Dollworld » Anemone

Completed Doll

admin — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 02:53:21 +0000

Completed Doll

Base
I decided this doll will have a frame around her.To ensure it was nice and light I have made it out of Balsa wood. This it the amazing light wood that plane model makers use, so can be found in most model stores.

From there I used crackle paint to give it a rough paint look. And her flower was attached with a wood and clay structure.

I then decorated the flower base with a mix of moss and sand attached with super glue.

Finished
Last step is to add a touch of Glaze to her lips to give them a shine.

Don’t forget to check out the gallery where all the photos are posted here

Creating the Costume

admin — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 01:46:24 +0000

Creating the Costume

	Panties This doll will have a little skirt on, so before I get to that I am going to add some lace panties.These are made by first roughing out the shape on a piece of paper, and then cutting out the lace to suit. From there I test it on the doll and trim as need be.
	Attach the panties Once you are happy with the shape they can be glued on.For this doll I have just used a dab of Fabri-tac glue on each hip. That is enough to keep it in place, and no extra glue is needed elsewhere. And since its not fully glued down you can do extra trimming with sharp scissors if you need to do some tweaks.
	Add the Top I have made her top out of wire and tissue paper.The wire was first twisted to get a little pattern in the center, then curved around her breasts, and then around her back. I then glued it in place with a tiny dot of superglue. The leaf shaped bra is cut from a bit of green textured tissue paper. I then soak it in watered down tacky glue and place it on the doll. The damp tissue paper can be mould by pleating it and pressing the two bits together. When it dries the glue hols it all in place. You can see more of this process in my start to finish tutorial. That is enough to keep it in place, and no extra glue is needed elsewhere. And since its not fully glued down you can do extra trimming with sharp scissors if you need to do some tweaks.
	Add the Skirt The skirt was made with another piece of wire, twisted into shape and glued around the back, the same process as the top.I then cut out a bunch of leaf shapes. These were inserted just under the wire and glued into place.

Last post to come – the making of her base and her final pics. Don’t forget to check out the gallery where all the photos are posted here

Eyelashes

admin — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 00:48:30 +0000

Adding the Eyelashes

	Eyelashes Eyelashes can be a frustrating process. But its one of those things that the more you do, the easier it gets. But here are the steps I take, and any tips I have to make it easier.Here she is all ready for her eyelashes.
	Step 1 Start by adding a thin line of glue to her eyelids, the same process is done whether she has her eyes open or closed.The glue I am using is Crafter’s Pick Ultimate Glue. It is a nice strong tacky glue that has a great cement feature where you can glue two sides, let the dry clear, and then press them together. My tests have shown this to be much stronger than just gluing them together.
	Step 2 While the glue on the eyelids is drying its time to get the feather ready. The feather I am using is an ostrich feather. Each strand has tiny little feathers that are great for eyelashes.Using very sharp scissors (I sell some very affordable micro scissors on my site that are excellent for this job) trim away one side of the feather. Leaving the center shaft and half the feathers. You will need two of these, but make sure you get one with feathers leaning to the left, and one with feathers leaning to the right.
	Step 3 Apply a line of glue to the feather shaft.Use a toothpick to aid in the precision of your application.
	Step 4 At this point you can either cut the feather to size, or leave the extra feather on to hold onto. Whichever you find easier is fine, I tend to use both methods depending on how easy it is to get to the eye (ie no hand or arm in the way).I have found the best combination is letting the glue on the eyelid dry completely clear, but let the glue on the eyelid only partly dry, this seems to give the best combination of tackiness of the glue and ease of application. Start with pressing the feather to the middle of the eyelid, with any excess towards the outside of the face. When the middle is holding, gently press the inside of the eyelash into the eye-duct. You can use the sharp point of an X-Acto blade to help with this. When you are happy with the inside cut off the excess feather and then press the outside of the eyelash into the glue. This is where having a good clay eyelid will help to press the eyelash under.
	Step 5 Repeat the process on the other eye.Again remember to use the right feather, so that the lashes are pointing in the right direction – away from the center of the face. If your doll has her eyes open you can choose now whether you have lashes on the bottom as well. I tend to just paint some bottom lashes, but the choice is yours.

