Christmas time was upon us all again, and again, I was struggling with gift ideas, including what to get for my Boyfriend.
He's an illustrator and Graphic Novelest, you can check his work on his Tumblr or Behance (Do It, it's worth it). One of his ideas for a novel is based around mythical beasts, and he was rather taken by the Leshy creature of Slavic folk-law, and has drawn numerous sketches of it.
Will's illustration of the Leshy creature - I coloured it in to secretly get his confirmation of the correct colours.
The Concept of the creature being a 'cute' Funko Vinyl Pop! Bobble Head came up in conversation one time, so I quietly decided to keep that idea in my head, and started drawing-up, and developing concepts...
My Artboard in Illustrator at 16.6% with my chaotic 'concepting'
Version One & Version Two... Version Two mimicing the Bobble-Head's body proportions
After my blank Bobble-Head arrived I began tweaking it's anatomy by sanding-down the nose and ears, as well as re-shaping the 'clenched fists' into more claw-like hands.
Wrapping the figure in tinfoil, I made new ears, as well as a beard and fungus, and after baking them hard in an oven applied them onto the creature. As for the horns I was able to recycle a plastic reindeer toy... I then sprayed it all grey.
I used modeling paint for finer details and a sharpie for larger black areas such as the creature's skull-like mouth.
....I then returned to my Leshy vector and altered the illustration to how the painted creature finally looked...
The completed Vector Leshy
I Purchased a template of the box for correct dimensions, and began adding my designs to it... I Thought It would be good to use one of Will's actual Illustrations of the creature as the box's background artwork...
I printed a mini A4 version from my own home printed to get an idea of what the box would look like built-up
I had the box printed at work, Sterling Solutions (So Many thanks to all invloved)
I kept the vacuum-packaging from the blank Pop! figurine, and adjusted it to accommodate horns and pointy ears by
slicing-and-dicing with a scalpel, and once the creature was safely placed in, I glued the box together, and inserted the Leshy, ready for Christmas
(Sorry for the bad photography) All boxed and Ready for Christmas
This was a really fin mini-project to work on, and even better when Will said that he loved it (deffo worth all the time!), it was really fun to work in a new medium too.
If you want your own custom-made Pop! Vinyl figure... make one yourself, its good fun!
