the men- tweaking

I’ve been working on these guys all week. I’ve really enjoyed playing with the hair embroidery.
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4 heads, front and back-

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I’ve spent a lot of time tweaking. The feet have been an issue. Four dolls, four different feet designs.
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The first guy? I took off his feet, restuffed his legs, repositioned the feet and sewed them back on again. Then I embroidered the white of his eyes- what a difference that made- some contrast! I gave him a mustache and embroidered details on his pants. And I decided that the blotches weren’t so bad after all.

Second guy– I thought a lot about the comment Babs left… I agreed with her. I wasn’t satisfied with the lower half of the body. I thought about adding dimension by using a 4 piece pattern for his pants. In the end, I decided that was not the direction to go in. If I did that, I’d really have to change the head too; give him a chin, a round head. There is a balancing act of keeping a simple design and making a believable figure. So, on this guy too, I removed his feet, restuffed the legs- that made a huge difference- repositioned the feet and sewed them back on again. I added embroidered detail onto the front and back of the pants.

Hopefully I will have them all completely finished and ready for their formal portrait tomorrow. I’ve been doing so much hand stitching that my fingertips hurt!

I put some of the embroidered head photos on Flickr, if you want to see more detail.

7 thoughts on “the men- tweaking

  1. I love them, too! And I really get what you’re saying about the balancing act. It’s a good point that applies to art in general. These guys are really a joy–lots of both humor and affection there!

  2. Oh my, that’s called “working your fingers to the bone!”

    I love your men and hearing all about the journey; the development of a concept through to the end product. It’s facinating to see how others do this- thanks for sharing!

  3. I love how you enjoy the process! I wonder if this is how God felt when he first made “man” (I’ll just take those feet off and stuff him up a little more …” Lol!

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