Next step – her outfit. Don’t forget to check out the gallery where all the photos are posted here

Finishing the Sculpting

admin — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 00:02:58 +0000

Finishing the Sculpting

Feet and Hands
Hands and feet can be either sculptured on the doll, or you may find it a bit easier to sculpt the hands and feet off the doll and then attach before baking.I wont go too much into this, as I have already added tutorials on this matter, but the best tip I can give is really get the right shape at the start, then cut and shape fingers and then add details. Trying to put in details while the shape isn’t quite right will mean you just end up fighting the clay, so get the base right before the details go on.

Head
The head is made off the doll by sculpting it on a stick. For this doll I continued the process of having a tinfoil and masking tape core. Then a layer of clay was added and the the details.Again the best tip is get the shape right first. If you dont get the shape right you will find yourself trying to force the face around while you are adding details and it will be frustrating work. But get the shape right and the details will just flow from there.

Tibetan Wool is used for the hair, attached with Fabri-tac Glue, and I made her a little flower for her hair that is painted in brown, tans and gold highlights, and that is attached to her head with a leather headband and some feathers for embellishment.

Next step is the eyelashes, and I will show these steps in detail in the next post. Don’t forget to check out the gallery where all the photos are posted here

Sculpting the Doll

admin — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 00:40:11 +0000

Sculpting the Doll

	Part Baking The easiest way to sculpt is to part bake. I have always had mixed thoughts on this matter. Because, while it does help by allowing you to not squish parts already done, it can also give you false sense of the clay being cooked (which its not) and perhaps cause you to put extra pressure on lightly cooked piece and cause it to crack.But I think if you keep it in your head that the piece is only lightly cooked, then it is the best way to go, especially for people still learning. I have also found that the clay I am using, see the last post, is very strong, and I am adding an extra little step in strengthening it by using Mark method of putting it in the freezer while it still cooling. My blend of clay is working very very well with part baking in that there is no colour difference. I have found that Living Doll beige can darken with each part bake, so I dont recommend this colour for part baking, but my 12 part living doll light clay and 1 port Sculpey Mold Maker is not showing any change of colour regardless on how many times I have part baked it.
	Start with the torso I wont go into to much detail on how to sculpt each piece, as I have already posted that information, I will just talk about the steps I took.So first thing was to sculpt the torso. Once I had done that I did find that the TLS I used to cover the masking tape was starting to peal off. So I ended up pulling it off. And I also found that I had used to much clay around the bum area, leaving me a choice of too little clay, or a big derriere. So for my next doll I will ensure I dont use TLS (I have already made a doll without it, and you definitely don’t need it, the clay sticks no problem to the masking tape) and dont pack up the bum with too much tinfoil. Depending on how you feel you can either part bake the doll after just the torso, or do the legs (just upper or lower as well) and then the part bake. Just go with your gut and whatever is easier for you.
	Baking tips Part Baking is done at 275° Fahrenheit or 130° Celsius for just 10 mins.When I bake my dolls I use a convection oven. The pros about this is that you are not using your own oven, and some people have concerns over the fumes and if they are dangerous to you or not. But it also helps to not burn your dolls as convection ovens use hot air which means there are less hot spots that normal element ovens have. I also use poly-fill to cushion and prop up the doll, but I also completely surround them in the poly-fill to ensure they are cooked in a nice warm cozy cushion and have no heat spots that can cause burning. The poly-fill is also handy when it comes to using the freezer method to help strengthen the doll. When the doll is cooling I leave it a couple of minutes, then I open the oven top and take the whole package out with the doll softly contained in the poly-fill. Then very gently place the whole thing in the freezer to make it cool down fast which strengthens the clay. My oven was getting a bit old and the temperature was out (I use two thermometers to ensure the right temperature at all times) and I just got a replacement one from K-Mart for a very low price of $49 NZD – what a deal, so if you are in NZ and after one I would suggest checking out K-Mart
	Add feet After your doll has completely cooled in the freezer you can take her out. Let her sit for a while and come back up to room temperature. You will notice she will sweat a bit as she warms, this is perfectly normal.Once she is back to room temperature you can continue to sculpt adding legs and feet as need be. Again I think I used too much tinfoil around the legs. They really only need some around the thighs and maybe a tiny bit for the calves. But the more tinfoil the lighter the doll and since this one is sitting on the flower the lightness of the doll will bode well for this piece.

