I worked on turning the character Shelby from Meow Wolf Omega Mart in Las Vegas into a transforming plush. Shelby is inspired by soft serve ice cream and the designers thought it would be fun to have that character be able to turn inside out of a pastry.
The Shelby character model was already built, so I just had to translate that into a plush pattern. The body is symmetrical but the swirl on the head was a complicated asymmetrical shape with many different pieces that needed to be gathered to fit with the other pieces.
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Shelby plush turnaround
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Pastry plush turnaround
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The first idea for the pastry side was to incorporate a möbius strip with a visual line would appear to connect through the pastry to Shelby on the inside. It was a challenge squashing a möbius strip into a solid shape but still retaining the idea that it's one continuous loop. The first prototype didn't quite translate, the shape on the pastry seemed too lumpy and it was hard to follow the line that went into the pastry as making a connection with Shelby.
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First pastry prototype
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We abandoned the literal möbius idea as it wasn't coming through on the pastry plush concept, but still wanted the pastry to have some defined lines. It took me a bit but I remembered the round shape of a baseball is two of the same curved pattern pieces stitched together. I figured out a similar shape with the pastry having three identical pattern pieces stitched together to create the disc-like pastry shape.
The second prototype has some color definition with a Neapolitan vibe before it was decided to go with a printed fabric to really have the pastry texture pop out.
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| Prototype two: Pastry Bottom |
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| Prototype two: Pastry side |
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Prototype two: Pastry top
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Prototype two: Pastry open
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Transformation
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Transformation with both pieces showing
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Shelby back
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Shelby front
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Shelby prototype
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The finalized version has more stuffing in Shelby which fills out the pastry shape more. Along with a printed fabric that shows the pastry texture.
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Final product with packaging
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Final Shelby emerging from the pastry
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Shelby pastries are available for sale in the Meow Wolf store.
