Lets start with the obvious change first;

New website

The most notable change is to the website, it’s had the full make-over treatment. The old first iteration of the Deadly Furry Cute website was a simple one page site, great for testing the concept and getting something up, not so great for organizing content. So the first step was to get some content management in place. As usual WordPress was more than enough for the content task, even knowing I needed at least two different page formats -most of the details for the toys are simply saved in custom fields.

Download counting is also much more streamlined, now using a WordPress plugin rather than my own custom script. While the custom script worked fine, I’d never built a frontend to actually display the details -I was checking via myphpadmin.
This change does mean the perma-links for the old toys no longer work, but that’s ok, Series 1 has changed to Series 1 Edition 2. Those first editions are no longer an offering.

New toys

The next most noticeable change is to the number of toys. Series 2: Squirrels and Series 3: Apes are now released taking the total number of downloadable animal individuals to nine.

I’ve talked before about changing templates, having multiple sizes, trying different styles, and the design I went with for the new series -I wont cover those again. One thing you might have missed is that the series to start it all, Series 1, also has a face lift. The changes to the first series are subtle, I didn’t want to mess with a good thing, but they’re enough to make the first edition obsolete.

Even more new toys

Inspired by a request from an American Educator, Deadly Furry Cute now comes complete with alternate ‘Color Your Own’ versions. These versions are simply as they sound, toys which for the most part have all the features of the original -but none of the color, leaving you to color them as you see fit. You’re free to use any coloring medium, I dare say pencil, pen or paint would be easiest though.

The Game

The revamped Deadly Furry Cute toys all have six stats printed on their base (also available on the site), one stat lists the toys health, the others it’s attributes. Using these attributes in conjunction with the basic rules on the site -or any rules you decide to make up for that matter,  can make for a fun little game.
I’m hoping the two rule sets I’ve devised will add some more depth to the toys outside building and displaying them.

Extra free stuff

OK so the toys are free yes, but you still need to build them, how about some swag which doesn’t require assembly?
On the site you’ll now find a number of extras for your Mac/PC, iPhone, Droid or online applications. At the moment that means you’ve got access to some Deadly Furry Cute desktops, device wallpaper and avatar icons, more to follow.

Moving forward

I do have a hard written plan for Deadly Furry Cute, time-line is a little whibley-wobbly but the plan is there. I’m not going to go over it here -where would the surprises be! I will say: many more series are in the works and each one will eventually have a Color Your Own version.

Head over to deadlyfurrycute.com now to download the toys, goodies or leave some feedback.

A few of these new developments I’m going to keep secret until the site goes live, huge anticlimax there I know.  What I can talk about is new toy designs and licensing.

Let me start by saying that over the last few months I’ve had some inquiries from school teachers, either asking if they can use the toys, or asking how much it would cost to use them.  Let me state, right now, the toys will always be free for schools to use in the class room. If a teacher can find a way to use the toys in class for fun or education, I’m all for it.  What I don’t want is individuals, companies or schools reselling or rebranding my work. To that end I’ll be creating a new ‘license’ page which outlines exactly what can and can not be done in detail, more for clarification than anything else.

Now the fun bit
The new toy designs for Series 2 and 3, yep that’s two new series with the update, have been completed and are awaiting final testing. That testing procedure basically entails a final test run in both thin card and paper, with any updates from previous tests included. Over kill, maybe, but I like to get things right.
I’ve come some way with the illustration style since Series 1 back in 2008, partly because I’ve been doing more illustration work and have getting the practice in, but also I’ve decided to make these toys a little harder to make.  Looking back at Series 1, I realized I was trying to make it too easy, all angular and easy to cut curves, you’ll not get the easy ride this time!  Having said that I’ve not gone overboard, this change is about getting things more life like. While the new Series are more challenging to make, I hope they’ll be just as fun!

Without further ado, here are some screen grabs to wet your appetites. Can you tell what they are? Shout in the comments if you think you can!

Last chance
This might be your last chance to download Series 1 in their current size, read about why it’s changing, so head over to Deadly Furry Cute now and grab them before it’s too late!

OK so the results weren’t that dire – as you can see below – but they weren’t as good as the first run through.

What I was trying to do by changing the illustration style for DFC was speed up my working process and enable me to have some assets that weren’t flat to use for other media types – website, t-shirts etc.  We’ll not talk about how much time I’ve lost ‘trying’ this. Instead we’ll skip ahead. Where in fact the opposite has happened. I’d created illustrations that worked well as a website asset but didn’t at all lend themselves to the flat nature of the toys I was creating.

Now I don’t make these decisions on a whim. I’ve made test toys, printed, cutout and built them as well as shown test audiences the new style. The test group was unanimous: while they did like the design they didn’t think they were as cute or worked as well as the original style.

So I went back to the people who make the toys you and looked at the feedback you gave on the first set of toys. The wording there was also unanimous: you loved them.

So I’m now going to design the new toys the way I did the original first set, flat on the templates. I’ll also be using the same style of illustration as the originals – you liked it, I liked it, my test group liked it. Why ruin a good thing.

I will say this though. Without the process of trying something new, testing it and finding out you were already doing it right I’d have never known – not truly in my heart.  It’s one of the reasons I love design and it’s process: getting things wrong is just as important as getting it right. And it highlights one of my motto’s ‘test, test, test and test again’.

Some examples of the tested illustration style follow. Only one made it from paper to test but I thought you’d like to see the sketches for all three.

Deadly sketch

Furry sketch

Cute sketch

Deadly test illustration

Yes I’ve shown you nothing of the new toys. Evil aren’t I. (^_^)

The main reason for re-working the templates is because my forward thinking hat wasn’t on the first time around. Certain parts of the toys were connected to the base shapes and would be more work to remove than to just recreate – i.e. the feet.  Also I wasn’t happy with the way I had designed the ears to work. They were too fiddly to cutout, stick and place on the toy. And lets face it even though I know adults both liked and built the toys these things should really be designed from a kids perspective.

One more thing came to mind before I went ahead and designed new templates. Cat’s aren’t the same size as say an elephant or a mouse. With that new found wisdom I decided it would be a good idea to have a some size variation in my templates. However don’t get too excited I still plan on making each toy be built from one sheet of A4 paper – letter should work fine too – because lets face it we really don’t want too much wastage here in the name of fun.

Enough rambling. On to a sneak peak.

Paper toys are fun for everyone, free and best of all once you’re done with them you can recycle the paper they are made from.  The project really didn’t need more than that for me to get it off the ground.  The first – and current – iteration of the project is live right now. But not for long, so if you still want some diy version 1 paper toys go get them now!

Deadly Furry Cute version 2 is under way and here is a small sneak peak at what to expect.  First of all there will be a new site, much more colorful and user friendly than before. More than just one page this time, we’ll include pictures YOU sent to us, how-to’s that get the most out of your paper, a fun little game and possibly some merchandise – only if you want it, let me know. Those details are fairly vague I know but as work progresses i’ll post more details on the up coming release. I can tell you that you’ll have – at least – three series to play with at the launch for version 2.