Ever wonder how the Minimates packaging is designed?  With our new style firmly established (at least for now), we’ve brought DSTBarry back to the Art Asylum blog once again to walk you through part of the process!

A while ago, right before Minimates made their triumphant return to Toys R Us, it was decided that the packaging needed a bit of an upgrade. One of the elements that was added was including artwork of the characters on the front of the box. This was done because it seemed a bit odd to have a photo of the character right below the actual product that you could now see through the new peek-a-boo window. Personally, I love seeing any kind of pre-production art for just about anything, so I thought this was a great idea. The art seen on the boxes is indeed based on the front view of the actual product’s control art, but it wasn’t as simple as just taking the existing artwork and Photoshopping it onto a box.

Most of the control art is drawn in pencil by DSTUriel or myself and is scanned into the computer so that I can colour it up. There’s no problem with this for control art purposes, but pencil lines that are enlarged tend to look rougher and not as consistent as they appear to be at the original 100% size. The result is a softer, sketchier, less defined piece of line work.

Because of this, I take the final approved control art and transfer it into vector lines. Vector lines allow for the line work to remain smooth and consistent whether you are printing it on a postage stamp or on a billboard. This is because a vector graphic is actually a mathematical formula that tells the computer what the image looks like as opposed to a group of pixels that are set in stone.

I begin with a waist-up front view template of the standard blank Minimate and recreate the control art just as it was being designed. I add parts such as various hair pieces or chest caps. Once the parts are complete, I then take the actual tampo file I created earlier in the production process to apply the detail that would be printed directly onto the figure. This includes faces, muscle work, and some costume elements like logos.

Now I have a black and white design that is ready to be coloured. Once complete, I then add a bit of shading or lighting effects just to give it a bit of depth. Once it’s ready to go, I repeat the process to complete the entire wave or box set and it gets sent on to be added to the packaging.

You can check out the results quite often here on the Art Asylum Blog as the final boxes get posted. Or you can always check them out in-store and your collections as well!

You can view the whole gallery here!