Ever since we moved to San Diego, we’ve been buying most of our food from the farmers’ market right by our place every Saturday. It’s kind of fun and also good since we never took advantage of the farmers’ market when we lived in Brooklyn.

The other day at the farmers’ market I saw a lot of beets, and I realized that I’ve actually never cooked beets before. I was kind of surprised that it took this long to try cooking this super colorful food.

Its beautiful red/purple color reminded me of the background of Beat Sneak Bandit, the iOS game we’ve been playing since we got an iPad in March. So I decided to make food based on Beat Sneak Bandit using beets. Or should I call it Beet Sneak Bandit? Get it? haha. Oh it’s so silly…

This looks like job for…

Beat Sneak Bandit!

And Herbie!

Non-bento #46: Beat Sneak Bandit beet soup
Created and eaten on: 5/20/2012

Beat Sneak Bandit is a stylish and colorful puzzle rhythm game by Simogo. Simogo is run by two awesome guys, Simon Flesser and Magnus ‘Gordon’ Gardebäck. They also worked on one of our other favorite games, ilomilo!

In the game, you’re a sneaky Bandit and you move with the rhythm to steal back the clocks stolen by Duke Clockface without being detected.

The game is very colorful, perhaps a bit too colorful for a bento. Not to mention that my bento skills have gotten rusty. Besides, this was my first time cooking beets, so I wanted to try something easy like beet soup. Then while I was looking at game images for inspiration, I noticed that the background of the app icon for the Beat Sneak Bandit was very much like the color of beets.

Conveniently, I had two square bowls. At the time we were using them for our cactuses instead of for food. I took the bowls out, washed them well and voila, I had iOS app icon shaped bowls!

Thank you IKEA! (for the bowls and the plants)

I washed the beets, drizzled them with olive oil, wrapped them with tin foil, and roasted them. When the beets became soft, I took them out of the oven and let them cool down. Once they were cool to the touch, I peeled the skin, chopped them up, mixed with seasoning & veggie stock, pureed and was done! I put the soup in the fridge and started working on the actual characters.

The characters for the soup were, the Bandit, Herbie (the sneaky frog) and the Clock.

After I drew a sketch, I decided based on color which parts would be made with which food.

Orangish yellow (Bandit’s hair) – Cheddar cheese singles
Off white (Bandit’s skin) – American cheese singles
White (eyes, Herbie’s clothes) – radish
Skin tone (Bandit’s nose) – ham
Green (Herbie’s face, hands and legs) – broccoli stem
Red (Bandit’s shirt, Ribbon on the clock) – red pepper
Black (Bandit’s clothes, ear, mouth and outlines for Bandit’s fingers, Herbie’s clothes, boots, glasses and clock) – seaweed

I started by tracing the original sketch on a piece of parchment paper, one sheet for each layer. Then using the cut out pieces of parchment paper as a guide I cut the food with an exacto knife.

This photo was taken after the photo shoot was done, so it's missing some small pieces but parchment paper is so durable that you can wash and reuse it if you want.

I originally drew Herbie bigger but I decided to go with the smaller one.

A toothpick to compare how small the piece is. (just in case, I cut out two mouth outlines but didn't end up needing the extra.) The line for the hand was one piece.

Cutting seaweed is tedious but not difficult. All you need is a sharp exacto knife and a nice cutting mat. I bought my cutting mat when I made the Jeremy Brautman sandwich and now I can’t live without it. I wish I had it when I did Shadow of the Colossus grilled cheese and the bento and gomoku-sushi of Okamiden.

I finished the seaweed pieces first, and sandwiched them in a paper towel. Then I cut out the pieces of cheese, put them back in the original plastic packaging and kept them the fridge. The veggies were cut right before I assembled so they wouldn’t dry out.

My main concern was the density of the soup.

The beet soup was pretty thick. But I didn’t know if the character was too heavy or not. I even thought of putting each character on a slice of a baguette and putting it on the soup. But I felt like it wouldn’t look as nice as putting a character directly onto the bright colored soup.

After thinking about it for a while, the impatient part of my brain (which is a pretty big part of my brain) said “Oh screw it.”

