WITCH CRAFTS

WITCH CRAFTS

Saturday, June 20, 2015

FINISHED OPERA SINGER DOLL

Hi All,
She's finished! She stands about 16 inches tall, and is an all-cloth doll. 

Here she is:
 





Easily the most recognizable character from opera, she is "Brunhilde", the eldest of 9 daughters of the Chief God, Wotan. These warrior women are called “Valkyries" She's a character from Richard Wagner's opera, “The Ring of the Nibelung”, which is based on an old Nordic tale.

Here are some close ups of her face:



From my last post, I've added a yarn wig, a velvet cape, and a helmet. The helmet was a bit tricky to figure out, but once I did, it was an easy pattern. The helmet is made of the same fabric as the breast plate, that I embellished with trim and beads.. The horns are just white cotton. And, I went back and embroidered her breast with some beads so they stand out a bit. All those dark silver "star" jeweled pieces are from a bracelet that matched the earring hanging at the bottom of the breast plate.

Notice her eyelashes? I added those since she doesn't have eyes. I think the eyes on a doll are so important. Since her eyes are shut, she needed to have something that make her eyes stand out (even though you don't see them)

Thursday, June 11, 2015

MORE "OPERA DOLL"

Hi all,
I'm still working on my new, improved "OPERA DOLL". Here are some WIPs:

Here's the body pinned together:


 She will be holding a spear in her hand when she's finished.

And, here she is with shoes and underwear:

 Notice I didn't bother to "clean finish" the top of the underwear -- that's because once her skirts are sewn on, you will not be able to see the top of her underwear. (I strongly believe in not doing any more work than necessary!!)

And, here is the completed outfit:


 The skirt and sleeves are made of a light blue knit (the same fabric as her underwear!). I added some silver lace to the hem of her top-skirt and sleeves. I hand-beaded some silver fringe to the bottom of her top-skirt. Her armour breast-plate is made of a cool stretch silver metallic that had some texture to it. (I fused interfacing to the fabric to give it strength and not stretch.) You can hardly see the silver bead caps I stitched to the center of each breast. Maybe I'll go back and add some beads to them.......
Of course, lots of silver braid is added to everything, And, I added a big drop-earring to the bottom edge of her breast-plate -- just for fun!

Her little wrist cuffs are made of felt and braid.


So, moving on to the head. I had made several prototypes of heads, both for the original doll, and for this. Some, I finished, some I didn't:

Notice the second-from-left -- she looks like she's crying more than singing. That's when I learned to make the open mouth as narrow as possible. The more narrow it is, the more it looks like "singing".

I'm also trying to add a large "double chin" under the mouth. To make the the jaw and chin area larger, I added two small darts at the bottom of the jaw.

I chose the last head on the right.

She still needs her eyelashes.

Here's how she looks with her head on:


Notice you don't see her neck? That's on purpose. I stitched her head directly to her torso. (She has a neck - it's just inside the head.)

I've researched singers and I noticed you don't see their necks when they have a large double-chin. Also, when you open your mouth that large, your neck almost disappears.

She still needs her wig and horned-helmet, her cape, and spear!

Stay tuned........