Monday, March 14, 2011

How to add glass eyes

 
She is such a funny girl! The first thing she said when she came to visit me was “Are the lights out?” I thought she was kidding, but then I realized she still didn’t have eyes! So I told her it was a sunny day, and she was soon to see it. We found a nice pair of glass eyes and after getting Emily’s OK, we removed her eyelashes and started to work on her face. This is the "how to" do it.

The first thing was digging out the clay to make room for the new eyes. It was a scary thing, but this doll is very brave. She was telling me it was almost like going to a doll Spa:



We measured the eyes in her face and decided that she needed to restructure her cheeks so not to look like a gold fish.



Once she had the cheeks it was imperative to have a new mouth to match and that lead us to a new nose, of course!




The only thing original left in her head, is pretty much her ears!



When the clay was dried, it was time to sand. She said it tickled and kept giggling. With a little bit of more clay and water, all the bits of bumps were soften and sanded again:



Usually I mix oxide red, ochre, white and a bit of purple to make flesh tones, but since more people will work on her, and not everyone is into painting, I decided to use colors really easy to find everywhere.



When the painting is dry I will add a protective varnish, hair and her eyelashes. Will she have black hair? Blond? Brunette? She will decide later, for now she is just relaxing after all the hard work. :o)

After that she will be ready to keep traveling and get to see more places.