I asked Derek to get ready with the camera as I placed each layer.

First to go on the soup was the Bandit.

He didn't sink. Phew.

Look how sneaky he is.

I was glad that the fingers didn't break off. The outline for the ear is one piece as well.

I'm proud of the outline for the fingers. But I could've cut the red pepper thinner.

…but the soup quickly started to seep around the edges of the food.

Perhaps two layers of cheese would've helped?

As Derek shot photos of the Bandit, I quickly got ready another bowl of soup with Herbie & the Clock.

Herbie and the Clock

Black sesame seeds were perfect for his nose.

Look at his tiny boots!

The Clock on a piece of baguette

Even the baguette wasn't safe from the mighty power of beet soup. The bread was completely dyed within 15 minutes.

Herbie with his pink hand.

The characters were flat, so it might not be that impressive to see the characters from different angles, but you can see how quickly beets can dye food.

Neat discoveries:
- You can put stuff on beet soup and it probably won’t sink.
- Beets are super yummy.
- Beets can dye food easily and SUPER FAST.

I’ve always used purple cabbage juice + a drop of vinegar to naturally dye food pink, but now I know that I can use beets as well.

Light reflection on the soup was also unexpected. Any advice?

Overall, even with some slight discoloring around the edge of each character, I am pretty happy with it. I LOVE the color and the simple & stylish design of the characters was a delight to work with. I can assure you that this won’t be the last time I make food based on Simogo creations.

Oh and if you’re wondering what “cheese with seaweed” tastes like, it doesn’t taste weird. Seaweed just adds flavor like basil or oregano does.

Anyway, Beat Sneak Bandit is so addictive, and both the graphics and music are so good that anyone can play and enjoy it. But I must tell you, the more stages you clear, the harder it’ll get to steal all the clocks. But that makes this game so much more than just a cute rhythm game.

I just heard that Simon and Gordon are starting work on their new game, and I already can’t wait to see what they will create next. I mean, the next game has to be REALLY AWESOME to top their old awesome games, right?

They like teasing fans with previews and stuff on their blog and twitter, so follow them on Twitter, FB, and their blog!

For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento and non-bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page. (On the photos in the “Bento and non-bento!” set on my flickr, you can see the notes on the food explaining what they are.)

It all started with a picture the Behemoth tweeted back in March. A photo of the new custom-made shelf to display fan art and plushes.

I noticed this tweet by Jeff from Penny Arcade

He was talking about the plush in the photo made by a fan. His whole family is a fan of Castle Crashers, especially his son Ethan. Jeff plays the Orange knight and Ethan plays Blue knight. But we didn’t have official plushes of them to sell at PAX East so I told him that the knight plushes wouldn’t be on sale. I know. I’m such a party pooper…

Then I thought… “Oh right, I can make them!”

stuffed stuff: Orange Knight and Blue Knight from Castle Crashers by the Behemoth
Created and stuffed: March 2012

It might come as a surprise to some (since I’m a huge fan of the Behemoth) but I’d never made Castle Crashers Knight plushes before. When I make a fan plush, I look around to see if anyone has made it already. Then if I see a good one, I won’t make it. But this time it was different. I wanted to make plush to make some good people happy.

Fortunately, all the Castle Crashers characters have very similar proportions so I just had to tweak the patterns I used for the Bear Shaman (That’s what I call him. The official name is actually “Bear”) and the Necromancer.

I didn’t have much time but I had basic patterns. So I just had to work on some details like the white part on the face and eyes. The design may looks simple but when making a small plush, the position of all the pieces is crucial so I had to be very careful.

Move the eyes 5 mm in any direction, and the face will be completely different.

The ear piece was a very last minute thing. I wish I could've made it sturdier.

Looks like he can kick some butt, doesn't he?

I was crazy busy before PAX East, so I sewed as much as I could. I left my house for PAX East with all my sewing tools, so I could finish them while I was at the convention.

