Restitched: Dev Diary | Stitching Stuffy (Old)

Stuffy was created as a true labor of love, and is the result of our team's desire to make something unique and adorable. After many brainstorming sessions and team chats, we've settled on the idea of a teddy bear protagonist. We felt this to be a natural choice, as teddy bears can also be dressed up in real life to resemble other people, creatures, and animals.

NOTE: This is the original Dev Dairy for creating Stuffy way back in 2020! We've since given them a full redesign, which you can read all about in the updated post here.

Pitching a 'Plushie'

The idea of using a teddy bear was pitched as part of a group effort. We used various real-life teddy bears as a point of reference in our conceptual stages. Before we firmly decided on a teddy bear or plushie, we had a few questions to answer first.

We asked ourselves important things, like:

• What makes a great user-generated content character?

• How can we make something that's cute by default, but still highly-customizable for players to make it their own?

• How can we make it gender-neutral?

• How can we take a generic concept (like a teddy bear), and turn it into a distinct new thing both in style and charm?

• How can we accomplish all of the above, but still have it well-proportioned for gameplay and animation?

After much deliberation, we turned to real life for inspiration. You can do all of those things with dolls and teddy bears, and that's exactly when the lightbulb went off for us! We loved the idea of a teddy bear, as they're not too often seen in video games (despite being a simple concept). So, we started the conceptualization stages immediately...

With concepts of the character being shared internally and based on real-life references and mood boards, we used them to discuss finer details of the character. Things like shape, color, expression, and so forth. Eventually, we had our very own concept art thanks to Ozy, Carter, and Ari.

Ari took the initiative for the first proper character design sheet, and was responsible for creating many different versions of the character, including different sizes and proportions - all while maintaining the teddy bear aesthetic. Three full sheets of concepts were made, each differing drastically. From them, we chose our favorites and advanced to the next stage of the character's development.

Teddy Bear Concept Sheets

From the initial concept to the 'final' reference, Ari was responsible for the style sheet that would be used by our 3D Artists. From the signature bear ears, the memorable chest patch and dark spots, and the adorable beady eyes, snout, and more, Stuffy was finally brought to a final vision that the team agreed on and liked.

It was important to us that Stuffy bear (no pun intended) some signature markings. This would make them more easily identifiable, break up their symmetry, and give us our own take on an otherwise generic character design.

One of our first-ever concepts for a teddy bear came from Carter ("funnystuf"), and you can see here how the color palette and shape further evolved in later concepts and revisions. 

Naming Stuffy

Ironically, the name "Stuffy" came to be thanks to Carter themself! While brainstorming name ideas for weeks, Carter's display name on Discord was "Carter 'Stuffy'", which was a nickname given to them because of the "Funnystuf" part of their online alias. We had suddenly noticed that part of Carter's nickname and had an epiphany. We all loved the name so much, and felt that it was very fitting for a teddy bear character! Before Stuffy, the brainstorming of names included names such as: Blu, Patches, Barry/Beary, Fluffy, Tuffy, Stuffles, etc.

Facial Rig and Emotes

With the general concept of Stuffy finalized, we were ready for 3D modeling to begin... However, we discussed how the mouth would work since we weren't sure exactly how the depth of the snout would look or move while still keeping to our UGC wishes. After all, we prefer the character to be generic enough for players to style into vastly different things.

Ozy started drawing up concepts of how the rig/shape keys could work. This sketch showed a quick idea of facial emotion by raising eyebrows, mouth corners, and so forth. The concept was ultimately just to see if it was possible, and it seemed doable, so we marched on!

3D Modeling Stuffy

Shortly after our finalized concept sheets, we began to model Stuffy from the references. The concept was split into front and side views and was placed in the 3D environment so we could match it closely to our drawings.

The photos above show the evolution of Stuffy's model in its early sculpting stages. You'll notice vastly different characteristics, such as the leg spread, head shape, eyes size, and ear shapes.

Stuffy formerly had a small indention in his upper lip so that it resembled an animal snout more accurately. We decided this wouldn't be very practical to keep, since it could interfere with player's outfits and might look a bit odd when Stuffy's mouth is closed.

There were many times throughout Stuffy's creation where the modeling program would crash or saves would be lost, so some things were made and remade many times.

The thumb on Stuffy's mitten-like hand was the cause of much discussion! The thumb needed to look natural and still be posable and able to grip things, and many times the revisions looked awkward in some way, but eventually, we ended up with a result like the one on the left side of the above image.

"got any games on ur phone?"

