Reflection
My project is called “Mini Mi(e)a” which is for my friend Mia Xue, NYUSH 24′. The soft toy made was a cat wearing a tiger suit where the idea was from an interview question I asked her. The question was to have her send a song that represents her as a person where she sent “Me and the Sky” which talked about reaching for one’s ambitious goals and accomplishing them. I felt that this song showed her character as someone that had a dream to be something greater and stronger, hence I thought of the concept of cat wanting to be a tiger. I did ask about her playing experience with toys where she likes to hug them, but I was wary of the material I was using, observations I made, and critically thinking the necessity of creating large soft toys. For the material, felt can’t be made to be large without utilizing stuffing. Due to this, I lowered the size for play. I also thought that since she already had a soft toy that she hugs when sleeping, there would be no purpose creating another one thus this led to my final observation regarding her usage of keychains on her backpack. The design of the play would then be a decorative object for her backpack which she uses everyday to remind her of the ambitions she has to carry on and work hard.
As for my inspirations for my thoughts regarding play, I felt that toys as culture was super important as it expanded my views on what play is as well as the restrictions of play. Rather than understanding it in the 21st century state of mind, I was opened to learning about past forms of play to understand that play wasn’t restricted to having no purpose, enjoyment, or no pain. It was more primitive and organic and could include the following. While this wasn’t much of an influence on play, I felt that this made play something that was more based on the daily actions of individuals and the interaction with objects. For one, it influenced me to create something more stationary, being a soft toy on a keychain which was more decorational. As for inspirations for toys, I felt that Cas Holman provided good inspiration in the sense that her toys were unique and unlike anything that looks commercial. She promoted organic play and learning within play which wasn’t my motive, but I believe that her concept is great for toys as a whole. If I were to make my toy in Cas Holman’s style, I think that I may create my soft toy to be something that has individual components that can be attached to create different objects. Cas Holman revolves her design process around flexibility of components for the user to create. If my toy were to be recreated, I think that she may include parts such as the eyes, limbs, etc. that could be attached in a lot of different manners like Mr. Potatohead. I also felt that the animator documentary was very important as inspiration for my project. It provided me with a basis for developing my project which included the personal expression of the animator as well as his thoughts regarding how perspective could be utilized to create works. This would inform me on creating my cat as I imagined what could be used to represent the individual I created.
As a reflection of my project, I felt that I learned the difficulty of making felt soft toys as they take a long time for a small out come. Of course, learning that part of toy-making means that I also learned the process of using felt to create my toy which was very strenuous. I remember that I spent 3days building the design the whole time, adding details and making sure that everything was done correctly, but still made mistakes. I felt that I made the fur component of the tiger very well, along with the proportions of the head to body, but the face of the cat was rather weak due to myself inverting the steps of adding the eyes and adding the layer of the tiger fur. Because of that the face would appear flat rather than having more volume. Moreover, I think that the face was super hard due to the detail that should be put in it. Felt is extremely difficult to use to put detail. I think that it is because of the material quality being that it attaches itself to surroundings that makes details difficult as it is somewhat unpredictable and the needles used are a larger radius than the details. Thus I think that if I had the time, I would try to redo the head of the cat to make the face more spherical so that it’s more eye appealing. Moreover, I think that I may also work on a super small doll of the individual that I made the doll for to be in the hand of the cat as I think that it could represent that there is always someone in support of her.
Citations
Sutton-Smith, Brian. Toys as Culture. Gardner Press, 1986.
Documentation
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