How I Design My Softies Faces and Personalities

In Part 1 of my ‘How I Design a Softie’ posts I focused on how I go about creating the shape I want for my softie. This week I’ll focus on how I go about creating my softies faces and personalities using Betty Bat as an example. Meet Betty…

PART 2: CREATING THE FACE

I love giving my softies their own unique personalities and their faces are a big part of this. Here’s how I go about trying to forget everything I’ve learnt about what a face should look like.

Take a box full of all sorts of oddly shaped felt off-cuts and spill them out on a table. I place my fully sewn but faceless softie on the table with the off-cuts.

I play, really just play around like a little kid, not trying to do anything “sensible” but just play around with the off-cuts making arrangements and watching what happens. Every time I go by the table I play with my arrangements. I usually do this over two or three days.

I photograph any combinations I like and then keep trying to come up with new ones. You’ll find your kids and whoever is around won’t be able to resist making their own combinations and this sets in motion a really nice creative mix of arrangements.

Finally, I choose one of the arrangements I like and give my softie his or her face. And if I make a series from the same basic template, I choose from the other arrangements to give them all slightly different personalities.

Have fun creating your softies…and I’d love to see what you design!