Paperclay Dolls

YEARS ago, when I was in high school, I was quite fond of playing with paperclay. The only polymer clay I was able to find was Fimo (which I found horrible to use), but Whitcoulls always had DAS or Jovi in stock.
I still have a (poorly sculpted) male torso that I made when I was 17. The head and arms (and lower legs) have broken off and been lost since, but I still have the torso! (somewhere!)
I can't remember when or why I stopped using it, but I haven't touched the stuff for years.

Anyway, to get to the point of this needless ramble: I was stuck on the doll I was sculpting for my photo "tutorial" and needed something else to work on. I saw some DAS at the local Toy Store, so bought a pack.
And started to make some dolls.

Paperclay is hellishly messy to work with - which is probably why I stopped using it in favour of polyclay. I am quite messy enough, thankyouverymuch. It's very fibrous, and odd to use after polymer clay, as it's very sticky and slumpy, & needs a slow drying time.
It also dries quickly with the heat of your hands, so after working with it for a while, you end up with scaly cracked "gloves" of  dry clay. I've spent a lot of time over the past month picking dried clay off my hands.

I have four on the go (it was a 1kg pack), two of which are 1/12 teeny-tinys (15cm), and a 1/12 kitty (12cm).
And a larger mermaid, but I'm not showing that one until I'm a bit further along.
I don't think I'll mold any of these, so they'll be One Of A Kinds!

The Girls have the teeniest faces I've ever done - their heads are about 2cm from chin to crown.
This stuff is wonderful to sand (I don't like wet sanding anyway) compared to polyclay. Which is just as well, because it's freakin' hard to get a smooth, even surface.

Kitty before ears and arm joints.

Kitty as of 20 minutes ago. (Obviously, my photography has not improved >.<)
I dug out my watercolours (the tube of Windsor Newton that I used is over 14 years old! Buy artist quality paints!) and re-wet the pieces so that I could do a gradieted basecoat in yellow, and use some purple Luminarte powered  pigment. I have to let it dry, seal the paint,and string her, and then she's done.



I should be able to get my mermaid, and possibly anther small doll out of the remainder, then I think I'll be back onto the polyclay OOAK's.