Finally Done!!!

I am proud to announce that my Purple Princess, Aimee, is done! She took me longer than any of my previous works and I can assure you that (although there were quite a few heartaches and some hardship along the way) I haven't enjoyed the journey of a project this much in a really long time. (Aimee is a name from apparent French origins meaning loved, and to me that seemed entirely appropriate.)

Here she is:

For those of you who might remember, the last post a made about this project, her arms sustained some serious damage in a fall (due to late nights and exceedingly clumsy artists) and I had to re-model them from scratch.

Somehow I think it might have been a blessing in disguise, as to me she looks much better (my dad asked if she was tweaking her nipple, something I had not considered when posing her as I initially did). At the time my idea was that she would be holding up a piece of her dress and wading thorough water (an idea that was later abandoned lest she forever be known as the Nipple Tweaker).

Now, for those of you who care, I will share the journey with you from start to finish (for the most part).

I did a few things differently on this one, the main difference being that she is not pose-able, meaning that unlike the other ones which could be bent at the elbows and knees, as well as turn their heads Aimee (in case you couldn't tell from the pics,) cannot move anything. She is frozen in this pose, eternally (or until she falls again).

Another marked difference in this one is that she isn't the full figure, in other words she is missing the lower half of her legs. Initially I had planned on making another complete figurine but it didn't quite work out the way I would have liked it to.

Frozen joints take quite a bit more planning and forethought, something that is more often than not lacking in my project.
Mom has a saying "What is the use of a mind if you can't change it." This pretty much underlines the way I live my life, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but nowhere in that saying does it say to also forgo the planning, something that I tend to forget about, most of my projects sort of transform and grow organically in the process of being created, and are often rather different from the vision I might have had at the start of it.

The last difference that comes to mind is the hands. This time the entire hand is on a wire frame meaning that it has 'bones' of a sort. There's what I mean:

(This is not the actual on that I used, but it gives you the general idea.)

Ohter than that I pretty much made her just like all the rest, starting with the creation of an armature. I have made a little board with some screws attached to it (thank you Morezmore for the idea, it works beautifully). I have the screws placed at the joints of a human skeleton. Here's what I mean:

This becomes the frame work from my sculpture, like so: (Note the curve in the 'spine' etc. Remember that our skeletal structure, even at rest, is never entirely flat)

Having the frame work done I simply start 'building up' the body with my polymer clay until she is fleshed out completely (except for the head and limbs which I add as one of the last steps in the sculpting part of the process).

The head, hands and (when I have them) feet are all done sepetately from the bulk of the sculpture and atatched after they are done. This just makes life so much easier and the risk of something happening to the body is also reduced.

After sculpting it's hair and paint/pastels, followed by accessories and clothes. And that's that.

However I thought I'd show you how I made the wings in a bit more detail.
They didn't turn out exactly as I would have liked, and I was thinking about redoing them, until I took the photos and shared them with Mom. It was her opinion that they look fine, and I didn't find then as offensive in the photos either (maybe it was just my subconscious' way of trying to get me to keep working on her - redoing the wings - as I loved every moment of it).

I'm not too sure what inspired me to make these particular wings, but I saw a blog on which the lady made an angel with wings and they looked awesome, and so I wanted to incorporate it into one of my own projects.
A little bit of research turned up several different tutorials from all over the internet. Here's how I did mine:

I took a few pieces of florist's wire and cut them into four equal pieces. I took said wire and folded all four of them in half and twisted them together to form one wing, repeating the process for the second wing. This is what I ended up with:

Next I found some purple cellophane sheets, some iridescent shredded cellophane, glitter, and spay adhesive (and I put the iron on so long, on a med-low setting).

Cutting the cellophane into two pieces, big enough to cover both sides of each of my individual wings I set to work. I did most of this next lot on my ironing surface and suggest that, if you try this, you do the same as moving them might be a slight problem.
I took one of the cellophane pieces and put it down flat, placed my wing on it and then sprayed it with the glue, sprinkled some glitter on it, and placed a few shreds of the iridescent cello in the mix too. Finally I carefully place the second sheet over the top and pressed down firmly.
This entire step has to be done rather quickly as the glue will dry out, making a mess, or even attract some unwanted elements into the wings, things like dust, hair etc. (those of you with fur-kids know what I'm taking about).

This last part can be really tricky and the slightest err can lead to disaster, so take your time and do it slowly, patience is the key.

I covered my wings with an old towel, but in some of the tuts that I saw online some people use parchment or wax/baking paper; I however didn't want to risk it, plastic can really wreck an iron,  then I ironed them slowly through the towel, checking periodically to make sure that they weren't getting too hot.
I put my iron on the synthetic/rayon setting (not quite the lowest but less than medium heat) and that seemed to work the best. I was not getting anywhere with the iron on the lowest setting, and didn't want to risk going too hot, thus the less than med - more than low setting I am using.
This part takes a while but I think that it might be worth it in the end. The aim is to heat the plastic and the glue just enough so that it forms a permanent bond with both sheets of cellophane effectively sealing the wire and glitter etc. in plastic wrap, but not so hot as to melt through the plastic and set the whole place on fire. A balancing act if you will.

Once I had reached the desired result, all that was left was to trim off the excess plastic and shape the wings. I used a lighter to sear the edges shut finally and give it that jagged edge that fairy wings tend to have.

Note that the part where all of the wires are twisted together are uncovered and this is the part that is fitted into the back of my figurine and secured finally with epoxy glue.
Again in some of the tutorials that I uncovered they suggest using an incense stick or something similar to put holes in the wings. I didn't want to go for that tortured look so I opted out of that.

Well there you have it. Another project completed.

Well until next time,
ACL.