The Latest on the Life Size Doll

Doll body covered with papier mâché.

It has been so long since I blogged about the doll that I can hardly remember the last post.  Life has been very busy for me lately.  Despite a lack of time, I have made progress on the doll.  Believe it or not she is almost finished.  Since it has been a while, I will recap the process for newer readers. 

This is my first attempt at a life size doll.  I wanted to do an experimental doll before attempting make a life size Santa or Father Christmas figure.  I thought that I would learn some lessons along the way before I started in on a doll using the additional materials and really expensive fabrics needed to make a high end Christmas figure.  I have learned some valuable lessons that I hope will help other readers that might want to attempt a large doll.

I began by making the doll head.  I used a foam head as a base.  I put plastic over the mold and then covered the head with  papier mâché using the strip method.   Once the layers were dry, I removed the head from the mold.  I had to cut it apart to get it out and then use more strip layers to put the head back together.

I began the doll by making an armature out of PVC pipe.  Because we had some scrap 1/2 inch diameter PVC pipe lying around, I used that rather than purchase a larger diameter pipe.  I would say that was mistake number one.   The doll tends to sway and some of the pipes started to bow under the weight of padding used to fill out the figure.  Also, one of the shoulder joints kept coming off.  I think that the weight of the padding was too much for it.  I re-glued it three times.  I finally had to brace the shoulder with bits of dowel and duct tape to keep it intact.  I think the larger gluing area of a bigger pipe might have been helpful there.

I used a piece of 12 inch by 24 inch board as a base.  The legs of the figure were placed into a rectangular frame.  The frame was attached to the base using clamps that screwed into the base.  The base needed to be larger.  The height of the figure (which somehow managed to keep getting taller) was top heavy for this base.  It is somewhat unstable.  It stands up, but it is unbalanced and easy to knock over.

Creating the shape.

To fill out the figure I used aluminum foil, cardboard and bubble wrap.  The bubble wrap is relatively light weight and waterproof.  I had no idea how much bubble wrap it would take, so I was buying the smaller size rolls.  As it turns out, the larger 300 foot roll might have been the way to go.  I used just slightly over 300 feet of bubble wrap.  I wrapped sheets and taped them on with masking tape.  After the figure was padded to my satisfaction, I covered the entire body with a layer of masking tape.  I was uncertain how the papier mâché would stick to the bubble wrap, and I wanted to make sure that the weight of the papier mâché did not cause the bubble wrap to shift.

Since the figure was now just slightly taller than I am, I was able to use my hands as models for the hands of the figure.  Since what I had at the house were vinyl gloves, I used those.  I put on a glove and then covered the glove with bits of masking tape.  I thought that I would have more flexibility if I used small bits of tape rather than wrapping the tape around and around.  Since I did not try the other method, I cannot say if it was better or not.  If I were to make the hands over again I would use nitrile gloves .  They tend to fit more tightly to the skin.  I think it would have made the hands look a little neater.

Padding the figure.

I added the head to the body.  That was a near disaster at one point.  I had to place a PVC pipe in the head so it could be attached to the shoulders.  The rounded head did not lend itself to having a piece of pipe glued to it.  Since the glue was not working, I braced the pipe in place and sprayed in some expanding spray foam.  It seemed to set up and I walked away from the piece.  When I came back later, the spray foam had expanded beyond the head and dripped down on the head in a few places.  It was a mess.  Fortunately the foam peeled off the painted head easily.  If I do another doll like this, I will not use as much foam.  Filling it half way up was too much.  However, the pipe is firmly embedded in the head.

The head was attached to the body by adding dowels to a joint in the shoulder assembly up through the pipe in the head.  Then it was glued and taped into place.  The attachment will be reinforced by layers of papier mâché.  The head looks a little small now.  The shoulders grew wider when I had to brace the shoulder.  It may look more normal once the hair is added.  If necessary I will tease up the hair to give it more volume.  Or perhaps add accessories to fill in the area.

The near disaster with the head.

I have two layers of papier mâché on at this point and would like to add another before I begin painting and sealing the figure.  It should probably have a total of six layers, but I won't have time to add that many before Halloween.  This project is not going to be hanging around after that.  It just takes up too much room.  Perhaps I will be able to find it a good home.  Having a life size doll around is not that much fun.  Sometimes I will walk into the room or catch the figure out of the corner of my eye and for a second will think that someone is in there.  It is kind of creepy.

 Anyway, that is the state of the project at this point.  I hope to have the doll in some shape to go outside on Halloween night.  I should have some pictures for next Sunday's blog.

Cabin Trip - October 2018

The new paint job.

I can't believe that it has been so long since I posted.  Time flies when you are having fun (or going so hard that you can't figure out which way is up.)  Some of the time since I blogged last I have spent in the mountains.  I thought I'd share some photos from the trip.

Not that this was a bad trip, but it was a somewhat difficult trip.  It sorely tried our patience at times.  I guess things actually started to go awry the night before we left.  About 8:30 in the evening we lost electricity when the remnants of Hurricane Michael came through.  It was late enough that we just decided to go on to bed.  Usually we get up early on the morning of our trip up to the cabin so we can get an early start.  However, we could not set an alarm because the electricity was out.  We were hoping that sooner or later the power would come back up and we would set the alarm then.  Well, the power never came back on.  We woke up when it was light, but since the light comes up later this time of year, it was much later than we had planned to get started.

