Doll In Progress: Baking, Painting, Wigging

I worked on Doll some more over the weekend. I am trying to finish him by the end of the week so that Paige can photograph him for me and I can take him with me to this minicomic festival in Athens called Fluke. Martyn wants to go to this thing so he can try and sell his own minicomics, and he told me if we get there early enough we should be able to snag and share a table. Comics about retards and inept redheads, sculptures of mythical creatures and transvestite fairies. What more could one want from a vendor? Even if we don't get a table I look forward to the nerd watching. Also I haven't been to Athens in a while. It's a neat little town.

So anyway, here are some more in-progress photos of Doll:


That's him fresh out of the oven. He now has a head and hands. He's holding the handle of what will be a whip in his right hand and he will have a feather fan in his left hand when he's all finished. A close up shot:


He looked entirely creepy in that stage with no color, no makeup, and no hair. The next thing I did was set up my workspace to blush him with Genesis paints. Genesis paints handle sort of like an oil based medium but only dry when activated by heat. They're commonly used by dollmakers because once they set it's almost as if they stain the clay itself. They don't chip off like acrylic and they are great for subtle drybrushing techniques like adding a bit of color and shading to a sculpture. I just bought a sample set of a few colors because a little goes a long way. Here is everything on my desk.


(Note Strongbow.)



And as always, my faithful Loon by my side:


I always pull up a chair for her because she's my business partner and likes to oversee all of my projects. That's my chair on the right.


And here is Doll, blushed and ready for his last trip to the oven:


After he cooled down a bit I painted him again, this time with acrylic. I use acrylic for more detailed work like makeup and tattoos. For glossy lips and eyes, I use my well kept secret ingredient: nail polish!


As you can see below, he's got hairy legs and a Rocky Horror style prison tattoo on his right thigh. In the photo he is trying on his new shoes, which were originally white Barbie platform heels with pink flowers over the toe. After a failed attempt at sculpting the shoes myself, I drove all over the world looking for what one might think would be easy to find: classic black Barbie pumps. Apparently the only doll that even wears those anymore is the original 1960's swimsuit Barbie that has been re-released for Barbie's 50th anniversary. I have never been a fan of dolls but unfortunately I have a heart, so there is no way I could ever buy a Barbie just to mug her of her shoes--especially one as classic as swimsuit Barbie. So I just had to modify those white shoes that came separately in a pack of Barbie clothes. It was a major pain--they had gay little ankle straps that I had to cut off with an exacto knife, the black spraypaint wouldn't dry or adhere to the plastic for some reason, so I pretty much ended up just using nail polish again. Apparently nail polish has many uses. I think they turned out great, really trantastic.


Doll also has a heart on his left shoulder that reads, "Ma." It was a fresh tattoo in this picture so still pretty shiny.


Then yesterday I made his fishnets:


Complete with seams, tears and runs:


And last night Paige came over to watch Neverending Story, and I wigged him:


He's got that sort of Marilyn Monroe/Deborah Harry/pinup thing going on:



He's also got copious amounts of chest, arm, and leg hair. He's not a natural blonde.


The whip:


The shoe:


The butt:


Note the kiss of Quarley. Tonight I am going to see how far I can get on his outfit. Also I have to remember to tattoo his knuckles--they're supposed to read "Doll Face" but I guess I forgot to get around to it. Anyway, more soon to come.