stuffed stuff: Legrye, the water emperor

So this is what I’ve been working on the past couple of days. I think 99% of people who visit my blog are going “?” right now, but I’ll just go ahead and explain.

Legrye from online card game, “Alteil”
Created and stuffed: June 2009

As I mentioned in my blog before, I work for an online card game called Alteil. (My company imported the game from Japan to the U.S.) I work with the four other staff members, one of them is my friend Logress. I’ve known him since I started working at my company 8 years ago. I had no idea what to get for him for his birthday. I’d usually get him a joke gift, but after almost 8 years of giving him joke gifts, I decided that I’d make him something this year.

I make stuffed toys as a hobby. Before I started making bento, I used to make stuffed toys all the time, day and night. I made many different characters from Invader ZIM, and other characters from anime shows for my friends’ birthdays and around Christmas. I was going to make a character from a video game he liked, but it wasn’t very original. Then I thought maybe I could make a character from an Alteil card. I thought a stuffed toy would be perfect since Alteil is an online card game, and there isn’t that much merchandise available except prints and some T-shirts.

Almost all of the card art is very detailed and beautifully drawn, so making a plush toy seemed very difficult. Then my boyfriend, also an Alteil player, suggested “What about Legrye?” Legrye is a Water Emperor, which looks like a giant worm/snake/looking thing. When the card came out, it caused havoc in the game because it was unstoppable when used in combination with another card. It also caused a headache for Logress because users complained about the combo a lot. 😛

Illustration by YUJI KAIDA. This is the real Legrye. He is indeed a "water emperor."

It didn’t look too complicated, and I knew I had all the materials I needed, so I started making patterns first. First I was going to make the body with two pieces, simple and easy. But then I wanted to put fins and make him with his mouth open. So I had to change my plan from a 2-piece pattern body to 4-piece pattern body, slightly more complicated and more time consuming… Why does this always happen to me whenever I make something? T_T

I didn’t take pictures while making this, and it’s kind of boring to describe how I made it, so I’ll just post some pictures of Legrye.

*insert an imperial music here*

I like how his crown came out.

Legrye's fins. I had to pin these one by one before sewing it together...

His teeth just didn't stay inward...

The red crown and the black pattern were sewn at the top, then the black part was glued to the body. (I got lazy...)

Kinda cute, isn't he?

Even though I wasn’t 100% satisfied with the details, I was very proud that I was able to make this practically in 2 nights. I usually can’t finish my projects on time, so the fact that I finished, made me feel like I really accomplished something. How did my friend like it? He loved it. 😀 It was fun to watch him walking around in the office with a big snake-like stuffed toy in his hand. He even did a blog post on Alteil site here.

I’ve been meaning to do a stuffed toy blog since I’ve made so many. The problem is that I usually give them away, I only have few of them with me… But it’s never too late to start keeping a record of stuff I’ve made. 🙂 So hopefully, I can blog about my stuffed stuff once in a while.

For more pictures of my stuffed stuff, visit Stuffed stuff on my flickr page.