I knew Jeff had a panel for the upcoming Penny Arcade game, “The Rain-Slick Precipice Of Darkness: Episode 3” on Friday, so on Thursday in our hotel room after I hand-sewed the number tags onto the Ushanka hats, I moved onto sewing the knights’ head onto their bodies.

HUGE HEAD

I needed to make sure his HUGE head wouldn't come off of his tiny body.

I put plastic pellets inside the body, but because of their huge heads, they weren't able to sit up on their own as expected.

So without getting any sleep in the super fancy bed, PAX East began.

Our PAX East started with the Keynote by Jordan Mechner, the creator of the Prince of Persia series. After that we attended panel after panel pretty much non-stop.

We had a little time between panels, so we walked around the exhibitors’ floor and stopped by at the Rain-Slick Precipice Of Darkness booth. I saw Jeff there and told him that we’d be at his panel later.

I wanted to sew the cross on but the piece was too small and the fabric (fleece) was too soft, so it had to be glued on.

Tiny little feet to support such a huge head

Just like PAX Prime last year I (and by “I” I mean Derek) had to take photos of my plushes at the hotel room because I couldn’t finish them on time. Since we didn’t bring lighting for the photo shoot, we had to improvise and used the natural light by the window. This time, I moved an arm chair by the window and covered the chair with the sheet. (hence the wrinkles.)

Blue knight solo

Orange knight solo

It's definitely fun to play Castle Crashers with someone you love!

The panel didn’t start until 9:00 PM, but after tons of panels and walking around the exhibitors’ floor, it was already time for his panel.

The panel had Jerry & Jeff from Penny Arcade, and Robert Boyd & Bill Stiernberg from Zeboyd Games. We enjoyed the panel immensely and it ended around 10:00 PM.

Even after the panel was over there were still a lot of people gathering around the panelists to talk or ask questions. I snapped this photo before walking up to talk to Jeff, and waited until he was free of his swarming fans.

Can you see how excited they are??

I had told him that I’d bring something from the Behemoth booth for him and his son but he still had no idea about the plushes.

First I took out the official Behemoth figures of the blue and orange knight from my bag and gave them to him. He was super excited and thanked me with a big hug and smile.

That’s when I said “Wait! There’s more!” and took out the plushes of the orange knight and blue knight.

I still remember his squeal.

He quickly got emotional and teary, which made me emotional and teary. Happy tears are contagious!

He told me how much Ethan loves Castle Crashers, and how they play the game as a family. Also Jeff said he performs a puppet show for Ethan using his plush toys so he’d be thrilled to add them to the show. I’ve given plushes to many people, but I think Jeff’s reaction was the most emotional one ever.

The funny thing was that we realized that there was a PATV camera crew around Jerry and the game developers shooting when this was going on. After the initial squeal, we paused and glanced at the crew who were still shooting. We were relieved that they didn’t hear it. Because well, Jeff is known for his emotional reactions, and the camera crew would be all over us if they had heard him.

I think I can call this a success!

A couple of days after PAX East ended, I got teary again with joy when I saw Jeff’s tweet.

And look! The little knights made it into Ethan’s puppet show!

It’s an incredible feeling whenever I spot my knights being played with in the photos he posts. Nothing makes me happier than knowing my plushes are well loved and making people happy.

Happy Jeff with a perfect "Japanese peace sign" at PAX East - dammit, it still makes me emotional to look at you holding the plushes, Jeff!

I think I wrote this before, but if it weren’t for Jeff, I probably wouldn’t have attended my first PAX. I’d worked at a booth at PAX before but “working” and “attending” are very different things. Back in 2010 I had only attended because I wanted to thank him in person at PAX East for how he resolved the problems that happened with the Noby Noby Boy scarf I won from the Penny Arcade contest. I never imagined that it would change my life the way it did.

I read Penny Arcade before attending PAX but until that PAX East I didn’t really know about the real Mike, Jerry and everyone behind Penny Arcade. I was “just a fan of video games.”

If it wasn’t for PAX, I would never have known that there was a place where “just a fan of video games” could gather and support each other and its community. The Enforcers at PAX especially played a big role in changing Derek’s and my opinion of the video gaming community.

