This will not be a long posting because I’m still sculpting and likely to be so for quite some time. This is where I’m up to so far.
There are also a couple of torsos needing limbs. Well it doesn’t look much for a week’s work but the most I can do is two dolls a day. I have tried to do more but there is a definite fill level beyond which I’m not sculpting at all, I’m just squinting up at the energy saving strip light bulbs and wondering whether they would be better all daylight tone or if it would make the whole room look blue. Or sometimes I use the scalpel blade to scrape the Milliput off the other scalpel blade and then I use that scalpel blade to scrape the Milliput off the first one. And if I’m really exhausted I pick the glue off the table.
You would never believe the act of creation could be so utterly knackering. The problem is that you have to think in great detail and then you have to make your fingers do what your brain wants them to do.
I’m trying to make them different. They have to be a real cast of characters. Perhaps you can spot the chunky rather bossy older lady?
The flexible working woman.
The little cook.
The baby.
And an absolutely cracking 24th scale flexible boy who crept in there by mistake.
I can’t believe I found the sculpts for the 24th scale flexible children so hard when I did them, a year ago. This boy looks huge now.
I’ve also done plenty of biguns and little uns because, talking to 48th scale miniaturists, the vast variation in house sizes is apparent. One of the things I’ve always done is to make sure there’s a doll for every house and I don’t see any need to change that just because they’re small. None of the dolls here is going to be bigger than an inch and a half, finished size. Of course, I still have to be able to make all the moulds and then pour and fire them. There is also the interesting question of whether the tiniest hands will just disappear in the kiln, assuming I don’t just rub them out of existence when I’m rubbing them down. It’s a bit of a challenge. So I’m making a lot of extra hands, working on the assumption, based on experience, that I may have to pour five hands to get one through all the processes.
So, so far it is quite clear why there aren’t many porcelain dolls in 48th scale. Polymer clay, and bead and wire ones, yes. Real lasting porcelain, no. But I do like a challenge. How to do houses will be resumed when I’ve finished sculpting (and I haven’t even started on the fireplaces or the stoves yet.)
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JaneLaverick.com – busy as a very busy person.