Plush Writeup - Taro nuiMO - Plush by makeshiftwings

Plush Writeup - Taro nuiMO

9/9/2022

I was in the planning process of making a Metro nuiMO inspired plush for Aubryjoi when I was looking through the nuiMO clothing shop and found this adorable set of pride overalls. Since it didn't really fit Metro's style, I decided to surprise them and make a nuiMO of Taro as well! Taro is relatively straightforward in design, and it would help me iron out any kinks in my skinny nuiMO pattern that I was developing for Metro before offering it on commission.

This was the 2nd time I made Taro, the first being with my floppy ragdoll style plush!

Taro had a shiny new reference sheet! I didn't mock up anything for this plush, but rather designed their face right in my photo editing program. Having designed Shifty and then Metro's face allowed me to get a feel for how it would turn out without having to make a prototype to draw on the face.

I decided to do sublimation for all details except the applique paw pads. I did not have a mochi color on hand that would match Taro's purple. Unlike Metro, I could do sublimation for the mouth even though Taro also has a visible fang. Since Taro's base fabric is white I could leave a gap in the purple color to suggest a fang and an outline was not necessary.

Once again it took a few hours of testing to get the right colors for Taro. I have difficulty producing really bright colors but I was pretty happy with the purple and yellow I was able to make. I was experimenting with different printer settings: one with automatic color correction, one with no color correction, and one with my new favorite printer settings for sublimation.These settings produce nice bright colors so this is my preference now!

Of course I can never get through a project without errors... Somehow, i managed to leave a black outline on the bottom of the tail in the sublimation design, which outlined the purple tip 🤦‍♀️so the tail needed to be reprinted.

Unlike Metro, since Taro's sublimation was done on white fabric, I could sublimate the mouth with a fang sticking out. It took a few trials to get a nice color for the nose and mouth. The fang also needed to be made much larger than it appears in art, since the dye is pressed into the fabric so long, the blank space that forms the fang became smaller from the purple sinking further into the fabric.

Another thing I was experimenting with was doing the face in 325F to get clearer lines, but the rest of the sublimation would be done in 375F to get the dye deep into the fibers. I was hoping that the color difference wouldn't be noticeable but the purple was not close enough to the rest of the plush to let it slide. While the clearer lines definitely look better, the color matching was more important to me.

Taro's head came together pretty well on the first try! Usually I always have to redo heads at least once, but they came out well on the first go. Once again I did a similar technique as Shifty's ears and cheek fluff: Instead of making the ears and cheek a separate piece, I make the entire head pattern (except the bangs) a single pattern piece that includes the ears and cheeks. The entire outer seam is sewn and then the head is flipped right side out. Then I top-stitch the area below the ears and the cheeks to section them off so no stuffing gets through. It simulates sewing these pieces into the head without having to worry about getting them even!

Their cheek fluff came out too big which I realized after I did this top-stitching, so I had to remove it and shorten it by taking the seams in.

I don't have any pictures of this, but, since Metro's legs came out too long I stupidly decided to shorten Taro's legs without testing them first. I smartly decided to not trim the seam allowance and boy am I glad I didn't, because they were too short. I'm not sure what caused this discrepancy in the legs, but Taro's did not need to be shortened.

I decided to remake the legs by reprinting the sublimation, but for some reason, I could not recreate the purple color. This was also my fault for pausing this project in the middle of it to make my summer dittos, since it was getting much later in the year than I realized! I thought at first I was printing on the wrong settings but no matter what I did, I could not recreate Taro's purple!! I tried different printer settings and temperatures but the same purple would just not come out.

It was also my fault, and a good lesson learned, for not writing down the exact settings I used to print and press these pattern pieces. I was able to make the legs work, however, by doing an extremely short seam allowance on the legs. The purple points of their legs came out too short, but, oh well. This was a gift and they would be covered up by the overalls.

Taro's arms, legs, and tail are posable with a skeleton made from plastic-coated electrical wire. Since the wire is too thick to wrap around itself and stay put on such a small scale, the wire is glued to the spine with hot glue. The plastic coating helps prevent the wire from sticking through the thin mochi.

Taro's hands also have magnets in them!

Taro's head is attached with a hardboard joint. Rather than use the cotter pins that come with it, I use a technique taught to me by planetplush. Using two of the hardboard disks, I thread a bolt through the disc that goes into the neck and glue it in place. This bolt sticks outside of a hole in the neck part of the plush. The head also has a hole where the neck meets. The bolt is put through this hole, and another hardboard disc is placed on top as well. This disc is fastened with a hex nut and a locknut.

Even though I consider this my "skinny" nuiMO pattern it still has cute chonk!

At this point I am not looking to make any nuiMO clothes because of how small they are - it's insane how detailed and clean they get these! As expected, Taro looked adorable in the overalls but the shoes were SO BIG!!! Luckily they are just fabric so I was able to take in the seams a bit to make them more reasonably sized.

I also bought them a 20cm K-pop/idol doll button-up shirt to see if it would fit them and... nope! Lol. Maybe a 15cm would be better, but I didn't buy one to try.