Well, hello there! Just like last time, I’m not so much doing a step-by-step DIY tutorial type of thing so much as I’m just showing you something fun I made in the hopes that it’ll somehow inspire YOU to make something fun too! Because I don’t really know what I’m doing when it comes to art. I just kind of… do stuff.
So, if you look at my artwork and go “Hey! That’s kinda neat… But I bet I could do it even better!” then GOOD. That’s exactly the point and what you SHOULD be taking away from this! Haha.
Enjoy my Yoshi’s Crafted World fan art and then go create your own video game and/or dinosaur-influenced artwork!
The Materials I Used to Craft Yoshi
Here are the materials I used for this project(the following are all Amazon affiliate links so, if you buy the products using my links, I’ll get a small monetary kickback at no additional cost to you):
Craft Supplies Kit: Colored Pipe Cleaners, Pom-Poms, Googly Eyes, and More!
Liquitex Iridescent White Acrylic Paint
Elmer’s Washable Glitter Glue Pens
Shadow Box Frame in Black with Soft Linen Back – This isn’t the exact frame I used (the one I used was from circa 2006 and has since been discontinued), but this model is very similar.
The Inspiration for the Artwork
Basically, this piece was inspired by Yoshi’s Crafted World for the Nintendo Switch. If you haven’t played it, you definitely should. I thoroughly enjoyed it! And I have zero nostalgia for Nintendo properties — I was a Sega Genesis kid.
Anyway, my husband (Frank) and I would play Yoshi’s Crafted World in short lil bursts while I was ill to try to keep morale up while we were waiting for my life-saving surgery. Frank would play as the green/original Yoshi and I would play as the orange Yoshi. (There are eight different colors to choose from!).
I basically missed our second wedding anniversary in April since that was the absolute peak of my Bad Times; however, in May (which was much better since my surgery had been scheduled and I at least had hope, if not actual wellness), I decided I should make my wonderful hubby a belated gift of some sort!
Initially, I decided I’d draw our Yoshis from Yoshi’s Crafted World:
But then, as I was drawing 2D versions of green Yoshi (Frank) and orange Yoshi (me), I realized that Yoshi is basically just a bunch of circles. And so it would follow that 3D Yoshi would just be a bunch of spheres! Which meant that crafted Yoshi was fuzzy spheres. And I happened to have a bunch of fuzzy spheres on hand! Pom-poms!!
Wait… Did That Make Sense?
Before I move on, I’m not entirely sure that my assertion that “Yoshi is basically just a bunch of circles” made sense.
So, here’s the cover artwork for Yoshi’s Crafted World, which I used for reference for this piece back in May, plus a couple of Yoshi figures Frank got me:
I just stared at that until I saw the shapes. My brain basically did this:
And then I just drew Yoshi out of a bunch of circles!
Actually, Let Me Just Show You
Since I’ve gone down the path of Overexplaining Every Detail, I might as well go all the way, huh?
So you start out with four circles like this:
And then you end up with Yoshi:
And here’s a hyperlapse video I made for you of my drawing process:
Did I make that on the fly, just for you, while in the midst of writing this very post? Yep. Sure did:
By the way! If you enjoy hyperlapse art videos like the one above (and being In the Know about upcoming blog posts!), I share behind-the-scenes Making Of videos exactly like that one for all of my illustrations on my Kofi page. Please consider subscribing, if that’s something you’d enjoy on a regular basis.
Now, Back to the Yoshi Craft I Made for Frank!
Now that you know what I was talking about in regard to 2D Yoshi, you probably understand how that thought translated to 3D Yoshi.
So, I used some Tacky Glue and glued some fuzzy “pom-pom” balls together to create Yoshi’s head. And then I made his body out of pipe cleaners and cotton balls:
Same thing for the orange Yoshi:
And then I made a Little Mouser, one of the egg-stealing critters you have to contend with in the game:
And a Shy Guy (but I didn’t realize until after I’d glued him to the canvas and sealed the shadow box that I forgot his belt! Arrgh!!):
Isn’t it weird how Yoshi has that super long tongue? That really surprised me! I wasn’t familiar with the character. What is it with Nintendo characters? Yoshi eats his enemies and poops them out as eggs that he tosses around and Kirby, similarly, swallows his enemies so he can become them… I’m not complaining or anything! Blue hedgehogs hanging out with two-tailed flying foxes isn’t any less bizarre! But it is a very strange lore, isn’t it?
But, I digress! Haha.
After I assembled the characters I wanted to feature, I got out an old shadow box I had lying around and opened it up. It had a canvas backing, so I just painted it as if it were the canvas for a regular ol’ painting.
And then I glued on a 4×4″ mini canvas I had to give the background more depth/dimension. That’s the brown block in the piece that sticks out a bit.
And then I glued all the characters onto the background so it looked like this:
Oh, and I made some Yoshi eggs out of makeup removal pads (cotton rounds that I’d cut into ovals) and pom-pom snippets. And I also used a strip of Scotch tape to hold down a piece of pipe cleaner that was being unruly! It kept popping up off the brown mountain-y thing I’d made with the 4×4″ canvas and smudging brown paint onto the sky area and it was really ticking me off so I taped it into place. It shows up in the photos here because they’re very detailed and zoomed-in, but it doesn’t really show up in person unless you’re looking for it.
I also painted some sparkly clouds in the sky using iridescent white paint. The sky looked a bit boring just plain old blue, so I figured some clouds would jazz things up.
For Little Mouser and Shy Guy’s masks, I used paper and a black pen. I drew their features by hand on paper, cut out said drawings, and then glued them on top of the pipe cleaner creatures.
Finally, after all that stuff was dry, I shoved it into the shadow box frame:
And then I gifted it to Frank! Who hung it up above our television:
Now, we can look at my Yoshi’s Crafted World fan art whenever we play the game! Or any game, actually. Or when we watch a movie. Or just kinda look to our left when we’re working at our desks. That’s where it is now!
It’s nice to see it there and remember the fun times we had together being colorful dinosaurs. ♥
Feeling Inspired?
I hope you enjoyed my Yoshi’s Crafted World fan art craft! Do you feel inspired to make some fan art of your own?
Or maybe I made you want to play a video game? I mean, that’s fine too! I love video games.
Whatever you took away from all of this, I hope it was positive/fun and that your day has been improved for reading all the way to the end.
Thank you for sticking around! Have a wonderful day. I’ll catch you next time!
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