Michael Langton
Black Eagle
c. 1999,Porcelite
(beads, quill necklace, feather and head)During 30 years as a working artist, I have used many media. Usually a project determines what medium I work in. Characteristics of problems are a large factor in my choice of materials. Porcelite does anything I ask it to. It is able to duplicate details that hold up under magnification, can mimic materials I have used in the past (wood, bronze, stone, fabric, wax) without drawbacks or side effects. There are no inherent weaknesses and no risk to my health. It is truly a great material for a creative person when the what you are trying to create is more important than the how. Find more information about Michael Langton on the Contact A NIADA Member page of this web site.
 From the Studio
of Richard Creager Buying Felt to Block a Hat for Your Doll
There are many different types and grades of felt. By far, the best felt for "our" type of hats -- "a doll hat" -- is fur felt. Fur felt is produced from fur of beavers, raccoons or rabbits. Fur felt produced the wonderful Top Hat, Homberg, Bowler, and Fedora, their quality and beauty holding true to the test of time. Fur felt has a very fine texture and finish. It works best in the small scale required for dolls. Consider the weight or thickness of felt. Select felt that is as thin as possible, but still maintains it's quality. Fur felt retains it's finish during the blocking process and withstands much abuse without becoming fuzzy.
The next grade of felt useful to doll artists is 100% premium virgin wool felt. It is a good grade of felt, but lacks the smooth finish and density of fur felt. Handle wool felt carefully or it will loose it's finish in the blocking process and tend to become fuzzy.
Avoid lesser quality wool felt. Also avoid craft felt made fromsynthetic fibers. It is not dense enough to stretch over hat blocks.
Good quality lightweight fur felt is available but often requires large minimum orders which means substantial cost. Buy old hats at vintage clothing shops, antique and thrift shops. This way you can select better grades of felt. You can usually get two doll hats from each old hat.
Find more information about Richard Creager on the Contact A NIADA Member Page.
Jodi & Richard Creager
The Deacon
c. 1994, Super Sculpey | Art Dolls of Resin - Move Over Porcelain
The Nature of Resin
by Nicholas J. Hill
Before 1850 dollmakers used plant-derived natural resins like copal, rosin and amber to bind cellulose particles together in making composition dolls. The word "resin" today generally refers to synthetic resins. All of the materials we call plastics are more correctly called plastic resins. These materials are polymerized synthetics or chemically modified synthetics such as acrylics, polyvinyl chloride, polyethylene, polystyrene, polyesters, epoxies, silicones, polyurethanes and many others.
While there are hundreds of different plastic resins, only a few are used in doll making. When dollmakers refer to "resins" for making reproductions of an original they usually refer only to epoxies, polyesters, polyurethanes and modified polyurethanes. Some resin dolls are mixtures of various resins.
To understand the physical differences of one (plastic) resin from another we can examine the properties of the major resin types used in doll making. Epoxies, polyesters and modified polyesters like LumicastTM are clear to yellow solvent-based materials.
Working with these materials requires the artist to work in a well-ventilated room while wearing protective equipment like a breathing respirator, rubber gloves and goggles. The solvents in these resins are nearly always toxic, carcinogenic, or ozone depleting substances. Solvent emissions from the use of these materials are coming under increasingly stringent government regulation. These older resins are very hard, heavy, fragile and crystalline. Because they are brittle they tend to break in shipping. It is generally not possible to reproduce sharp features or tiny parts like one millimeter fingers on an open doll hand with epoxies and polyesters. Dolls made of these materials often continue to give off solvent vapors and emit a solvent smell.
Polyurethanes (referred to simply as "urethanes") and modified polyurethanes are more versatile than polyesters and epoxies because they are capable of a multiplicity of reactions. Polyurethane materials like Alumilite and Smooth-On have been available for more than twenty years. By choosing from among a host of possible reactants, polyurethanes can be modified or tailored to be very hard or very soft or they can be produced as foams that vary in flexibility from very soft to rigid.
Polyurethanes can be modified to be free of toxic solvents, they are generally less than half the weight of polyesters and epoxies and they are much stronger. Depending on the choice of chemical raw materials some polyurethanes tend to yellow over time. More modern urethanes can be made inherently stable to UV light. These non-yellowing, exceptionally strong materials can be made to reproduce severe undercuts or the tiny detail of a fingerprint,
The new breed of stable and durable modified polyurethanes like the
PorceliteTM advanced resin system can be flexible or rigid, crystal clear, opaque or translucent and can duplicate the appearance of any material, even wood, metal or glass.
This medium can be anything you want it to be.
About Nicholas J. Hill:
Mr. Hill has been a practicing chemist for forty-three years. He holds three patents in polymer technology and is a contributing author to Doll Reader.
Mr. Hill and his wife, Barbara, are NIADA Patrons
Back To Top |
