Restitched: Dev Diary | Stitching Stuffy (Patreon)

Stuffy is the result of a labor of love and a desire to make something unique and our own. After many brainstorming sessions, we settled on a teddy bear resemblance after exploring many characters and animal types.

The idea was pitched by the team collaboratively, and we used customizable teddy bears as a point of reference. What makes a great UGC character? How can we make something cute on its own by default, but also highly-customizable for people to make it their own? After many questions on the topic, 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 all. We loved the idea of a teddy bear character, and so we started the conceptualization stages immediately.

With concepts of the character being shared internally from real-life references and mood boards, we used that to discuss the character idea more. Eventually, we managed to create our own art for the character thanks to 3DreamE, Carter Funnystuf, and AriBloodymoon.

Aribloodymoon took the initiative for the final character design references and was responsible for creating many, many different types of the character, including different sizes and proportions while still maintaining the teddy bear aesthetic. Three full sheets of concepts were made, and each new reference page was very much evolved from the last. The concept sheets were brought to the team and, from those, we chose our favorite and advanced to the next stage of the character's development.

After the concept sheets, we decided on a final design (albeit with some small requested changes along the way). Once the final design was chosen, the concept artist made a final model reference sheet for the character. Afterward, the 3D character and environment artist, (and longtime Trixel Creative community member) Ethan Hanbury, started to develop Stuffy and bring the character idea into a 3D space. Stuffy went through many sculpts and revisions. At some points resembling a mouse, at other points resembling an animal. In the end, Stuffy was brought to life with no polygon untouched.

Let's take a stroll through some of the concepts...

Teddy Bear Concept Sheets:

From the initial concept to the final model reference, AriBloodmoon was responsible for bringing the idea of a teddy bear character to life visually. 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 loved.

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

Ironically, the name of Stuffy came to be because of Carter himself. After brainstorming name ideas for weeks, Carter's display name on Discord was "Carter 'Stuffy'...", which was a nickname given to them for 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:

We had the idea of Stuffy created and conceptualized to the near-fullest extent, and we were ready for modeling to start... However, we discussed how the mouth would work on a snout since we weren't' sure how exactly the depth of the snout would look or move while still keeping to our UGC wishes.

Developer 3DreamE started drawing concepts of how the rig or shape keys could show the facial emotion by raising eyebrows, mouth corners, etc. The concept was ultimately just to see if it was possible, and it seemed doable, so we continued on!

3D Modeling Stuffy:

Stuffy began to be modeled from the reference concept. The concept was split into front and side views and was placed in the 3D environment so Stuffy could be matched closely when being sculpted.

The photos above show the evolution of Stuffy's model in early sculpting stages. You'll notice vastly different characteristics, such as the leg spread, head shape, eyes size, and the more rounded, mouse-like ears, and then the more squared-off ears.

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 would interfere with player costumes and would 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.

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! Ethan Hanbury (the 3D modeler for Stuffy) 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 by Cellomonster (Trevir)!

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-off 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 development of Restitched's main character, "Stuffy"! The creation of Stuffy was very much a team effort from conception to completion. Stuffy has undergone many revisions, touch-ups, and critiques, and the final public product is something we're pretty proud of! 

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!

We've even recently made changes to Stuffy's default texture and color, and we can't wait to show you more about that and the development of Restitched, including more behind-the-scenes content. Stay tuned to trixel+ for future Restitched: Dev Diary posts!