It's always something

It seems every project has its successes and frustrations. I'll cover the successes first.

I have been working on a conversion figure to sell on Ebay. It's a Charlie McCarthy doll. I plan to keep the face stock and add pro-style mechanics (self-centering eyes, raising eyebrows and a jaw with brass axle). My conundrum was painting irises on the eyeballs that were close-to-perfectly round. After several lame attempts at painting by hand, I finally reviewed Mike Brose's suggestions in his fine book "Figuremaking Can Be Fun". One method he covers is printing an iris on a computer printer. Al Stevens has an oversized iris on his Fred Project website for folks to use (thanks, Al). So I sized it and printed it on an Epson printer. I carefully cut out the two irises and glued them on the pre-painted eyeballs. Then I varnished the eyeballs and irises with a glossy finish. Of all the methods I tried, this method provided the best result by a mile.

Now the frustration. Awhile back, I bought a pack of 1-1/2" wood ball knobs at Joann's Fabrics. I made eyeballs, around which I sculpted my models for molds. But then Joann's stopped carrying the 1-1/2" wood ball knobs. So I ordered a package of 48 ball knobs from a woodcrafts website, 1-1/2" in size. Well, as it turns out, the new ball knobs are ever-so-slightly larger than 1-1/2", and they won't fit in the models I've sculpted for moldmaking.

I still plan to sculpt yet another head, so I'll use the new ball knobs for that sculpture. Meanwhile, I'm still hoping to find "Creative Wood" brand ball knobs sold by Joann's Fabrics, preferably the pack of 9.