Sent my babies off..

Still progressing with my new dolls. I'm still soft sculpting the batting on the faces.  This one is ready for the skin.  I still have a few more faces to go.



I recently sent David and Hakim off to see if I could get them in a magazine.  Let's keep our fingers crossed.  I changed out their eyes because I was not entirely happy with their old eyes. 



Hakim



David



Wooden teeth and a stronger chin needed.

I was trying to make teeth for these dolls.  I first molded some with paperclay, and although they looked great, they were easily broken.  So I then decided to use some flat pieces of wood.  I painted them, and then I used my dremmel to drill some holes in the top for attachment to the face.  They are sewn into the mouth area. 

Okay, so then after all of this molding on the face with batting and completing the soft batting of the nose, I then realized something awful...the chins just was not long enough.  This was an error with my original styrofoam sculpt.  I could have left it alone and it would probably would have turned out okay.  But, I wanted to improve my technique which meant correcting errors whenever I see them.  I added an additional piece of styrofoam underneath the chin (glue) and used batting to build it up.  This gave me more room on the face for the lips and chin. Now I'm happy with that (I'm hoping this doesn't cause any problems in the final face).  I also changed out the eyes in one on my dolls.  I thought a larger pupil in the eye would add more character to that doll that has a little larger face.   




chin added, lips padded and eyebrows added.



You know, someone (more than one) has asked me why am I revealing how I make my dolls.  My answer is simple.  What I make is uniquely mine.  Anyone can copy a technique, but that doesn't mean that the end product is going to be the same.  I want to share in order to answer the questions that people always ask me..."How'd you do that?"  God grants me imagination, and creativity that is unique to me.  I admire all good doll work.  If there are too many dolls like mine, I'm sure I'll come up with something different that is once again uniquely mine. 

One page is enough

I'm going to keep this blog at one page.  Too confusing to try to keep updating 2 pages.

I am on this step of my dolls.  I've put a cotton batting to serve as a base under my skin,  I use silicone glue to attach the batting to my Styrofoam skull. 

This dries overnight.  I then cut off the excess batting and sew the cut seams together.  

Here are the skulls covered with cotton batting.

I then add my painted marbles with 18 guage floral wire.  I shape the wire to fit around the marbles then I insert it into the Styrofoam skull into the empty eye sockets.  This requires 2 wires for each eye.  I use white nylon behind the eye.  The nylon is then pinned and sewn to the batting. 

I then add the wires for my nose.

I cover the nose wire with baby yarn (off white).

More to come next post.