If it wasn’t for PAX I probably wouldn’t have played this many video games, tried to discover awesome new games and the awesome people behind the games. Also I wouldn’t have met many of those awesome people to thank them in person.

If it wasn’t for PAX, I would’ve never had the opportunities to keep visiting the Behemoth booth to give them my thank-you gifts, which eventually got me my dream job working for them.

Jeff, I could never thank you enough for this. No amount of plush toys could ever repay you for what you did for us.

So thank you, Jeff.

For more pictures of these plush, visit the stuffed stuff: Blue knight and Orange knight from Castle Crashers set!

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

Dear Maurice Sendak

Thank you for the wonderful stories.

Thank you for the scary stories.

Thank you for the wild rumpus.

Rest in peace, Mr. Maurice Sendak.

Bento #65: Where the Wild Things Are #2, Created and eaten on 10/6/2009

Non-bento #19: Where the Wild Things Are, Created and eaten on 10/13/2009

How to make Max, 10/17/2009

How to make Moishe, 10/16/2009

How to make veggie Moishe, 10/16/2009

How to make Bernard, 10/15/2009

How to make Emil, 10/15/2009

How to make Tzippy, 10/14/2009

How to make Aaron, 10/14/2009

Left side - Moishe, Bernard, Max

Right side - Aaron, Emil, and Tzippy

Bento#32: Where the Wild Things Are, Created and Eaten on 12/27/2008

This blog post is going to be about why I haven’t been blogging… But wait! I have something cool to show you!

I’ve been working my butt off at the Behemoth to bring awesome plushy products of the Behemoth characters. But these things take time… Still, I thought it’d be sad not to have anything to show at PAX East in Boston which took place between 4/6 ~ 4/8.

So I decided to make 20 hats of the bloody bear from Castle Crashers to be sold at the Behemoth booth at PAX East as the very first official plushy products of the Behemoth.

That’s right. I made each one by hand. TWENTY of them!

This hat idea didn’t sprout overnight. Actually, a couple of years ago when I was still just a fan of The Behemoth (still am!) they asked me if I wanted to make a prototype for them. I squealed in joy for about 3 minutes and accepted the project. Over the course of couple of years, we went through many prototypes with different shapes and different fabrics.

Never before seen concept art for the hat!

Ushanka hat prototype - fleece

Ushanka hat prototype - fake fur ver.1 w/ cotton lining

Ushanka hat prototype - fake fur ver.2 w/ cotton lining

Ushanka hat prototype - fake fur ver.3 w/ fleece lining

Ushanka hat prototype - fake fur ver.4 w/ fleece lining

Never before seen concept art for the hat! Take 2

Long story short, after I became a full-time employee and moved to San Diego, we decided to use already-made fake fur trooper hats (we called them “Ushanka”  which are the same type of hat in Russian) to make couple dozens of hats as a “test run.”

I’ve made multiples of a plush before. 15 HotDog Fairies for random Enforcers at PAX, 7 Plush Pyth for the Supergiant Games’ staff, 3 Golden Whales for the Behemoth’s staff, etc… but never made 20 of something. Granted the hat was already made, it still was a time consuming task.

This is the hat I used.

I had to remove the flap on the front first.

Using a ripper, I took the flap off... This seemingly easy task took forever!

The flap is finally off.

I turned the flap inside out, and traced the shape of the ear.

For the inner part of the ear, I cut pink fleece and sewed it onto the ear.

I sewed it on the fur side, using zig-zag stitches.

Put the backside and sewed it together. Why so many pins? Sewing fur can be tricky. They are to keep the sew line where you want it to be.

Cutting the excess fabric around the ear while being careful not to cut too close to the sew line. Otherwise, the fur near the seam will be a lot shorter than the fur around it.

And turning it inside out...

Taking the fur out of the seam. I know there's a special brush for this but I just use the back of my huge ass needle.

And one ear is done!

Now repeat that 39 more times!

Then I marked where the ears would go, cut slits, put the ears in and sewed it up.

I didn’t have time to take photos but believe me, it was NOT EASY to sew four layers of fake fur.

