Tag Archives: toy shelf

How to make Pacman and Ghost plush toys

03 Friday May 2013

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Why a Pacman plush?

When rolis1108 suggested I make a Pacman and Pacman Ghost, my brain immediately went to work to figure out how it could be done. They’re really not much different than the Bob-omb I had designed. If anything, it would be simpler, since there was less pieces.

So Retro

I’m a sucker for pretty much anything video game related that’s “retro”. Not that I love old games for the sake of them being old, but I do love games that remind me of simpler times. They’ve got a distinct touch of nostalgia that really appeals to my inner child. This type of craft really lets that nostalgia really run rampant in my system.

Another Project

I let the pacman idea sit in the back of my brain while I worked on another (equally nostalgic feeling) project. However, the other project started taking a lot longer than I had anticipated. Lots and lots of work coupled with an extra dose of Canadian winter has kept it running for well over a month, with the end much farther in sight. So I decided to put that on pause, and let some of the other ideas that have been piling up on my todo list get some traction.

The first of which is (obviously) the Pacman plushies. They’re both pretty straight forward as far as sewing projects go. Really they’re both a couple of stuffed balls with some eyes. Of course, just because the idea’s simple, doesn’t always mean that I’ll get it right the first time. The first pacman I made looked like it had had a stroke, and the first ghost I made ended up looking more like a bullet than a ghost. But I found, and I think you’ll also find that the modifications I’ve made to both will get you a super cute set of your own plushies.

The Pattern

Pacman Ghost Plush PatternPacman Plush Pattern

I wanted to make sure that I had a complete set of ghosts to go with the pacman too. That meant building a Blinky, Pinky, Inky and a Clyde. What I hadn’t counted on was them taking about 3 hours each, start to finish. So the ghosts you see represent about 12 hours worth of cutting and sewing together. But personally I think they’re totally worth the effort. They look super cute, even pinky, who ended up with one backwards eye, giving it some pretty derpy looking crossed eyes.

Raw Footage

If you’d like to see the raw footage sped up to run in 5 minutes, check out these videos

And as always. Thanks for watching!

Crafty Donut

01 Friday Mar 2013

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Better the devil you know than the devil you.. donut. Oh I’m so punny.

Friend of mine (Ziemek) showed me a link to the picture on reddit, and I thought it was pretty cool looking. However about half way through the build, I wasn’t sure I was even going to be able to make it.

But I tend to keep pushing until I figure out how to do something, and will only give up once I’m satisfied that it’s outside my abilities. In this case, perseverance paid off, and I now have a cool paper donut on my toy shelf.

If you’d like to make your own, you can find the pattern here

This is one of the early videos that uses the “format” I typically go with now. Has an intro where I talk, although I’ve cut that WAY down, since it’s a pretty big view killer. I run through the “how to” part, with audio. I did some text in this video, but I typically would do this as a voiceover now. And the end is more talking followed by a “bonus” part at the very very end. This one is a joke about a dog with no legs. I don’t know if it’s the joke, the accent or the viking hat, but it makes me chuckle.

I’m also pretty sure that this is the first video where I added a subscribe button to my end screen.

Trying to get “$25 dollar McDonald challenge” was a HUGE pain to actually say. Must have done like 10 takes to get one I wasn’t entirely disappointed in.

New on the shelf this episode:

– Fido Dido
– Gonzo McDonalds toy
– Some GiJoe figures

How to make Sting from The Hobbit

18 Monday Feb 2013

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When I was just a wee lad in day care, the people who ran the place read used to read to us. And one of the things they read, and the only one that I really remember was the Hobbit.

I remember this because one of the people who was there would also spend part of the day sketching out a character from the book and then giving it to one of the kids to take home. The characters seemed to come alive on the page. Gollum, and Gandalf and Bilbo Bagginses precious.

So when it was suggested by zachbrewer19 that I make Sting from the Hobbit, I started to come up with a plan to build my very own piece of the story.

I have seen a couple other swords made out of foam board and tape, so I decided to try my hand at designing a pattern that was simple enough to put together, and would still look pretty cool once it was done.

Originally it was my intent to use the stickers to do the curly pattern while spray painting, however that failed pretty miserably. The paint just went under the sticker and made a mess. Which is why in the pattern now you’ll just see the curly bits. Also, the handle turned out pretty rough, which is why I’ve got a decal for there as well. And of course, they didn’t stick as well (read: at all), so I ended up using crazy glue to permanently attach them.

The glow of course is special effects. Not that it would ever actually glow, since you know, there’s no such things as orcs.

All in all I was pretty pleased with how it turned out, and since I already had the spray paint, this was a pretty cheap project to make.

If you’d like to see the raw footage sped up to a total of 5 minutes, check out the video below:

Daffy Mogwai and Gandalf the grey

05 Monday Nov 2012

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Gandalf the Grey
POP Movies Vinyl The Hobbit: GandalfDaffy MogwaiNeca Gremlins Mogwais Series 2 Daffy

I’ve acquired a few new toys for the ever expanding toy shelf this week. One I’ve been waiting a while for it to come out, and the other was a complete surprise when I saw it in the store.

