#bead dolls

[craftymaika]

Beaded cast: Star Wars V - The Empire Strikes Back by crafty-maika

[craftymaika]

Leia Organa (Beaded ESB cast, part 2/3)

Part of my beaded cast of Empire Strikes Back set. Perhaps unsurprisingly for a beaded doll of Leia, the trickiest part of this doll was the hair - she's got a braid wrapped all around her head, and I spent who knows how many hours trying to actually braid or somehow twist together seed beads of the smallest size into braids to attach around the doll's head, but everything I tried looked far too clunky because even the tiniest 15° beads were still too big. And then I finally dawned on me that I was going about it completely the wrong way! I eventually ended up using bigger beads in a simple herringbone pattern to mimic the thicker structure of the braid, and I'm actually quite happy with the final result. Sometimes you've just got to try the exact opposite of what you've been doing, I guess. *** Materials: 11° and 15° TOHO and MIYUKI seed beads, bugle bead, round beads, felting wool, craft wire Size: approx. 3.1 inches/8 centimetres

[craftymaika]

Beaded cast: Star Wars IV - A New Hope by crafty-maika (40th anniversary project)

[craftymaika]

Beaded doll:  Leia Organa (Star wars 40th anniversary project part 3/9)

Here's the next part (3 of 9) of my Star Wars anniversary project, and the first of my new versions of the main trio. That's actually my third Leia doll now - the first was my second doll ever, more than two years ago, and then I did an updated version one year after that. What's new in this version is that I changed the way I make heads for my dolls - they're a bit smaller and less clunky with more detail. I've also changed the shape of the dress - the dress from the movie is very loose-fitting with flowing fabric, and while beads don't really do loosely flowing very well, I tried to get as close as I could. And most important - feet! Both older versions basically had toes stuck to the front of their dresses, which always bothered me, so now I worked out a way to get actual feet poking out from below the rim of her dress. *** Previous parts:

C-3PO

R2-D2

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Materials: 11° and 15° TOHO and MIYUKI seed beads, round beads, felting wool, craft wire Size: approx. 3.1 inches/8 centimetres

[craftymaika]

Beaded doll: Han Solo (Star Wars 40th anniversary project part 4/9)

The fourth addition to my nine-part SW anniversary set is a new doll of Han Solo. The changes compared to my first version, which was made almost two years ago, are not as pronounced as they were in the case of my first Leia doll and the one I posted last week, but there are still a few - mostly the addition of a beaded base and actual hair (which ended up a bit flatter than I would have liked but is still quite a step forward from what was basically a cap made out of a beaded net in the original version), as well as changes to some details like the belt or the open collar and of course the new head. I made a mistake while beading this figure - forgot to add the belt and hoster before beading the arms, which ended up putting my patience to the test because my very thin thread for the small 15° beads used for the belt kept getting tangled in the arms and blaster while beading. I've got to remember in which order to attach body party and accessories in the future... *** Previous parts: Leia

C-3PO R2-D2

*** Materials: TOHO and MIYUKI 11° and 15° seed beads, round beads, felting wool, craft wire Size: approx. 3.5 inches/9 centimetres

[craftymaika]

Beaded doll: C-3PO (SW 40th anniversary project, part 1/9)

