Plush vs Your Design

Will a custom plush look like your design? Yes, you’ll recognize it at once, but it will be a handmade toy of your picture, not a copy of it. At SKAZKODROM you see a plush sketch when the design needs simplifying, then photos of the finished toy before it ships, and we change what looks off. Custom toys start from $350 and usually take 2–4 weeks.

Every toy here is sewn to order for one person, from the drawing or photo they send. We’ve done it since 2009, more than 2,100 toys so far. On a personal order you also get a full refund within 14 days if the toy still isn’t right.

The drawing of Kara Gremykha her creator sent us. Front view only.

The Kara plush we sewed from it: same hair over one eye, embroidered amber eyes, navy robe.

Mostly, yes, if the maker shows you the toy before it ships. A custom plush keeps what makes the character recognizable: the colors, the face, the outfit, the odd little details. What changes is everything a flat picture can’t decide on its own: thickness, roundness, the back, the bits too thin to sew.

So the honest answer is “it will look like your design, made of fabric”. Take Kara Gremykha, an original character drawn by an artist. We kept her long chocolate-brown hair falling over one eye, the big amber eyes, the brown marking across her face and the navy robe with cream-gold trim. Then we gave her a chibi body that can sit on a shelf by itself, because a drawing doesn’t have to sit anywhere and a plush does.

Where a custom plush goes wrong, it’s usually because nobody checked in between. That’s why our process has two places where you say yes or no: the sketch, when the design needs one, and the photos of the finished toy.

Because a custom plush is made of fabric and stuffing, and a drawing is made of lines. Three things always change between the two.

• Fabric has thickness. Every seam eats a strip of fabric. Even a simple teddy bear pattern from Fairfield calls for a ¼-inch seam allowance. A line thinner than that can’t be its own fabric piece, so it gets embroidered or stitched on instead.
• A face has to work in 3D. On paper the eyes sit on a flat surface. On a plush they sit on a round head, and a few millimeters change the expression. That’s why we sew the face last.
• A drawing never shows the back of a head. Animators fix this with a model sheet that shows a character “at various angles”. Most people order from one front view, so someone has to decide what the back, the sides and the bottom look like.

Kara’s drawing shows her from the front. On the plush her hair had to go somewhere at the back, so it falls in layers down her back, over the four yellow tentacles.

The back of the Kara plush. Her drawing didn’t show it, so the hair and tentacles were worked out in fabric.

What usually stays exact:

• the colors you pick, matched to real fabric
• the eye shape, eye color and expression
• markings, scars, patterns and logos on the character
• clothes, hats, shoes and small accessories
• the size you ask for

What usually changes a little:

• proportions, so the toy can sit or stand and stay huggable
• very thin parts (fingers, whiskers, spikes), made thicker or embroidered
• shading and gradients, which become flat fabric colors
• a shade or two, because fabric looks different from a screen in daylight
• the back, sides and bottom, if your picture doesn’t show them

The hamburger man shows both lists at work. The customer sent a photo of a real burger with a hat, eyes, gloves and shoes drawn around it. The googly eyes and the white four-finger gloves come straight from the picture. The bun couldn’t, since fabric doesn’t look like bread, so it became orange-red fleece with sesame seeds stitched on one by one. The hat came out a deep maroon, a bit darker than on paper.

The customer’s picture: a burger photo with a cartoon hat, eyes, gloves and shoes drawn on.

The hamburger man plush: googly eyes and gloves as drawn, the bun rebuilt in fleece layers.

When a design is too complex for fabric as it is, our artist draws a plush version first: the same character, rebuilt from pieces a needle can follow. You look at it and approve it before any fabric is cut. If something in the sketch isn’t right, it’s fixed on paper, which is the cheapest place to fix it.

Rathalos from Monster Hunter is a good example. The game monster is armor plates, spikes and wing membranes. The plush sketch kept the stance, the crest, the wing shape and the spiked tail, and the customer approved it before sewing. You can compare the sketch and the toy below. Raziel from Legacy of Kain got the same simplified plush concept before sewing.

Only have an idea and no picture? Our artist can draw the character first, from $150, in From Thought to Drawing. If you’d rather draw it yourself, our guide to designing your own stuffed animal shows what makes a picture easy to sew.

The Rathalos plush sketch our artist drew and the customer approved before cutting.

The finished Rathalos plush: same crest, wing markings and spiked tail as the sketch.

It depends on what you’re looking at. A product photo of a ready-made toy shows that exact toy. A custom stuffed animal doesn’t exist yet when you order it, so the photos you see online are other people’s toys. Read custom plush reviews and the same complaints keep coming up: the toy looks generic, it doesn’t match the reference, or it shipped before the buyer approved it.

Before you order a custom stuffed animal from anyone, check three things:

• Past work next to the original. Look for toys shown beside the drawing or photo they were made from, not just pretty toy photos.
• A sketch step for complicated designs, so the hard decisions happen on paper.
• Photos before shipping, with changes made before the box is packed.

Every toy in our portfolio was sewn for a real customer, and many pages show the customer’s picture in the gallery. Plush From Drawings and OC Plush are the best places to compare picture and toy.

First, you see it before we send it. When your custom plush is finished, we photograph it and send you the pictures. If the nose sits wrong or a color reads differently, say so. We change it and you look again. Nothing is packed until you say it’s right, and this step costs nothing extra.

If the toy is in your hands and still isn’t what you pictured, you have 14 days to tell us. On a personal order you get a full refund and you keep the toy, with no return shipping. “Not what I pictured” is reason enough. The details are on our guarantee page.

Alex sent us a picture of Bill the lizard from Alice in Wonderland and wasn’t sure a toy could match it. Magge, an illustrator in Italy, sent a drawing of her own character, Lou.

The Lizard Bill plush Alex ordered from a picture: white shirt, waistcoat, red neckerchief, long striped tail.

“As a matter of fact, in real Bill appeared to be even better than in the pictures. Great likeness with a picture I sent as an original. … Frankly speaking, I had some doubts in the possibility to achieve such a similarity with the original picture. So I am doubly happy.”

Alex, about Lizard Bill. Read his review

“Skazkodrom constructed him based on one of my drawings. I could not be more pleased with the result. Their style of work really compliments my style of illustration. I was very impressed with their attention to detail.”

Magge, illustrator, about Lou. Read her review

The more angles you send, the less we have to guess. For a custom plush that matches your design, send:

• A clear front view of the character, in good light so the colors are true.
• The back or side, if you have it. A turnaround or ref sheet is ideal.
• Close-ups of what makes it itself: markings, a scar, the buttons on a coat.
• The size you want, and any date you need it by.
• What matters most to you, so we know what must stay exact.

Send it through the quote form. The quote is free. Curious how the sewing itself works? Our step-by-step guide to making a custom stuffed animal walks through it, and how we work covers the order from start to finish.

Send the picture and the size you have in mind. We’ll reply with a price and a time estimate, and you’ll see your toy before it ships. For Christmas, order by November 1.

Custom toys start from $350.
A bigger size or extra details can cost more.