Texturing Stuffy

To really bring our beloved Stuffy to life, they must be textured! We applied a chunky knitted fabric texture, and a cream/beige-colored secondary texture for Stuffy's accent pieces, like the torso patch, snout, and ear interior. Finally, a darker shade of brown and a separate texture type was made and applied for Stuffy's face patches.

As you can see in the above image, the left image was Stuffy with only a base texture applied. The middle image was a bit more complete, and the third image shows Stuffy's paws on both the hand palms and feet soles. The orientation of the texture on the arms and legs weren't quite the correct rotation, but this was later addressed.

Here is a closer look at the stitching and seam split on Stuffy's side and under the arms.

The next revision of Stuffy's texture includes the addition of a line between the mouth and nose, a shiny nose itself, and rubbery dark patches over the face. The small circle patches above the nose were added to match the concept art, but didn't look right in practice, so we removed them.

Stuffy's next texture version changes the hue of the beige accent colors, and the pattern/texture on the face patch was changed to be more cotton-like. A stitched rim was also added around it.

Here is a properly-lit render of the textures and model in action. This version of Stuffy is nearly complete, but some small adjustments were still needed! Here you can see where Stuffy's main brown texture was lightened and saturated a bit more from the previous versions.

The lighting was updated in this render, but the most noticeable differences are the removal of Stuffy's small face circle patches above the nose, and the texture of the large face patch was updated.

Rendering Stuffy

With Stuffy modeled and the base texture complete, we now have an adorable, unique and signature character for Restitched! The image above was made as a comparison between fur types and lighting conditions when rendering. 

The left side shows shiny ears, a matte nose, and rough fur with dimmer lighting. The right side shows a glossy nose, matte and fuzzy ears, and updated lighting conditions and shallower, softer, more realistic teddy bear fur. 

The differences here are minuscule, but this render test mostly helped us realize and decide that Stuffy should have a matte nose and not a shiny one. The shiny nose seemed to clash with the shiny, beady eyes and didn't evoke the same nice feeling when looking at Stuffy as much as the matte nose did.

... and for the final result, Stuffy was rigged, posed and rendered!

The rig was later expanded upon and remade by AlpineShowTime, and Stuffy is now more flexible than ever, allowing us to create very dynamic and expressive emotes and gameplay animations... but that's a topic we will cover at a later date! 

Creator Questions:

We thought it would be fun to ask the main concept artist for Stuffy (AriBloodymoon) a few questions regarding the character, their work, and Restitched...

Q) What was your inspiration when designing Stuffy?

A) My main inspiration for Stuffy was the build-a-bear store that a theme park near me used to have. I've always wanted one, but sadly, I was never allowed! I think that you can also see in them a bit of every plushie I've had since I was a kid, my plushies were very important to me.

Q) What was the biggest challenge while creating Stuffy?

A) My biggest challenge when creating Stuffy was giving them a unique look. Many people have owned teddy bears when they were kids, we all know what they look like. Still, there aren't many of them in video games. So making them stand out was very important, but people had to recognize them as a worn-out yet soft toy as well.

Q) What would be your dream outfit for Stuffy?

A) I'd love to create a collection of musical theatre outfits for Stuffy! I also like neon and rollerskates, so a sci-fi rollerskater would be amazing as well.

Q) What type of personality would you see Stuffy having?

A) I see Stuffy as someone brave and compassionate. They are the hero of our story, and they have a huge heart. Still, they must have some defects (perfect characters are no fun!). Maybe they lack a bit of confidence, or are insecure!

Q) What is your favorite thing about Stuffy?

A) I just love Stuffy's outfits! I like that they can be anything, Stuffy is highly customizable, so all players can be comfortable when playing as them. They can make Stuffy look like themselves, or create an avatar! Stuffy is all of us, and that is beautiful.

Q) What do you hope to see Stuffy become in the future?

A) I wanna see the players love our character as much as we do. We have created Stuffy, but it will be the players who will give it life. We can't wait to see what they do with them, and the adventures they'll live together. And who knows, maybe we get to work on a second part! Or extra levels! More characters, more worlds, it all sounds so promising!

We hope you enjoyed this sneak peek into the original development of Restitched's main character, "Stuffy"! The creation of this character was very much a team effort from conception to completion.

Our goal was to make a character that was very signature and iconic in its own original form but could still be highly-customizable by players. Stuffy's wardrobe is diverse and full of different parts for mix-and-matching fun, and it's so important that players can give their very own Stuffy a makeover of their choosing!

UPDATE: August 31, 2021

We have, since this post, completely redesigned Stuffy! Check out all of these new changes in our updated Dev Diary 'Restitching Stuffy'.