VanessaSan
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Blog News: Mattel
🕑 Added 2025-10-06 17:25:33 +0000 UTCDear patrons,
thank you for being with me again this month, I won't leave you without updates and page 77 in BW is finished, I'm sending it to Gianluca (my webmaster from the UK) for upload!
I wanted to reveal another reason why I was absent in September and for this, well... I hope I'm excused because I couldn't avoid it!
I was invited to Mattel, to the Milan Licensing Day to present a work I did for MATTEL.
ME!
Vanessa Santato!
The author of PBB! XD
Do you want to know more?
Ok... so where do we start... Yes, I am a toy collector and in addition to MLP and Popples and other cute little animals, in the 80s I was crazy about POOCHIE, but at a certain point she disappeared.
Over the years there have been revivals of many 80s characters like MOTU, the Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake... but Poochie was missing.
So I started drawing some fanart, which is still on Deviantart (which I abandoned), and then one day I decided to go to the Mattel booth at the licensing fair in Italy to ask if they wanted to relaunch the brand with my help.
They told me the brand wasn't even in their portfolio. I won't tell you what happened from that point; I investigated, I did things, I met people...
OK, let's get straight to the point where Mattel and I made a deal.
I provided them with an entire brand relaunch project, starting with the new trademark registration and many new designs.
I revisited the old fanart, I made new ones, and Mattel bought the whole package from me; I essentially created the new official assets!!
Now Mattel is working on it; they have to work on the new official style guide, but everything will be based on my designs!
In Milan, they introduced me to the team! I explained who Poochie is, told them about her successes, and introduced her to some clients, all from inside the Mattel booth at my desk.
I don't work for Mattel, mind you. I'm an outsider, a freelancer, so I paid my own travel expenses, but they offered me their space, introduced me, and even gave me a lunch box. XD
Oh yeah, they paid me for my designs of course, to get them officially!
Also, at the fair, I was able to attend all the meetings and pitches... and I previewed a few minutes of the MOTU movie and other previews, but only after signing an NDA, so you won't hear anything from me!
Then I attended conferences, where I learned a lot about the Licensing world! I even met some CEOs of big companies... and received goodie bags and attended aperitifs and parties! Holy crap... And then there was the free breakfast in the morning, the coffees, the cappuccinos, the snacks and even the alcoholic drinks...
No, you can't understand... I was in heaven!
But I was Cinderella, because when the fairs ended, while all the guests took their taxis to go to their luxury hotels, I headed to the bus stop XD to go back to sleep at the house of a friend of a friend who was hosting me. And thank goodness! Because I didn't have money to sleep in Milan, it costs too much! XD
But damn, I had a crazy experience, where people like me can't access. THANK YOU MATTEL!!
I hope Poochie comes out soon and does well! IF it sells, if it's successful, I will benefit from it for my future, I think, I hope!
But for now I'm happy like this, and I'll leave you with this consideration:
a furry artist ends up drawing a furry character for Mattel.
And you know her! XD
Am I now justified and forgiven for my recent absence?
Now I'll work hard for PBB and for your fall/winter commissions! I missed PBB.
Thank you for always being with me up to this point.
Without you, I probably wouldn't have made it because life is a butterfly effect!
V.
Comments
Silvador
It sounds like you had an absolutely amazing time. I'm so happy for you! Since starting this Patreon, so much good has come your way. Even if nothing comes of this, to have been accepted into this small part of the world that only a few really get to see, and to even have Mattel purchase the designs from you, it's such an incredibly amazing thing! Bravo!
Erold
Congratulations, Vanessa! My goodness, getting to be the spark that might rekindle your childhood franchise again... I don't know how many fans around the world has dreamed of going to the company that owns their old favorit IP and pitching their ideas, and then have them taken seriously! Congratulations, you are now a true fairytale that's gonna be spread around the internet as, "Have you ever tell you the story about Vanessa?" Of course it would also be a story about being a great artist, and I hope you got handsomely compensated for your work, but damn, you madlass, you actually did it and wasn't turned away outright! :D
