Greetings from The Stuffed Animal Review; a publication dedicated to the analysis of stuffed creature design and their larger worlds. If you are a new, and perhaps somewhat confused, reader, a fuller explanation of The Review’s purpose can be found on the “Philosophy” page.
Today we begin The Review’s in-depth analysis of high-quality stuffed animal design. What makes for a successfully fun and compelling stuffed creature, and what makes for a run-of-the-mill, or even disturbing stuffed creature?
Stuffed Creature Design Part I
Stuffed creatures are an imaginative, creative translation of animals as they exist in nature. Successful stuffed creatures take the physical attributes of real animals and modify proportions, configuration, and shape. Careful manipulation of the relationship between snouts, heads, paws, and bellies renders real animals cartoon-like and, therefore, engaging and smile-inducing. It helps if the animal is considered cute by humans: hence the popularity of stuffed bears, monkeys, bunnies, cats, and dogs. Slimy, scaly, and scary animals such as snails, alligators, and sharks, however, can be rendered huggable through the right design, coupled with high-quality fur and stuffing.
There is no mathematical formula, no ratio chart to consult, and, therefore, no need to bring a measuring tape with you to the store. You will have an instinctive, gut reaction to proportions, configuration, and shape. The Review, however, has definite opinions about what constitutes brilliant design, what is uninspired, and what is downright disturbing. The fact that this blog exists shows that The Review is not shy about sharing these opinions.
The Review’s Axioms and Corollaries will set you on the right path towards cute and compelling stuffed animals. Each Axiom establishes a fundamental principle of stuffed creature design. The corollaries are sub-principles that naturally flow from the Axioms.
Axiom of Proper Abstraction
The most satisfying creatures abstract, modify, and distort the essential character of a “real-world” animal.
Designs should start with the animal in nature, and consider it as a whole: what are the key proportions, configuration, and shape of, for example, a bear? In other words, what are the qualities that make a bear a bear?
A stuffed creature is created by taking these key characteristics and abstracting them through distortion and exaggeration. The result is a creature that looks nothing like the real-world animal it mimics, but that is instantly recognizable as that animal. The stuffed bear has a “bear essence” without mimicking what you see in National Geographic.
The following two Gund bears, in The Review’s humble opinion, brilliantly illustrate this process, as well as the creative potential of the Axiom of Proper Abstraction [Figures 1&2]. Both are definitively bears, but are drastically different from the mammals who roam the wild. Neither stuffed creature mirrors a bear’s shape, stance, or relationship between head, midsection, and limbs. Both, however, in their own way, capture essential features from nature.
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| Figure 1 |
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| Figure 2 |
The brown Gund in Figure 1 translates a bear’s midsection, snout, and ears into soft, round qualities. A bear’s large midsection, often padded with hibernation insulation, becomes a plump, round tummy, inviting of rubs, pats, and pokes. The elongated, sensitive snout of a wild brown bear becomes an appealing set of gentle circles. Protruding ears attentive to sound become diminutive accents. The design also retains the general head-body proportion of a real bear, but alters the configuration of head-body-limbs. The Gund is meant to sit upright and so has elongated appendages. This distortion works because his limbs are in proportion with the rest of his body; they are neither stumps nor sprawling noodles. [Note: This is Manny, a Review staff bear. Refer to the "Staff Directory" for his profile.]
The white Gund in Figure 2 has a very different bear essence, abstracting a bear’s large curves, snout, and ears into a huggable, gumdrop mass. His snout and ears retain some of the elongation found in nature, but they conform to his parabolic body. The roundness of this Gund is an appealing exaggeration of a bear’s back and ample behind. Note: legend has it that the creature was modeled after the crescent moon, with his upturned head gazing at the night sky. If true, it is an instructive lesson in the possible sources of inspiration within the Axiom of Proper Abstraction. The designer borrowed from the moon, but created a bear.
The differences between the two show the potential for imaginative design. The interpretation of essential bear features takes wildly divergent configurations in these two creatures, both to magnificent effect.
Let us look at the Axiom of Proper Abstraction at work with other well-designed animals.
What makes an elephant an elephant? A majestic trunk and billowing ears are the most notable features of elephants found on the Serengeti or your local zoo. The design of the little creature below amplifies these two elephantine qualities [Figures 3&4]. His trunk dominates his face and profile, and his ears are prominent light-pink sails. The exaggeration renders this elephant essence sweet and amusing. He is also well-proportioned, achieving balance with those wonderfully chunky, pink-bottomed paws. [Note: This is Frazier, another Review staffer. Visit the Staff Directory for his profile.]
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| Figure 3 |
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| Figure 4 |
The elephant in Figure 5 is a radically different design from the elephant above. He captures similar essential elements of a real-world elephant – trunk and ears – while completely ignoring a real elephant’s proportions, configuration, or shape. He makes the elephant above look eligible for the Nature Channel. He is essentially an orb with an elephant face, a globular design that is vaguely mouse-like. A better label for this little guy: mouse-e-phant. He works because he distills the essence of an elephant into a funny, tiny package that plops in the palm of your hand. [Note: This is Tucker, a member of the Review staff. See the "Staff Directory" for more on Tucker.]
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Those protruding googly eyes, that broad mouth, and those chunky pads – exaggerated features that absolutely make this stuffed creature [Figures 6&7]. This frog is all eyes, head, and limbs; his mid-section is dwarfed by his outer extremes. It works because he concentrates the essential qualities of a real frog – a large mouth, long legs, and pop-up eyes. [Note: This is Paddy, a Review staff creature. Tune in tomorrow for his profile.]
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| Figure 6 |
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| Figure 7 |
Next Saturday we will unveil the corollary to this Axiom, which will take The Review’s consideration of stuffed animal design to a new level of insanity.
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