|
Tutorials
The Making of Ian Bland
|
A musician friend, Ian Bland, had often asked me to sculpt a caricature doll of him to use on a future album cover and his website. At first I thought it would be too hard but decided to take on the challenge.
I photographed Ian from all angles with closeups, including his thinning hair. From these photos I drew his portrait, to get a feel for the wrinkles, hollows and rounded areas. Sculpting was difficult because I couldn’t allow the clay to take on another character and kept pulling and pushing it to replicate Ian’s features and proportions.
|
|
Sculpting Process
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
After painting the face with light washes of acrylic paint, shading his blue eyes and applying many fine, tiny brush strokes for his greying stubble of a beard I was truly amazed at the outcome. There was Ian looking back at me with his mischievous grin!
|
Applying the Wig
|
|
The doll stands 55cm tall and needed very long hair to create Ian’s long, medium brown, slightly curly, ponytail. I used Lady Jayne 30cm synthetic hair extensions which were made up of 2 shades of brown. After taking them apart to reduce the bulk, I sewed smaller sections of hair into wefts.
|
|
|
Using tacky glue, I attached the hair wefts onto the doll’s scalp.
|
|
The lower lengths of hair were curled by wrapping around different sized paint brushes before pouring boiling water over and leaving it to dry.
|
|
I swept the hair back into a ponytail and pressed it down with a curling iron. At first there was too much bulk in the body of the ponytail but I needed the coverage on the scalp to hide the wefts. To thin the length, I used my haircutting scissors and razor cut it which also created an uneven natural edge. I tried brushing a section of the ponytail but it turned the hair frizzy. I found using my fingers to smooth it was the best alternative to recreate Ian’s slightly dishevelled hairstyle.
|
Costuming
|
|
I wanted to dress Ian in his usual attire of a Hawaiian shirt, jeans, boots and holding a guitar. It was impossible to find a Hawaiian fabric print in a small scale. So using a photograph of the shirt, my husband used a graphics program to make a 1:6 scale image required for this doll. The image was printed on five A4 sheets of cotton fabric backed with freezer paper and used to sew a smaller version of Ian’s shirt. For the buttons I used a hole punch and hammer to cut them out of template plastic. To form the button holes, I heated a pin to pierce them and added a touch of paint
|
I made his baggy jeans from an old pair of children’s jeans which were the right thickness and had a worn appearance. The fine detailed stitching, studs punched from medium weight copper foil and leather belt with a buckle, all added to the realism of Ian’s character.
|
|
|
|
Ian also has an alias known as “Jack Rabbit” and wears a cow skin hat and vest while performing. I purchased a white plastic flock covered cowboy hat from Spotlight and painted it with black and white acrylic paints which transformed it into a realistic looking cow skin hat. To make the vest, I used white fleecy and painted the black cow spots on to it. I made the vest removable with Velcro on the side seam. It didn’t have the soft texture of fur but its appearance was sufficient for photographing.
|
|
The guitar was also a challenge to recreate but after researching guitars on the internet, I found a site with a paper craft guitar model. I scaled this proportionally to create a template for the body shape and details before glueing it to three layers of foam core. To achieve a smooth edge to the guitar, I applied polyfilla with a spatula. When it was dry, I sanded it smooth before painting, staining and varnishing the guitar. For the strings I used stretchy beading cord, wire and squashed crimp beads for the tuning pegs and ear ring head pins on the bridge.
Lots of work but I am very pleased with the outcome and so is Ian!
Doreen Backway
www.rivendellstudios.com.au
|
|
|
|