Moving on

I had some money from my grandmother for my birthday at the end of February, so I used that to buy a block of Living Doll.  It may have been sat in the shop for a long time, it was crumbly and I had to work hard to knead it and soften it.  Once I got started I found it much easier to work with than the air dry clay.  Two issues arose, one that it picks up every bit of fluff and hair and god knows what else (even from stuff that is not in the same room, go figure!), second, once Living Doll gets warm it can go too squidgy.  It was winter and my hands are always cold so I wasn't happy at seeing loads of my fingerprints, and accidentally squishing features as I worked on other parts of the face/head.

I made one doll from the Living Doll clay. I made the head first and baked it and I was really happy. 

 Unfortunately after adding a body and setting it to bake, things began to go wrong.

I followed the baking instructions to the letter and followed tips I found online to ensure that she baked evenly and didn't burn or crack. 

After baking I left her in the oven to cool down, and was really disappointed with the things that went wrong.  Well somehow the hands got pushed into a weird position during baking, even though I spent ages arranging her nicely in the oven. Her lips were burnt and the nose burnt all the way through, the hands distorted, and on top of it all the clay cracked around the ankles and the feet came off.  I was really upset.

The next day I fixed the feet by adding new ones and re-baking.  The only way I could deal with the burnt bits was to paint her all over with acrylic paint.  She came out looking like an alien at the end, so not the look I intended. 

I learned some lessons from that particular doll.