Introducing: NEPTUNE!!! Who I think is the most thoroughly accessorized rag doll yet! Making Neptune further solidified my belief that 3 is the magic number. I had to do her glasses 3 times and her surfboard 3 times to get them right. At least I only had to do the pants twice.

In case you’re curious, the delay on Neptune was due to her surfboard. I was waiting for some special ordered fabric you can actually PRINT ON WITH YOUR INK JET!!! As exciting as that sounds, it was less than perfect. It wasn’t bad, mind you, the colors just weren’t as vibrant as I would have liked. It would have been fine, but once you held it up to the doll, it just looked drab. So, I went back to hand-stenciling, which was a lot more work, but looked a lot nicer.

Here’s a closer look. I used a really, really thick fusible interfacing to keep it stiff but stuffed in some quilt batting to keep it huggable. The batting helped achieve the quilted look I was going for on the surface. You can just barely see the tip of the little fin poking out there on the bottom.

Still working on Mercury. Stay tuned!

Over and out,
Mother Earth

I’m awaiting some special order fabric before I can finish Neptune. In the meantime, guess who I’m starting??? I had to do her hair 3 times before I got it right.

She’s the last doll, then it’s on to pets!!!

Over and out,
Mother Earth

Heard about the Cartoonstitute at Cartoon Network yet?

“Rob Sorcher, Cartoon Net’s newly appointed chief content officer, is spearheading a development initiative they’ve dubbed the “Cartoonstitute.” Sorcher (pictured left) wants to get a bunch of original development in the works pronto (insert a Hanna-Barbera zoink and pat-a-pat-a-pat-a-pat sound of running bare feet here), and so he’s carving out a space with the Burbank-based Cartoon Studios facility for an artists colony that he hopes will harvest funny fruit in the near future.

Cartoonstitute will be run by two veteran Cartoon Net producers, Craig McCracken, of “Powerpuff Girls” and ‘Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends” fame, and Rob Renzetti (“My Life as a Teenage Robot”). Sorcher aims to put six artists to work full-time on pilots and short segments for the channel immediately, under the guidance of McCracken and Renzetti. As many as 30 more artists — some already in-house at Cartoon, some new to the toon net tent — will be brought in to pitch in and/or develop their own ideas at any given time, particularly when they’re on production hiatus from other Cartoon Net shows.”

This is why it’s a good idea:

“Putting the initiative in the hands of artists was important because they’ll be able to speak to and work with other ink- and paint- and CG-stained wretches in a way that no executive ever could. One thing Sorcher’s learned is that in many cases, a cartoon character needs to be developed and refined on its own, before the many other elements of a show are determined.”

Read the whole article here.

BTW— I thought up that name

Over and out,
Mother Earth

A little while ago, I completed the very last piece of Uranus by adding her glasses. Now, as I’m finishing up Neptune, it only seemed fair that she should have her sunglasses, too. It took me three tries to get it right. The first pair, an all felt version, just didn’t look right. On her head, it just looked like a big, dumb bow. Upon Craig’s suggestion, I used a shiny silk for the lenses of the glasses. That was closer. But, stupidly, I used the same shiny fabric I use for her hair, so that didn’t look right either. So off to the fabric store!! …where I found a darker, yet still shiny color. Voila! Now I just have to make her surfboard and she is done!!

Even though I did the revisions for aesthetic reasons, having to do it 3 times was great practice for me and GLUE! I don’t usually like to use glue, but stitching wasn’t really an option. Check out my progress:

Shades #1– used craft glue. What a mess. Even my tackiest tacky glue wouldn’t hold, so I had to clip it shut until it dried, making awful indents all over the place. Plus, look at all the gross leftover bits. Couldn’t even shave it off with sciccors!!

Shades #2– resurrected my old friend the GLUE GUN!!! Glue gun glue dries almost INSTANTLY, which can be a pain if you place anything wrong. Still had a lot of messy left overs tho.

Shades #3– Got the hang of the Glue Gun, and the edges are practically clean!!! I think I’ll be using glue guns more often in the future.

Neptune’s 90% complete– stay tuned!!

Over and out,
Mother Earth