(Not So) Used Ideas by Matte Elsbernd

In my post Eric Carle I’m Not, I discovered & refined the character of Yarn the Yak (they/them). This lovable yak with fur made of colorful yarn spoke to and I decided to run with it a little.

First I created images of Yarn the Yak and their friends the armadillo, aardvark, and donkey using different illustrators’ style:

I then tried to put Yarn the Yak into a familiar story:

Then I wondered how the lovable character of Yarn the Yak would carry over into the world of merchandising:

Just some fun with our lovable, colorful Yarn the Yak and their friends Amit, Alyse, and Dakota:

Update (2026-09-18): Yesterday I started exploring Midjourney and took a stab at some new ideas for Yarn the Yak. Here are some of my favorites:

Update (2026-09-18): I also loaded one of the Midjourney images into Comfy to try and get it to do a little video:

This yak with fur made of colorful yarn starts to walk and leaves the stark white world and enters a forest drawn in black and white.

And this is what it came up with:

My explorations with Comfy were more around building creative workflows, so I’m not entirely disappointed with how this came out. But a little off the mark.