I did an over-time with my cups, so I thought it'd be cool to do the same with a couple of my dolls. The Ankle-Biters were the first art doll design I ever made, they were created for a school project in the course that I learned slip-casting from. This Achilles is from that first set of molds but is a recast one, as the original parts were sadly smashed in a shelf collapse. But he's a good example of what I was working with at the time and how I was getting the hang of making art dolls- he's not stuffed as firmly so he slouches a bit, his hea'ds kind of big and the colours were materials I had available in the classroom setting. Because they were communal materials they weren't always the most reliable things to use, so you got some weird things happening in the way they interacted, in this case the way the burgundy stain I'd put in top of the yellow slip got a weird texture instead of a uniform colour.

Jake, who was made in 2019, came after making a lot of Ankle-Biters and other dolls. I'd remade the head and foot molds three times by that point and had refined the shape and details I was getting out of the casts, so he's got a better and more expressive face shape. The body is a better shape and stuffed a lot more firmly, as well as having a lot more counterweight in the butt so he sits up much better. And underglaze! Underglaze is a thin clay solution with pigment in it that's wonderful for decorating ceramic with. It comes in tons of different colours and can go on bisqued ware or straight onto unfired clay. And most importantly, it's predictable, so it doesn't do strange things when it's layered up like it is for Jake's markings. Finally, the finishing touch was that between when I graduated and now we managed to get ourselves a nice little 3D printer. All the Ankle-Biters since have had nice, official-looking nametags.

TL;DR more progress over time! Enjoy the fuzzy monsters :D