JUMBiES Character Designs

Back in 2009 I did an internship at JUMBiES Industries. I was a "Social Media Intern". I managed the company's Facebook page and made approved posts on behalf of the company. I also made photoshopped images for them and helped design a few new characters.

JUMBiES are baby animals that got jumbled and mixed together when storks crashed on the way to deliver them. Each JUMBiE was a cross between two animals; usually the animals are puns or literal takes on animal related words. They are a toy company and make bean bag toys out of the characters. They also made children's book to go along with the toys that explains the origins of the product in a fun, rhyme-filled way.

This guy is a Diamondhead Shark. He's a cross between a diamondhead rattlesnake and a hammerhead shark. I gave him the body of a hammerhead with the pattern of the snake. Also gave him the tongue and rattle for his tail fins. I think this character appeared in book. But not in toy form yet.

Here is a Spidermonkey. This was a more literal take on the animal. I had other designs for this guy; some that had more apparent spider attributes; but we felt that those might be too scary for children. haha! So we ended up with this, much more, kid friendly version.

A Bullfrog is what this design is; if you couldn't tell. Another fairly literal look at an animal. This one was fun. I did a few color variations before settling on this one. Some of the other colors were more inline with a cow or a bull. But we didn't want this guy to look too alien.

The Gurtle was my bosses favorite idea. He told me the image he got in his head was that of a goose that just slid itself into a turtle shell. He wanted the character's catchphrase to be, "A gurtle is always there for support." This was the original design I gave him, but he wanted me to add eyelashes to show that the character was female; also he wanted the gurtle to be in a sitting position to make the toy design easier to make her not fall over.

This was the final design I made after. I really like this drawing. I think it came out well and looks like a stable posture for making a standing/sitting bean bag toy that won't fall over. This character is one of a few other that are part of a Kickstarter to help get released as physical bean bag toy.

Here's the kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/43379820/jumbies-two-animals-in-one-tm