Life Size Doll Armature - Adding Volume

I have been working on the doll this week.  As I wrote in a previous blog post, two important considerations have been the weight of the piece and how much it will cost to construct the project.  I am trying to keep the weight down by using light weight materials.  So far, the materials for the project have been PVC pipe for the frame, cardboard, newspaper, aluminum foil,bubble wrap and tape.  I used 1/2 inch diameter PVC because we had some scraps of it left over from another project.  At the moment, the legs are looking a little shaky.  I am hoping that once other materials are added over the bare pipes that the structure will tighten up a bit.  All in all, if I were starting over, I would use a larger diameter pipe.  However, that runs into my other consideration: cost.  I did not want to spend the money for new pipe.  At this point I am still hoping that the smaller pipe will hold up.  I have a Plan B if things don't work out.

 Once the basics of the form were on I started adding shape to the piece. Circles were cut from newspaper and folded into quarters then opened fully.  One line was cut from the edge all the way to the center.  This allowed the circle to overlap and become a cone shape.  It was taped inside and out at the overlap.  The cones were half -way taped to the torso to form the breast shapes.  The were shapes stuffed with newspaper to form a firm surface.  I had originally planned to stuff the shapes with foil, but I kept poking holes in the cones while trying to tamp the foil into place.  I had some polyester fiber fill (left over from another project) I could have used as stuffing, but the newspaper was free and I paid for the fiber fill.  Anyway, all's well that ends well.  Once everything was stuffed I taped over the entire area.

The next step was to cover the upper torso with bubble wrap.  One side of the bubble wrap has the bubbles and the other side is smooth.  I put the smooth side outward.  I kept working at it until I had a figure that fit the upper dimension I was looking for.  What was that dimension?   Basically I was looking for 36 inches (15.4 cm.) at the bust.  At the moment, the figure looks a little high chested, but that is as it should be.  The head for the doll has a fairly long neck that flares out at the base to give the head stability.  To accommodate the flare at the base, the shoulders will have to be built up about two inches.  That will give the torso a more normal look.

The hips for the figure were already in place.  I wrote about creating them in a previous blog post.   I added some more cardboard to the top of the hips to form the waist area.  The cardboard pieces were taped together.  Once the cardboard was secure, the form was stuffed with newspaper so that it would remain rigid and not collapse in on itself. 

More bubble wrap was added to cover the waist area.  I would have kept going and worked on the hip area as well, but I ran out of bubble wrap.  I had only purchased one roll because I was uncertain how much I would need for the project.  I would rather make another trip to the store than stuck with unused rolls of bubble wrap.  My studio is seriously overstuffed with materials and projects  and I need to do another purge of unused stuff.  Purchasing bubble wrap is on the agenda for this week.  Maybe I will go ahead and buy two rolls since I still have the arms and legs to complete as well.

The 4th of July falls on a Wednesday this year.   Some holiday activities will be on the weekend of the 1st and other activities will be on the following weekend.  I expect to be pretty busy the whole time.  I don't think I will have time to post anything until Sunday, July 8th.  How did it get to be July already?

More on Life Size Doll Armature

Last blog post I was writing about beginning to fill out the upper part of the torso.  This post I will be showing the first part of the hip area.  Each section will be built up in layers until the body has a fairly natural look to it.  The goal is not to create a perfect body form, but to make a form that will serve as the base for a dressed doll.  It does not have to be completely correct, it just has to be proportional enough to a fair approximation.

Right now, the top looks too small to go with the current hip construction.  That is because this is the first layer.  There will be more layers, on the upper torso and I have to allow room for the layers to come.  I am building up areas one at a time so I can see where I need to make changes as I go along.  At the moment, I think the hips might be a little wide, but it is a little late to be taking the frame apart.   Everything is glued in place.  I would have to use a hack saw to cut out some of pipe and the glued joints and replace it with new joints.  It might creating more work than it is worth.

I was having a little trouble visualizing the hip area, so I started taping on balls of paper to the supports until I had an idea of where the hips should be situated for the pose I want the doll to hold.  (This doll's position will be static.  Since the frame was glued in place it does not move.)  That step was not really necessary, but it did help me understand the underlying bone structure.  Once I figured out how high I wanted the hip to be, I taped on cardboard front and back and stuffed the area with balls of newspaper.  The rest of the newspaper stuffing was not taped.

After the hip area was stuffed, I covered the entire section with masking tape, including the top and bottom.  I use the masking tape as a buffer against moisture.  The external layer of the doll will be a form of paper mâché and fabric.  I have had projects fail when the cardboard absorbed too much moisture from the mix.  Although there should be some layers covering the cardboard, I prefer to give myself  some extra protection now rather than have to rework an area later if things become soggy.

