I ended the year with five dolls that I was pretty pleased with and pretty well decided that they were the "ones". Well I'm apparently more fickle than even I realized, but I think I have a good enough excuse. No, really. As I was designing clothes for the dolls that I had made, I realized I had made a terrible design flaw.
I had been careful to make sure that arms and legs were positioned in a way to be creatively covered up in a number of ways, except that I had forgotten to take into account that part of what would be necessary to cover up the arms in particular (and by this I mean designing clothes that effectively change the position of the body) was white space.
Normally that shouldn't be a problem ~ lots of doll artists do this! But I realized that once these dolls are done, I want them to be able to lay over backdrops (like in a display or on a bulletin board. random white space between arms and legs and whatnot would then be rather unsightly.
I had to correct this, so the old set of dolls had to go. I need bodies that won't require any white space and though it's a challenge to figure out a variety of positions that will meet the criteria, I think I've solved the problem. Even better, last night I drew all the dolls and this morning I have been painting them (the first three are shown here ~ as always, click on the image to see them larger).
The do-over was also a boon in some ways. It helped me think more carefully about some of the details like the lace on Amy's pantaloons. In the original version I had just willy-nilly thrown some scribble on there to give the sense of lace, but here I actually took the time to think out a specific design for it. I was also more careful with her corset and avoided the problem of too many black lines.
And even though, when unclothed, Morse and Lewis look like Power Rangers or something, their postures are better and I got to add a little more color (trying not to be so skeered of color!). And the best part is I don't have to redraw any of their heads ~ yay!
And just to prove that I'm not stalling, here's a collage of just a wee few of the many many design drafts I have been working on, clothing-wise.
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