NAME: Best Friends Forever
DESIGNATION: First Group, #5
NOTES: Best Friends Forever came to be simply enough: I wanted to make a two-headed doll. This began as an experimental doll, but it became more and more workable until it was finally a sturdy piece with well-worked coloration.

It was not always so, however. As an experiment, once the primary body-frame was built, it began to show promise, but not enough for me to stop risking its ruin by staying to media I knew would work. In this case, I tried a paint that did not adhere to the doll's rubbery dollflesh. This ruined the original two heads (which, in turn, became burn experiments to get a feel for how that head type melts and chars) and I was certain the doll was ruined entirely. It was sticky to handle, paint would come off of it, and it was apparently totally unhandleable. As a last resort, I experimented further, this time by trying to powder off the sticky paint areas, much like using saw dust to clean up oil. I figured it would make the sticky areas collect the powder and be clumpy enough to be removed with a cloth, and what did not come off would be covered in the powder.

It worked pretty much like I thought it would, only better.

The doll's parts had been dyed blue, but since three different dolls were used, they were made of different materials. The rubbery parts dye best, then the hard rubber, and then the plastics tend to dye poorest. The plastics were not a problem, since they were used for the body frame and were covered, but the heads were significantly lighter than the body (which is why I tried to paint it, to reduce some of the blue-ness). The powder had a bonus of not only fixing the paint problem I created, but it blended the blues together to a fairly uniform skin tone.

I ended this piece pretty pleased, with my only regret being that I do not have a sewing machine, which made making a dress for the doll difficult. The dress currently worn needs to be changed one day, but for now it is servicable.

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