Sketch of the week 7- Agnetha

Some of you have been asking to see Agnetha's sketches. There are several pages of Agnetha related drawings and doodles in my sketch book, but these three are the most relevant ones. From top to bottom are sketches for crown, collar and dress fringe. I did a lot of preliminary work drawing some aspects of the costume out, before actually starting it, making Agnetha one of the least improvised ball jointed, costumed dolls of mine. She was also the very first doll on 1:6 scale, I've made in my quest for a perfect doll.To get symmetry in the violate dress fringe, I drew out a single matrix of the design by hand and then had Chad reproduce and tile the rest of it in photoshop, thus creating a repetitive pattern for embroidery. But, of course it got changed around once I began embroidering it.Metal is not as permitting of improvisation as other mediums, such as embroidery. Such precision is required in sawing out a design with a saw blade the thickness of dental floss, that you can't just change your mind about this or that right in the middle of it. The unforgiving hardness of metal coupled with a small size of the design and the thinness and delicacy of the sawing blade which tends to break with the smallest changes in direction, won't allow it. Every single detail must be worked out in the sketching stage and once that is done, you're committed to that design. This crown took me a week to design and get the necessary materials, about two hours to saw it out of a sheet of Sterling silver and about 12 hours to file, sand, solder and set with stones. Once I started making it, I didn't stop until it was finished. Soldering was the most nerve wracking part, always is for me because of my fear of open flame and flammable gasses and the danger of making a mistake and accidentally melting the project. Or, having a leaky gas tank or a torch and blowing myself up. I actually did almost melt this crown. It's so thin and delicate, I'm surpirsed I didn't.And there you have it, ladies and gents.I just got a fashion magazine from Copenhagen, Denmark with a short, one page feature on Enchanted Doll. I'll post it soon.