Props 1/3 Dress Form (Warning: Doll Nudity)

I'm finally getting around to making my first full dress form for my 1/3 Myou Delia and thought I'd lay out the steps and document my progress here! I've made a partial form for my SD+ boy in the past, but only used it for flat pattern drafting instead of draping, forming, etc., so I'm excited to get started on a complete dress form. A quick warning in advance: This will probably be fairly image heavy and will contain doll nudity.

So the basic steps I need to complete are:
1. Saran wrap my girl and make a tape form
2. Use tape form to make a pattern for the fabric
3. Sew together fabric form
4. Find/create a stable base and stand
5. Stuff fabric form
6. Attach to stand

My supply list:
-Saran Wrap
-painters/masking tape
-scissors (both general and fabric)
-non-stretchy cotton or polyester fabric
-wood or plastic for stand and base
-thread, needles, other standard sewing tools
-stuffing

So last night I finished up step 1 and made the tape form of my girl's figure. I'm hoping to get some more done on this project today but I'm posting for last night today in case I don't get the chance to. I did this form slightly different than my first one and didn't do her legs individually, as I'm only planning on using the finished form for dresses, shirts, or skirts instead of pants.

Let's jump into it then! First things first: I got all my supplies together. Tape, plastic wrap, scissors, and of course, the doll. I had already taken her head off to protect her face up while I wrapped and taped her.

IMG_5824 by grodnertal, on Flickr

Then I began to wrap her, fairly tightly, using small pieces of tape to hold it in place.

IMG_5826 by grodnertal, on Flickr

I also put a thin strip of cardboard down the length of her back. This part isn't necessary and I'm sure other materials could be used, but I had some cardboard lying around and I've used it in the past and liked it. The cardboard will help make it easier to cut the tape off of her without me worrying about accidentally cutting too far and scraping her resin.

IMG_5828 by grodnertal, on Flickr

Once she's all wrapped up with plastic, I started taping! I was careful to tape pretty tightly, to get the details of her torso, and used smaller pieces of tape when working on tighter curves, like her chest and neck area.



After doing one layer of tape, I added a second layer to make it a bit more stable without straying from her actual measurements. I've used 3 layers of tape in the past and it stays close enough to the measurements and makes it even stronger, but I found it's harder to cut through and get off and just isn't really necessary, so I only did 2 here.

Then it was time to remove it by carefully cutting it off. I've used x-acto blades as well as scissors, but I couldn't find my blade so I settled for regular scissors lol



I carefully removed it without tearing or stretching it out of shape and finally got the completed tape form.

IMG_5840 by grodnertal, on Flickr

I'm gonna try to keep up with this project and post updates regularly. I'm also in the process of packing to move soon, so we'll see how much I can get done before I really have to start packing away my sewing and crafting materials ^^"

 

What a nice surprise that would be! Having dress forms really does take a lot of the fuss out of pattern making. Drafting with measurements alone can be super tedious

 

I was able to get some work done on this project in the last couple days. First I cleaned up the tape form and drew on some guiding lines with sharpie.

IMG_5842 by grodnertal, on Flickr

Then I cut along some of the guiding lines to make the patterns for the pieces of the fabric form.

IMG_5847 by grodnertal, on Flickr

Then I just traced these patterns onto some cheap muslin I use for mock-ups and patterning, and put together a mock-up to test my patterns and make sure it all fit together how I wanted it to.

IMG_5848 by grodnertal, on Flickr

The mock-up turned out really well and I only need to make a few minor changes to my patterns. In the next few days I'm hoping to get the chance to pick out some better fabric to sew together the final form. Still working on trying to find a good stand and base though. I'm not too sure what would be best to use, so I'll probably try out a few different things.