The Transformation of "Carnival Maiden" .....

I have always been fascinated by the embellished mannequins I have seen.  The human form is just asking for decoration!  This winter I took on that creative project and am sharing the process here with you.  I started with a plastic female torso I ordered from EBay. 

 

This is a full body one.  Many of them are front only and are designed to be hung from a wall in a retail store.

Then I went on the search for a head.  Although I could have created a beautiful torso form, I wanted the head to allow  a personality. I think  this one was a used head from a cosmetology student.

The first thing I did was give her a rough haircut, as her face was so sweet and was just not visible with all that hair.

 

I drew with pencil, some basic design lines on the torso, being mindful of the curves and hopefully enhancing her sensual presence.

I selected the colors I wanted to use as the image became  clearer in my mind.

I added the second color and" who she is" started to emerge.

I was glad to see the hair on the head was not glued on, but was actually inserted into the skull.  This made it quite thick.  I took a small paint brush and a can of navy gloss enamel and went for it.  As I painted her hair, I twisted it and pulled it up with the paint brush.   When it dried, she had beautiful stiff spiky hair that glistened!

 

Yes.  This is the look I was hoping for. I carefully drew her face designs and painted them with GOLDEN acrylic paints.  There are three tiny gems glued to the corner of each eye.  Using the other end of the paint brush, I made dots along the edges where the paint colors change. Dots are a favorite design element that you will see in much of my work.

 

 

 

I continued to add colors to the torso.

 

 

 Finally it is coming together, but a very big technical issue is looming; how to securely attach the head to the torso.

 

 The head has been firmly attached to the torso with several screws. The joint between the head and the neck is embellished with some faux pearls painted navy gloss.  On her shoulder is a metal painted butterfly.

 

She needed a special platform to present her in a finished manner.  Roy built a custom base, solid wood, stained with a red mahogany and then sealed with a polyacrylic finish.   She is attached to the  base with eight long screws and is now complete and ready to meet her public.  Are you ready?

 I present

 "Carnival Maiden":