“What I’m going to do is kind of cut in or the toes will be kind of just like that. Then I’m kind of pushing in on this side a little bit more so we can kind of give it its endemic shape there and then move it towards the heel. Have to pick it up. I just kind of bring that all back to the heel there. See, from the side, that’s looking pretty cute. A little bit on the tiny side now. So I’ll just push that up a little bit more. I kind of stretch it out a little bit again, too.”
“Okay. So now we’re going to give her a little bit of a fat rolls. Let’s see. I want to use Johnston three and one. It’s a good one to do. And what I like to do to just kind of score them in. So you’re not really cutting. You’re just like, kind of pressing it at an angle a bit. And then usually you do a couple of them as they go. Let’s see, I’m going to do some rights. I just want to push on that a little bit to make that look a little bit more elbowy and then up here, and then I like to do it right here, too, right on the elbow.”
“So now I’m going to go ahead and add in those cheeks because that’s going to help me see the rest of the shapes much better. So I’m just going to make some little balls of clay and I’m going to keep them about the same size. So I’m adding the same amount to either side, or if you notice that one size side is off, like maybe you made it too big or one side is too flat or something.
“I bet that’s quite a common problem to have, right. That is the tricky part with the inset eyes. Like the, the hand-painted ones are tricky to paint, but they’re super easy to sculpt in and draw. So the sculpting process with it is really easy that way. but the inset eyes are super easy cause you don’t have to paint them. So you don’t have to deal with any of like the tiny little pupil. But they can be trickier to get looking in the same direction or to not be like walleyed or, so those kinds of the each had their own challenges. So you kind of just have to play around with both of them and get used to how they are.
“I think first we’re going to put some of the clay on, on this armature, cause I’m just itching to get this clay on there. So what we’re going to do is that just to kind of take these pieces that I’ve needed and conditioned, and I make them into little pancake shapes, and these are probably about a quarter of an inch thick and I’m just going to wrap it on, I’ll wrap it around. And when you put this on, you just want to make sure that you’re pressing the clay up snug against the armature. So you’re not leaving air pockets and speaking of air pocket, that was great timing.”
Anytime you put into your armature, it’s always going to pay you back in dividends by just making it so much easier. Taking the test scope. I know when I first started, sometimes it was recommended to just use skinny little wire with no padding or anything underneath it. And I think a lot of people had trouble with that method because the clay needs to have something to press against. Otherwise, if you’re just pushing into it, there’s nothing to stop that pushing. And it’s just going to keep going. So if it has something underneath it to press against, then it’s much easier to get the shapes that you want without having to push so hard in. And it just makes the doll a lot more customizable. So it’s not because it’s a small that it shouldn’t have an armature because it has a, another purpose. It does exactly control more.
