Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Dota 2 TI5 Merchandise: Microplush Series 3 & Techies "KaBoom!" Shirt!


I had the pleasure of designing the entire Series 3 of the Dota 2 Microplushies! Valve and WeLoveFine had asked me to do my own take on the plushie designs while still gelling with the style used in the previous series. (And you can bet I begged to do Timbersaw, but we're saving him for next time, hehe! ^_^)
My first concept, Juggernaut:

Invoker

Necrophos
 Lina

Brewmaster

Queen of Pain (Replaced with Staglift Courier) 

Jakiro

Razor

Storm Spirit


Sven

Dark Seer
Staglift
This new courier was originally concepted by Valve and
is meant to be the rare mystery plush which
you can also get in-game! I didn't know its name
at first so I just referred to it as "Steam Donkey" lol! 

I did concepts, designed turnarounds, and gave general art direction on materials and volumes, working with feedback from Valve and WLF. My designs were then passed to Alix "Arixystix," who did a lovely job translating my turnarounds into a plushie prototype, and those were later sent to a factory to be finalized. It's super neat to see my designs taken through each process, from sketch to a tangible, final plush! I particularly think they did a nice job translating Storm Spirit, Sven and Juggernaut, and even found that some of the simpler designs turned out great, like Necrophos and Dark Seer!

So if you're attending The Dota 2 International (TI5) this year (or have seen the catalog that was just posted yesterday), be sure to snag one of these Puppeys (oh ho-ho!) or at least check it out!



I also designed the actual Box Art which was pretty fun!

Also, I was really happy to see that my Techies "KaBoom!" shirt design made it in and is available for Pre-Order and pickup at TI5! Sign in on July 16th to put in your order, or if you can't make it to TI5, it will also be available on the WLF Dota 2 store after the event!

 


Personally I'm super excited to pick up those adorable DemiHeroes Series 2 figures (dat Bounty Hunter and Venomancer... *SQUEE!!*), the Hero Pins, Alchemist Plush Hat (omg, brilliant!!), and a handful of apparel made by other talented Workshop Artists (WudgieFudgie and Botjira to name a couple, but the list goes on!)

...and then of course, THIS!  XD

Check out the catalog for more info!