Masha du Toit

Emma suggested mother of pearl buttons for the Mermaid, and luckily I had some.  They used to belong to my grandmother and I’ve been saving them.

And then of course I had to find a use for the cowrie shells:

She’s very nearly done now.

Mermaid now has a velvet jacket (swallow tail!) with a silk lining.  It needs buttons. Maybe cowrie shells will do?

I was able to take the afternoon off from work-for-pay, enough to start the Mermaid’s body.  It’s an “under-body” as it were, I doubt much of this will be visible in the final doll:

I took the day off today, despite having a fair amount of work for pay to do.  Instead, I had a wonderful time attaching hair to my Mermaid doll.   Here she is early in the process with about a third of the hair attached.

A rather strange photo of the back of her head.  I’m pleased with the method as it looks good once all the hair is on, and the hair is attached quite firmly.

I could not get any clear shots showing the full effect of all her hair, but in this one you can see the silver threads I added, since she is not a young mermaid:

If I get time tomorrow, I’m starting on her body.

I added a bit more colour to the mermaid doll today.  Her skin went from pink to brown, and she got some eye-liner too.  For a while she had painted irises in her eyes, but I think I prefer that fremen look.

And here is the bit I’ve been relishing: preparing her hair.

I forgot my camera at home today, so was reduced to taking low quality pictures with my phone.  Today I bought some hair for my Mermaid (braiding hair from a Chinese shop) and chose some more fabrics.  Furry blue stuff, crushed velvet, maybe?  I also started blocking out what shape her body might be.