Who is this?
This is Silly! Silly is the mascot and secondary manager of RayTayArt.com.
When was Silly created? Where did he come from?
Back in June 2022, I began developing my brand and website. One of my required college courses was “Illustrative Marketing” which taught me a lot of valuable things in regards to marketing yourself, branding, and most importantly, creating a website! During the logo creation process, I went through a lot of ideas that just weren’t quite hitting the mark for me or my classmates. Something that was really holding me back was my association with unicorns. Sounds silly, right?
In elementary school, I loved ponies! Fun, bright, and colorful horses with wings and horns made me really happy, as well as other animated cartoons involving animals. This general interest for pop culture and soft things followed me into middle school, which then sparked a ton of fanart relating to ponies. It all seemed great, until it started to feel like it wasn’t. Throughout high school as well as early college, I started to notice just how popular unicorns really were in the kid’s book and toy market.
Seeing the overall popularity made me think that maybe unicorns weren’t the way to go. “If I try to make unicorn things, it may just get lost in the vast majority.” I thought to myself. So, I tried to come up with something that wasn’t unicorns. I struggled to think of anything that fit my art style and brand, until eventually I felt like I was stuck. What was I going to do?
I started to look at some of my original characters, wondering if any of them had the potential to make my brand stand out and really fit in with my style. When my options started to run out, I abandoned the “no unicorn” rule and immediately found success. Once I started to work with Silly’s design, he was received well. One classmate also mentioned Silly “looked like a sock puppet.” I took the feedback and ran with it, finally creating a fitting logo as well as a full body design for Silly.
Silly’s final design stemmed from an older character I created, known as “Red.” Red has taken on many forms in different ways that I draw her, followed by inserting her into different fandoms/universes that I draw her in. One of the earliest adaptations of Red came about in March 2020, right when I got stuck inside my small apartment during the quarantine. Although I grew up with the late 90s and early 2000s tv shows and pop culture, I never really saw much traces of Invader Zim. When I finally got around to seeing the show in 2020, I was absolutely captivated!
I made my earliest version of Red, who had a graphic tee similar to the emoticon shirt Dib wears in the show. Silly was intended to be a unicorn mascot for a tv show that existed in the Zim universe, parodying the well known mascot “Bloaty” from Bloaty’s Pizza Hog.
All About Silly
As mentioned previously, some saw Silly’s early design as a “sock puppet.” I decided to make Silly into a ragdoll unicorn, full of life and little beans much like a stuffed toy. Silly has the mentality of a 5 year old, which makes him very curious and very playful. He loves to color, play with toys, and have fun with everyone he meets. Although he can’t speak vocally, Silly is able to write and draw. (with the occasional spelling and/or grammar error) Silly can also squeak and made small growling sounds like a puppy. He’s also very affectionate! Silly adores cuddles, hugs, and being pet.
