Babu Frik has everything we intergalactic fans are looking for in a classic Star Wars creature… wise, weird, and adorable! If you thought Baby Yoda was cute, just wait till you get your hands on Mattel’s new Star Wars Babu Frik talking plush!
Who is Babu Frik?
Babu Frik is the Anzellan droidsmith who provides his expert tech skills to an entire crew of Kijimi spice-runners, talents he uses to excavate the location of a Sith Waverider from C-3PO’s circuits.
Say What?!?!
The must-have plush showcases six sayings from Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, most notables, “Hey heeeeeeeey!” and “Hello, I Babu Frik.”
Alexander Lathrop, Senior Product Designer at Mattel:
“We began this project in January, almost a full month after the movie was released,” Lathrop says. “Coincidentally, it was also one of the first projects I worked on when I started at Mattel. When I started designing, I had already seen ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ in theatres and instinctively knew the character would be perfect for plush; I’m glad everyone else at Lucasfilm and Mattel thought so, too.”
From Concept to Completion
The project took roughly six months from concept to completed sculpt. What makes the Babu Frik plush particularly unique is the fact that it is a hybrid plush toy blended with a hard, moulded head.
Alexander Lathrop, Senior Product Designer at Mattel:
“We definitely thought about a soft face at first. But his face has so much character, and it just made sense to try and capture that as accurately as possible. There is so much subtle detail in his face that would possibly be lost if we tried to do a soft face that we eventually opted to go this route as the proper way to represent Babu.”
The Child
This is not Mattel’s first at-bat. Their recent plush of The Child from “The Mandalorian,” was released in early 2020, featured the same hard, moulded head and plush, huggable body.
Baby Frik Trickier Than Baby Yoda?
Despite Mattel’s experience with creating “The Child” first, the Babu Frik plush proved to be a bit trickier.
Alexander Lathrop, Senior Product Designer at Mattel:
Babu was tough because, even though he is so cute, from a toy perspective we aimed to soften him up a bit without losing his essence. Basically, we wanted to portray what people see when they think of Babu Frik, not a carbon copy of the amazing puppet. One of the things we really focused on getting dialled in just right is the subtle asymmetry in Babu’s face. Incorporating that into our sculpture really brought him to life in a wonderful way I think!
Get Your Hands On Babu Frik!
Think you may want to add the cute little droidsmith to your plush collection? He is available now for pre-order exclusively at Target. Order yours today!
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