Next step arms, hands and head. Don’t forget to check out the gallery where all the photos are posted here

Mixing the clay

admin — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 22:53:35 +0000

Mixing the Clay

I have decided to try a mixture of 12 parts Living Doll Light Clay and 1 part Sculpey Mold Maker

Mix the clay
To mix clay you can either mix it with a food processor or by hand
I use a mixture of both (excuse the pun)

I start by cleaning out the food processor and every part that the clay could touch, and let it drip dry. The last thing you want is to add fluff and dust to your clay, so make sure it it perfectly clean.

Place both types of clay into the food processor and chop it up. You will most likely find that the clay turns into lots of little balls of clay, depending on the type of blade you use.

Once the clay is nicely chopped up its time to start kneading it back together

Knead the clay
Again cleanliness is the most important part here. If you aren’t clean your clay will get dirty when you do this step. So follow these tips:

Don’t wear dark fluffy clothes like polar fleece
Keep your hands washed and drip dried
Use a piece of old clay to roll around your hands to pick up any pieces of dirt/fluff
Cover surfaces with cling-wrap
And the biggest tip – dont stop! Don’t go off halfway to check your email, answer the phone, settle a child, or anything. Every time you leave your task, be it mixing clay or sculpting, you risk bringing back fluff and dust with you – so dont stop!

Now that you have your site nice and clean you can start kneading the clay. This is best done by rolling bits into long sausages, then fold them over and twist together, then roll back into sausages.

Keep doing this until the clay is a perfectly consistency with no streaks.

Pack the clay
When you have made your nice clean sausages of clay they can be packed away for future use.I have made up three, which I then wrap in cling-wrap and place in a plastic zip-lock bag for safe, clean, keeping.

As you can see I have only the one photo of this process. And that is due to the 5th tip above – dont stop! If I stopped to take pictures of the process I would have ended up with dirty clay. But hopefully the instructions are good enough to follow without the aid of pictures.

One last note – mixing the clay like this is a great way to condition the clay. When you work with clay you need to work and knead it first, conditioning the clay makes it easier to smooth and avoids moonies (little fingermark moon shapes that can appear in cooked clay)

I have already used this clay for sculpting and I have been very pleased with it. But more info on that in future posts

Making of the Flower

admin — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 09:07:40 +0000

I have completed the flower and I must say I am over the moon with it. The only thing I am worried about is the time it is taking me. We are doing a bit of renovations on the house, so painting the dinning room has been taking up my time (what little I have left while being a mum to my 1 year old and 3.5 year old boys).

But the room is all painted and now I will concentrate on this piece, a couple of other pieces I have in the making, and also my competition piece for the Freeman’s Bay Doll fair in September (but that one will be a secret

Soooo…here is the flower in the making

	Creating the petalsFirst step was to create each petal.I started with a piece of silky cotton cut into the petal shape and a piece of wire super glued to the back of it. But I wasn’t happy with the look of the material. So the next step was to glue a layer of white velvet materiel with Fabri-tac onto the cotton. This picture show the velvet being glued to the cotton.
	Attach petals to ringOnce all 12 petals were made I attached them to a metal ring by twisting there wire around the ring.Next is to add the rod. I did this by making a round circle of chicken wire and taping it to the rod. The chicken wire was then tucked in under the metal ring. And a blob of superglue added to it to ensure the tape stays put. I then covered the whole area underneath with green tissue paper including the rod and little triangle pieces along the petal wire.
	Rod and tubeThe doll is positioned and the petal marked here I want her hand to sit. The armature line is then completed by adding a piece of rod in the tube, along the underside of the petal and up through the petal at the marked spot. Then covered with a piece of green tissue paper to match the other petals. The doll is tested on the petals and I can see that since the petals have a wire all the way along them I am able to bend each petal completely giving me full freedom to move and position the flower to suit my needs.
	Flower centerThe last step was to add the yellow center. I tried several materials to get the right look, including paper, cardboard and materials, but just couldnt get it quite the way I wanted.Then one day I was tiding away some packing material and one piece was that grey soft spungie foam stuff. One look at it and I knew it was perfect. So I cut it to shape, painted it yellow and glued it on with fabrti-tac. Finished – and I couldn’t be happier with it, its a beautiful flower and the doll looks awesome on it.
	DoneDon’t forget to check out Anemone’s gallery here and see bigger photos and many more photos than are showing on this page.