I knew there was going to be some new figures from gremlins 2 coming out, so I grabbed a daffy figure when I saw it. Unfortunately it lost a hand during packaging, and I didn’t realize until after I opened it, so Daffy’s going to be a bit of a defect from the start. Which if you’ve seen the movie, isn’t far from the mark anyways.

I was going to get a mohawk Mogwai, but once I saw how it looked in person, I wasn’t overly impressed. The mohawk was pretty straggly looking, and it really took away from the overall look of it.

The one that surprised me was the Gandalf figure. Normally the pop toys look pretty lame, but not so with the Gandalf. It looks so neat. I’m really looking forward to seeing the Hobbit when it comes out, although I have no idea how they’re going to split it into 3 parts. I’ve also heard that they added some female characters that weren’t in the book to give it a better gender ratio.. so we’ll see how that goes. I really enjoyed the Lord of the Rings trilogy, so I’ll give Peter Jackson the benefit of the doubt with the Hobbit. I do find it strange that each of the LotR books had it’s own movie, and the Hobbit is going to get 3 by itself, since the Hobbit’s only a fraction of the size of the other books. Not that I’m complaining though, more middle earth for me 😀

Bacon Bacon Bacon

02 Sunday Sep 2012

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We got our first suggestion! After 12 videos, we finally had enough of a following to get someone to engage with us! Not only 1, but 2 actual suggestions! I’ve had many more since then (mostly involving stuff to make), but the validation involved with getting a complete stranger interested enough to want to see more was pretty darn cool.

Because I like bacon and because I like reddit, I decided to make a bacon narwhal. All in all, I think it turned out pretty ok. Not the best thing I’ve ever made, but it turned out pretty tasty.

At the beginning of the video it says “That’s PS Drinking Game! Take a drink every time I say Bacon”. I count 21 bacons. If you took a drink every time I said bacon, you should be drunk by now.

There’s 2 pretty obvious homages to some YouTubers in this video. The entire video is shot ala Hanna Heart from My Drunk Kitchen (not to mention the beer being drunk during the cooking) and at the very end, I use FPS Russia’s tagline “Have nice day”.

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Cylon Raider Papercraft – Battlestar Galactica

13 Wednesday Jun 2012

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BSG Raider PartsBSG Raider Instructions

When looking for a Battlestar Galactica themed craft, I originally thought about making my own version in a style similar to the way I made the crafty donut in a previous episode. But after a little searching around, it turns out that someone named NinjaToes had already designed and made available a pattern. I thought this would save me a bunch of time. “It’s already practically done!” I thought to myself. I couldn’t have been further from the truth.

My first attempt at putting this all together ended in complete tragedy. I used white glue, which got all over my fingers, and then I touched the paper, which made a mess of that. And it took a crazy amount of time for the glue to dry. I managed to put together the cockpit before I gave up on that nonsense and cracked out the big guns: AKA gel based crazy glue. Much better choice. Of course I still managed to get crazy glue on my fingers too, but not nearly as bad as the white glue.

Before I started the second attempt though, I decided that rather than cut out what I needed as I needed it, I would instead cut out all of the pieces so that all I had to do was “just” put them together. By the time I had finished cutting all 72 pieces out, including a seemingly endless number of triangle bits, a mere 5 hours had passed and my index finger was pretty badly dented and definitely bruised. It took over a week to stop hurting every time I touched something with the tip of my finger. I’m not trying to complain, just fair warning in case you decide to use an x-acto knife for an extended period of time. Continue reading »

Norman Rockwell Coke Puzzle

10 Thursday May 2012

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I was out of ideas when I did this video, so I spent some time looking around my place for something I could film. As it turned out, I hadn’t done a puzzle in a REALLY long time, and happened to have a 500 piece one I like in my closet. I decided to give it a whirl.

It only took me about 3 hours to complete the whole thing, which means I got approximately 1 piece in place every 20 seconds or so. It felt pretty quick (although my butt would disagree as it was quite sore from sitting on hardwood for that long) Videos that I’ve done since then where I had to sit on the ground have included my bean bag chair for comfort.

When putting a puzzle together (and I’ve done more than a few in my time), I almost always start with the outside pieces first. I find them fairly easy to locate in the box, and it gives me a pretty good idea where everything is going to go. The best part of this step is getting a hold of the corner pieces. There are so few of them, it feels like finding a treasure each time.

Once I’ve got the outside complete, or nearly complete, I sort by colour. Typically different areas have common colours. And while I’m doing that, I separate any easily distinguishable pieces, like faces, hands or words. This is only possible on smaller puzzles. Once you pass the 1000 piece mark, you just have to take some colours at a time, and work with what you’ve got instead of pulling them all out of the box.

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