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 recently come off of one of the most exhilarating and intense projects we have worked on in our short careers. Two months ago we received a phone call from Jeffrey Zeldman, web designer, author and industry icon. He was being inducted (the first inductee) into the brand new Interactive Hall of Fame that is being established in Austin, TX.

A couple of years ago we’d done a rough plush doll of Jeffrey and sent it to him with our thanks for all of the wonderful work he’s done for the web design industry and for being a huge source of inspiration to us. Shameless self promotion? Perhaps, but we’ve made a commitment to ourselves that we should be thanking the people that have sparked the inspiration within us. Without them, we’d still be shopping at the mall and waiting for the new season at The Gap.

Jeffrey was looking for us to do a more tailored, short run of the doll we had initially designed of him-215 to be exact. They were to be given away as gifts at the Hall of Fame after party being held at South by Southwest (right about now is where you can hear our jaws drop to the floor).

Here was the opportunity to put handmade work into the hands of 215 web designers and industry gurus at one of the largest interactive design conferences in the world-South by Southwest. Are we interested? Hells, please! So, after hashing out the details and specifics we set into work on the very complicated and detailed project.

Flash forward to just over a month later, and we have jumped hurdles, traveled great distances to find fabric, gone through 67 yards of material, 30lbs. of stuffing and 5,000 meters of thread to produce the completely custom, limited edition run. We’ve learned A LOT (especially about estimating time and materials). There were many trials and errors throughout the life of this project, but here we are standing on the other side and stronger for it.

We had an amazing time working on this for Jeffrey and are, as always, so thankful for forward thinking individuals who put their faith and dollars into the handmade market to create something truly unique.

Below are just a few of the pictures we took documenting the process:

Mickey, what do you want to be when you grow up? “Fireman!” Mickey-Luv, is there anything else you might want to be? “FIREMAN!”. Mickey my dear, what is your most favorite thing in the whole wide world? “FIREMAN!” Not anything else…nothing? “NO, FIREMAN!”

There you have it, Mickey wants to be a doctor when he grows up, mom says so.

Unite! Unite!
Put up a fight!

We’re tired of the jokes
The punches, the slaps and the nasty eye pokes

We simply just want the freedom you see
To live and to thrive, nerdy and free

But until we reach our new level of life
We will fight, we will scream, we will rage against strife

So take your footballs, your beer and your racing machines
We’ll settle for fortran, c-sharp, comics and zines

Because we are rising from the ashes like that bird-I think it’s a stork
To proclaim a new age, yes the time of the dork!

While we are optimistic about this year, we have come to the realization that the lovable, children friendly Dolls for Friends that we have worked so hard to create is more than likely coming to an end. The CPSIA is knocking at our doors and we have decided not to answer. We have spent the last few months pondering our future in the plush arena, and while we have made the decision to carry on where so many others have not, we are faced with the sad realization that we are being governmentally (we can still use made up words) forced to grow up.

With the start of 2010 we have officially moved into a new arena. We will be expanding our focus to work more on illustration and film projects, while at the same time, taking our plush goodness and enhancing those skills and marketing to grown up kids. We will elaborate a bit more on this in the coming weeks, but suffice it to say, we are evolving. We will remain the Dolls for Friends that we have come to know and love, but we’ve officially applied for the installation of chest hair. Here’s to a wonderful and exciting decade.

Not to use too many (or two many) quotes, but… “I love it when a plan comes together!”

This being our first ever Dolls for Friends giveaway (and something that we have wanted to do for quite awhile), we were not quite sure how to proceed, what piece to make and how best to reach our peeps with this special little giftie. But, about 3o seconds after signing up for Twitter, I think we knew the vehicle. Twitter is an amazing tool (as I’ve shouted from my soapbox in other posts), and we are so happy to do a giveaway for the people who find us important enough to include in their daily lives. So without further adieu, here is our new (or perhaps your new) friend, Lucias.