Armature

admin — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 03:51:01 +0000

Working on the armature

As mentioned in my last post, I am going to completely change the method of armature creation I have previously used for the foil and tape method. I will put a step by step comparison of the two with pros and cons once I have completed this doll and will know for sure what I like about each method and which I prefer.

But here is a run down of the armature for Anemone

	Step 1 – Bend the Armature Wire Using 18g wire I have created three parts, the legs, the arms and the neck pollAs always I use my figure cheat sheet to make sure I get my proportions right. This is something I have created in word with a doll for each inch ranging for 3″ to 8″. This doll will be 8″, so I am using the largest figure. If you would like a copy of this you are welcome to download it here. All three pieces of wire can be taped together now with foil tape
	Step 2 – Support In this particular case the legs will not be supporting the piece, therefore they only need to be a single piece of wire. The arm however will be the spot where the doll is secured to the flower. So I have measured a piece of 3/32″ tubefrom her palm to just above her elbow.Then I cut back the arm armature till about the elbow, insert the tube over the arm wire (which is a good fit for the 18g wire), then using the guide sheet I make sure the arm is the right length and crimp to hold the pieces together (you can also use a bit of glue and/or foil tape to ensure they stay together)
	Step 3 – Add the Tinfoil Once you have your required rod pieces in place you can start adding tinfoil to your piece. This will bulk up your piece allowing you to use less clay (which saves you money, but also means the clay wont be as thick which lessens the chance of under-baked clay that can crack in the future).Make sure the foil is pressed hard as you can. Avoid too much in areas that are small, such as the wrists and ankles which I leave tinfoil free
	Step 4 – Pose and Wrap in Masking Tape At this point you can start wrapping and posing the doll. I wrapped the torso, then posed the legs and arms before wrapping them.I made sure I covered all the wire with the tape, including right down to the wrist and ankles.
	Step 5 – Cover with TLS After the doll is all wrapped I have covered the doll in TLS – Translucent Liquid Sculpey. This will give me a better bond between the tape and the fresh clay.I just brushed it on, gave it a give dry with my embossing gun, and then popped it in the oven for 15min to finish it off

And that’s it, you now have one posed and bulked out armature waiting for you to do your magic on and bring it to life.

The next step will be getting the base ready. I usually do this last, but I need this doll to sit nicely on the flower, so I will complete that first and then sculpt her in place. I also have a nifty idea in mind to keep her and the flower working together…so watch this space

Full large size images (and some extra ones not seen here) can be found in this gallery which will keep an ongoing collection of the images from this piece.

Comments and questions are welcome as always

Anemone is born

admin — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 23:27:43 +0000

The idea comes to life

Okay I have been thinking about this sculpt and what she will be

I have always wanted to do a fairy sitting on a flower, so the flower suspended above the base on its stalk. In the spirit of Mark Dennis I would like to capture a lot of movement in the piece. So I have decided to call her Anemone (pronounced a nem mo ne) which is a beautiful white flower perfect for sitting on, and is also a Greek Nymph meaning daughter of the wind or Windflower. This wind aspect will allow me to add the motion with the wind whipping away at her hair and clothing while she clings onto a flower that is also bent to the wind.

So that is the idea. I will start her armature tomorrow which will use the method of Mark Dennis as mentioned

Sculpting Blog #1

admin — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 21:33:44 +0000

My very first Sculpting Blog

I am going to start off my very first Sculpting Blog. I have been doing a bit of reading up on The Mad Sculptor’s Blog by Mark Dennis, and I am completely inspired. His techniques are very different to what I have been using, so I am going to base this piece on his practices, and report my findings as I go through the process.

I encourage you to sculpt along with me, using the techniques I describe but applying them to your own design.

Feel free to post comments or questions as we move along