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Teddy Links, Squire of Arcadia

For many years now, I've had a little teddy bear with a chainmail shirt sitting on my vendor tables. He's become a mascot for my business, and I couldn't ask for a cuter one. He's Teddy Links, Squire of Arcadia!

My very first chainmail project was a full chainmail shirt for myself. I took the project on just for fun, but it sparked my love of weaving together chainmail and led to the creation of my whole business. If you missed the newsletter where I talked about my shirt, you can check it out here. I was proud of that shirt, and I wanted to replicate it on the smaller scale of a teddy bear. Gotta give him some protection in all those fluffy animal fights in the toy box.

The first step was finding a good bear to use. I wanted one of a decent size that was nice and huggable and not something that would just sit as a small figurine. I found a great one made by Gund that was a good size, nice quality, and with a simple cotton shirt that I could snip off to replace with my chainmail one. As shown in the image above, the chainmail shirt is also removeable. This was important to me as I wanted to ensure that people could clean the teddy if needed.

In 2022 I participated in the Pin Bazaar at Origins Game Fair. It's a collectible trading pin program that vendors can opt into by designing and purchasing pins to sell at the show. It sounded like a fun thing to participate in, but to do so I needed a good pin design. The answer was my armored teddy! I asked my illustrator friend, Kyle if he could turn my photograph into a cartoon. I was not disappointed. The image above was the final result. If you'd like to see more of Kyle's work, check it out here.

In 2023 I added a rainbow version of the armored teddy. After some deliberations on how to handle the design on the sleeves, I decided to model it after a baseball shirt and make the sleeves all black. It seemed to contrast nice with the rainbow too. It was also around this time that I decided the armored teddy needed an official name. I polled the audience at many of my shows and Teddy Links, Squire of Arcadia was the winner. Initially it was Sir Teddy Links, but since he couldn't be a sir and a squire at the same time, I dropped the sir. Also I figured he had to be purchased in order to earn his knighthood.

In addition to the armored teddies, I've also done some other custom chainmail work for stuffed animals. The first job was a chainmail shirt for a stuffed penguin with an orange heart and trim. It was an interesting challenge to get the shirt to lay just right over the penguin's humped back. I also had an order for a red chainmail teddy bear shirt with an attached hood. The bear's head is so big that his hood ended up being nearly the same size as the rest of the shirt!

Next weekend I have my first show of the year! I'll be at CaptainCon in Warwick, RI with my teddy mascots and all of my other wares. If you are in the region, stop by and say hello. I've also added two new shows to my line-up: Indiana Comic Con and Rising Phoenix Game Con. As always, check out my Shows page to see the most up-to-date list.

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2025 by Arcadian Chain

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