Then we had our first dilemma.  The power was still not on, and we had a refrigerator and freezer full of food.  We started the generator and discussed whether we should postpone the trip and run the generator to save the food or just take everything with us.  The problem being that taking everything with us was easier said than done.  We only have so much room in the coolers. 

Our decision was to pack as much food as we could, run the generator until time to leave to cool down the refrigerator, leave the items that we could not make room for and hope for the best.  Sometimes we are without power for as long as a week or ten days.  There is no telling when the power might come back on.  It could be that we were going to have to throw out some food when we returned.  I packed and packed, using every cooler we had.  It took a long time.  We have a method for loading the van for the trip.  The coolers have to go in fairly early in the process.  Waiting on the coolers made us even later leaving.

We did not know whether the cabin would have power.  This was a huge storm with a lot of flooding statewide.  We had no way of knowing what might be going on in the mountains.  It was so early after the storm that reports were just coming in about the severity of the damage.  Our hope was that since the power company had just been clearing brush in our area that we might not have lost power up there.  Our guess was correct, we had electricity when we arrived.

To our dismay, the refrigerator was not working.  We plugged it in.  The light came on, but the compressor did not.  The refrigerator was not cooling.  This is a big problem.  We had coolers full of food, most of it frozen, but only a  few ice packs in with it to keep things cool.    All the rest of the unpacking was put on hold until my husband work on the refrigerator.  If the refrigerator was not repairable we would have had to make a 45 minutes trip each way to buy ice.  That would hold for a day or so, but the next day we would have to go buy another refrigerator.  That would mean driving an hour and a half, purchasing a refrigerator, renting a truck to get the refrigerator up to the cabin, driving the truck back, and returning to the cabin in our van.  In other words, wasting about six hours of our vacation time on a refrigerator. We were not in very good moods at that point.

My husband took the switch apart and poked around the back of the refrigerator, plugged it back in and the compressor came on.  Crisis averted! For how long?  We don't know.  One thing is for certain. Sooner or later we will have to make that trek.  We know that the refrigerator is not going to last forever.  We are just dreading the day.  There is no time that this is going to be convenient.

The bright spot of the trip was our trip down the mountain to the wine and garlic festival.  We have attended this festival every year for at least the last seven years.  Maybe longer.  It is fun to try the wine and garlic foods.  They have several stages, and a lot of good music.  It is always an enjoyable time. 

This year I packed one hat, the hat I had been wearing while painting while on the last trip.  I did not want to have to wear a hat spattered with paint, so I wore one of the other hats that were up at the cabin.  My choices were to wear a bright orange hat that I wear during hunting season or a hat with the University of Virginia Cavaliers logo on it.  I chose to wear the UVA hat rather than the dorky blaze orange hat. 

I really almost decided to go without a hat.  First of all, Virginia Tech fans up there by far outnumbered UVA fans.  I had to remember which team logo I was wearing so I could respond appropriately to comments and waves from others who were fans of that team.  Fans from both teams are very ardent about their football.  I was waved at by a number of people wearing similar team colors.   I was stopped by a woman who just had to tell me that after the festival she was heading out to the game.    However, it all worked for the best.  We were standing in line waiting for a wine tasting.  When it came our turn to come up to the counter a party of four or five people cut in front of us.  The person serving the tasting was wearing a Cavaliers jacket.  He insisted that the people move over and let us up to the counter.  I am sure it was because he had seen my hat. 

The next day we had to rake leaves.  The yard was ankle deep in leaves even though all the trees were still in full leaf.  It has been so warm that the trees have barely began to turn colors.  We could see a small amount of yellow or red here and there.  Most of the trees are still green, or their leaves just turned brown and fell off.  We started to rake.  It started to rain.  We went inside.  The rain quit.  We went back out and started to rake.  It started to rain again.  We went back inside.  It quit raining.  We went back out.  It started to rain.  By this time we were wet and cold.  We decided that the leaves were coming up no matter what so we kept raking.  I lost count of how many tarps of leaves we dragged off the lawn.  I think it was about twenty.  That is somewhat disheartening when you consider that the bulk of the leaves have not fallen yet.  But at least the leaves are done for now.  Our clothes were soaked.  It was so damp up there that it took them a day or two to dry completely.

The reason we needed to get the leaves finished was because we needed to start painting.  Our last trip up we had painted two of the exterior walls of the cabin.  We wanted to get the rest of the cabin painted on this trip.  It did not rain, but the weather was cloudy, about fifty degrees (F) and the wind was blowing with forty mile per hour gusts.  It was cold work to be out there painting for the most part.

We had purchased what we thought was enough paint to finish the first coat and then do a second coat.  Dream on.  The two cinder block walls soaked up seven of the eight gallons of paint we brought with us.  If the cabin gets a second coat, it will most likely go on in the spring.  At this point, I'm thinking it the cabin looks fine as it is.

Other than that, my husband split wood.  I hauled the wood down to the shed and stacked it.  Last year?  Or the year before?  We had a tree cut down on the property.  We are still working on getting all those big logs split and stacked.  There is never enough time to get everything done that needs to be done there. 

Anyway, that was our trip.  Next blog post I will blog about the latest on the life sized doll that I have been working on.  Progress has been made.