Next, I will be working on the upper torso again in order to add more shape and bring it into proportion to the hip width.    Once that is done, the waist area will be filled to create a smooth and shapely torso.  The head will be mounted and the shoulders will be padded to match the neck area.  Arms and legs will be worked in to match the rest of the body.  Another layer (or perhaps two will go on to pad and soften the hard edges of the figure.  Then the "skin" layer will go on.  The hair will go on after the skin layer.  I don't want to get goo on the hair while trying to put on the skin.  I do want the hair on before I start adding clothes and accessories.

Check back next Sunday afternoon for the latest update on this project.

Padding the Armature for Life Size Doll

I have been working on the doll between travel and other things going on, so it has been slow going on this project.  I am sorry that I cannot get to it faster.  I know it is frustrating for some readers to return and see that the blog has something on it other than information about the doll.  It is frustrating for me too.  However, at the moment the time just is not there for working on the project.

The plan was this doll was to be entered in a competition.  Because the doll is going to be moved around, weight is a consideration.  To get the doll to the competition, I will have to load it into a van, remove it from the van, and transport it from across a very large parking lot into a building.  I plan to use a dolly to move the doll across the parking lot.  However, once the doll is out of my hands, somebody is going to have to move the doll to the competition set up.  I don't want anyone to struggle with it.  As the degree of difficulty in moving the doll goes up, so does the potential of damage to the doll.  I want to keep the weight to a minimum.

Not only am I trying to keep the weight down, I am also trying to keep costs down.  While the outer layers will be purchased materials, the inner part of the armature is made of recycled materials; mainly aluminum foil, newspaper, and tape.  Many times I wrap and freeze baked goods first in plastic wrap and then in foil.  The foil is recycled, but it has never been food contaminated.  The newspaper comes from the free newsprint magazine that is delivered weekly to our home.  So for this section, my main expense was the masking tape.

Before I get into the armature, I need to say a word about the masking tape.  Masking tape comes in various widths and amounts of holding power.  The strength people may choose depends upon the type of job someone will be doing.  Some tape is low tack, easily removed and having little residue.  That is not the type of tape for making an armature.  It does not hold well on some materials.  You want a heavy duty tape that will grab hold of your armature and hold things in place.  Look for words such as high adhesion or heavy duty on the label.  You will be much happier with it in the long run.

This doll is supposed to be a dancer, or at least that was my first working premise.  I want the doll to be in proportion and fairly anatomically correct.  The padding of the armature is where most of this magic will take place.  The main thing to keep in mind at this point is that the padding will be built up in layers in order to replicate bone and muscle structure.  If you just start wrapping around and around  the armature with your chosen material, you might end up with a rather rounded figure.  That may work for some figures, but it will not look like a normal human figure.   By adding layers in specific areas you can have a more normal looking figure.  You have to keep in mind that each layer adds depth and you have to keep your finished image in mind as you are adding the layers.  This method takes longer than just wrapping the figure.  So factor that into your plan.

I started by adding "ribs" made out of foil across the armature.  To create some extra depth for the chest, I crumpled up balls of foil and attached them to the armature with tape.  I added two layers of crumpled foil balls to reach the depth I wanted.  The photo shows the armature after the first layer.  Then, I rolled to pieces of foil together to shape each rib.  These were taped along only across the front of the armature.  The foil is not tightly wrapped, but it is not loosely wrapped either.  It is firm enough to hold its shape.  Each rib is taped to the one above it more or less at the center to help it stay in place.  Inside of this area it was hollow. 

I added pieces of balled up newspaper to the hollow area to keep the ribs from caving in towards the spine.  Then the entire area was covered in tape.  This creates a fairly flat firm base for the layer that comes next.  More layers can be added without adding a lot of bulk to the back.

Even at this stage, adding layers is not just a once and done situation.  Sometimes the foil needs a little pressing and pulling to get it into the place it needs to be.  Int the photo showing the "back", you can see that the right side of the rib is lower than the left.  Things needed a little adjusting before I was satisfied with the result.

This is about as far as I have come on the project.  Next post I will be showing the creation of the hip and waist area.  I just want to remind my readers that this is an experimental doll.  I am just working intuitively on what comes next rather than following some specific instructions.  Sometimes things work out well, other times they don't.  Only time will tell if it all works out.  If you are making a life size doll and have a better idea, go for it.  

Check back next Sunday afternoon for the latest update on this project.