I cut felt into the shape of the blood stains, pinned each piece on the front and sewed it on with a sewing machine. This was the MOST time consuming part. That’s 4 blood stain pieces for one hat, that means 80 pieces for 20 hats! Not only that, the fur would get in the way so I had to keep the fur away from the needle as I sewed.

Testing two different types of blood stains. I decided to go with the left one.

After all the blood stains were sewed on, I sewed the seam close.

To make these hats extra special, I hand stitched a number on each hat.

This is what it looked like in my hotel room in Boston the day before PAX East.

Our travel buddies just couldn't resist to trying them!

Since these were hand-made and super limited, hats were priced at $60, and all proceeds would go to Wigs for Kids.

Wigs for Kids is a non-profit organization which helps kids who lost hair due to chemotherapy, burn accidents or other medical conditions to get a wig made with human hair. You can also donate your hair (must be longer than 12-inches). See how you can help on their website! http://www.wigsforkids.org

Also since the Behemoth loves the Penny Arcade guys and their charity Child’s Play, we decided to donate one hat signed by Dan Paladin and Tom Fulp to the Child’s Play’s dinner auction.

Super special Ushanka hat for Child's Play dinner action signed by Dan Paladin! (I got it signed by Tom Fulp later but I totally forgot to take a photo of it. T_T)

I was attending PAX East, and not working at the booth. And I must say I was a bit nervous of what people would think of the hats… So I was pleasantly super surprised when I was told that all 19 hats had sold out within 2 hours after they opened!

Whenever I saw someone wearing the hat, I wanted to hug them!! (but I restrained myself because I didn’t want to get kicked out of PAX East.)

Finished Ushanka hat!

We are planning to make this hat into a product but we don’t know when it will be. The final products will probably be more affordable but different from this limited version and won’t be numbered.

I think I can say that my very first official product from the Behemoth was a success!!!

Hopefully I can bring more of the Behemoth characters into stuffed stuff form in the future.

More PAX East related stuffed stuff posts to come…!

This is something I made last year when I was traveling back and forth between San Diego and New York City.

Non-bento #45 : Sweet Roll from Skyrim
Created and eaten on: 12/26/2012

All pictures of the Sweet Roll look pretty much the same. So I’m going to splash this blog post with the Skyrim related photos taken with my cellphone. Sorry for the super low quality of the photos. (At the time I was taking photos just to share them with my friends.)

Hi my name is Tonkotsu Ramen. I'm an Argonian and Dragonborn.

I don't like when people call me a Lizard. I might shout at them if they do.

I had never played the Elder Scrolls games before because it sounded a game that I’d love… I’d love it so much that I’d never stop playing. So when everyone was going crazy about the Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, I declared that I would not play it.

At my temporary place in SD the internet connection was so slow that it was very hard for me to do a blog post with photos. So to spend my free time more effectively, I got my TV shipped and brought my Xbox 360 with me.

I was weak. I was alone and craved entertainment. Then I thought “Hmm maybe this is the best time for me to play a game that’s super long… Maybe something like Skyrim.”

A man casually standing while blood gushes out of his lower back.

From his angle, it looks like he's got a huge warhammer stuck in his crotch where the blood is coming out.

My quest log quickly grew long, especially side quests because I’d just accept any quests. I’d collect ingredients, steal things, deliver goods and letters, kill someone, etc… for others. Why? Because I’m a Dragonborn! I’m capable of doing things!!! I’d even solve people’s relationship problem in my precious Dragonborn time while I wasn’t killing dragons.

"Curtain Thermal Insulated" was one tough quest.

I really don’t think that’s how you play Skyrim. I’m playing something else in Skyrim. I feel like I don’t even care if I beat it or not. I’m not even sure of that myself. That’s how scary Skyrim is.

Proof that an arrows do not only go in the knees in Skyrim. (And a possibility of the existence of war-unicorn.)

ANYWAY, there are many foods in Skyrim and one of the famous foods is the Sweet Roll. The most famous one is probably the one by Gourmet Gaming. This isn’t particularly hard to make. It’s basically a bundt cake or pastry with icing on the top. Some people made Sweet Rolls on their own and I usually don’t make things other people already made, but I just couldn’t resist this one. Also I wanted to show it to my poor Skyrim playing friends.

