24/7 PARTY SWAMP

the doll is made from/contains sculpey, apoxie, plastic toy parts, cheap acrylic paints, glass eyes off etsy, flat polyester filling, fabrics (some new, some thrifted), thrifted leather scraps, various stuff of both known & unknown origin from my trinket boxes, junk from hardware store, Pain and Suffering, human blood (not on purpose), fuckton of glue(s), steel wire, etc.

anyway. this movie has driven me to some questionable financial and personal choices in the past and continues to do s.

i originally started this like. 6+ years ago when i first discovered the musical and was perfectly normal and reasonable about the whole thing. dont even worry about it. i had access to some grey fake fur i thought would be good for the hair and i think that was what put the dollmaking thought in my head. i sculpted the face but didnt bake it because i thought i might work on it more. or i was trying to figure out what to do with the neck and how to make it like… doll shaped. and then some irl stuff knocked me off my creative groove and the unbaked head was taunting me all these years, sitting under a glass dome on the corner of my junk desk. when the inspiration gets kicked off the rails it can take. … some time for it to return. sometimes that "some time" is 6 full years.

i made the mistake of thinking about the movie like 1,5 months ago and the Sickness came back in full force. i made a decision that i Would finish it this year finally.

i surgeried the face some because i presumed i could do better. then i cut off like 90% of it and resculpted it (the nose is mostly from the original but the rest got a do-over) and made some HANDS. i think those are the first human shape hands i have sculpted and i am pretty happy with how they came out. they have fingers even. finally baked that shit.

then i made some very questionable decisions about what to make the rest of him from. the thing is the steel wire i have is not strong enough to hold up a bunch of junk and heavy sculpey things without giving out and i wanted something poseable instead of a floppy ragdoll. i committed some crimes against mass produced plastic bits and made a skeleton with joints i thought would work, then i found out they kinda didnt, and then i ordered some other stuff that also didnt work for this and then i, out of desperation, did some absolute "theres no way this will work….. wait it works??? wtf" nonsense to salvage the original thing. this was a traumatic experience in many ways but the important part is that hes poseable and can stand unsupported now. its fine.

as usual i made an involuntary blood donation to this thing. the blood magic is what makes the crafts work. its not visible to the outside but i can assure theres some in there. it keeps happening.

painting and sewing (too much sewing. all by hand bc no sewing machine. dont have space for one rn nor do i sew enough to justify it anyway) and gluing and sweating and not being able to sleep when the "trying to figure out how to make this work" thoughts hit. the usual. the Craft Curse. but at the end i have a Finished Thing that i can grisp in my hand. i can REST. i finally have my own weird crusty wolf man.

i learned soooo many "how to do this in a smarter way next time" facts and i will make Good use of them by never making a doll like this ever again. shaved off years off my lifespan probably! but! i had to make it!! brain said so! why? fuck if i know!!! its done!!!! doll: Created. fun forest photoshoot: Done. boxes fucking checked!!!!!!