Erica

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Doll Day Six

SANDING
I sanded all the doll parts down :)

i used sanding blocks, and emery boards to sand the
body. . .

next modeling the head and joint placement

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Choosing your clay & covering
your styrofoam & polystyrene
I use ladoll & premier clay and mix them together.
I experimented and used premier alone and it was
not as easy to sand as the ladoll. Ladoll on its own
is great but it sands a little too easy. I mix them
together to get the ability to sand combined with the
tooth & the added strength from the premier clay body.
(but the clay body is your choice i just happen to use ladoll
because it is airdry clay,non toxic and is ready to sand the
day after u cover your foam doll form)
I took my foam form i carved out (below)

I rolled out the clay to 1/8-2/8 of an inch thick and covered the
foam form with my ladoll & premier clay mixture.
a= the head
b=the body
c= ladoll & premier clay mixture
d=arms

next sanding, and modeling details . . .

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Doll Day Four

Planning out some clothing heat transfers/stencils. I drew all of the textile patterns in illustrator so i can scale them as needed. I like having these handy so i have something
to do in between the clay modeling process. The way the clothing is illustrated on the character
it needs to be stretchy yet form fitting i may use cotton jersey or spandex hmmm. . . .

next post i start preparing my clay . . .

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

Doll Day 2

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.