I had a mini-bundt cake mold I bought a while ago. It wasn’t the exact same shape as the Sweet Roll, but it was close enough. I baked a bundt cake with the mold, and let it cool down. While I waited, I made icing. This icing is made just with confectioner’s sugar (powder sugar) and a very small amount of water and mixed with an electric hand mixer.

When the cake was completely cooled down, I carefully put the icing on it using a screenshot of a Sweet Roll as reference. I love how the icing came out very shiny. And also it was easy to control the thickness of the icing. The only thing I didn’t like about this icing was that it was SUPER SWEET. After all it’s just a lot of sugar and water. If I make this again, I’ll use a different kind of icing.

This Sweet Roll wasn’t exactly a “kyaraben” but more like my Ghibli Feast where I recreated food from Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli films. It was super easy and FUN.

I’m not sure when/if I’ll ever finish playing Skyrim but at least I had a great time making a Sweet Roll!

Oh and for those who haven’t noticed I now have a Tumblr blog! I was getting tired of seeing so many of my photos reblogged on Tumblr with no links back to the original posts so I decided it was time to get on there. So for those of you who are on Tumblr, please follow me! When I don’t have new posts I’ll be posting old photos of previous entries so that you can easily share and reblog for your friends to see!

For more pictures of my bento, visit Bento and non-bento! set and Bento details! set on my flickr page. (On the photos in the “Bent and non-bento!” set on my flickr, you can see the notes on the food explaining what they are.)

EDIT: I thought the post was too boring so I added some photos I took with my cellphone during the moving period! Sorry for the quality of the photos but I thought it’d be better than nothing.

I’m going to take advantage of Oscar night and do a quick post about not so exciting stuff about the move.

We physically moved from NY to SD on the 30th of January, and we got our stuff delivered to our new place the following week and we are 2/3rds done with unpacking right now!

My precious toys were packed very carefully.

My Castle Crashers figures, all autographed by Dan Paladin. Back then I never though that I'd be working with him!

We had to say good-bye to this Castle Crashers head piece I made a couple of years ago.

I let Derek do the dirty work.

Sad sad day.

Our old apartment in Brooklyn 98 % empty!

Our last ramen at minca in NYC. The waitress got teary which made me teary.

Our last bagel from Terrace Bagel in Brooklyn.

Inari in a carrier at the airport. She did sooooo well, I'm very proud of her!

Pizza we had after we moved to SD... Our journey to find a NY style pizza in SD seems grim.

Also, I learned that they sneak cucumber into water in SD. This seemingly plain water was infused with cucumber juice. (My co-workers realized it before I drank. THANK GOD.)

We are still adjusting to the changes, but we are also excited about our new life!

I finally got to hang my Christopher Walken life-mask sculpture on the wall in the bathroom at our new place! It's hanging above the toilet tank so boys will have to face him.

The view from our roof deck isn't too shabby. Oh who I'm kidding, we LOVE it!

Since I came to the U.S.I moved a LOT within the state of New York  but I don’t think I will ever like moving.

I do intend to do a longer post involving advice on “moving/flying with a diabetic pet” later because I desperately looked for any “personal stories” about flying with a diabetic pet prior to this trip, but I could only find a few.

Anyway, back to the Oscars, I’m SUPER disappointed that Sword Master Bob Anderson was NOT shown in the Memoriam during the Oscars. Shame on you Academy. SHAME ON YOU!!!

It is incredibly sad to lose someone who is so talented. You will be missed Mr. Bob Anderson.

For those who never heard of Bob Anderson, he was THE GREATEST sword master/choreographer who worked on, Star Wars (he was Darth Vader when he was fighting in the costume), Highlander, the Princess Bride, the Lord of the Rings, Pirates of Caribbean, etc…

CBS disabled the option to embed the video so I’m going to post a link here but it is worth watching if you’re a film enthusiast!

