stuffed stuff: Costume Quest (Wren and Reynold)
created and stuffed: August 2011~Jan 2012

Before PAX Prime in 2011, I made a ton of plushes to give away. You could see the plush madness in this post.

One of the plushes was for Tasha Harris who worked at Double Fine at the time.

She was project lead for one of my favorite XBLA games, Costume Quest (now also magically available for PS3 and PC!). I really love the game and her art style. I liked it so much that I even made a bento of Costume Quest before.

Anyway, I was going to make Wren and Reynold from the game’s cover art. (like the bento) Wren in a knight costume and Reynold in a robot costume. But I thought two costumes would be a bit boring, so I also picked the French fries costume and the Statue of Liberty costume.

To make patterns for the body, I used a plush Link from “The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker” as reference. Of course, I had to make their head BIGGER than Link. Initially I was going to make the hair more like a helmet made of felt. But I really liked how the front part of Link’s hair was made. So after MANY MANY trials and errors I finally figured out the shape of the hair and lightly stuffed it to give it nice volume.

Once the hair was done, I cut pieces for their eyes (which also took a while to get to the right size and shape) and glued them on. I was worried that the edge of the eyes would peel off so I sewed around the eyes to reinforce them.

After the base body was made I made patterns for the costume by cutting pieces of paper, and wrapping them around the head and body. First I made the inner clothes with stretchy cotton to be worn under the costumes, which wasn’t too hard. I wanted to make the costume easy and simple, so I used felt. It’d be like making clothes for a paper doll, right??

It totally wasn’t.

I realized that the edge of the felt would stretch when you put the clothes on and off. Not good… Then things quickly got a lot more complicated.

For the knight costume (which was the easiest one) I had to reinforce the neck part and the arm holes by sewing another layer of felt underneath. Then I sewed the red lines onto it and attached Velcro on the back. After that I made the helmet, sword and shield. The sword and shield were easy but it took a few prototypes to make the helmet because it had to be the right shape and size to look right when worn by the doll.

 

For the robot costume, one layer of felt was too weak to keep its shape, so I had to double-layer it. Just like the knight costume, I reinforced around the neck and the arm holes. I also had to sew around the edges of the torso so it’d keep its boxy shape. As I was trying the costume on and off on the doll, I noticed that the tiny blue fuzz from felt was getting on the doll’s face. So I came up the idea of putting a thin cotton liner inside. Then I made the antenna with black pipe cleaner and black and red fleece and sewed it onto the head piece. I added a chest plate and wings on the back and sewed Velcro onto the body and head piece.

For the French fries costume, I used the robot’s body pattern as a guide, and made the box part of the French fries. Again, one layer was too flimsy so after I sewed the patterns onto the box, I had to add another layer and reinforced the same areas like the knight’s and robot’s costumes. I wish I could’ve found a way to make the box keep its shape without having so many visible sewing lines… Just like the robot costume, I was adding layers and reinforcing as I made it. I definitely need to learn how to make clothes and costumes properly. Making the French fries was super fun though! To finish it off, I sewed each French fry onto the box.

For the Statue of Liberty costume, I tried using felt first, but felt really couldn’t have the flowy feeling of the dress, so I used stretchy cotton instead. I made the headdress and the torch with felt. I really like the way the torch came out.

At this point, I still hadn’t figured out how to make them hold the sword from the knight costume and torch from the Statue of Liberty. If I used an elastic like for the shield, they wouldn’t hold the sword/torch correctly… So I decided to put a snap on the palm of their right hands, and on the sword and torch. The snaps are visible but I think it works out pretty well.

The very last thing I did was to sew their noses and mouths on, and glued their pink cheeks on the face. I usually save the face for last because it’s always the hardest to get it right. The thread of each mouth is very slightly loose so you can make them smile or sad by moving the thread.

As you can see, I only made two pairs of shoes for four costumes. And if you’re a Costume Quest fan, you’re wondering where are roller shoes for the robot costume… Before PAX Prime, I made two pairs of shoes, which were just plain black. But after I came back from PAX, I wanted the costumes to be more accurate, so I remade them in two different colors with white soles and added white tips to make them look more like Converse shoes. And then I had to travel back and forth between New York and San Diego for my new job at The Behemoth. I took the unfinished Wren and Reynold with me every time I traveled, trying to finish them little by little. But my tools and fabrics were in two locations, and I just couldn’t finish the last couple of things. I finally finished all the costumes and details when I was in NYC. So my sewing machine was already packed and I couldn’t make a pair of the roller shoes. But I will make them once I’m done with all this moving stuff!

Even though I struggled each step and it took a lot longer to finish, it really was so much fun to make and put costumes on and off on Wren and Reynold. I was never a playing-with-dolls kind of girl as a kid but I could totally get into this now.

So where are the little guys now? They’re on their way to Tasha! It’s just a small token of my appreciation for making such a wonderful game. I’m sure she’ll give them plenty of candies to make them happy.

For more pictures of these plush, visit stuffed stuff: Costume Quest (Wren and Reynold) set!

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