Deb Mackie, IGMA Artisan
Almost there. She got her kimono painted, her wig, and her broken hand repaired. All I need now is to make her fans, and she's done! Somehow, her pose got wacked out while I was working on her and she looks kind of like she's leaning too far, but it will be no problem to correct it.
What a stinking hot miserable weekend. Even with the AC blasting non-stop, I couldn't get it below 80 in the trailer. UGH. But I did manage to get some work done. Pitti-sing got a new pair of hands, more to scale with the help of my hand-scans, and Mark Dennis' technique of applying fingers to a pre-baked palm. Alas, I've come to the conclusion that I really suck at hands. Once I'm not cramming to make a deadline (EXPO is only 3 weeks away!) I'm going to put some serious thought into making a press mold.
Here she is getting her first "fitting:"
Notice how stiff the fabric is. Nothing I hate more than seeing a nice doll dressed in a beautiful costume that sticks out at odd angles because it wasn't draped properly. But this shot is just for fit and length. The next shots show her after draping. As you can see, I managed to snap off three of her fingers while I was setting her pose. Didn't bake them long enough, dammit. I think I can fix them easy enough. She'll be holding a fan in each hand, and her kimono will get hand-painted floral designs when it's dry.
The fabric looks darker, because it's soaking wet. I soak it with Niagara spray starch (nice tip from Jamie Carrington), then pin the drape in place. I also have a product called "Stiffen Stuff" which actually works better, but when I tested it on the silk, it not only made it darker, it dulled it's sheen. And it stayed that way even when dry. With the Niagara, it will dry much closer to the original color, and still keep most of the sheen.
You have to keep in mind how the fabric would fall naturally on a full-size model, then pin it in place. This gives it a more realistic look. Because she'll make a big puddle, I put a scrap of foamcore over the base, then put the whole thing in plastic to keep the wet spray starch off it. The foamcore gives me something to stick the pins into while she's drying. Once dry, I either unpin her, or give her another soaking, depending on how well the drapes hold when dry.
I did give her another soak with the Niagara this morning before work. Tonight, if I'm not too crapped out from work, I'll start on her wig and fans. I'd fix her hands, but I know better than to try that after a day of frustration at work. More likely, I'll do the usual and just work on her tomorrow morning before work.
…sculpting with magnifiers for too long and not enough reference.
It's become painfully obvious that I need a hand "pattern" at hand while I'm working so I don't lose my sense of scale and keep making them too big. So, I stuck my paws in the scanner and scaled them down for reference. Damn those things are tiny.
I've actually been thinking that in the interest of time, I really should sculpt an excellent pair of hands, and make a press-mold of them so I don't have to start from scratch every time. That, and a feet/shoes mold wouldn't hurt either. Every time I make hands and feet, I screw them up at least twice before I get a useable pair, and by then they've gotten out of scale. I need to take the time to make some perfect ones, and use them as a starting point for future dolls. I'd save a lot of time and fuss that way, but they'd still be customizable to the individual doll.
Found a nice kimono pattern for Pitti-Sing, although they're so simple, one hardly needs a pattern to make one.
Click to enlarge
Well, I'm trying to work on two at once here, but haven't gotten very far. Meg's in the fridge because the clay got mushy in the heat, and I've already squished her twice and started over. But I figure I can be working on one while the other's in the oven, etc. Keeps me from fiddling with things before the glue dries too.
Anyway, my all-time favorite show has to be Brigadoon, and I got to play Meg (the village party-girl and floosie) in Footlighter's 1998 production. Quite honestly the most fun, and the best performance I ever did. It ran for four sold-out weeks. I cried when the final curtain came down.
I might try to make this one a self portrait, just for fun. My favorite show, but not my favorite costume. She needs some tartan, and I was never crazy about that purple ric-rac.
No doll pix yet, but here's photos from the show. The top three are the song "My Mother's Wedding Day" party scene, the bottom one is from "The Real Love of My Life."
Damn, I wish I still looked like that…
Well, the weekend wasn't a total loss. I got started on another costume-inspired piece. Not a costume from my closet, but one I wore when I played "Pitti-Sing" for the Ardensingers 1995 production of The Mikado.
Yeah, that's me, tall one of the "Three Little Maids" in the lavender kimono (top photo), and kneeling in the front of the middle photo. I'm all the way to the left of the bottom shot, where Mary Myers is front and center doing her fabulous "Katisha" role. That's another doll I've got on my list!