Remembering Bob Anderson

I hope everyone has wonderful plans for Valentine’s day tomorrow! And I’m glad to see that my heart-shaped egg article is going around the world to spread LOVE! Derek and I celebrated it a day earlier by playing the Mass Effect 3 demo because we snatched an early code. We are so psyched for Mass Effect 3!

I was going to make a quick “Hey we’re done moving!” post so I could start blogging about food again but I’d like to talk about something a bit more serious before I get into that.

Recently, I was told that someone made a plush of a certain video game character which I previously made for my dear friend. I thought “oh cool” and checked out this person’s Deviant Art page. That’s when I went “Hmm…”

It was EXACTLY THE SAME DESIGN.

I worked SUPER HARD to simplify the design of the very complicated costume on this plush, so I could tell when the design was EXACTLY THE SAME when I saw it. But I thought, hey, it’s fan art, and this person did actually make it. It’s not like they stole my photos. I should be flattered, right??? But surprise surprise!

This person is making it and SELLING IT on Etsy.

Not. Cool.

Now here’s the tricky part.

I do not own the rights to the character, so I cannot claim copyright infringement for the person’s stuff on Etsy. And even though I designed the patterns, this person did have to figure everything out from looking at the each photo my flickr site, which was tedious I’m sure… so kudos to that!

But putting it on Etsy? Seriously?

This almost makes me want to NOT put tons of detailed photos of my plushes anymore…

Personally, whether this person makes a profit or not doesn’t concern me at all. I’m a professional plush designer now and have the utmost respect for the craft of fellow artists. I would NEVER sell plushes of copyrighted characters on Etsy.

BUT the problem is that this person’s plush is almost IDENTICAL to mine, and I just NEVER want other people to associate me with this person. I thought I was crazy so I asked my friends to look at it and they confirmed that I’m not crazy.

If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ll probably notice which plush I’m talking about if you see it on Etsy. I don’t want to put a link to the page here, but I did send the person a link to this post. I really hope the person reads it and realizes something… Or maybe they won’t. (which can be very possible)

I’m usually a happy-go-lucky/pleasant-cute-thing-loving person but when I see something that’s not fair, I’ll say something and make sure the other side hears it too.

If the person in question wants to discuss the matter with me via email, explaining how I’m wrong, feel free to do so.

My email is annathered(at)gmail.com

Wow, did I sound bitter?

*reading my blog again*

NOPE.

Did I have to make such a huge deal about this?

*reading my blog AGAIN*

YUP.

I despise people who don’t understand the value of creativity. I’m also just fed up the fact that Etsy doesn’t regulate their contents at all.

tl;dr I despise people who don’t understand the value of creativity.

BUT I really DO appreciate people who are purely inspired to make creative food or plushes for their own enjoyment after seeing it on my blog. So don’t be scared and send me your food/plush to me at annathered(at)gmail.com !

UPDATE: 2/14/2012

Here’s a little update.

I did send the person (henceforth referred to as “them”) a mail via Etsy yesterday. But I decided to email them just in case they don’t check their Etsy account often. As I was typing their email address I saw on the Deviant Art page, it auto-completed.

“Hm?” I thought.

I searched through my old emails and lo and behold. They had previously emailed me asking about some basic stuff about making plushes. And I had replied them with some advice.

This made me sick.

I was doing it out of kindness. I’ve helped many people with their plush projects via emails. And this is what I get.

And if they read my blog, it should be crystal clear that I am extremely against selling a plush of copyrighted character, no matter how much people beg.

I have no idea what they think of this post since they haven’t gotten back to me yet.

I often hear fan art sellers say “But there are people who really want this thing. And the copyright holder will never make it. So why can’t I make it? And while I’m at it, why not get compensated for it? I did do the work for it.”

If someone thinks that way, they can never understand how I feel no matter how much I try to explain.

By the way, to make things clear I’m not against fan art. I’m all for fan art! Just think of/like the original creators when you make it.

UPDATE: 2/14/2012

Well, not really an update. But while we we’re on the subject, I’d like to introduce you to one of my favorite websites which points out people ripping off other people’s work. (too bad that it hasn’t updated in a while.)

you thought we wouldn’t notice

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.

