Day 10.

Very busy day yesterday, I had a big sculpting session, I've got thighs and lower arms with hands done as well. I'm working as fast as I can to have complete dolls and more exciting things to show very soon!

<3

Day 9.

The first Nevermore doll body in the finalized style. 

<3

Day 8.

Gooooood morning! Today I am having a huge sculpt and mould fest, soon I'll be uploading much more interesting pictures than just blank doll parts.

Day 7.

After having my realisation about the doll's designs I brought all my sculpting tools to the livingroom and sat up base camp on the sofa. I've been happily sculpting all day and here is the bulk of my work. This is the first female torso in the new style. Yes it is very slender and very exaggerated, if you look back at the previous post you will see the relation to my doll concept drawings. I will very soon be making a more veluptuous and curvey torso.

It's not quite there yet, there still needs to be collar bone definition and she has no navel yet but we're very nearly there. I am certain this will give the dolls the fluidity and animation I've been craving. I will get on to sculpting new faces as soon as I'm finished and mould straight away as I am very keen to sprint towards the launch of a new shop full of dolls very very soon. 

<3

Continued Doll Development...

It really is coming to be now in waves how much development doll style takes. To put it quite simply my dolls have always had a rather slender, spindly quality to them. For the swap to ball jointed dolls this needed to be padded out to house the joints. 

Yesterday was a very frustrated and very unproductive day for me, consisting of sanding doll necks, painting and re-painting the same set of eyes and a lot of work avoidance tactics and it put me in one hell of a mood. I knew that something was wrong, that dolls are my passion, it should be easy and fun, so why did it feel like a brick wall.

Today the realisation has come, now I am returning to passive jointed dolls I can return to my old doll style, more slender, more exaggerated. 

Also my faces need to hold a hell of a lot more personality. 

This shouldn't be too hard as I've had a huge delivery of fast cure rubber which means I can get these new designs done surprisingly fast. 

It all makes sense when you look at my doll idea sketches....

I understand that this must be pretty annoying for anyone watching my doll making with the intent to buy, I have been developing them for far too long now, and at times I have given the impression I am all but ready to launch. And I myself have felt the same peaks of excitement, only for the bubble to burst with a realisation something is wrong. 

I have had in my mind, for a very long time, a world, hazy in paces and crystaline in others. I can see thousands of characters, again some in vivid detail and others only a feeling in the corner of my mind. I only want to fully open those doors and invite people in when I feel my dolls are actually a representation of this world, only when I feel these characters are laying in resin on my work top will I feel happy. 

Believe me, I can do a lot in a day.

Waiting at the door.

......

Day 5 & 6.

Day 5 was pretty quiet, lots of pouring and sanding doll parts. I got too tired and fell asleep before I uploaded this photo, hence today's double post :)

Aaaaaand day 6! I made the decision recently to return to passive posable wire link joints as opposed to ball joints. There are many personal reasons behind this decision, in short form it means I can ensure better quality dolls, cheaper dolls and a less stressful doll making process for me. Also I've always loved how a wire loop jointed doll conforms to your hand when you hold it, they will actually lay on you, curl into the crook of your palm, etc, which I feel is interaction you can't get with a ball jointed doll. 

I plan on having a weekend completely devoted to the wigging and dressing of the first few dolls. Hopefully early next week I will be updating the shop to get the vision of Nevermore that I've been holding in my chest for years into reality.

Day 4.

There's been a slight gap between day 3 and day 4 because there's been a heat wave in England! It's been 30 degrees since last Saturday, the hottest its been in roughly ten years. As much as I've tried I just couldn't get any doll work done, it was far too hot for me. 

But today's been a little cooler and I've been assembling dolls. It's my aim to have the first three dolls for the shop assembled and wigged by the end of tomorrow. So apologies for the boring picture today, hopefully tomorrow I'll have all sorts of lovely doll protraits to show. 

<3

Day 3.

While I have a lot of ideas I don't neccessarily plan. This is especially true when it comes to faces, I never paint a picture of a doll's appearance before I start, I simply set out a few basic colours on a piece of paper, start mixing and build up layers. Because of this I'm never quite sure where a face will go and what character will come out. 

