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Monday, April 25, 2016

Sir Toby–Almost done!

I’m on the last leg of my journey with Sir Toby Belch. I’ve now given him a jacket with belt and lace cuffs. He also now has a head and hands, he’s very happy about that. ;o) This is the jacket before dressing him. I used a mini gold gimp trim (1/4” wide) to embellish the front panels and the shoulder epaulettes, and even more mini burgundy trim (1/8th”) around the bottom and front edges. The faux buttons are beads that have a nice pattern to them that of course you can’t see here.

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I had a moment a few days ago where I thought, do I panic or just stay calm. I chose calm. What happened???? I finished the sculpting the head and hands, checked it all over and put it in the oven to bake. I even put a bit of polyfil over the pieces so they wouldn’t get scorched. Of course I covered all the bases didn’t I. ;o~

NO !!!!  After the parts were cool to the touch I brought them back up here and took a closer look. Then my OMG moment. I looked and looked again, and there it was. Cataracts in both eyes. The left eye had a partial one, the right eye a full cataract… I had not checked to make sure there was nothing on the eyes. Once you bake those eyes, whatever is on there is there for good, unless you can turn back time and not let it happen. I used acrylic eyes, not sure what would happen with glass ones.

I tried everything I had in the house for cleaning and nothing worked. At this point I figured I might as well go for broke and try one last thing. I reached for the Crystal Lacquer that I sometimes use for making eyes more lifelike. As I was reaching for it, there was a bottle of clear nail polish in front of it, so what the heck, lets go with  that.

I carefully applied a small drop to each eye, because if it worked I wouldn’t want nail polish all over the place, well, like magic, no more cataracts. I can’t explain the chemical reaction, all I know is that as soon as the polish hit the eyes, they became as clear as when I first put them on the face. Who knew????!?

Here his is with sparkly clear eyes, a nice leather belt and lace cuffs. I did some painting with Genesis paints, but not overly done. He doesn’t need it, just enough to make the details show up.

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His left hand is sculpted with a bit of a claw look, but that’s the pre planning I had to do. I made him a beer stein, so I had to make sure the position of the fingers and thumb were right. Eventually the position of the other arm will be slightly different.

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The last parts will be to give him hair, facial and on top, a hat and the neck ruffle and to attach the beer stein. I also found quite by accident, a wonderful finishing feature. I’m not posting it here, just in case my customer sees this,  I don’t want to spoil the surprize for her. So here his is, resting while I do the rest.  I hope to post the last part by the end of the week. See you soon.

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