Beginner Doll Making Using a Press Mold, Part 2

This post begins as I add arms to my little polymer clay doll I am creating using a commercial press mold. I bought the mold at a local craft store. Below I have a series of pictures depicting my process. If you have not seen the previous post, please take a moment to read it. There you will see the progress of the doll until this post.  

The arms as they looked after removal from the press mold.

In this picture I am carving out the extra clay on the hand.  I found that the mold makes the hands too thick.  

After carving the extra clay away from my doll's hand with an xacto knife, I also used the knife to slit the fingers apart.

Using my wooden sculpting tool, I shaped the palm of the hand into a more natural shape.

I then added the armature wire through the arm.

Because the wire was longer than I needed, I had to cut the extra wire off with wire cutters. I then smoothed the clay onto the doll body at the shoulder. (not pictured)

As you can see, I need to cover the armature wires and add clay to form the doll's back and shoulder blades.

I placed a piece of clay onto the upper back and began smoothing it onto the baked torso. Polymer clay does stick to itself, but it takes a bit of time to make sure it is adhereing.

I decided to cut the hand from the second arm before putting the armature wire through.  I was hoping to avoid changing the arm too much, but I'm afraid, that was unavoidable for me.  I actually had to resculpt both arms several times, so the original molded arms are not the ones that will be the final arms of my doll. I smoothed the shoulder of the second arm onto the shoulder of the torso. (not shown)

I cut the fingers of this hand.

I added two round pieces of clay to the upper back to form the shoulder blades.  You can see that the second arm has been attached and I have sculpted them.

I used my wooden sculpting tool to smooth the clay onto the upper back.

You can see that I am creating shoulder blades.

Both shoulder blades are sculpted, and I have run my tool down the center of the back to represent the backbone.

I am adding another piece of clay to the upper shoulder, because it did not match the one on the opposite side.

I made a ball and cut it in half to create the buttocks.

I have placed each buttock onto the doll, and I smoothed the clay into the shape of a very cute bottom.

I soft baked the doll again at 275 degrees for 15 minutes. After it was baked an allowed to cool completely, I began the process of scraping and sanding any bumps.

As you can see in the picture, the baked clay of the right arm has broken. I had to resculpt the arm using a sausage piece of clay and attaching it to the armature.  I did not reform the arm from the mold.  Unfortunately, I did not remember to take a picture of that process.

Oops! As I was preparing to add the hand to the arm, two of its fingers broke.  This is something that can happen very easily with polymer clay.  I decided to form another hand from fresh clay.

You can see the new clay I added for the right arm in this picture. I remolded the hand.

In this picture, you can see that I am adding clay to the back of the head and to the neck. I have also added pieces of clay to shape the upper arm.

This is how she looked when I added her ears.  At the time, I had not yet realized that her legs were too short.  

                                                   

This shows how her ears looked once I smoothed them onto the sides of the head.  You can also see that I have attached the second hand to the arm.  Both hands are a little larger than I would like.  I will sand them down and refine them in the next tutorial. 

Even with a mold, I find that you will still be required to sculpt the arms and legs to suit you.  Sometimes the clay breaks after baking and has to be replaced.  Other times you may find that your proportions are incorrect and will have to be changed or repaired.  In part three, I will show how I removed the short legs and added new legs.  I orignally tried to just resculpt them, but for the purposes of this tutorial, I have remolded new legs from fresh clay.  I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial so far.  Please follow my blog so you can be updated whenever I post a new article, and feel free to share it.  Your comments or questions are welcomed too! Thanks!