Additionally while my ideas have been rather Victorian and industrial my hands seem to have painted quite flowery, sweet colours. I think it's because it's the height of summer. 

Either way I think I'll have to edit my designs a little, the blue eyed girl will now suit a marching band hat rather than a miner's helmet. And the green eyed girl looks a little more worldly wise than intended. 

<3

Day 2

Day 2.

Today has been a busy day, I made a chest harness for my other shop Curious Doors and had to run a few other errands. Tomorrow will be a big doll making day. 

 

Cannot wait <3

Project 365, Day 1

I had seen on some photographer's pages photos labelled with things such as Day 251 or #159. I asked Sarah, a friend behind Sarah Trickler Photography and she said it was a project photographers do to keep shooting everyday.

I liked this idea and thought as I'm at the sunrise of the Nevermore Doll launch wouldn't it be nice to document the first year like this, and it'll keep me committed to this blog. Even though the documentation will take the form of a photograph, not every photograph will be a pretty photoshoot. There will be behind the scenes updates, photos of accessories and props and dolls and everywhere inbetween. 

So here we go! 

Day 1. 

I've just been given a digital SLR camera by a wonderful, beautiful friend Emily-Joy who is the incredibly talented pyographer at Emi.nation. This is the first photo taken for my business on it. It will be an absolute Joy to use this camera for the 365 project and my product photography. I'm so excited and more greatful than I can express!!

<3

Nevermore Dolls So Far.

Until a couple of years ago making dolls had been a part of a large imagination I never thought would become a reality. It wasn't until I discovered Etsy, an online marketplace for artists and crafters, that I realised doll making was infact a serious business, art form and popular collectable product.

Dolls had resonated with me deeply for a long time, and until this time I'd never realised the deeply personal, unusual and innovative styles people achieved in doll creation. Art dolls was certainly the way to go for me. After more research I picked up a block of Original Sculpey from a craft shop and got going. 

What followed this was a very intense period of trial and error - with a lot of errors. I made roughly ten dolls before I made one called Sleeping Demonette. 

She was original sculpey with wire loop joints. After that I upgraded to Living Doll, and after some more trial and error I made The Faun and another Sleeping Demon.

After that it all went a little quiet. As much as I loved doll making one of a kind hand scultped polymer clay art dolls was not the right area for me. Personally, I found the sculpting process took too long. I've a brain which works very fast, has many ideas and wants to achieve an awful lot in a very short space of time. I wanted desparately to fill a shop with intricate dolls with character and collectability. Infact, more than that, I wanted to create my own little world with dolls.

Again I went back to the research stage. I was very aware of Ball Jointed Dolls (BJDs) at this point but the hollowed out, s-hook, elastic making method put me off. For a long time I had pondered the idea of a ball jointed doll where the joints did not rely on elastic for their tension. Surely, out there, somewhere was a ball joint that held it's own tension, I searched B&Q, Homebase, the internet. I couldn't find what I was looking for, but I knew I couldn't go back to my original doll making method. 

Luckily around this time I made a wonderful friend, Matt Inkel of Arcane Armoury, an incredibly talented prop maker with 16 years experience, a problem solving mind and a gentlemanly character who was happy to help me. His first gift to me was teaching me the method of mould making and resin pouring. This would enable me to produce dolls at a higher rate, additionally they would be much stronger than polymer clay. After this we developed a unique ball joint together which held its own tension. These were the two factors I needed to achieve what I had been thinking about for so very long. I was finally able to make my world of dolls, strong, solid, posable, resin dolls. For this I'll be forever greatful, and will always highly reccommend his products and services.

 

And so, I've cut the story as short as I can. And here we are. I have developed the first master Doll for Nevermore, and production is beginning very soon. Having been thinking about this venture for a very long time I have filled sketch books with ideas, characters, concepts, fantasy races, accessories, costumes and scenes. I cannot wait to open the door and introduce the World Of Nevermore, it's been a long journey, but I've finally arrived. 

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