Saturday, May 4, 2013

Getting Ahead

I always enjoy seeing a doll’s personality emerge and a major step in that direction is making the head.

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I use a colored pencil to draw guidelines to follow when needle sculpting.  The light strokes of the pencil will rub off with a lot of handling.  Most of what’s left will be covered with color later anyway.  I like to use fishing line to sculpt!  It’s almost invisible.

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Eyes and mouth are usually painted with acrylics, although sometimes a gel pen provides a perfect eye color.  Here I have outlined the painted areas with Sakura pen.

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Colored pencils give the face shadows and highlights.  See how there’s a glimmer of who she is?  I LOVE this part!

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Now, THAT’S attitude!  At this point the head and hair are just pinned in place.  I tend to leave hair for the last step since it can get in the way during costuming and such.  Once the wig is glued to her head, it won’t be quite as wild, but it’s fun to have this wild woman around for a few days.

Her arms are ready, but I need to make decisions about the costume first.  Some types of bodice are easier to fit without worrying about the arms getting in the way.  On the other hand, some bodice types can only be added after the arms.  So she will get a break while I work on clothing design.

2 comments:

Gina E. said...

Liz, thanks for posting those photos and description. I had no idea how people made cloth dolls, although I've seen instructions in craft magazines, but never taken any notice because it isn't something I have wanted to do. I still don't! but it was interesting to see how it is done.

Anonymous said...

Love the wild hair ... but will be interesting to see how she gets it done when she is dressed!