Large Doll - Part 2

Paper mache' over foam head.

This has been a very successful crafting week.  It was aided by a winter storm.  It was snowing and cold and everyone was staying inside.  I actually got a fair amount of work done despite having a bad cold.

My new project is going to be a large doll.  It will be close to four feet tall.  This is my first attempt at making a doll in this size, so the whole project is one big experiment.  As with any experiment, you have a working hypothesis of what you think is going to happen.  Then you perform the experiment to see if what you expect is actually going to happen or if you end up with something else.  I am hoping that my doll making skills from working with smaller size dolls are going to translate well for this project.

In my last blog post I had just started the project.  I had put a layer of paper mache' over a Styrofoam doll head.  I was using a basic method of paper strips slathered with a paste made of all-purpose flour and water.   This post I would like to elaborate more on my method of working with paper mache'.  Many of my new readers have not seen the older projects and may not be familiar with my methods.  Long term readers may want to skip over the next three paragraphs and move on to the rest of the article.

Rubber  band used to mark center line.

There are many ways to work with paper mache'.  I use this method because it makes less of a mess during production.  I mix flour paste and water and stir until the mixture is really smooth and there are no lumps.  Newspaper is torn into strips appropriately sized for the project.  A large smooth area can use larger strips, but a curved surface will need smaller pieces to prevent the paper from forming folds and creases that will show on the surface of the project.   If you have folds and creases in the paper, it will require more sanding to achieve a smooth surface in your final stages.

I use a foam brush to smooth an even layer of paste on each side of the paper strip.  Then I use the foam brush to smooth the paper onto the surface I plan to cover.  If a piece of paper will not lay flat on the surface, I use scissors and cut the piece so that one side of the cut will overlap the other.  The foam brush helps smooth out air bubbles.  If you leave air bubbles under the paper, you may have a soft spot in the paper mache' after it dries.  The foam brush helps keep a smooth even layer of paper mache' on the suface.  The smoother the surface, the less sanding is needed.  Depending on the project you may or may not need to sand, but on a doll's face I would like for it to be as smooth as possible.

Horizontal registration marks added.

There is another method of working with strip paper mache' that is somewhat quicker, but as I said, it makes a mess.  Dip you strip of paper in a trough of the flour paste.  Use your finger and the side of the trough to remove excess flour paste from the strip.  It does work but... a good bit of the time the strip broke in half leaving me to fish a soggy mass of newsprint out of the paste.  It also sent drips of flour paste everywhere.  If you have a work area where how much mess you leave doesn't matter maybe this is okay.  But I found that flour paste was everywhere and once hardened it was difficult to clean up the work surface, floor and even at times on the wall.  Enough said.

Now, back to this project.  I put four layers of paper mache' on the foam head.  My plan is to remove the paper mache' from the Styrofoam mold.  Looking at the foam head I could see that the head was cast as a two part mold.  I was hoping I would be able to take the mask off as two pieces, but I suspected that it might have to come off in three pieces.  Four layers of paper mache is still fairly flexible, but I did not know if it would flex enough to be able to pull away from the overhang of the chin.  Again, this is an experimental doll.  I have to figure out how to make things work.

I placed a large rubber band on the head at roughly the center line.  I traced alongside the rubber band with a black marker to give myself a cutting line for removing the head.  Then I removed the rubber band.  If I had just used the rubber band, it might have rolled off as the head was moved.  It could come off and give me a sharp snap.  How do I know this?  Experience.   

After removing the rubber band, I added some horizontal registration lines so that I would be able to re-align the piece evenly.  In a previous project I had forgotten to add them and it was really difficult to make the piece line up.  Paper mache' is more flexible than you think and tends to curve inwards or outwards once it is cut.  It is not just a matter of taping the two halves back together.

I used a scalpel blade to cut along the marked line.  A scalpel blade is curved and does  not cut as deeply as a craft knife.  It is also very sharp.  I wanted to retain the foam head in as pristine a shape as possible.  I have plans for it in a future project.

Well, one can hope for a specific outcome, but you don't always get it.  As it turned out, it took cutting the mask into three pieces to get it off the face.  The overhang of the chin was too sharp to allow the chin to pull free.  I am guessing that the foam head was cast in a silicone mold that allowed the mold to peel back.  At any rate, it was not going to work with this mask.  It just means that there is a bit more work involved in putting it back together.

The second cut was marked just under the jaw line and the base of the chin.  If there were any ridges visible one the mask was put back together I wanted to be below the curve of the face.  The ridges can be sanded down, but still the less visible the better.

I won't keep you in suspense, the doll mask is off the doll and put back together.  This post is already getting long, so I will be blogging on how I put the mask back together in next Sunday's blog post.  It was not quite as simple as one would suspect.