A new kind of doll (for me)

Here's the head of the doll I said I was working on. The head is paperclay, which is something I've never worked with before.

The head was originally going to be polymer clay, which I am familiar with, but the core of the head expanded every time I baked it, causing the clay to burst. Burst, not crack.

Eventually, I went with the paperclay because it air dries, but it is messy and slow compared to polymer clay. I guess that's the trade off for it not being toxic.

The paperclay does crack, though. Every time it dries, I have to patch cracks. Fortunately, that's pretty easy. If you can tell by the head size, she's going to be a pretty big doll compared to what I normally do.

Her body is going to be cloth, but her hands and feet are likely to be polymer clay. As this doll is an experiment, I don't know what direction I am going, completely.

This doll owes some of it's existence to the Dr. Fate helmet. That helmet was my all consuming project for a few weeks. I didn't really work on anything except it. That helmet has given me the patience to tackle this doll and the unfamiliar techniques like paperclay and sewing. Wish me luck!

Dr Fate helmet: Fiberglass and Bondo

So, I skipped some pictures, sorry about that.

The fourth Dr. Fate helmet, as I said, was close enough that I didn't feel the need to make a fifth one. The first picture is of me after I cut the helmet, to see how much of a gap was needed to be added. I didn't add as much as is shown there, but I took the picture just to give me an idea of the size. I'm very proud that my very first attempt at a sizing picture actually worked, by the way. I just held my phone away from me and clicked the picture.

After I got the sizing done, I added some fiberglass resin to the outside and inside of it, which made my studio stink so bad that I abandoned the room for a couple of days. Note, do this crap outside if you plan on doing it.

Next I reread everything I could find about turning pepakura (papercraft) files into wearable stuff, and started the awful task of fiberglassing the inside. I used fiberglass cloth and more of the resin for that.

Side note, the resin, the cloth and the bondo all came from WalMart. This stuff is easy to find. It is with the tools/automotive stuff, all right together.

Today, I sanded the devil out of the Fate helmet, inside and out. I wore a respirator, goggles, gloves, and long sleeves to do this, and I did it out on my front porch, that way my neighbors will fear me. I did it outside and wearing all that gear because I am slightly phobic of fiberglass.

Next up, as seen in the second picture, I covered all my hard work in a layer of goopy bondo body filler. Now my cool paper helmet is pink. Pink, and as hard as a car part, I might add. (Also, seen in the picture, bird poops on my porch. That's what I get for having a bird feeder)

Later, I'm going to be sanding down the bondo, fixing any gaps that show up, checking and rechecking the symmetry of it, then eventually painting the whole thing brilliant and gaudy gold.

More to come as I get there!

Also, as for my sculpting progress:

I cut down a styrene ball to the shape I wanted for a large doll's head, then sculpted the head in super sculpy. I didn't take a picture before baking it, but trust me, it was cute.

After baking, I found that my cute sculpted head had shattered. I started over, but I first reinforced the styrene so that it wouldn't expand or anything to cause another break.

I resculpted the head in super sculpy, baked it again, and again, it busted. GAH!!!

I'm not giving up on this doll, just so you know. The next step is trying my hand at paperclay for the first time. Pictures and what not will follow.

Rat Doll

Sorry about yesterday, Folks. I felt like crap so I didn't really get much of anything done.

I did, however, finally start planning my next doll. It's gonna be a rat. More specifically, SHE is going to be a rat. In a dress. It will be cute, I promise. Also disturbing, as a rat in a dress should be.

I'm honestly pretty excited about this one. I think it will work out really well, but there's no way to know until later. I'm going to be a good boy and post progress and pictures of this doll, so you all can follow along with how she's coming along. There's no pictures yet, because there's no parts, yet.

Anyway...we'll see how this works out. I'll probably start her today, so the first set of pictures will be tomorrow.

Boxes, Sculpting, Painting

Today, instead of moving forward on any of the stuff I've talked about in the past week or so, I'm ending up working on a bunch of things that are kind of under the radar.

I just got done staining three wood boxes. I also stained my fingers, but that's beside the point. The boxes are all wood burned with different stuff on them, and they look fairly good, especially as I've never stained wood before. One has a donkey on it, one has a fox on it, and the last one has a pair of bunnies on it.

I've been working slowly slowly on a new doll, and I'm working on improving articulation, so hopefully this one will be more poseable than the ones in the past. If it works out, I'll go into it in more detail later.

I'm also going to be working on my Story Teller doll, who is easily the biggest doll I've ever attempted. He'd be over two feet tall, standing. He needs pants and boots and some paint on his neck and he's pretty much done. Can't wait to be showing off this guy.

For now, that's it. Once the boxes are fully stained, I can reclaim my art desk and will use it to work on my kitchen cabinets. For now, I have to wait, because if I get glue on the kitchen table, I'll never hear the end of it.

CIA and Illuminati use Flouride to Control Minds!

Okay, the title is a bit of silliness, granted. The point of it is to let you all know I just finished reading "The Skeptic's Guide to Conspiracies" and I very much enjoyed it.

While I've linked to the Amazon page so you could see it, I actually picked it up at Ollie's, and payed somewhere in the neighborhood of $3.50 for it. Well worth the money. It's very cool if you are interested in learning about all the weird theories out there, but don't really feel like reading reams and reams of mad ranting.

It's a little off the beaten path of my 'normal' stuff, but really, if you work at it, you can see how it would fit with the other stuff.

Now, a word as to why I've been quiet lately. I've been busy. I sewed a vest (Not a big deal if you know how to read a pattern and sew...but a very big deal if you don't) for my steam punk costume. It's cool, just not cool enough to get it's picture taken, yet. I've been working frantically on a bird doll for Cloth and Clay Dolls little contest/assignment...what ever it's called. The bird is almost done, but he is having a little trouble standing on his own, so I've got to tweak him a bit before he's finished. Also been doing all the spring cleaning crap that one does in the spring. Oh, and playing Super Mario Bros. on the Wii (I can't work all the time!)

More stuff soon, I swear it. Until then, read a book!