Cleaning the Gears
I’ve long been a fan of video games. Some of my earliest, most prized memories involve sitting huddled around a glowing screen with friends in the wee hours of the morning having been on a 15 hour Atari or Intellivision marathon. As I’ve grown older that love of pixel based adventure has, thankfully, remained firmly intact, as has my personal goal of working with or in the video game industry at some point in my career.
I came one step closer to that goal this last week via our new offshoot plush project, Dolls for Friends. We noticed that someone from Gearbox Software (makers of such wonderful games as Tony Hawk Pro Skater, Halo, Brothers in Arms, etc.) in Texas had ordered one of our pieces through our Etsy store. We decided to contact them and extend an offer to do a custom piece for their studios as a way of saying thank you for all the wonderful work they have contributed to the video game industry and the modern design world. They, thankfully, decided to take us up on our offer.
After receiving their logo via e-mail we set to work on designing and creating their new mascot. It took Jill and I about a week (on and off) to concept, design and produce the entire piece. The end result (named Ketsuo) was a felty monster that stood about two and a half feet tall and was free-standing on four legs. We placed their logo in the middle of the chest and, as an extra feature, we even fashioned him an X-Box 360 controller to take down South with him.
He has now arrived at his home with great accolades coming back from our new friends in Texas. We hope that this will be the beginning of a history of friendship (and hopefully collaboration) with the wonderful studio, but at the very least, we were able to create a wonderful, custom piece for one of the greats in the gaming industry. And in the end, that’s what we’re really all about.
A big thank you to Gearbox for their support and willingness to be approached by a small group of ambitious designers and fans.