The Ollie character and the vinyl figure were designed by me and produced by the Iconfactory through StrangeKiss Toys. Head on over to the Iconfactory store and to order one!

Walking around the forest, woods or anyplace less traveled while in a constant state of amazement, Bill loves just looking at the ground and counting bugs or climbing trees for better views. People love to stop and take his photo (although sometimes he’s a little shy about it), but Bill prefers the quiet life of discovery and exploration.

Below are some pictures to whet your appetite and don’t miss the bonus wallpapers for your computer and iPhone as well!

He’s usually normal unless one of his multiple personalities takes over…

Bill by Kozik:

Bill by MAD!:

Now, the last couple of winters have been getting more harsh on Bill, and he’s had to scavenge some clothes from local farmers. But come the spring time, Bill has himself a nice backpack to keep his clothes in so he keeps cool and his clothes stay clean.

 

Above you can see the pre-production drawing of the turnaround for Bill. It was pretty challenging to design everything in my head so the clothes would actually go on and off with ease and also fit correctly in the backpack. We’ll see if I’ve gotten it right soon enough.

We’ve also just gotten in the second round of the main sculpt for the toy. The first round had some minor things that needed to be adjusted; the arm positions were a tad high and the fur on his upper chest was slightly blocking the rotation of the arms. But now that’s all cleaned up and we’re pretty much at the final sculpt which you can see here:

 

The next step will be the wax molding and some clothing samples. From my side, I’ll be working on the packing design and promotional graphics. Personally, I can’t wait to see it all come together!

The wax model will be used to produce the production molds that the vinyl will be injected into.  So we’re getting very close to having a final product!

 

I’d also like to announce that in addition to the normal and loving Zog we all know, designer Frank Kozik will be creating a limited edition colorway of Zog’s slightly more evil twin. Everything is about balance and you can’t have something sweet without a little sour:

 

And lastly, just a reminder that I’ll be at the San Diego Comic Convention this year in StrangeKiss’ booth #4637 so here’s your official invite to stop by and say hi!

Now I can definitely say that I haven’t been this excited since Christmas morning when I was little. I could barely sit down for a few hours after I saw how the sculpting was coming along! They hit it spot on and I doubt there will be too many tweaks needed at all, although it’s still a bit weird to see something you’ve made cross from 2d to 3d.

Here are some pictures of the wax sculpture so far, I hope you like them as much as I do!

 

 

 

Thanks to the insanely huge help of Strangekiss, Zog has started his journey to become more than just a drawing. In not too long, you’ll be able to hold his rotocast vinyl body in your hands and chase your own marshmallows around the floor. So, to celebrate this great news, I’ve put together a sneak peek of concepts and production art to share.

To first prep Zog for his new voyage, he needed a few things, most importantly was a backside. Not being a sculpter myself, this is an good thing to have so that the professional sculptors can do their job. So I started a turnaround sheet where all sides, sizes, colors and options can be accounted for. I mostly envisioned Zog as being a like a large water balloon, very weighted on the bottom so he can keep his balance while traipsing through a vast swampy wilderness. This was quite a fun step in the process and you can see the results below (click the image for a closer look).

As you can see from the picture, he’ll stand about 7 inches tall and be a bit wider than that. With that planned out, I could move on to doing some packaging design. It’s still fairly preliminary, but probably developed enough to give you an idea of how it’ll look. The little white rounded rectangle will be a window so Zog can see out and doesn’t get too claustrophobic during traveling.

And lastly here’s a zoom in on the official Zog logo! Shockingly, it looks just like him: purple with a mini eco-sytem on his back and a little scruffy.

I hope that you like what you see so far, and I’ll be sure to keep updates with the progress as it moves along! A big thanks to all my visitors, I’ve really had a blast making things to decorate your surroundings with and hopefully this will be another way to make your home or office all the more fun.