Lucias is our newest friend, and let’s just say he has a way of “seeing” past the issues and into the heart of a matter. This “eye”deal quality has made him a valuable assett to dozens of fortune 500 companies over the past two decades. He is a whiz of wall street and has been called by Young Entrepreneur magazine, “…a cash machine”. Although, never confirmed, it has been said that Lucias is so good at his job that he is number two on Alan Greenspan’s speed dial (again, this has never been confirmed). What we do know about our new friend Lucias is that he is a wealth of information and is quite a bit of fun to play Monopoly with (because money is at the center of the game, I imagine). There really is nothing bad to report on little Lucias, with the exception that he goes through quite a bit of disposable contact lenses, which he kind of leaves all over the place. At any rate, he is sure to be the “apple of your eye.”

Now, here is a quick rundown on how to get your hands on this little loverly:

1. Be an existing follower, or follow us on Twitter by Friday (@dollsforfriends)
2. Tweet about the doll or express your interest in participating this coming friday (June 19).
3. Make sure your tweet uses the special hash mark (#dffgive1). This will let us know that you are participating.

On Friday at 3 p.m. (PST), we will randomly draw one winner from the list and announce and DM the winner to get addy information for shipping the piece out. This will become a regular event for us, so if you don’t win, don’t worry, there will be plenty more chances to get in on this sweet, sweet candy (thank you Mr. Zap Brannigan). Thank you again for letting our weird little lives entertain you.

Three new friends: Opal, Gladys and Elliott. You can see the photos and read their stories on our Flickr page, and you can check them out on our Etsy shop.

Our new little friend Pico came to us from just south of the border. He made his way North after he was downsized from the entourage of the feared, mythic creature- El Chupacabra.

It seems that with all of the stress and strain on the global economy of late, people are not spending quite as much time in leisure activities and pursuits. This decline means that it’s become fairly lean, income wise, for creatures like El Chupacabra, Bigfoot, The Strawman and UFOs as more and more people are focused on dollar retention. And sadly, less vacations translates to less sightings-translates to less income-translates to Pico being on the streets.

So, what is a 6″ out of work monster to do? Well apparently, Pico caught one of our TV ads at 2:00am advertising our placement services and decided to see if we could help. After hiring a coyote to get him across the border, riding several box-car trains and hitchhiking his way through the West Coast, he ended up on our door step looking fairly disheveled.

It has been a couple weeks now, and we are happy to say he has his wonderful orange glow back. He has started working on his memoirs, “Mi Chupacabra es su Chupacabra”, and is looking for a safe, quite environment to add the last chapters to his seminal work.

All we can say is “Mitch Rocks!” And you know what? Ms. Keane thinks so too!

(uh, if you like powerpuff girls, you’ll know what we mean!)

Huddled outside in the pouring rain we waited. And waited. And waited. Our contact was late, as usual and we were getting impatient, but leaving was not an option. The legendary gang of three had finally been released and we had taken on the role of safe keeping the villainous trio.

Meet Lucretia, mistress of evil, with an ear piercing scream that has been known to shatter even bullet proof glass. Then there’s middle man Mike, the lookout. He’s perfect since his large blue antennae provide the necessary distraction to those who may stand in his way. And last, but certainly not least is Stevie. Although he looks harmless, he is in fact the most dangerous of the three. The brains behind every operation, and cunning in his calculations-he’s not to be underestimated.

At last, our contact arrived, with our three new house guests in tow. We were not disappointed-they were every bit as monstrous as we had been led to believe. As the driver pulled away, we were faced with the unnerving reality that we were responsible for them now. What had we gotten ourselves into?

As we headed for home, I could see Stevie planning-plotting something in that rotten head of his. Mike began giggling and Lucretia nodded in agreement.

Agreement of what? I fear for our safety. That is why we are reaching out for help. We cannot in good conscience keep these three stinkers together. Separation is the only alternative! Are you strong willed? Can you be diligent in training and learn to sleep with one eye open? If you feel you may be up to the task, please contact us immediately-I think I hear one coming now!!

You can see them on our Etsy shop.