Well, here they are: Zelda, Link, Maggie, and the little known Fishman. We were so excited when our friends at Jolby asked us to participate in the Tri-force tribute show. But which characters to choose? There are so many awesome possibilities, especially when this game spans so much time, and has countless of interesting creatures. Not to mention that the array of talented people contributing to this show, was in truth a bit intimidating! Thank goodness for the Zelda Wiki site.

After educating ourselves on some of the many, and varied options, we chose two lesser known characters (Maggie and Fishman), and the two main characters, Link and Zelda. We loved Maggie’s story, although she suffers a tad from stockholm syndrome. She tends to have a more pessimistic personality, and we wanted to portray her as such. The unusual Fishman, plays a small part as a mini-game character in Wind Waker. He is kind of a weird guy, and we hope we stayed true to that in our version of him! And last, but certainly not least are the infamous Link and Zelda. There are so many renditions of these two. They have been portrayed in the sweet, “anime” style as ToonLink and ToonZelda, as well as the very sophisticated warrior version which is very cool. But when we envision Link and Zelda we lean toward the “toon” version, so that seemed like a natural choice for us.

This was a great project to be a part of, and we were thrilled to be included among a group of artists we admire so much. You can check out everyone’s work on Buy Olympia. The prints are available now, and the one off pieces will be available soon. Our work will be a part of
the latter.

We’ve been invited to take part in the TriForce Tribute gallery show in Portland during March. In case you’ve been lost for the last 20 years, the TriForce show will focus on everything Zelda, the amazingly fantastic video game that has rawked our lives for decades. The show is being put on by our wonderful friends at Jolby and Always With Honor, and promises to be an amazing event.

We’ll be doing four plush pieces for the show (two main characters and two sub-characters), but we’re keeping the specifics under wraps for now. We’ll be trying out some new techniques and some new detail effects on these, though, so they should be uber-awesome.

Here are a few specifics for the show:

The Triforce Tribute is an epic multi-medium show celebrating all things Zelda. Curated by Jolby & Always With Honor. The show will run March 9th to April 21st 2012 at Land Gallery in Portland, OR.

The Spaces Gallery in Cleveland, Ohio recently asked us to participate in their Get Stuffed! gallery show in December. We gladly accepted and have been working frantically to pull our pieces together in the two short weeks we had to prep for this show.

Normally, we like a bit more time to contemplate our work when preparing for a show, but this was an opportunity to flex our muscles a bit to see if we could “rise to the occasion” as they say. I’m glad to say that our pieces went out last Friday, and while it was a challenge, the work that was produced for this show is unique and definitely carries our mark.

The Get Stuffed! show runs from November 19, 2010 – January 21, 2010 at the Spaces Gallery in Cleveland, Ohio.

Whew! Summer has come and gone, fall is upon us and we find ourselves packing up our playclothes and settling down to our studies once again. Plush You! Seattle opens next Friday and we are so pleased to have some of our work on display at this fabulous venue. Since we live in and LOVE  the Pacific Northwest, we decided to do a piece that expressed how we feel about it, thus the Tree Hugger.

Made from a vast mix of reclaimed fabrics; corduroy, wool, assorted felt, and linen, this piece was great fun to create. And since we have played hooky over the summer, it’s been a great piece to get us going again! Now, we are dreaming of new pieces, better pieces, BIGGER pieces! Yes! Yes!

A little excited to get back to work, and hope you all will like what we will be sharing with you over the next few months, enjoy the day, enjoy the evening, and get some good sleep.

Until we meet again…

Mark your calendars! February 25-March 20 at Together Gallery. A fabulous tale of folk, myth and tales of the sea to be viewed, loved and wanted all for your enjoyment! Join us for a salty good time, and leave with a little more hair on your chest-tattoos free of charge! Keep your eyes open for our four foot anchor, complete with a two headed serpent. Here is the official press release, with more information on Jolby’s website.

Hello, hello! These are some of the pieces we recently finished for the wonder-duo, Jolby! The dolls are based on the lovely illustrations of Colby Nichols and Josh Kenyon. We are so stoked to have been a  part of this awesome collaboration, Home is Where You Make It, taking place at Subtext Gallery in San Diego, CA. The show is running for the next month, so if you find yourself in sunny San Diego, drop on in and make yourself at home.

Here are some of the fabulous prints you can see at the show. On the left is Danny, the grandfather, and William on the right, grandson. There is a wonderful story behind this show, very sweet.

The final journey for Danny, as wonderfully illustrated here. Being a part of this show has been a wonderful experience. Working with Josh and Colby has been great fun, they are a great team, and fabulous artists! We hope to have more opportunities to work with them in the future, and wish them the very best on their first solo show.

Dolls for Friends was recently approached by the wonderful art/design duo, Jolby, to contribute some custom plush pieces to their upcoming gallery show, Home Is Where You Make It. The February show will be held at Subtext Gallery in San Diego during the month of February and early March 2009.

Jolby asked us if we would be interested in creating some plush versions of the characters in the show to help bring another layer of depth and texture to the event. Once we read over the backstory/premise for the show we couldn’t refuse. We were hooked:

“Jolby’s work takes us on the journey of a boy named William who, after suffering a great loss, leaves his familiar town of Seaside to discover what “home” really means inside the depths of an aging forest. Throughout this story we are introduced to a detailed world filled with odd characters, illustrious patterns, vibrant colors, and hand-rendered type.”

Who could resist being a part of that? Coupled with the fact that Colby and Josh are two very talented (just take some time to check out their work at Tangible Worldwide) and cool guys (not to mention that they get what we do) PLUS the fact that we live for the collaboration made it a must.

So there it is. We will be part of the upcoming Home is Where You Make It show in February. We will be doing updates and sneak peeks of the pieces as we progress through this wonderful project.