Personalized Toy: Froggy
Part 01: Toy Description:
My project “Froggy” is a series of needle felt dolls made for my girlfriend Betsy. The characters are based on personified frogs according to Betsy’s personal preferences. I found out that she had a weird affection for toys with awkward-looking facial expressions and postures. The design of the two dolls is based on the sketch I provide her, mixing and matching different features of the frogs I drew.
Betsy and Froggy
The toys I made are categorized as “collectible dolls”. The original plan is to make a family of frogs, a series of frog dolls with different colors, sizes, and personalities. However, due to time limitations, I am only able to make two of them. Posable figures were introduced to the market after the success of the first Barbie Doll in 1959. Over the years, different series of figures and dolls became collectible, serving tremendous value for those who appreciate and desire them. Collectible figures are often based on characters in television, movies, sports, celebrities, comics, video games, Internet memes, and every fandom in between. For the collectors, these collectible toys not only serve as trophies and entertainment, but they also grow to become enjoyable art pieces or their fantasy captured in three dimentions. This is because these toys directly connect to their childhood or a specific memory they appreciate.
For me and Betsy, “Froggy” or “小蛙” is a name she called a wooden toy frog I bought her four years ago in vintage woodwork shop Noboribetsu, Hokkaido Japan. Since then, she has seemed to grow a weird fetish over frogs and has started to collect anything related to frogs– stickers, pins, accessories, phone cases, blankets, rugs, and so on. Way before the trend of Travel Frog, She started to bring our old Froggy anywhere for taking pictures and traveling. It is until last year, our old friend was left alone in her place in Vancouver because of our hasty departure during the pandemic. This inspired me to make her new Froggies, adding more frogs to her collections. Froggy for her is more like a companion, bestowed with a soul, a personality, and a piece of unforgettable memory. The act of play, in this circumstance, is accompanying and concomitant.
Betsy’s Old Froggy
Cas Holman’s idea of play is the act of creation with one’s own imaginations rather than following instructions. The toys she created aim to let the kids take over, building their own worlds with their own hands, which has nothing to do with my soft toy. Although user’s creativity and imagination are not entirely absent with posable dolls, I think my toy lacks a bit of playfulness, especially the larger frog. There is no distinct and fun feature that makes it special. Also, there are almost no interactions between the two frogs. If I have more time, I would first develop more on the larger for, adding more details to make it stand out. Then I would make a series of accessories, which is typical to posable dolls and action figures. Such accessories might include a woven wrap bag (to carry the little one on the back), a stand (grass field or tree branch mimicking nature), a woven basket (for carrying the little one on the front), and possibly more miniature food items (for the larger one to hold, like the strawberry I used).
Cas’s philosophy of the design process had a great influence on me. She had a hard time distinguishing play from her process of designing toys. According to the documentary, sketching is also an integral part of the process, which she called “an extension of the brain”. I totally agree that ideas could be better illustrated and developed by putting them on paper as illustrations. I had a lot of fun when designing Froggy with Betsy, sketching funny-looking iterations and testing different concepts. I am also fully aware that the process of creating a toy is a form of play itself. For me, it almost felt like creating artwork or molding a sculpture.
Part 02: Documentation
Design & Sketch
During the interview, I found out that she had a weird affection for frogs with awkward-looking facial expressions and postures. With Betsy’s help, I sketched out the possible designs of my toys.
Prototype Making
The smaller frog is my first time making a needle felt doll. It is part of the series because it turns out to be really funny and likable. I made the “prototype” at school with some leftover wools kindly given by Professor Godoy.
I would say that the process of making wool felt dolls is pretty intuitive. I only watched a few tutorials to get the gist of it. It is exactly like sculpting, which is exactly why I choose to use this material. I think sewing is more mechanical and instructional. You have to follow the exact steps, like making countless diagrams and deciding the correct sewing patterns. I think you have to be somehow talented (like most of my classmates) or practice a lot to master this skill. Wool felt, however, gives you more creative potential, feasibility, and error tolerance. The more time and effort you invest in, the better and more detailed the product would look. For me, sewing feels like box modeling using Rhino, Maya, and Cinema 4D, making wool felt is like 3D sculpting in Zbrush.
Although taking hours to produce, the prototype-making process is quite simple. I rolled the wool into a ball and poked it vigorously to settled the shape. Then I sculpted the features of the frog by poking and tightening the part that goes down and adding more wool to the part that bloats up.
The next step is to make the legs and other body parts of the frog. I made them separately and installed them by shoving them into the main body and poking vigorously on the conjunction parts. I also added more wool to cover up any space between the joints.
I realized that the frog’s eyes look too empty, which made him look expressionless. As a result, I decided to add a pair of plastic eye mountings to it. I tried out different kinds of mountings I bought, but they all look a little off. I realized his emotionless face with his naked body is actually what makes him so funny and likable. So I used the entirely black pairs from Professor Godoy.
Main Production
In order to differentiate the frogs as separate entities with completely distinct personalities and appearances, I had to make some effort in the design. Since my prototype has a vibrant color, I decided to make the main piece in a darker matcha green. Contrary to the prototype, the second frog is a female, with a larger body, and a dorky expression.
For the larger doll, I learned from my mistakes from making the last piece and improved a lot on the techniques. Instead of wasting colored wool, I used a ball of white filler wool for the inner fillings of the frog. It is way cheaper and easier to mold in the shape you want. I made the general shape of the body by joining a circle with an oval.
Then I planted the colored wool on the body in an orderly fashion. In this way, the appearance and texture of the doll would be more tidy and clean. Another thing I learned is that you shouldn’t poke and tighten the wool too much, unless for specific details and curves such as the mouth and the toes. If I tighten it too much like what I did in my prototype, it would be hard to firmly join the other body parts or add extra wool to the surface.
When joining the legs and toes, I had to finalize the position and marked the spot with an air-erasable fabric marker to prevent any further reversions and unnecessary distortions.
One mistake I made is that I tried to mix different colors of wool without the specified wool mixing tool. I tried to mix ivory with a little light green for the frog’s belly. The result turned out to be unsatisfactory. The colors were not properly mixed, leaving noticeable strands of greens, which made the belly looks really dirty and unnatural. I had to fix it by covering multiple layers of ivory wool repeatedly everywhere.
Finished Product
(Pictures from Betsy)
