Dreggons Design and Illustration

In 2018, I was commissioned to assist in a revamp of Planet Plush‘s Dreggons line of soft toy dragons. Up to that point they had some concept documents and a few spot illustrations in different styles from different artists. My task was to go over what was there and bring it together into a cohesive style suitable for soft toys, and create turnarounds for the pattern makers to work with, as well as new spot illustrations to spice up the marketing for a crowdfunding campaign. As someone who loves drawing critters and has some experience in patterning plush toys, this was right up my alley!

My first step was to wade into the info I’d been given and start figuring out the characters. We ultimately narrowed it down to four Dreggons characters, each with a different look and feel to appeal to potential buyers. Some changed from their initial concept art more than others! I focused especially on simplifying shapes into recognisable and easily plush-able forms. Rounded shapes are much easier to accomplish in soft toys so a lot of detail was cut down or adjusted to be appliqued or embroidered. A line-up of toy characters should also have a nice variety of silhouettes and colours, with clear personalities!

Pibble-turn

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After some back and forth, we had these basic character turnarounds for the pattern designers to work with. A few more things changed from this point – most noticeably the colours of the forest dragon – but overall the characters were done. Planet Plush took my art and made final tweaks and added production notes for the manufacturer. I got stuck into illustrations that would show off the Dreggons’ personalities.

pibble-illo

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These spot illustrations were used on the Dreggons Kickstarter, as well as various bits of web marketing and the toys’ physical hang tags. They turned out super colourful and full of character, in my very humble opinion! I can’t help but feel I would have enjoyed these characters a lot when I was a child.

I claim zero credit for the additional work that went into patterning and producing the Dreggons beyond this point, but I’d be remiss in not including images of the finished soft toys: