Erica

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Doll Day 3

carving & shapingI used a Styro Cutter & a nail file to get the styrofoam from

Picture A to Picture B. I used the styro cutter to cut along the sharpie
lines i drew on the styrofoam and shaped the foam with the cushion nail file or emery board.
A

And It stands :D! I find the more work that is put in at
this stage makes modeling easier !
B

Monday, January 19, 2009

I learned the hard way
I eye balled the polystyrene foam on heri's doll and i lucked out on the torso but. . . lol the arms/feet gave me trouble. Design wise Heri's Illustration had WIDE hips and little tiny feet so when i was carving the feet would just snap off when i would try to shape the foam. For the sake of the doll ever standing the legs need to be the same length. It took
hours shaving the leg lengths down until they were level . . .

Soooo this time around

I made an electronic pattern so i can print it out as many times as i need to. I have completed illustrating the front and side profile. I printed them out on my inkjet (and used the thickest
paper that would feed though my printer) and along the dashed (or solid) lines I carefully cut out the shapes.

Tracing the cut outs
I found some large polystyrene (the kind of foam you get in furniture
boxes/electronic boxes) and used the block to trace my front and side
body shapes with a sharpie onto the block and used a smaller block
of polystyrene to trace the left and right arm shapes. To save time
and lots of effort i purchased the styrofoam ball sitting atop of the
pile of polystyrene

Next comes the messy task of carving & shaping
these pieces out of the foam I will be comparing
the following tools for this task:
a) Xacto Razor Saw (i used this last time takes elbow grease)
b) Styrofoam hot wire (i will find out if it is true that it "only" cuts Styrofoam muhahahaha )
c) All Purpose heat tool
d) finger nail files (i used this last time works well :) )

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Doll Day 1 : mapping out the doll

I made a pattern of the doll heri designed for me that is slightly
smaller to cut out and use for reference when carving out my
styrofoam pieces. The advantage of Using the foam as a core is
it makes modeling easier. . . The foam core will make the doll
lighter than using solid clay (so your arm will not get tired as fast
from holding it while you work lol) and less clay is used in the process.