SVEN THE SLOTH

"In a fast-paced world, Sven prefers to take things slow. He dresses like he's ready to take on the hustle and bustle of a hard working life, but he knows where he truly wants to be...

...taking it easy on the sofa."

Sven the sloth is the latest addition to our Etsy shop. In this post, I thought it would be interesting to share a series of photos with you, which document the process of developing such a charming creature. As with any design, I produce a number of prototypes in order to achieve the final result. The amount of time that goes into this developmental stage can vary with each product, so I thought I would give you a little behind-the-scenes snippet of Sven's journey.

Every design begins on paper, so here it is. And yes, we originally called him Frank.

I draw up my patterns on Adobe Illustrator. This makes them 100% accurate and you can add that pesky seam allowance in a matter of seconds! I used to draft all my patterns by hand, but soon realised that it's much more convenient to create them digitally. You can easily alter your patterns, save copies and print them whenever you wish. Leave me a comment if you'd like a separate post on making patterns in Illustrator!

So here is sloth number 1. As you can see, I removed the stuffing before deciding to put this post together, so unfortunately some of the prototypes you will see are rather deflated!

Number 2. Again I destroyed him before taking a photo (making a mental note for next time, don't worry..) but basically this time we tried attaching his limbs separately, instead of having the one large pattern piece.

Number 3. We reverted back to the original pattern but made his limbs longer and altered the shape of his head.

Number 4. We made his tummy a little fatter and practised adding the details on his face and hands. We originally wanted him to wear a proper tie, but couldn't quite conquer it. In the end we used a bow tie so he sits nicely alongside our other products. Who knows, we may end up creating the perfect tie one day..

So there you have it. I really hope you found this post interesting. It's the first time I've shared my design process on the blog and I thoroughly enjoyed putting it together! Leave me your thoughts below and I may just share some more behind-the-scenes photos in future. Don't forget to favourite Sven on Etsy if you love him as much as me and the other half do!

Amy x