Another French Fashion doll. . .

Finished the MD2027/Renee doll, but having my doubts that she is MD2027! Supposedly, MD2027 makes a 15" doll, but the finished head is much larger than the heads for my 18" dolls. Also, the limbs that supposedly go with her are so tiny that they'd do well for a doll that was maybe 13"-14" tall. I did some digging and found another mold by bell (MD2742) that looks similar to my doll, but I'm not sure my head is quite large enough to be the 23.5" tall that doll should be, and also, my doll teacher hasn't mentioned having that mold! It's really too bad that the popularity of this sort of doll making died out before the internet really took off, because I'd love to be able to Google and find someone else who made this doll and see if they had the same experience as me.

Before I post pics, I should also warn that I made a major mistake on day #1 of painting this doll: I used the totally wrong shade of red for her lips. Reds are tricky because they paint on all bright and saturated, but then fire off to be much lighter. I chose what I thought looked like a rose red color, but after firing. . . Eep! They were almost brown, they were that dark! But at that point, there wasn't much I could do, except to just go with it. . . So now, I'm apparently making a brooding, possibly secretly evil, gothic-yet-still-Victorian doll. . .



The wig needs some taming and she obviously doesn't have a body yet (and you can be she's last on the list to get one since I will need to pattern and sew hands with fingers!) but you can see where I'm going! I've been having such fun dreaming up a personality for her and planning her ensemble that I almost don't regret making the mistake with the lips after all! In fact, the only regret I have is that I didn't make the brows more angled, and I would have liked them darker, but alas, this was the darkest brown I could find. . .

This brings my total "floating head" count up to three:



The two in front are my first two French Fashion dolls, and they are from the same mold, but look so different from each other, don't you think? I think the one on the front left (the one I most recently posted about, but now with eyes, so decidedly less creepy) is my favorite, which surprises me because I hated her when I got her home.

Now I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do in doll class. I'm overwhelmed by the growing number of floating heads (never mind dolls with bodies but still without clothing) piling up on my shelf, so don't really want to add to their number. It's already so bad that I had to give up the second shelf of my hutch for the dolls. By "give up" I mean that the fabrics that filled every particle of this space had to come out and be fit elsewhere, and I'm going to have to find new homes for some of it as it didn't all fit in the shelves in the closet!



While this arrangement is fine for now, I don't think it's going to work out in the long run. With the dolls seated, they just fit, but once those floating heads have bodies and are standing, they will no longer fit. I suppose I could try to find more furniture and have them all sit, but it seems kind of a shame to do that since the elaborate costumes I have planned for them (which were the whole point of getting in to the doll making in the first place) aren't going to look nice if they are seated. I'll just have to try and figure out something else, storage-wise. . .

Update on all kinds of projects from the doll studio!

I am woefully behind on updates regarding what I've been doing in doll class, that's for sure! So here's an update. . .

First, I finished a head for a second 18" FFD:



This doll is the same mold I used last time, but I did some things differently this time around. For one, instead of going with a pouring in a skin-like color, she was poured in white, and I did what's called a "wash" to give her skin a flesh color. Another thing I did was to outline the lips with a stronger red, in imitation of what was done on the antiques. I still feel I have a ways to go, but I'm pleased with how she turned out, in the end. (And no, I still haven't got a body, wig, or clothing of any kind on the first one! Therefore, this second one is likely to be a "floating head" for quite some time!)

Next, remember those super tiny fairy heads? Well, they have their bodies now!



Of course, no clothing or wigs on these guys yet. . . Nor is there likely to be any time soon because in my head, they are Christmas fairies, and I've no intention of finishing them in time for this Christmas, so I'll bet they don't get finished until next year's holiday season!

But most recently, I've been taking a brief break from the dolls and making a couple of ornaments in class. Every year, a friend of ours hosts an ornament swap, and hand made ornaments are encouarged. I decided since this is the year in which I've learned to make things of porcelain, that a porcelain ornament was in order! And, that instead of making life easy and using decals, I felt the need to hand paint a design, LOL! I decided on snowman because I figured they'd be fairly easy to draw. They were a little tricky in that you can't put white over colors, so for the first firing, I was only able to paint the blue background, and so they looked like this:



Then, over the next couple of weeks, I added the white, and then the details and the gold at the top (which has real gold in it!) I really hope they'll go over well at the swap!



So that's the end of doll classes for this year. I started in February, so took classes for almost a year, and I ended up with three antique repro dolls (well, the parts for them anyhow!), two fairies, and two ornaments. . . Not too bad! When I start back up again in January, I'll be working on yet another French fashion doll, but this time, from a different mold. . .



Bell's MD2027, or "Renee," creates a 15" doll, so this one could be a friend for Fanny. And, I'll be up for a challenge since the smaller scale means a need for even more intricate brows and lashes. I'm going to have to come up with a brush that is way less full or I'll go nuts, ha ha ha!

So, just for the record, between the dolls I made this year, and the few I aquired already-made, we're now up to eight dolls who need to be clothed, and of these, five need bodies (or repairs/replacement parts), and three need wigs. Not to mention, I haven't made anything for Charlotte in forever, and she's still waiting on getting a nice 18c wig made for her. Yikes! It seems like my New Year's Resolution should probably be to punch out a bunch of bodies, wigs, and doll clothes! ;)