Dancing Doll - az

I was assigned to make a dancing doll as a gift. My dancing doll is a combination shadow puppet/paper doll.  It took a lot of thinking (a.k.a. procrastination) before I executed anything of value because I wasn't quite sure how to approach it. I cheated a bit by drawing one side and then reversing it to get the other side. The proportions are probably longer than what is normal but they had an alien quality which I liked. I made the feet wonky in memory of a favorite paper doll with turned in toes. 

I drew the face and then made paper templates for the body. You can see a paper arm in the picture on  the right towards the top. I used chipboard and the backs of old cards to create the body. As I progressed, I realized it needed something. The head dress was cool as a drawing but lost some of its pizazz in the cutting and the body was flat and boring. I did intend to just draw an outfit on but I changed my mind. 

I cut more chipboard pieces to create texture and to form more of the body.

I used craft paint and medium for most of this project. Craft paint has tooth to it and I thought I would draw on this more. But other than the face, I did very little drawing and much more painting. I used regular brads to attach the limbs but the limbs just hung loosely which annoyed me as I wanted the doll to be pose-able. To account for this I created feather/leaf pieces to act as shims so the joints could be posed.

The doll is about 15" long. It has a reused floral stick with the feather/leaf pieces which allows the doll to be hung up or dance around. And you cannot see it but there is glitter on the face and a lot of opalescent paint on the body to keep the alien charm going.