Playskool: Yard Crew & Cool Crew!

It's always been a blast working with the Playskool division at Hasbro.  Much like the Little People line for Fisher-Price,  having a hand in the history of such perennial favorites, in this case toys like Play-Doh and Mr. Potatohead, will always be a highlight of my career.

One of the on-going lines of which I was fortunate enough to be a part was the Yard Crew and Cool Crew toys.
A while back I posted one of those projects on this blog;  The Cool Crew Vacuum.

The first things I worked on were for the Yard Crew toys, starting with an outdoor grill,  a bench top camping stove, a camping cooler, fishing pole, and camping lantern.
I did a few passes of each item in the line, exploring characterizations and expressions, as well as the styling and accessories included.

We followed up at a later date with the Cool Crew line.
It started simple, with a few gardening tools that talked. From there  I got to explore a range of looks for the leaf blower, chain saw, edge trimmer, and lawn mower characters.


.. is it evident that I had a blast coming up with these?

The mower was a challenge, going through more than a few iterations. Part of it was in trying to achieve a great 'chomping' action without his teeth or jaw looking weird. We ultimately landing with a fun combination and a memorable character.

.. And this is how they turned out;