She Needs a Name

Side View of Space Hopper Girl. She needs a name can you help?


Back View. I enjoyed the process of making her.
First things first, tomorrow i will be cleaning up (i tend to spread myself out when i am doing a project) then I will be making some charity dolls for the next few days after that, But i won't be putting pictures of them up until December !st when they will be photographed together.

Finished

Space Hopper Girl is finished!! Although she still looks scared I am happy the way she turned out. The face on the Space Hopper is permanent marker. When i glued the handles on it changed the colour on the Space Hopper but I still like it.

I used a bent coat hanger to hold the Space Hopper still.

Painting the Space Hopper

The final layer of the Space Hopper is usually, well originally orange. But i did not have orange paint, i had green. I love this colour, it reminds me of avocado. Using the glue i already had i added poster paint to the mixture. I have painted almost half of it and now it is in the sun, but away from the wind to dry.
I will check it periodically through the day and turn it around to hopefully get dry.
The glue has made the paint look plastic/rubbery I hope it dries like that.
I have also painted the feelers, handles. Tubes of fabric stuffed and pipe cleaners added inside too. The paint in the jar has got a piece of plastic film over the top of the paint. I hope that this will help stop a skin from forming so that later i can finish painting it.

Hands and Feet

The hands and feet are being made separately from the main body. Drawn ready to sew. The shoe is going to be appliqued in wool blend fabric before sewing up. The foot made with the cotton fabric including the sole. Then it will be stuffed and ladder stitched in place at the end of the leg. The sole will be copied slightly larger in leather and glued in place. Lastly a heel will be glues in too. (this is half a sole shape).

The hand is a mitten type hand that will have fingers sewn on the dotted lines. Pipe cleaners added to be able to curve the fingers down.

Face

This is her face close up. Oh my God! She looks scared! It is so not what i wanted! I wanted it to look like she was laughing. Apart from starting again, next time, any artists out there to give me advice?

Hair continued

The channel for this loom is wider than the foot. Very important because you want the yarn to squish down and be sewn close.
Make sure that the loom has the open end facing the back of the machine or you won't be able to slide the yarn off!.
The hair is pinned around the head and tied into a ponytail and ready to sew onto the head. You can if you wish cut the yarn loops, but i will be keeping them as is to make the hair look curly.

Hair

This is a cardboard loom. The cardboard is cut to the depth i want the hair to be. Now i am going to prepare the yarn to make the hair.
You wrap the yarn round and round, pushing the yarn close together.
Keep going until you have most of the cardboard covered. Do not cut the yarn, take the whole thing to the sewing machine and stitch in the blank space using a wide zig zag to hold them all together. When you almost reach the end, stop. slide the now sewn yarn off the end and wind some more yarn around the loom. When you have the length required stop, back stitch and cut the yarn.
Hair is ready to use.
For this particular doll i will be sewing it onto the head all the way around because i am going to make a pony tail.

Doll Continued

Parts of the pinafore dress. There is the skirt part, pleated onto a waist band. Next you have the bib front to be sewn on doubled fabric and then sewn onto the waist band. then you have the ruffle on the straps, sewn on doubled fabric, tuned right sides out, added into the shoulder straps then sewn onto the back cross over style. then sewn onto the front top of the bub and a button sewn on top of that. Not shown is the ruffle on the bottom of the dress, I have not decided if i am going to use the same fabric or if i will add gathered lace yet. I will try it on the doll first.

Doll Continued

The body is now ready for some clothes. I will be adding the hands and feet separately.
Dressed, almost. She will be having a pinafore dress on top which will be wired on the hem to simulate the wind, then i will be making the feet and hands.

The hair too will be made like a wig and added last, well alomost last. the last thing i will be doing is her face.

Doll Continued

Take 2. I was quite happily pinning and draping when it occurred to me, Straighten out those limbs!! It is wire after all. I can bend it after and add tucks in for the folds. So i unwrapped it, and re did the fabric skin!
Legs and body pinned. Stretched out and straightened the arms.
I cut 2 circles for the head.

Space Hopper girl continued

From the pictures you can see that i am using the drape, cut and sew method (i am in Awe of the show Project Runway on Foxtel at the moment) which is why i am making this doll in this way,


I will continue like this until the doll is covered, making sure that the face is smooth on the front! The hands will be made separately (cos of wired fingers), but they will be mitten type. Toes will be needle sculpted. All the time with my tape measure measuring each part of the limb before sewing up, smoothing out the skin and adding a little stuffing here and there. I want them to be similar sized at least!

Wired Wrapped

Wire wrapped in wadding off cuts. It looks a little dumpy, lumpy and bumpy. this is before it has muscle definition. The wadding will compact a lot by the time it is finished. The skin of the doll is going to be made by using the drape, cut and sew method.

Her outfit is going to be tights so her legs will be covered completely. She will be wearing a long sleeve jumper with an overdress (popular in the 70s) that is going to be wired in the hem to simulate the wind and her hair will be wool that i will glue over a form (more on that later).

Space Hopper Girl

This may look odd but it is the skeleton of my Space Hopper Girl. Some minor adjustments to be made but the dimensions are correct. This ballon is not the one i am making the Space Hopper from, just one that is the same size.

This doll is much different to the one before, This is the basic pose. Again this is just an idea developing as you see it. I had so much fun the last time! Basic shapes will be formed as before the body starting from the inside out. This time however i will be wrapping the wire with off cuts of quilters batting from The Pillow Factory and tying it to the wire to get muscle definition. This is a first for me . From this i will be tracing around on to cardboard the individual pieces, soles of the feet, feet, lower legs, upper legs, bottom to waist, waist to neck, hands to wrist, wrist to elbow, elbow to shoulder and then the head.

Space Hopper

The next doll i am going to make is a child riding a Space Hopper. This is going to be made out of papier mache. The paste is 3 parts white glue to 1 part water, mixed until smooth and runny.
I have a balloon blown up to the size i want (actually i put one balloon inside another before blowing it up. I figure it will be twice as strong, It was definitely twice as hard to blow up!) and have strips of newspaper ready to paste.

This is the first layer all covered. I will have to leave it to dry. It will dry outside on the line until i am ready to do the next layer.

It is now dry and ready for the next step.
I will repeat this at least 3 more times.

Next Project

At our Cloth Doll Club A.C.D.A we have monthly meetings, and very enjoyable they are too. They keep me going and i feel energized every time i go there. Well, we have a challenge coming up and i only have a couple of weeks to get it done and the challenge is about something to do with your childhood. Well my most vivid memory of being a child is running around the edge of the playground in slow motion being the Six Million Dollar man. with Steve Austin. Thinking back, i did not realize it then but i think he was my first crush. What was your first crush?
A little off topic, but It keeps popping in my head. I will have to make something about that time soon.


Back to the challenge, One of the favorite toys in the children's home was a thing called a Space Hopper, remember them? You maybe too young to remember either of these things, but to me they were great. So my challenge doll i am going to make is a mixed media. I am starting with the space hopper and go from there.
Tomorrow i am going to buy a balloon and papier mache it and make a Space hopper.