Tthis will be my first attempt at documenting my toy making process. I’ll post photos as I go along just to give you guys some insight into what actually goes into making them. This is more of a documentation of my process than a tutorial, so I’ll try not to be too wordy (yeah, right).

The very first step is deciding what type of character I want to do – whether it’s one of my signature characters (like Danny or Charlie) or something a little different (like Pepper or My Little Arpie). For this figure, I’m going to make one of my signature characters, and I’m gonna shoot for around 6″ tall.

Next, I spend about 30 mins to an hour looking through my folder of reference images and browsing fashion blogs (some favorites are Lookbook and The Sartorialist for street, The Fashionisto for editorial). For my characters the clothes play an important role (even if they’re very simplified), and I usually decide on their clothing before I decide how their faces will look.

After I decide on the general feel of the character, I do a couple of rough sketches (and I mean ROOOUGH):

That’s it, no joke. Because I’m in charge of the process from start to finish, there is no need for crazy detailed sketches – I know what I want to do – so at this stage I just do a couple of 30 second drawings. When drawing turnarounds for a client or another sculptor, the sketching and drawing process will take days of painstakingly detailed sketches from all different view points and pinpointed proportions and pantone colors. When I do the sculpt, my initial drawings are rough and dirty.

Usually I don’t decide on the name until after the first prototype is cast and painted, but for clarity’s sake, I’ve decided to name him now.

So stay tuned for the next step of the making of Arthur, I’ll be making the armature to begin sculpting.