stuffed stuff: SAW Babies ver.2
created and stuffed: August 2011
I made a SAW Babies sock puppet on a whim back in 2010. But this time, I decided to make it better and give them to their creators, Scott Kurtz and Kris Straub when I saw them at PAX Prime.
The SAW Babies sock puppet is a character from Blamimation (WARNING: contains mature language), a flash cartoon series created by Scott Kurtz and Kris Straub.
There are some original stories in the Blamimations but they also do a lot of parodies of TV shows and films which I LOVE. SAW Babies is definitely one of our favorite parodies. It’s like the horror movie “SAW,” but if Jigsaw was in 5th grade. Unsurprisingly, words like peepee and poopoo make Derek very happy.
The first episode of SAW Babies can be seen on Eps.5 of Blamimation! (about 3:42 into the episode)
It’s a sock puppet, so when you aren’t using it, it can’t stand on its own. So we put it over an empty beer bottle so Derek could keep it on his desk. I also wanted to make the second version as a sock puppet so my first plan was to make a puppet, put it over a beer bottle and give it to them. Simple, right? Hmm. Maybe too simple… So I came up with the idea of making it into a bottle koozie. All I needed was a neoprene koozie to keep the bottle cold, and attach it to the puppet somehow. I doodled how I’d make this and realize that the puppet needed to have an opening so you can drink it while holding the puppet koozie. And the plan kept getting more complicated from then on.
Who knew I was going to have such a hard time finding two very simple & good bottle koozies. Not me! Amazon or other sites sell crappy koozies in bulk. They weren’t expensive but I just wanted TWO GOOD QUALITY KOOZIES, and NOT 12 CRAPPY KOOZIES.
Why is it that the one thing you think you can find so easily is always the one you just can’t find ANYWHERE?
My final option was to buy a neoprene bag by Built, cut it into pieces, and make bottle koozies by myself. I had been making many plushes non-stop for PAX Prime and complaining how hard it’s been to find koozies, so Derek decided to go look for koozies all over NYC for me. He found very nice bottle koozies at Paragon Sports. They could’ve been simpler but they were sturdy and I really needed to start making them. While Derek was getting koozies, I went out and found the thickest yarn I could find for the hair, and looked for buttons that were similar to the one from the animation. After I got the koozies, I had to figure out how to make it work.
It was very late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning when I finally started working on the puppets, which was about 5 hours before we had to leave for the airport.
I had bought two socks in different colors. First I cut off the tip of the grey socks, and sewed them onto the tip of the blue socks. Then I cut a slit on each sock, and sewed a zipper on with a sewing machine. The zipper wasn’t the right size so I had to cut it, fold it in so it wouldn’t zip all the way down, and sew it. I had never sewn a sock with a sewing machine before and I was worried that the fabric would unravel so I used the zig-zag setting and sewed it around a couple of times. My god, it was a MESS.
After I finished using a sewing machine on it, it was time for me to pack, take a shower, get ready and leave for the airport.
At the hotel in Seattle, I stayed up at night and sewed the eyes and yarn as hair onto the sock. I can’t remember how many times I dozed off while sewing the yarn hair.
It would’ve been nice if I could put a beer bottle in it, but the supermarket by the hotel had a very limited selection of beers and nothing seemed terribly unique. So I put water bottles in each of them instead.
Sunday afternoon, we headed to Scott’s table first. We waited in the line for a while, and we purchased the Best of PVP and a Blamimation DVD. He was nice enough to sign both of them. When he was done signing, we gave him the puppet.
Scott was very nice and seemed happy to see the fan made SAW babies puppet. He started talking in the puppet’s voice to Kris who was sitting next to him and signing for his fans. That’s right, we got to see SAW Babies live! Well, the roles were reversed but that made it more special. Kris remembered that I had asked him about the color of the puppet on twitter before, so he said “Oh you did it!” with a smile from his table.
Scott Kurtz
We got in the line for Kris’ table. When our turn came, we got all three volumes of the Chainsawsuit comic books, he kindly signed and drew on them. I gave him the puppet and asked him if I could take a photo of him with the puppet. He offered me to be in the shot but I had to decline. I mean, just look how beautiful Kris Straub is. I would never dream of being in this shot.
Kris Straub
I told Scott and Kris that if the puppet fell apart, save the koozie, because it was a very good koozie.
[I will insert a photo of the Blamimation DVD signed by Scott and Kris here later]
I spent way too much time on planning, but I think I spent a total of 4 hours actually working on the puppets. A new record I’m not very proud of. Planning something thoroughly is important, but next time I’d love to spend more time actually working on it… So yes, hopefully there will be a “Return of SAW Babies” in the future…
For more pictures of this plush, visit stuffed stuff: SAW Babies ver.2 set!
You can also check out more stuffed stuff on my flickr.
I was born in Japan, lived in New York for a while and now living in San Diego, California. I love creating things with my hands in my free time whether it’s making character bento or stuffing stuff! And now I'm working for 
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When I was young, my brother and I made some creatures like that (but we could put a hand in it to make the mouth move). My parents were happy, because we took them with us for long travels in car, and we spent all the time making fun to other people in other cars with our creatures (instead of saying : “it’s too looooong ! when will we arriiiiiive ?”).