Mastodon stuffed toy coming soon

After we’ve released our new line of merch last year, we’ve heard a lot of questions about a potential stuffed toy. After all, our official mascot is so suitable. But it is, problematically, a two-dimensional character.

We sat down with our artist, Dopatwo, to try and imagine what a character like that could look like in three-dimensional space. We had only three requirements: He would have to be cute, he would have to be cuddly, and he would have to be round. And Dopatwo delivered.

We created a stuffed toy of the highest caliber. Deliberately friend-sized and friend-shaped, with a soft surface material and soft, squishy stuffing, the toy measures a height of 35cm. Perfect as a travel companion you can rest your head on, or to fill in for you at business meetings.

While some people would be more interested in a smaller size that can be put on display, the goal of the toy is to be a friend to those who need it, rather than simply collect dust.

The toy does not have a predefined name or gender. My prototype has received the name Mr. Mastodon from a friend, and is sometimes referred to as “The Boy” in the household. But everyone is free to pick for themselves.

After running a few polls on Mastodon, we’ve settled on manufacturing 1,000 units. After all, it would be better for the toy to be sold out, than for any of the adorable Mastodons to end up without a home.

We’ll divide the stock between a warehouse in Europe and a warehouse in the US to provide the cheapest possible shipping to the parts of the world where we believe most of the buyers would be. At this rather small scale, that is the best we can do.

We expect the price to be no higher than 30 USD, which is customary for a toy of this size. We do not expect to do meaningful fundraising from the profits as they would be very thin at these quantities. Our goal is to just get the toy to people who want it.

Here are a few more facts to tick off some boxes:

• The manufacturer is ICTI Ethical Toy Program and Intertek WCA certified
• Suitable for children 3+ (compliant with EN-71 parts 1, 2, and 3)
• Surface washable
• Super soft velboa on the outside, polyester fiberfill on the inside

The toy is not available for sale yet. The manufacturing time is 20 weeks, so we expect it to go live by August 2024. You can subscribe to the below mailing list to be notified when the toy becomes available. Of course, if you follow us on Mastodon, you won’t miss the news either, especially if you hit that bell button which notifies you when we post.