I have chosen today to display Autumn, who was a blank ceramic I painted with my air brush. She was the first thing I painted with it – and she’s nothing special. Currently she’s sitting on my shelf with a broken wing and in need of a home. If anyone wants her, I will gladly box her up for you for free. Well, mostly free. Just pay shipping.
She was hard to do, actually, and it took me a while because I’m funny about detail.
In other news, the current commission may be finished shortly. I have a convention to attend to this weekend in Paducah… but I’ve managed to convince the boss to cut my hours at work. This means I’m starting to catch up on everything I’m up to. I’m so happy! I miss it when I don’t get to work on dolls.
The reason why I don’t take doll commissions often is because of things like what has been happening in the past several weeks: my life explodes. My husband deployed. We’ve gotten past that. Now if only my part-time job would cut down the hours as my supervisor had promised. I like the big paychecks. I miss the art.
My husband deployed for Afghanistan a couple of days ago. This has left a huge hole in me.
Between being preoccupied with the day until it happened to now, artwork has had to be set aside as my life became a hectic nightmare. Things are slowly getting back on schedule.
That’s what has been happening.
In case you guys were wondering what she looks like right now.
It was a Barbie who deserved a bit more glam in her life. Another rescue from a yard sale.
If I remember correctly, she went off to become a clothing model for a doll artist in New York. Not bad for a thrown away small town girl, huh?
It’s another Jakks Pacific I did a long time ago. I gave her a new face and new hair.
Today’s work on Cathriara was a little time-consuming, but by far the most delicate part of the whole process.
She grew her ears.
Her dye also lightened a bit, but that’s okay. I can’t finish the color properly without the ears anyway. Here she is so far again.
Usually when I do this I have left over clay “stuff”. I don’t like to waste it, so it becomes jewelry for whatever doll got the ears.
I have to wait a day or two for the stuff to dry and seal completely before I can continue.
Next steps will be the final color touches, including getting her hair the right color. Then it’s face and clothes clothes cloths.
Today, being as I was determined to work more on the doll even if it killed me once she was dry enough, was dye day again.
At first, the blue dye I had picked didn’t take. So I mixed it with a different brand, and voila. In one go, the doll is now the appropriate color of purple.
I’m VERY pleased with how the dye took. It even did some shadings and things on the skin that I thought I was going to have to do bit by bit by hand. This last session really pushed the doll forward in her making.
Now she had to dry before the next step.
I haven’t posted a doll gallery page in a while, so here’s one. Her name is Jasmine. Her body is a Janay model: I loved working with those dolls. Their face molds were superb. Sadly you can’t really find them anywhere anymore.
She was a simple repaint.
I promised pictures of phase one, and here it is. Yeah I know: it isn’t multiple. I’m a lazy photographer. Here she is with her under color.
I’m going for purple, because the character I’m creating is that color. But she still needed fleshly undertones, and here they are. I’m especially pleased with the color of her hair. It’s a neat strawberry blonde. I may recreate that color for a future doll.
The next step is to get some blues to two a second undercolor layer. I still haven’t found the purple I’m looking for in regards to the final wash: I’ll probably have to turn to the internet for it. No problem. There are thousands of dye colors out there. I just have to figure out where they’re at.
