At last!

I have found some inspiration (it was lurking under my bed...).

Life has gotten in the way for far to long but now I am determinde to make some dolls again.

This is the prototype for a new body.
Lots of stuffing, not liking, unstuffing, tweaking the seams, stuffing, still not liking, unstuffing and so on.
Getting there though and I think this will be good enough to finish.
Thinking of doing steampunk this time.
Love whimsical steampunk stuff and have been itching to make something myself along those lines.

Let's see how she turns out and if she will tell me her name...

And moving on...

Meet the new gals!
Well, their heads anyway... :O)
So far I haven't got bodies, arms and legs done but I am thinking they are going to be a cross between punk and bats. Keep you all posted. Just got to go and figure out how to do batwings for them now......

Progress...

First head done!
Quite pleased with the look. Now I just have to decide what colour her hair should be... I think black... And what colour her clothes should be... Maybe black and purple...

This evening I shall start drawing a face on one of the other blank heads. I've allready decided this one is to have red (and I mean VERY red) hair so green eyes for this next one. :O)

Heads up!

Ok...

Trying to get my mojo back.

I have made 4 heads. Going to paint some faces and see where they take me. Not to dark and creepy I hope!

Finally!

After an age and a half... well, not quite... I have got round to taking some decent photos of Vala's sister Raena. I am pleased with the way she turned out. Raena looks a lot spookier than Vala but I think it's the orange eyes that do it.





And here they are, the two sisters, together. Vala and Raena.

You can see more photos of them on my web page http://www.alteredworlddolls.com/

Almost done...

Well, my Dark Fae, Raena is almost done. This is Vala's sister. Older sister I think?

I still have a little to do on her, like adding fingernails and attaching a clear nylon fishingline to her back so she can hang suspended from the cealing. I'm quite pleased with her. But not the photo! I must rig up a nice setting for her and take some really good photos. This one doesn't do her justice at all but I did so want to show her off!

Raena, like Vala, is pretty gothic looking but slightly more colourful with her striped dress and her dark red wings. I was watching Tim Burtons Sweeny Todd at the time I was dressing her and was inspired by Mrs Lovett's dresses. Raena is made from the same pattern as Vala but the legs have been altered and she is wearing a proper tailored dress. Valas dress was just strips of dyed cheese cloth. And I just had to give her pony tails. My daughters said; Oooo look! She's got punk pony tails!! I like that. Punk pony tails..... :O)

Dottees!

Dollstreet Dreamers are doing a Dottee swap and I thought seeing as I haven't participated in any swaps for yonks I'd join in the fun.
I had no idea what to do with them at first so I did faces first. I tried to go outside what I usually do and did big exagerated features. BIG eyes and BIG lips. Then I had some fun doing free motion embroidery making lacy fabric. I have been itching to try that for ages but not had a good project to do it on. A bit of white fluffy yarn and suddenly my Dottees were looking like little Eskimos. So they became Snow Spirits. Seems a bit daft making Snow Spirits when it's +19 C outside, brilliant sunshine and the daffodils are flowering but to my defens, it WAS snowing when I started them a week or two ago! :O)

Vala's sister in the making...

So, I finally got cracking and have made a start on Vala's sister. Vala said she was missing her.... :O)

I decided to do her a bit differently from Vala. I have used the same pattern (changed the legs) but given her different clothes and a different colour scheme. I went for red and black in this doll as opposed to the greys I used for Vala. This new doll has a tidier look than Vala but is still quite gothic. I found this lovely stripy fabric in my quilting stash and instantly knew that this would be the "over dress". Distressed black cheese cloth for the under skirt together with soft tulle netting. Same black knee high boots as Vala and same make up on the face. I gave this doll orange eyes and red lips to go with the red in her dress. Her hair isn't done yet. I've just stacked some loose yarn on top of her head. I'm thinking that I will use the same white yarn as i did for Vala as it seemes to give the dolls a quite other worldly look. I did try putting black yarn on this doll but didn't like it.

Wings are in the making too (you can just spot them at the bottom in one of the photos). They are going to be dark red with bits of black. I'm busy making them at the moment. They take FOREVER as there is sooooo much sewing but it is worth it in the end!

YES!!!

I got her finished!! Meet Vala, the Darkling Fariy. I am sooooooooo pleased with the way she turned out. I posted lots of photos to my web page... well, actualy it's not my web page.... I haven't got round to doing anything to it so it's just linked to my picturetrail. One day I will get a proper webpage up and running. Instead of me whittling on, heres the addy; http://www.alteredworlddolls.com/

Now I'm all fired up to make a sister for Vala. :O)

Facing faces...

I think that sometimes the hardest thing to do is paint a face. Specially when you have got so far in the process of the doll that you could mess it up big time. I always get paralysed for a few days before I pick up the courage to face the face.
This doll was extra hard for some reason.
I had such a vivid picture in my mind that I was worried that it just wouldn't turn out the way I wanted it to. A lot of the time what is in my head isn't what comes out of my hand. Does that make sense?
Thankfully she did turn out the way I wanted her to. Actually she turned out better! I always have the intention to write down exactly what colours I use and where I use them. And I do start to write but then I get temporarily moved of in to a different world where drawing is all that matters and I end up having no idea what colours I have or haven't used in the pile of pencils that have accumulated infront of me. And so yet again, the chances of ever creating something similar with the same colours is out of the window and half way down the field....

I guess that is why they call these dolls "one of a kind" as even the artists that create them in the first place can't duplicate them!!!

W.I.P

Work in progress or should I say "wings in progress"??!!

After much tweaking of Protea's pattern I am now reasonably happy and have started a new doll. As yet she has no face (and no name) but I am really happy with her pose. I took ages of me sitting infront of a big mirror trying out the poses my self to see if the looked natural or not. I probably looked a right charlie!

I think I will deviate from my use of mohair for hair and use this rather fun yarn that I found instead. It's quite "slinky" and has a nice fall to it. I also wanted to do BIG dragon wings for her. I have spent ages thinking about how to make light weight dragon-ish wings. Can't make them to heavy as it will topple the doll backwards and if you want BIG wings they have to be very light. So a bit of wire, some grey organza, some imagination and a bit of FME and I'm starting to get a look that I like. I think I'll be adding some paint too. And maybe melt the edges to give them a crinkly look.

Oh and I knitted a stripy sock..... Love stripy socks! Still got the other one to do. :O)

Phew!!

Well, after a bit of panicking due to not having saved any details at all of how to log on to my blog again I'm now back. Thanks to all that gave suggestions as to how I could find my way back in. Needless to say I have written it all down this time...

Just wanted to show off what I'm working on at the moment (among other things). I decided it was time to design a new doll from scratch. Being in a "gothic" mood I have gone for fairy but with a darker twist.

This is "Protea the Prototype"!

I was going to call her something nice but I got the word "prototype" stuck in my head so she became Protea because it kind of sounds like prototype for some reason.

Protea isn't quite finished yet. Her wings need fixing as the glue I was using is useless! Need to get some new glue that actually glues things together. I need to tweak the pattern a bit too. Several things don't look or feel quite right about her. Her nose is to big, her ankles a bit too skinny, her arms a little too long, a bit too broad over the chest etc. Just little thing really. And, I do need to take better photos of her.