The Creation of Our Mascot: Finding a Yeti

I remember when I was a kid my dad use to dress in a semi-realistic Gorilla costume at Halloween (and sometimes when he had a few too many beers) and would get great joy from scaring the crap out of trick-or-treaters.  That may have subconsciously been a motivator behind the development of our Beardo Yeti mascot, but it also likely has something to do with our love of the movie 'Harry and the Hendersons!'

When the Beardo crew started doing tradeshows and snowshows, we quickly realized that we needed something to stand out from the crowd.  What better than a 7 foot Yeti?   We started brainstorming and sketching possible designs.. many of which were just too cute.  We knew what we wanted and luckily exactly who we wanted to create him… in comes master artist Arturo Balseiro (Owner of Dharma Studios - Spain)

Based in Spain, Arturo has worked on many amazing projects and was part of the Oscar Winning team on Pan's Labyrinth.  He was also a sculptor and makeup artist in movies like "The Chronicles of Narnia", "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", "Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters" and designed the characters in blockbusters like "Men in Black 3", "Supermax", "The Wolves Arga " and "Spanish movie". 
Together we worked with Arturo to create the face and expression more than anything else.  We also kept in mind that Yeti's can be scary, so we manipulated the mouth to make him look a bit more friendly (the last thing we wanted was children crying all around us… and the first thing we wanted was beautiful women all around us!)

Arturo and his team worked hard over about 2 months to sculpt the finer details and to pad the muscle suit to give him a lot of mass, especially in the shoulders and neck.   The final process included adding in a mixture of real yak hair and acrylic hair one hair at a time!  This gives the face a very realistic look, and we made him fashionable by adding one final touch of our own.  Once the yeti suit arrived, we were stoked! We took turns trying it on (which isn't easy and takes about 10 minutes to suit up).

It has so far been put to great use at tradeshows and events and even worn at Halloween.  We haven't used it to scare any kids yet, but that is definitely on the list! We did however have the chance to scare a few adults:

What would you use him for?  Give us some ideas!  Oh, and coming this season, you can get your very own Yeti Facemask as part of our Ultra-Realistic Ski mask series, watch for it!

Click here to find out more about Arturo's work (spanish)