Once again, it's been a while since I posted a new doll, but I have been busy with beads these past few weeks. For one, I've organised my ever growing seed bead stash, which let me tell you was urgently necessary lest I drown in uncategorised tiny beads of unidentified colour, and secondly I've been doing some experimenting with new head/face patterns and working on a larger project, the first part of which I'm posting today. Remember last September, when I posted a bead figure collection of the TOS main cast in honour of Star Trek's 50th anniversary? Let's go back a bit... *me, about one year ago*: What should I bead next? *me*: The 50th anniversary of Star Trek is coming up. *me*: I know! I'll make a collection of the entire main cast from TOS! Let's see what I need for that! *goes to look up cast pictures and screenshots* *me*: Okay, so I already have Spock and Uhura, should probably make a new Kirk, that basically means for the rest of them I just need to adjust the uniforms and hairstyles a bit, this shouldn't be too hard* *beads the entire set in about two weeks, no problems* And then... *me, a couple of months ago: What should I bead next? *me*: The 40th anniversary of Star Wars is coming up. *me*: I know! I'll make a collection of the entire main cast from A New Hope! Let's see what I need for that! *goes to look up cast pictures and screenshots* *stares at pictures of Darth Vader* *me*: ... I didn't think this through. So, as I probably should have figured out from the very beginning, beading a complete main SWIV cast is a bit more challenging that most things I've done so far, and there was no way I would have been able to finish in time for today's anniversary. However, I have progressed far enough in my designing that I should be able to finish, and hopefully significantly before the franchise hits the 50-year mark. 3PO is first because I'd actually started on him a while ago to complete the set with R2. And speaking of R2, he's actually the number 2/9 of this set and has already been finished for more than a year - I only added a beaded base so he would be on equal footing with everyone else. 

Some of you may remember I also made  bead figures of the main trio  a while back, but there will be new versions of them because of the above-mentioned changes to how I do heads/faces and to ensure that everyone matches size-wide and such. I'm tentatively aiming for weekly updates (Thursday) for the remaining seven figures, so unless I hit any unexpected major roadblocks, the full set should be finished around mid-July.

[craftymaika]

Beaded doll: Zelda (Breath of the Wild)

It's been a while since I last made a new doll - I'm not being very productive these days because I'm actually working on a larger project that requires much planning, designing and experimenting, so very little actually gets finished for the time begin - but when I saw the new trailer forBreath of the Wild I just had to take a break and make a doll of Zelda as she's seen in the trailer. I tried to get as close to her appearance in the trailer as possible, but changed the hair a bit to leave out the braid that goes around her head since I haven't jet figured out a way to do braids that don't look incredibly clunky.

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Materials: 11° and 15° TOHO and MIYUKI seed beads, round beads, felting wool, craft wire Size: approx. 3.5 inches/9 centimetres

Ready to save Hyrule?

[craftymaika]

Darth Vader (Star Wars 40th anniversary project, part 9/9)

Well, that took a few Thursdays more than I'd originally planned, but here's at long last the final doll for my Star Wars 40th anniversary project! I did mention at some point that I was working my way up on the scale of how likely beading a character would give me a headache, and here we've firmly entered migraine territory. Vader was definitely one of my most challenging dolls so far - not only did I have to create a completely new head shape, but the body was rather complicated as well. The key here is layers - for the non-beaders among you, my bead figures and all those beaded animals you can find here or on other beading sides are made of "nets" of bead circles that are stuffed with felting wool. From the humans among my little SW collection, most figures (Luke, Leia, Han, Tarkin) have only a single outer layer (not counting smaller details like belts that are added later) - just one net of bead latticework that makes up their basic body shape and clothing at the same time. My Obi-Wan doll has two layers - one for the basic shape (long robe), and one above that for the cloak, which is more work, but still doable. For my Vader doll, however, I needed three layers - one for the basic body shape (legs and torso), one for the inner cloak, and one for the outer cape. And since you can't just pile the layers on top of each other as you would with fabric because that would end up a thick unwieldy mess, arranging the layers so that everything shows up properly and the outer cape still falls more or less naturally, especially around the shoulders, was quite tricky, but I am quite happy with how it turned out. I'm not sure how well everything shows up in the photo, though - dolls that are almost all black beads or white beads like by Galadriel doll was don't really photograph well because the similar colours and shininess of the beads tends to turn them into monochromatic blobs... I've got one or two minor things to fix with some of the other dolls from this set, but I should have a group picture of all of them up in a couple of days. *** Previous parts: C-3PO R2-D2 Leia Organa Han Solo Luke Skywalker Tarkin Obi-Wan Kenobi Chewbacca *** Materials: Materials: TOHO and MIYUKI 11° and 15° seed beads, oval beads, bugle bead, felting wool, craft wire Size: approx. 3.8 inches/9.5 centimetres