Pre-PAX at home

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

I tweeted this photo from PAX Prime 2011.

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.

Bento #79: Costume Quest

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.

Much better than a single layer felt hair

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.

You can see the inner side of the hair from this angle.

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.

The edges around the dark pieces were all hand sewn..

Unlike Link, Wren is right handed.

Trash can lid shield

I'm very proud of this medieval lion logo!

Wren in a knight costume

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.

You can kind of see the lighter blue liner inside.

So many visible sewing lines... :/

Chest plate

And you can't forget the wings on a robot.

Did you know that it's not easy to make hands with the palm side down on a plush doll?

The base of the antenna could be better, but it works.

Reynold in a robot costume

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.

Back - Oh noes the sewing lines!!

Front - Could be boxier?

French fries could be crispier.

French fries

Wren in a French fries costume

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.

The dress was made with stretchy cotton.

I stitched the side and the top to create the "gathered" look.

Crown

Crown

Wren in The Statue of Liberty costume

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.

Oh snap!

Snap in use

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!

The edge around the white tips were all hand sewn.

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.

Wren and Reynold

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!

I already tweeted/Google +’ed/Facebooked but I thought I’d give a proper greeting on my blog, so…

Happy New Year!!

I came back to NYC from San Diego early on December 21st, for ONE LAST TIME. During this trip, I have to pack EVERYTHING and leave for New York for real. After we spent our Christmas packing, we went up to Boston to see Derek’s sisters’ family.

His oldest sister has a 3 year old son and 5 month old daughter. And his older sister has 3 and 4 year old girls. They are all super ADORABLE. We couldn’t stay there for too long but they seemed to love our lego Christmas gifts. We got his older sister’s daughters “Creationary“ It’s like Pictionary with Legos. We had so much fun playing it that we’re getting it for ourselves when we move to SD. Seriously, the game isn’t just for kids, we were totally getting into it!

As we were leaving to catch a bus back to NYC, the 4 year old came running and gave us a drawing.

It's a Laputa robot!!

We watched some Laputa the night before and I had drawn a robot on some paper at her drawing table. And she was able to draw this from my drawing! We were so surprised how intricate her drawing was. We’re definitely going to frame this and display it in our new place.

Christine, my co-worker from the Behemoth, was staying at my place for her trip to NYC. We were busy packing so we couldn’t really take her out anywhere but we all went to our friends’ New Year’s Party on the 31st. And on the 1st we spend some peaceful time, packing.

Well, aside from packing, we’ve been also trying to eat out at our favorite places & new places in NYC before we leave. We aren’t stressed out about the move and we’re actually having a lot of fun. But we still can’t help being sad to think that it was our last Christmas, last New Year’s Eve and last New Year in NYC…

Okay, okay. I’m making it sound like we’ll never come back to NYC but we’re actually going to Boston in April to attend PAX East and I’m sure we’ll visit NYC afterwards, but it’s won’t be the same as as living here.

Anyway! 2011 was definitely an amazing year for me. I was given a dream job and a life-changing opportunity. I have no idea what will happen in San Diego in 2012, but I’m sure this year will be even more awesome than the last year.

I don’t know what my New Year’s resolution is though. I always fail to keep my New Year’s resolution and feel guilty about it, so I’m going to make it something like “doing a lot of stuff and have fun doing it.”

Yeah, that sounds good, right?

After I got my job at the Behemoth, I’ve been traveling back and forth between New York and San Diego. I have a fully functional kitchen at my temporary living space in San Diego but Derek (the person I cook cutesy food for) is in New York, and it just hasn’t been fun making character food for myself. :/

But! I came back to New York for the last time before our big move, and I finally had the time to make some cute food for the holidays!

Non-bento #44: Chocolate covered strawberry Totoro
Quick easy sweets turned out to be a time consuming nightmare… as usual. But I somehow managed to make some (with huge help from Derek) and here are some previews of the delicious victory.

Hopefully I can post more photos of the final food later.

Happy Holidays everyone!!