Cabin Trip May 2018

Blue Ridge red salamander

I did not post an update about the life-sized doll last Sunday because we were on the road again.  Between the physical therapy for my shoulder and traveling, I have had very little time to work on the project.  However, some progress has been made and I will be blogging about it again next week.  Today I wanted to share some of the photos from my trip.

We left on a day with sunny weather.  It was a nice change.  It seem like for the last year we have been starting out with it raining for almost every trip.  However, the nice weather did not last.  We planned to be up there for a week.  Every day the weather forecast went something like this:  showers in the morning, showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon, showers and thunderstorms till midnight, thunderstorms after midnight, rain and showers in the early morning.  The forecast was like that for the entire time we were up there.  Flash flood warnings were up each day and grew more numerous as the time week went on. It did not rain continuously, there were breaks in the rain, but when it rained it poured down ferociously.

Fortunately, the rain did not start until the evening we arrived.  We were able to unload and mow the grass.  Otherwise the grass might be well above knee height by the next trip up.  There were not many branches down in the yard, but there was one fairly large piece of a rotted branch that had fallen.  When my husband went to move it before mowing, he found a small red salamander.  We had seen salamanders in the yard previously, but we have not seen them often.

Woodson's Mill

The salamander is a sub-species called the Blue Ridge red salamander.  They are generally between 2.5 to 2.7 inches (55 -63 mm.)  Smaller salamanders tend to eat insect larva and worms.  Larger specimens may eat small invertebrates such as snails or even small amphibians.  In the winter, these salamanders live in springs or streams.  In spring they may live in burrows near the stream or under rocks or fallen trees.  Although the salamanders are red, which many times in nature means that it is poisonous, these creatures are not poisonous, but it may be an indicator that they are unpalatable.

Water at the bottom of the mountain

This trip up, our goal was to complete laying the new flooring in the attic.  The flooring has to be cut to fit.  The saw was set up on the front porch during the times that my husband worked on the floor.  If it was raining badly, or overnight, we had to move the saw into the house.  The flooring is complete upstairs.  We took a couple of pictures before we moved all the things that are stored up there back up there.  It is a relief not to have all those boxes stuffed into corners downstairs anymore.  However, now that everything is back in the attic, it no longer looks quite so spacious.

Where the paved road ends.

The weather held long enough for us to visit with friends one evening, but other than that it was a lot of sitting on the porch. Once in a while we were able to see the sun.  Since everything was dripping wet, when the sun did come out it made everything seem to glow.  The light was dazzling.

Since it has been a very rainy spring, the plants have taken off and everything is growing at full capacity.  The air was heavy with the scent of honeysuckle, wild rose, and rhododendron.   Between the nearly overwhelming floral fragrance and the rushing stream, the affect was enough that it made me very drowsy.  It was difficult to make myself leave the porch. 

Behind the cabin.

I think the rainy weather has made it a bit difficult to harvest the hay.  While we were driving up there I noticed that all the hay is still in the fields and has not been cut.  I guess they need several days of good weather before they start trying to cut down the fields.  I don't know how long the hay has to stay on the ground before it can be rolled into those large rolls.

Needless to say, all the rain has swollen the streams all around.  There was not a lot of snow this year, and the streams were not as large as normal after snow runoff.  The area has more than made up for it with all this rain.  The news has reported that this was the rainiest May that has been recorded since they started keeping records in 1800.   I think that even the normally placid stream that runs behind the house was running fast enough that it could knock you down. 

Dripping water caused everything to glow.

We actually returned home a day earlier than we had planned.  Flash floods warnings became more numerous and the radio news was starting to give reports of roads washing out and even people being washed away.  We decided that it was probably time to go.  Even if the roads held up, saturated soil can cause trees to topple.  We have to drive through a forest to get down the mountain.  There have been times when we have had to cut a tree that has fallen on the road to get up to the cabin or back down.  You don't want to be stuck up there if dozens of trees are down on the road.

I have also included a couple of photos that I snapped along the way.  Because of how the mill sits relative to the road, it is hard to get a good picture of it.  I snapped this one on the way up.  The pavement sign has a double meaning for me.  There is an illustrated book of poems called "Where the Sidewalk Ends" by Shel Silversteen.  This sign always reminds me of that book.  The other meaning is that this is the point where we seem to jump off into the wild.  The road goes from pavement to gravel and becomes progressively rougher as we drive up the mountain.  Things are different out in the wild.

Field of hay.

Next Sunday I will be writing about the doll again.  I expect to have much of the filling placed on the armature by then.  Check back on next Sunday afternoon for the latest update.