Friday, May 13, 2011

TALLULAH DRAGON FLY FAIRY


I made a body to use as illustration for my Steampunk Doll pattern. I also had a head sitting in the "head basket", with her eye's looking upward. So I thought I could quickly put the two together and make a Steampunk Fairy, with a dragon fly. Not so fast! There were a couple of problems I had not anticipated. For ease of making, I had just used broadcloth for boots. So I took some of the fabric and experimented with it to find a way to improve their look, and discovered if I painted the fabric with clear acrylic sealer, then brushed on metallic powders, the cloth looks like metal! After costuming her, I wanted dragon fly style wings. That was done using wire frame with metal looking ribbon sewn on with gold thread. My first plan was to have her holding the Dragon Fly. Then, since she is looking up, I thought it best to have the dragon fly in flight preparing to land on her hand. Oops! That turned out to be a problem. After several attempts at adding a wire to the doll's base to hang Buzz from, I finally wound up using a nice piece of brass, attached to a nice piece of wood, large enough for Tallulah and her base to stand on also. Of course if I had known what I was doing, I would have just built her on the wood base to begin with, but she was already permanently attached to her disc base. Live & learn! Hopefully!
PS: Just got word from SD&A, my article on Steampunk will be published in the November issue, along with pictures of the dolls! Happy dances!

3 comments:

  1. Love them both - especially love the hinges on Buzz! Yay for SDA - at least now we know they will have an original design and not a copy (ooh - that's bad, eh?)

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  2. Another wonderous piece. Congrats on the article, too, tho no surprise. One look at any of the photos and ADQ should have grabbed you as well! Keep your copy rights on the article!!!

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  3. your work is really nice. are your dragon flies and butterflies all metal?Sandra

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