Part 3. The Design Phase or "How hard could it be to put boobs on a pillow?"

After understanding that the way to create a memory foam pillow involved creating a metal mold I set out to figure out how to shape a mold. My first stop was Alibaba and I hoped that if I sent some mockup images of what I needed then a pillow manufacturer would create the mold for me and off we’d go. The idea was simple: take a memory foam pillow and put boobs on it. In my mind it seemed so simple.

What could be so hard about putting boobs on a pillow?

I started contacting several manufacturers in China through Alibaba. Things started off easily enough but I soon realized this wasn’t the right process. They asked me for 3D designs and specific file types. I had no idea what they were talking about so it was back to do some research and find someone who could help me create a 3D design. My first stop was Craigslist. I lucked out and found a college student who was into the project so we worked out an arrangement where he’d create the 3D design in exchange for college credit hours. I was on cloud nine. And looking back it was a stroke of luck to get to work with him because it got me started on the path of designing the pillow but best of all he created the Booby Pillow logo which I immediately fell in love with.

Working on creating the 3D design was a big highlight. What could be better than designing the perfect pair of breasts that you can hold any time you want? More research was needed, and research was done. I knew I wanted the pillow to be as wide as a medium throw pillow. It shouldn’t be too narrow that it didn’t work as a pillow but it shouldn’t be too wide or the boobs would look too small relative to the size of the pillow. I settled on a pillow 15 inches wide and set out to find the best shape boobs that would compliment that size in the best way possible. Along the way I came across some pretty technical and simply fascinating research. Who knew so much hard science was looking at boobs. For example this research paper published by the National Institute of Health investigated what would be the most attractive position for the nipple and areola on women’s breasts. As part of their research they surveyed over 2,000 men and women!

But the internet is full of great reference material so I gathered some of the best I could find… for the sake of research.

And after a few trials we finally started to develop the design that looked like the real thing. We had the right dimensions for a pillow and had a sensual set of boobs combined with it.

The first 3D model comes to life

Finally! After months of work and research our boob pillow had come to life. Now it was time to actually make it…