After the initial inspiration to create Wonder Crew, I set out to make the vision a reality. 3 artists and 108 drafts later, Will, our first Crewmate was born.
I wanted Will to embody a mix of adventure, kindness and fun – he had to be best friend material. So many decisions were made about lips and mouth expression (the aim was sweet and playful, yet versatile and NOT blank – a personal pet peeve when it comes to dolls), eye shape/color and hair was actually one of the biggest challenges, it’s not easy to construct hair knowing that it’ll be painted plastic! Everything was experimented with and tweaked countless times. And after showing the above 3-D image of Will to dozens of parents and kids – I knew it was time to make the prototype leap.
I contracted a toy design house to make the prototype, the first step was creating molds – a little strange looking..
Then came the body - soft and round like a teddy bear, but realistic enough to be a peer.
Next up – hair color decisions.
Eyes - had to be bright, sweet and curious.
Lips – total frustration!! Most dolls are heavy on the lipstick look - it was hard to get the design house to understand the natural color of lips.
finally:
These were just some of the highlights. The whole process from renders to prototypes took about 10 months.
Meet Will!