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Monday, June 22, 2015

Jolo and his Mandolin

Well, I’m almost done. This Jester is the second to last one I’m making for the exhibit. I love this one a lot because he really does look like a real person, just small scale. ;o) When I decided to make Jolo I also wanted him to have a musical instrument.  Amelia has a violin, Emelio has his flute, and now Jolo has joined the band with his mandolin.

I’ve managed to find other musical instruments but the Mandolin has eluded me. He really needs one as you’ll see, so what I did was make one for him. Please keep in mind, this is not by any stretch a piece of perfection as a musical instrument, but he likes it and it suits him.

Thinking ahead, I wondered how many others would like to take the time to make something for a doll of theirs, so I took my time to create a tutorial for making a mandolin. This is a more of a guide of how I made this, but the instructions are such that you can easily adapt this to other string instruments. If you click the link above to “Little Wonders”, you will find it there.

Now on to Jolo. For his costuming, I used cotton, silk, real leather, faux leather and socks for his leggings. This pattern is a combination of things. In June 2005, Joggles had a Jester challenge. I was only 2 years into doll making and hadn’t yet discovered the benefits of challenges. When someone shared a picture of their version of the Joggles challenge, I decided I would like to make this too. Of course this goes back 10 years and being a challenge, would make it much harder to get the pattern, which came together by me having one part and two very nice ladies who each sent me another part, because none of us had it all. ;o)  But in the end I did get it all together, and this is my version. The original design is by Mary Tressler and the challenge was left up to you how you interpret it.

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The base I made, from all things, a piece of scrap plywood from a project hubby was working on. He laughs when he sees my little pile of a wood scraps and comments about how I went scrounging. And yes I did, I see value in all things.

So this piece like most of the bases I make, is covered top and bottom with two colours of felt and a trim around the sides. No sanding of the wood required, and after the fact, I also put some metal purse bottoms on the bottom of this, so it’s raised up a little.

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The hat he is wearing is real, soft leather. It’s more like a hood with a cape attached. There were two horns in the example, but I had to add the third one, so afraid he would look like some evil being that will remain nameless. ;o) In addition, I added some trim around each horn to tie it together with the trim I used on his waist, wrists and lower legs. I love his face, it came together so well.

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A mid point view of him holding his mandolin.

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And another view to the upper body, so you can see the pose he’s in. I’ve tried to put all of my Jesters in various poses, much more interesting.

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A view of his cool boots. I used some chain given to me to wrap around the ankles. This is where I used the faux leather. From pulling them on and handling them while stitching on the chains, the fabric did stretch a bit, but a happy surprize was that the end result gave the leather a more worn look. So yay !!!

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His trousers are dupioni silk. I’m very happy with how the whole colour scheme came together. And that’s it for Jolo. I will post one more Jester later this week and I have one more project to put together as part of the display, which includes two small Jesters, so here’s hoping I’ve kept up with good time management. Bye for now and don’t forget to check out the new tutorial on the “Little Wonders” link above.

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2 comments:

  1. Another creative Jester! Love his face and all your details. I have printed out your
    tutorials for the Mandolin, LOL, not sure I am up to cutting even balsa wood. At Christmas, I make an angel each year for my Sunday School class. Lucky for me, someone else is in charge of determining the winner. The musical instruments are never the right size. Thank you for tutorial.
    Looking forward to the last Jester.

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  2. I think this one is my favourite of them all. Love the pose and everything about him is so classy

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