Doll Experiment - Part 5

Shaping the eye area.

Today I am blogging about the papier mache' doll project again.  It feels as if time flies so quickly when I am working on a project.  Sometimes I am really surprised that so much time has passed and it seems as if I have made very little progress.  Working in papier mache' can be very time consuming.  Yet, progress has been made on the project, so I guess I cannot complain.  To recap, my goals on this project were to attempt to make a doll from papier mache' using an existing doll as a mold, see if I could make the doll stand on its own, and change the pose of the doll.  So far, I have removed the mold from the doll, added eyes, and started the work on changing the pose. More layers of papier mache' were added to the doll once the portions of the doll were taped together once the original doll was removed.

I added some more layers of papier mache' around the eyes to begin developing the eye lids.  I also did a little painting on the eyes.  The painting is not completed yet.  I just wanted to get the eyes in so I had a feel for the where the eye lids needed be.  Papier mache' can be very messy and the eyes were getting smeared with the paste mixture, so it was not worth completing the painting until that area was finished. 

Separating the joints.

Now I am beginning to modify the arms.  Rather than have the doll's arms straight out to the sides, I plan to change the doll's pose so that she is holding up something and looking at it.  I had cut the doll's arm lengthwise after removing the arm from the torso in order to remove it from the original doll.  Then the doll's arms were taped back together.  After that, I sawed the left arm apart at the elbow and wrist areas.  I also cut off the fingers and thumb to change the shape of the hand so that it could hold something.  To make those cuts I used a small saw.  Actually, this was the saw that came with my Pumpkin Masters pumpkin carving kit.  It worked well for making this straight cut.  I was being lazy and did not want to get a hack saw from the other workshop area.

However, for the next step I needed to get out a power tool.  To make the pieces of the arm flex so that it appeared that the arm was bent, I needed to cut an arc out of the upper arm and fore arm.  I started by using the small saw I had used previously, but I found it did not work well for cutting the arc.  I had to put pressure on the arm in a different direction and it was causing the upper and lower sections of the arm to come apart.  I used a cutting wheel on my rotary cutting tool to make the cuts.  I will also have to remove some material from top of the upper arm as well.  Once I am satisfied with the shape of the arm, it will be taped and covered with papier mache'.

That is about as far as I was able to get in this work.  It was time to get on with my day.  I am still deciding whether I will make a deeper arc in each section of the arm or whether it will work as it is now.  Sometimes it is better to sleep on things for a bit. 

I do not expect to have time to work on the doll again this week, so I will be blogging an update on another project for the next blog post.  I should be blogging about this project again soon.  Check back on the next blog post on Thursday.