I'm not sure where the idea for these came from. I blame the box of 128 crayons my daughter received as a gift. That and my desire to see a set of colorful Minimates from Diamond, like the Pantone Kubricks from years ago.

My original thought was to make eight Crayonmates, matching the colors in an eight-pack of crayons. Eight became ten when I decided I wanted a white Crayonmate, and my daughter really wanted a pink one. I started with sculpting a crayon tip out of Sculpey, then made a quick silicon mold out of it. Using the mold and Magic Sculpt, I made dozens of crayon tips to glue to Minimate heads. The tips all came out a little differently, which was fine with me - it gave each Crayonmate a unique, been-played-with feel.

With tips attached, I then started painting my Minimates, trying very hard to match the colors of the Crayola crayon they were based on. After painting, I added water-transfer decals to the head and legs for the final crayon-like touches.

If these were released stores, my thought is you could release two box sets and maybe an exclusive 2-pack. The first set could feature the primary colors - Red, Yellow and Blue - with a bonus Brown Crayonmate.

The second set could have the secondary colors - Green, Orange and Purple - with a special Pink Crayonmate.

And Black and White could be released as a special hard-to-find "Neutrals" two-pack.