I’m sorry, I meant to post these photos yesterday.
|
 To a certain degree creating the clothes for this paper doll is much like creating a costume for a human. I start by draping my “muslin” (in this case a soft, white, rice paper) to get the shape I want. I can’t use exactly a pattern for a person because the puppet’s body only approximates a person’s. Paper is much less forgiving and yielding than flesh.
|
|
 Once I have a working pattern, I cut out my paper and sew it on the machine. I keep the stitch length very long, otherwise I run the risk of perforating the paper. That would be bad. Sewing paper is no problem. Turning the costume rightside out is nerve-wracking. This is the point where I am most likely to tear the paper.
|
|
 The paper with the beautiful vine pattern does not please me as the bathrobe. Seen in context it is too grey and looks more like a cross between a lab coat and a kimono. It isn’t soft and fuzzy enough.
|
|
 So I headed back out to the paper store and come up with three different papers. A combination of two of them pleases me. (If you click on this photo, and then click again when it appears on the album page, you’ll get to see a much larger image. It’s a pain, I know)
|
|
 While this is still the dud head on an unfinished body, the costume is real. I think it gives you the idea of what the finished doll will look like.
I still have to make her slippers, that that is a comparatively easy pattern. So from here, I can start making the three final figures.
|
Tags:
Journal,
paper,
Puppetry
Related posts
How about a sound track? Maybe the Mills Brothers singing, “I want to have a paper doll that I can call my own.” Mary, she’s gorgeous.
I’ve been watching your progress from the beginning and am fascinated with your patience and how one step flows to the next.
I have the perfect place for one of the beautiful Coralines in my home (fingers crossed).
Momk: I’ll have to give that a listen.
bluesaffron: Thank you and good luck!
Yes, this entire construction process is just fascinating — a window into an entirely new and different creative world for me. I’m just hunting for old Halloween stories to perform, and working on a pitch to an eminent fantasy and sf writer for Willamette Radio Workshop to adapt some of his tales in an old-time-radio style format.
“Paper Doll,” no matter by whom (I’m fond of one of the earliest versions, by the Mills Brothers) is an exquisitely creepy song. It’s very upbeat and pleasantly charming in melody and tone, almost jaunty, but the lyrics are laced with pathos. The singer is a depressed and discouraged loser at love. It gives me chills.
My dear, given the lax posting schedule of so many bloggers (ahem), there is never a need for apology.
Just because others are (ahem) lax does not mean that one should take that as a sign that one may also be similarly negligent.
[...] been completely laid out and sent to our proofer, the sig pages are en route to Dave McKean, and Mary Robinette Kowal is busy making the three Coraline dolls, one of which will be given away to someone who orders the [...]