History of the Omni Doll

Rewind back to the year 2009…

I’m a senior in High School, life hasn’t been going the best for me the last two years, and I’m in a class I really don’t care for. So I distract myself with what I do best: I draw to distract myself.

I doodled this little guy on some regular note book paper because that was all I had at the time.

‘Watching You!’

I ended up showing the drawing to several friends and became inspired to make this small doodle into an actual doll. Fast forward to two days later, with help from my mom, and Robbie was born!

The first Omni Doll, Robbie.

Robbie went with me to school a lot back in those days, sort of a comfort item in a way. A few other kids ended up wanting dolls of their own and so I made a few more! Unfortunately I lost most of the original images of the finished dolls due to a hard drive failure, but I do still have this one:

From left to right: Leroy, Samantha, and Spike

While my methods and techniques have improved over time, the original base design has not changed much since 2010. All Omni Dolls have a yarn ball head and buttons eyes, while body and limbs can vary from doll to doll based on the project.

The name for the dolls didn’t come around until a few years later in college, as I wanted to give them a unique branding that could be easily identified. After a whole lot of nothing, I finally found the word I was looking for: Omnifarious!

Omnifarious means: of all forms, varieties, or kinds. This fit my dolls perfectly as they were as versatile as I wanted to make them. I even created an art piece around the idea.

While I haven’t made all of these designs, I have made quite a few:

I’ve even turned Robbie into a wearable costume and got a Judge’s Award for him at Animarathon 2023!

More recently I’ve been experimenting with Omni broaches that I hope to sell alongside my other dolls.

Somedays it’s still hard to believe one doodle in the middle of class could lead me down a path of doll making. One that’s had its ups and downs. For a while I thought about giving them up entirely. But as time’s gone by, I’ve only fallen in more in love with these little guys. I wouldn’t trade them for the world.

I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about them as much as I enjoy making them.