Wearables Shelling My Novel Leads

I've been working on my novel for some time before I gave shelling my leads serious thought. It took time to find the bodies and heads I wanted. Doll Chateau Queena is the closest fit for my protagonist, Sulla:



Here she is with the one modification I felt confident doing myself. Queena has an extra long neck, and I removed one of the pieces to make her more proportional. I was more interested in her spindly arms and legs, which are a major plot point.

Sulla has a condition called piebaldism, which gives her distinctive coloring. While I've dyed dolls before, this level of dyeing is beyond my confidence level. On a similar note, I've added scars to my dolls before, but I wanted someone more skilled than me to give Sulla her particular scars. I sent her to @AirimirOfGondor for modifications.



Now all that's left is to commisison her faceup, make her clothes, make her orthotics, make her...

 

I looked through my photos and realized I have no in progress shots of her underwear. Since she spends most of the novel in a secondary world, she wears their clothes most of the time. This includes a long shirt and drawers from self-drafted patterns. The drawers were made twice, since I lost the first pair and didn't find them until well after I made the replacement set. The shirt is a hybrid of machine and handstitching, with the neck slit covered in buttonhole stitching since I didn't want to hem with such a small seam allowance.

Shirt from a distance. Looks like I made the sleeves too long.


Better view of the neckline. Her skin differences are visible through her shirt, around the stomach and elbows.


Showcasing the drawers.


Side view. The drawers close with a slit over each hip.

 

Thank you

 

I do enjoy using bias tape for finishing raw edges. I also like embroidery stitches. The bottonhole edging doesn't show up well in the photos above, but it adds a bit of texture in real life.

Thank for commenting.

 

Sulla spends a good chucnk of the story in the hospital, so the first set of clothes I'll make her is hospital attire. I imagine this world reuses clothes until they're too battered to salvage, and garments issued to a wide array of people needs flexible sizing. I dug out a bodice and sleeve linings last used 10+ years ago, and started marking. This outfit would use geometric construction, so patterning was simple.



I marked out which shape was what, and which items neede piecing:

 

Here is an in progress view of the hospital gown. The red like is from were I pieced together part of the top. I overcast a raw edge with leftover red thread. It won't show on the other side, so I saw nothing wrong with using it.



Once the sleeves were attached at the shoulders, I pinned the side seams for a test fit. Sulla looks like a little kid playing dress up.



Rather than recut the gown, I added tucks. Half centimeter ones go front,back, and over the shoulders. Much fatter tucks went into the back.



After adding ties, the gown was finished. It wasn't until this modeling session that I realized I cut the sleeves too long.





I still declare this garment done. I'll just fold back the cuffs to fit.

 

I am easily distracted. Even if a project brands itself as quick and easy, it will take me weeks to finish. Somehow, this next piece was finished in under seven days.

Sulla wears and akle foot orthotic (AFO) for most of the book. Hence, her doll version should have one too. Cue me scouring Den of Angels, YouTube, and Wikimedia commons for ideas on how to make one. I eventually settled on making one modeled after a boot. Now I just had to find a BJD boot pattern, and material that would be stiff but easy to work with.

I explain my process in a tutorial /tutorials/how-to-make-an-ankle-foot-orthotic.224/