My Mini Doll & Miniatures Blog

Here's my latest project. She's a donation for the Michigan Museum for their Halloween theme. I popped her in the mail to her new home today (with just a smidge of reluctance.)  When this project came up last fall, I was thoroughly engrossed in the HBO vampire series - True Blood - so I decided to sculpt a vampire.

I had no idea how to sculpt one though, and I wanted her to look scary. Also I had absolutely no idea how to sculpt fangs. I decided to sculpt her with a closed mouth so I could get the features in the right place. I then cut a line between her lips and using various tools, I opened her mouth as gently as possible. I don't know if this is a good sculpting method, but I found as I opened her mouth that her features -cheeks, nose, chin, etc) seemed to move into a believable position.

Once her mouth was open I inserted a pre-shaped set of teeth into her mouth. If I ever decide to do a vampire again, I might try baking the teeth first; it might have worked better. However I just inserted the teeth and baked the whole head at once. For her eyes, I used glass pins painted with green glass paints. I shaped her hands into claws as if she's reaching out to grab a victim.

I dressed her in a Victorian style because a modern look required more skill sculpting anatomy on my part. Also her feet/shoes didn't turn out as I wanted. And yes, I didn't dress her in a filmy black hey-I'm-a-vampire type outfit. I thought she'd be scarier if you could imagine she was normal one minute and could transform in the next.

 

 

Happy New Year! I haven't updated in a long time, and as usual, I've not stuck to any of my project resolutions as mentioned in my last entry. Right now I'm trying to teach myself how to sculpt my own dolls. I've attached my first fully completed sculpt sans costuming. While she has some obvious problems, I'm not totally disappointed with her. Considering my previous attempts tend to look like aliens with massive foreheads (or Yoda as my last attempt at a fairy did), I was actually pleased that she looks relatively human and that I was able to give her a smile.

She is sculpted with Cernit clay and painted with acrylic paints.

I'm currently working on more figures since I want to improve so I don't know when she will be dressed. She's going to need a puffy sleeve to hide her lopsided shoulders though. Constructive criticism or helpful suggestions with sculpting are appreciated. Thanks, 

 

I finally finished painting my Marcia Backstrom kit. She's not "perfect," but she actually looks better than the first two kits I ever did. When I painted the first kit, I did not know that I needed to wash it to get the mold release off, and that I needed to prime it; I kind of leapt in and started painting it and had the worst time with the paint sliding off and peeling. So off to the Internet and researched resin kits and got some tips, which helped with my second kit. That kit turned out better, but I still had a tough time with painting the features since they're so tiny and my brush seems so big!

So this leads to today's example #3. This kit had been purchased at a show in the '90's and was stored in my project drawer. I washed her well with soap and water and primed her with gesso. I removed hairs from an old brush so only a few strands remain, which helped me with control in lining her eyes and painting the iris and pupils. Her eyebrows could be better though...

 

 

I gave her a faint blush by thinning the cheek color with water into a wash and pouncing it on with a dry stippler brush. This still came out somewhat unnatural looking so before it was totally dried, I went over the area with a wet brush which removed excess and blended the rest of the color in. I blushed her forehead, uppper chest, and the backs of her hands as well.

For the boots, I used a painting tutorial I found which give tips on basecoating, highlighting, and shadowing. I was painting shoes in one color, but I liked how the boots turned out. For the laces, I experimented with texturizing my acrylic paint to try to mimic threads. I need a smaller brush to apply it with in the future or maybe a plastic syringe because the threads needed to be thinner on the boot. I may try the textured paints to "make shoes" to see how that would work too. The texturizer gave dimension to the paints so I think it might work for making shoes and maybe gloves.

 

  You can't see the laces too well but this shows the shadowing in the creases of her boots.

Yesterday I spent part of the day painting the glass head pins with glass paints to make the eyes. I changed a few things since the first time I experimented with the glass paints. First I bought a larger bottle of white paint then what came with the kit so I could make lighter looking eye colors. I also purchased a bottle of dilutant for the paints so I could thin them slightly. This worked pretty well; I was able to make a wide range of eye colors: light blue, darker blue, brown, green, and violet.

I used a small double-headed ball stylus tool to apply the paint color: the larger ball was used for the iris color and the smaller ball was used for the pupil. For the iris, I dabbed the stylus into the paint and lightly touched it to the pin head until I was satisfied with the iris. I let these dry for about an hour and then went back to apply the pupil.

I used the smaller ball of the stylus for the pupil. I just barely touched the stylus to the pupil color and then touched the glass pin so that the paint just touched the eye. If the tool touches the eye, it tends to place too much pupil color and obscures the iris color. 

I left them to dry overnight, and then today I'll apply the gloss to seal them. Next step: sculpting a doll.

 

 

The story of my life are the projects I start and get sidetracked and don't finish so I thought if I put a few out there that I'll have to stick to it and get them done. Project 1 is a group of doll kits that I purchased on eBay made by Sylvia Lyons. They have been languishing for apparel since the mid-70s so I think it's time to clothe them! I've decided that the 1840's is their era.

This is the father, mother, and infant of the group. You can see the daughter to the left. There is a son and a set of grandparents as well. Since I've taken this photo, I've given mother and grandmother a more womanly figure and given each a pair of pantaloons as well.

 

 

 

Another "in the works" project is making some glass eyeballs using glass head pins and glass paints. I read about the pin head technique in Katherine Dewey's book Creating Life Like Figures in Polymer Clay, but I decided to try air dry glass paints on them. The first set I made turned out fairly well although darker than I wanted. We recently discussed this on the MSATMiniDolls Group, and it has piqued my interest to try again. I have about a hundred pins drying now - first part is a surface conditioner which takes ten days to cure - so I'll see if I can experiment some more this weekend. Oh, the eyes are for my someday polymer clay sculpted dolls if I can ever make any that look human...

Finally my last currently "in the works" project is painting a Marcia Backstrom kit with acrylics. I'm actually rather pleased with the progress on this one. I tried a suggestion of removing all but a few hairs from a paint brush, and I find I'm doing much better painting the tiny features than I have done on previous kits.  

I thought I'd start out my blog by sharing some of my miniature doll collection.

 

 

I bought this little fairy more than 20 years ago at a miniatures show in my area; I loved the sweet expression on her face. I believe she is made out of polymer clay. I don't know who made her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These two vintage ladies were added to my collection a few months ago. I believed the doll on the right was made by an artist named Ann Rule. I found a photo of this doll in an old issue of Nutshell News from 1985, and it was credited to her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I liked the attention to detail on both the costumes.  The doll on the right carries a purse made of beads threaded on a wire. The other doll carries a pair of gloves in her hand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 This doll was purchased at a show a number of years ago from Michelle Mahler, I believe. It was a choice between this lovely doll and a set of mother and daughter dolls dressed in matching green plaid outfits. I finally decided on this doll because I loved her bonnet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Closeup of the bonnet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joan Blackwood made this trio of dolls. 

This Regency lady was purchased at a show from the Washington Doll's House Museum probably more than twenty years ago. I believe she was made by Sunday Dolls of England. I loved her ruffled hem and that pink feather in her bonnet. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deborah Mitchell made this lovely doll. She's a wonderful example of attention to detail. She carries a wonderful parasol in a fabric that matches her skirt in her right hand and a little crocheted purse in her left.

 

I especially liked the use of the red hair with the purple ensemble. It makes her stand out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Another view.