Wednesday Friday Addams WIP

I started working on this doll on Monday. I gave myself a week to finish her, but I didn't quite make it. I need to get myself moving faster. :o)

Anyways, here are progress pictures of her as I've been moving along.

I tried something a little different this time. Long ago when I did fairies I used this technique, but had since moved on. What I did was only sculpted the bottom of the eyes. This way I have more options when it comes time to paint. She looks like her eyes are closed, and that's why. It's funny how she looks kind of messy before she's baked. But just like the rest of us women, makeup does wonders :o) As you can see in the next picture.

I'm totally happy with these eyes. I know people say don't ever use white for the whites of the eyes when making dolls. I say Hogwash!! I want my eyes to pop, and white makes them pop! Of course realism isn't what I aim for. More of a fantasy world kind of look.

Here she has her hands and feet finished and her body has been made. In case you're curious, her body is made of cloth covered floral wire and then wrapped with pipe cleaners. This way it can be posed easily but still hold it's shape. If you've seen my videos, you might notice that I use superglue to glue the armature into the hands and feet before I bake them. This is another step that I do to make the clay secure.

Here she has her striped stockings on. Wednesday didn't really wear this kind of stockings, but with so much black on her outfit, it seemed like a good choice to add a little flair to the fashion. The stockings are made by wrapping the wires with crochet threads. The reason that I do this is so that the legs can still be bent without any restriction. If I had used a material that ran vertically on the leg instead, this would limit the movement because of the scale of the doll.

These are two quick little sketched I did on the computer to try out different design ideas for her clothing. I used my graphics tablet and Ulead PhotoImpact software to do the drawings. I showed this sketch to the commissioner and she preferred the design on the left. So that's what I attempted to do.

I've used my satin flesh thread to bulk up her upper torso. She's ready to be dressed now.

Here are her little shoes. They are made out of felt and polymer clay. The soles being polymer. I still need to add the laces. I've been putting this off. I'm worried that if I pierce the felt it will rip, so in the back of my mind I've been trying to work out another way to accomplish the task.

Ok.....now let me explain something. My husband gets upset we me (and rightly so) because he says that I don't listen to him. I totally do listen. But you know, I sometimes think to myself, "Oh, I can make that even better than what we discussed and surprise him". And you know what happens? He's disappointed because he wanted things the way we talked about them. Darn me, why do I do this???

Anyhow, that's what you're seeing here. Me, in my constant attempt to do better than expected attempted to duplicate Wednesday Addams dress from the movie. That is the exact print that was used on her dress. This dress isn't finished, didn't do the cuffs or collar. But after I did it, I realized it looks crappy. Just not right.

And I had to show my commissioner just in case she liked it, I'd hate to take an option away. Needless to say it's NOT what she wanted, so this little dress is in my stash for another doll later. :o)

This is Wednesday's new dress. It's made out of felt and cotton. It looks like wool, and although I've not hear from her commissioner yet, I think it looks much better.

And here she is with her buttons. I used polymer clay to make the little buttons. They are glued on because they are tiny. I trimmed the shape of her skirt as well.

I got myself into a tizzy tonight over her little headless doll. I didn't want to make it out of clay because then it wouldn't look like a doll, because it would look the same. So I wasted all day today being freaked out about her little doll. I even got bummed out and went to sleep for a good 6 hours.

Then I went out and talked to hubby and together we came up with this sweet little doll. Now I think it's perfect and am super happy with it. It's a little hard to see because of the black and white. It's made out of pipe cleaner that I covered in felt and then threaded over it. The collar is made of cotton and the buttons are made of laminated cardboard.

 

Here's a better picture of the doll. I put it in my hand so you could see the size as well as the contrast. Cute huh? I like it.

Her shoes are laced and I really need to start trusting myself. They were perfect to do and quite sturdy since I used the fabric stiffener on the felt as well as a coat of black acrylic paint. I stressed for nothing. The only thing left to do is to wig little Wednesday. And since I gave myself today as a deadline, even thought it's 11:20 pm, I'd better get busy.

Wednesday is in her CFSW and ready to start getting wigged. I do this to protect her clothing from loose hair. Just like when you get your hair cut. :o)

Here I've started her hair. Wednesday wears her hair in two braids so wigging a doll like this is almost like making two wigs. One for each side of her head. The key to a nice wig is to be sure that there are no ends showing around the hairline. In this picture it looks like I've got lots of hair ready to do the right side of her head, but the fact is all of that hair is for the left side. It will be pulled and flipped over to show a nice part line down the center. (I hope!!!) :o) Blogging and photo taking while I sculpt helps a lot because it gives me the patience to wait for glue to dry. ;)

I sure wish this picture would have come out better, but it is what it is...LOL Here you can see where I've pulled all of the hair on her left over to form the pigtail. See the nice-ish straight part?

And here's what it looks like from the left. So far so good. :o) I'll be happy when I can get her hair all finished. There's one thing I do not like about wigging. It's all the fly-aways!!! There are little black fibers floating through the air and on everything! And then when it comes time to pull out the clay there are little fibers that get caught in it. No matter how hard I try I can never get them all up. Poooooh!

And here is the right side of her head waiting for the glue to dry. I don't know if anyone noticed but I'm wigging this doll a little differently than usual. I usually use the little wefts, but today felt pressured to get on schedule so I forgo that step and went straight from hank to head. It actually worked quite well, and if you decide you'd like to try this method, I will share some tricks here at a later date: Non-wefted Viscose Application.

As you can see I didn't get the part as close together as I would have liked. So it's time for a little "fixing".

This might look a little worse to you, but what I did was to put a line of glue down the hair line and then press the hair into the glue. Once it has dried I will then attempt to smooth it out again.

I love when I get the hair finished and can take her out of her CFSW. It's like opening a present :o) Below are some more pictures of her. Click to enlarge these ones.

All in all I enjoyed making this doll. I do have to say that I wasn't fond of my self imposed time frame. Made me feel a little pressured. But it's really fun to make something that I'd never think of making.  I hope you like her and enjoyed following along.

Stats:
started: 07-05-2011
finished: 07-11-2011
sale price: $75 + s/h