stuffed stuff: Keepons ver.2

stuffed stuff: Keepons ver.2
Created and stuffed on July 2011

This is the middle part of the blog post about bumping into Marek Michalowski (the co-creator of Keepon) at a beer and brats place in Brooklyn, and how I got to give him a plush Keepon two days later. It’s always super exciting to give a plush of something to its creator in person!

The Keepon I gave to Derek 2 years ago was getting really worn out and dirty, so I decided to make two Keepons. One for Marek and one for Derek.

Keepon is made with just two spheres. It’s super simple, it shouldn’t take too long, right? Yes and no. Because it’s so simple, If something is off even by 1/16 inch, it can make a big difference on Keepon. So throughout the process, I was staring at a reference photo, making sure the proportion and the position of the eyes and nose was right.

There were a couple of things I changed for the 2nd version of Keepon. The previous Keepon had trouble standing on its own, so this time, I put plastic pellets inside the bottom sphere so he could stand. I was going to glue pieces of felt for the eyes and nose like the first one but I realized that I had plastic doll eyes at the right size in my “eye stock”, so I used them this time. I wish I had solid black eyes for the eyes instead of slightly brown eyes though. But aside from that, I think it came out better than the last time. The new yellow fleece I got was closer to the color of an actual Keepon, and I’m pretty happy with it.

As I was giving the plush Keepon to Marek, I realize that the actual Keepon and my plush Keepon was almost exact same size. I was just going by the scale of the surroundings in various Keepon videos but I was surprised how close it was. Never thought I’d have a chance to give him a plush Keepon in person!

 

For more pictures of this plush, visit stuffed stuff: Keepons ver.2 set!

You can also check out more stuffed stuff on my flickr.

Tagged as: Keepon, Marek Michalowski, plush