The costumes were made by Fran McGaughey for the West Chester G&S group originally, and I think every local theater group in the tri-state area has rented them for the past 15 or so years! Fran also made the costume for Lois Alt when she sang "Nobody Loves a Fairy When She's Forty." I couldn't find any photos of Lois in the costume, so I sort of made it up from memory.
Anyway, here's a start on Pitti-Sing. She's not meant to be a portrait of me, so I tried to make her look more Japanese.
Here she is with her makeup:
Once again, I can see that I've made the hands WAY too big. This is a recurring problem I have to get a grip on. She'll get a new pair before I move on. It always amazes me that I don't see these things till I shoot photos. I think I'm going to scan my own hand, print it out to size and glue it to my worktable for reference so this doesn't happen again!!! I get to working with my magnifiers on, and lose track of the scale.
Another recurring problem I ran into was that damned aluminum wire. Once again, I twisted it too tight or something, and one of her leg wires snapped after only repositioning it twice. Of course, it was the one with the brass tube, so it was an extra big pain in the arse to fix. I think next time I'm going to go back to the steel wire for poseables, even though it's harder to work with.
Not only that, but it's a good thing she was going to be painted–somehow the knob on my oven got bumped up to 400 degrees and she got very discolored and scorched before I realized what was happening. Notice the difference in color between her hands/feet and her face/torso-they're both Prosculpt light, but were baked separately.
Here you can see the tube-and-rod system I use to make them "stand without a stand." The brass tube in the leg slips over a smaller rod drilled into the display base. Many thanks to Natasha of Morezmore for that fabulous little trick!
Today was a wash, didn't get any studio time. Put up 75 bales of hay, did some laundry, vaccuumed, and got some groceries. Not sure what's going on tomorrow. 3 weeks to get more dolls done before EXPO!!!
This particular law states that after you've spent months worrying, filling out forms, sending in photos of your work, etc, you'll find out that your non-refundable $300 deposit check has been cashed, and you've at long last been accepted to exhibit at the 2009 Chicago International–only to then find out that the BWH Orchestra trip to Scotland to play for the Edinburgh Harp Festival is the same weekend.
Give me a three-and-a-half-day weekend, crappy weather, a lip-shaped miniature Dali sofa, and see what I do with it? Meet Mistress Ruby.
Click thumbnails below to enlarge view.
She'll be available for sale at EXPO 08 in August. $275
At last, she's done, and all photographed. Visit the main website for more photos.
Available for sale at EXPO 08 in August. $250
Murphy's law states that while you are diligent at keeping your TWELVE cats healthy, spayed/neutered, and well-fed, your neighbors will try to guilt-trip you into taking their latest litter of unwanted kittens because they're sure that "one of your cats must be the daddy."
This law also states that the aforementioned ignorant humans will probably box up the aforementioned kittens and dump them somewhere, like they probably did with the box of kittens you found in your driveway last summer.
And sadly, the law states that when you take in the aforementioned box of kittens, bottle-feed them for a month because they haven't even been weaned yet, feed them, love them, find two of them good homes and decide to keep the other two, they will all become gravely ill around the age of 5 months and end up being euthanized due to being infected with FeLV at birth, breaking your heart and those of the kind souls who took the first two.
People SUCK.
Murphy's law states that when you spend countless dollars to keep your dogs up-to-date on their shots, safe in their nice fenced yard and out of trouble, neighbors will move in next door who think that because they've moved "out to the country," it's ok to just let their nasty pit-bull and other assorted mutts out the back door and forget about them till they come back home.
Said mutts will inevitably find it amusing to shit in your driveway after cleaning out the cat food bin in the barn, digging up your flower beds, terrorizing your barn cats, pissing on your tires and driving your fenced dogs insane. They will also run around eating horse shit in the pasture where they will narrowly miss being killed by a belligerent donkey, then stand there and bark incessantly at said donkey from the other side of the fence. One of the buggers will even have the nerve to growl at you when you attempt to chase them home with a broom.
This law further states that when kind pleas to the aforementioned ignorant neighbors to keep their mutts in their own yard fail, your pump-action pellet gun will malfunction when trying to persuade said mutts to leave the property by stinging them on the butt with a bb or two.