the pics of the plushies I designed!

Subjects: Eloise (the bunnygirl) and Rosie (the pink-haired guy), both are player-created characters from Xenoblade Chronicles X.
Product: Custom Stuffed Toy Keychains Plush Toy keychain [sic; this is what the product is called on Vograce’s website lol]

Even after the small hiccup during production, I LOVE how these little guys came out. THEY ARE SO SILLY LOL. I carry my little pink guy around with me even just moving around the house. He sits next to me while I am working at my computer and I hold him while I am watching TV and I just squish sqiush squimsh his big silly face.

Since the bunnygirl got ears & tail sew-ons, I went ahead and gave the other guy ears & tail as well, just to make them match and because how could I resist making my gwumpy guy into a cute bunny?? Eloise also gets to wear her ears and hibiscus accessory simultaneously, which is impossible in the game since you can only wear one headgear at a time. Such is the beauty of custom products with full creative freedom!

Here they are from the back:

Those are the bunny tails that apparently were too confusing in my mockup… 😐 And the light gradient shading that caused the problem in the first place ended up being barely visible at all on the physical product in the end… 😅 Such ado over nothing at all.

Anyway, if you want chibi character plushies in this shape, you’ve got to go through Vograce for now.

But wouldn’t you believe it; on THE VERY DAY before I received these in the mail, Wooacry announced that they will also have chibi character plushes like these available soon, although the overall shape is a bit different:

Wooacry’s version looks like the head is less wide, with more definition for the jaw line (there’s a whole extra piece of fabric for the neck/chin), and a larger body with a more rounded shape to the arms compared to Vograce’s tiny starfish-shaped body.

I’m grateful that Wooacry is adding this because I’ll be able to have all of my chibi plushie dreams fulfilled through them rather than struggling with Vograce to make my own sew lines in the PSD file and needing to make corrections during production. I like so many of Wooacry’s other products that, once this new printed plush is available, I can get basically everything that I want through them rather than splitting orders between two manufacturers.

I’m really looking forward to when they make this available! I’ll probably make more Xenoblade characters to test it out! 😆

If you follow me on Tumblr, you’ve already seen how I got REALLY attached to the character Phog in Xenoblade Chronicles X…  Well, his deal is that he is the younger brother of another party member, Frye, but mysteriously the two cannot be on your party together at the same time, and circumstances reveal that they are not on speaking terms.

I’ve spent a good chunk of this game looking forward to the quest that reunites them at last, and I went a little overboard and took a bamillion screenshots when I finally reached that point myself.  Here is a little screenshot diary of them!

Click any of them to see the full resolution – I cropped most of them so that the text size would be more readable on this page, but in the more zoomed-out ones feel free to click the image to see it larger if you have to.

Here is the Affinitiy Mission that initiates the quest – it’s near the East Gate of NLA.
I had to get through Chapter 8 to finally meet the requirements for it –
Chapter 8 was so stressful ahh!!!

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During the mission briefing, you’re given the option to go on offense with Frye
or defend the city with Phog.
I reloaded a few times during this quest to try each side
(in a bit you’ll see my character equipped differently and with other party members),
but for now, let’s see Phog’s side.

He’s appreciative of our help. c:

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Ahh, I wonder if this is the first time these two have spoken to each other in years. ;_;

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The others empty out, and Phog is still hoping for the safety of his bro.

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Here’s the first example of the other set of equipment and party members
you’ll see in these screenshots lol!
This is a cute line and I missed catching it the first time around.

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aaaaaaa any time my child (´▽｀人)

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Phog in almost all of his missions will tell you how appreciative he is toward you, actually.
It is one of the many things that I really, really like about him.

I wanted to give him some encouragement in his own efforts,
since there was an earlier mission where selecting this same “Downplay” option
was his preferred response, but he kinda shrugged it off this time.

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You’re actually supposed to Brag about your “awesome advice,”
because it reminds Phog of his bro.

There are actually a LOT of options that Phog appreciates because
they sound like what Frye would say.  Similarly, Frye is the inverse –
being kind to NPCs will often get you affinity with Frye since it
reminds him of Phog.

these bros make me feel a lot of things.

Read the rest of this entry »

Xenoblade is the definitive JRPG currently, and if you haven’t picked up the HD remake for the New 3DS then you might be stuck browsing the $90-200 listings for the Wii version on Ebay.

Unless you’re already enjoying it, in which case HECK FREAKING YEAH HIGH-FIVE ME MAN!!

Anyway, if you’re the type to wear your love on your clothes, then support some artists on Redbubble by checking out these t-shirts available!!  You can click through to any of these and pick the same designs on other products, too, like ladies’ style t-shirts, phone cases,  hoodies, stickers, and lots others~

Monado Boy

Awesome Shulk pixel art from awesome artist Tecchen!

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Monado Abstract

A cool and artsy way to wear your fandom.

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The Monado’s Power

The Arts all lined up in a row in the middle of this one are the coolest touch!

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Chain Attack

OMG this is so cUUUUUTE!!!
I love this, because all of the characters are featured,
while mostly everything else only features Shulk.

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Heropon Training Academy

DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A GREAT HEROPON??