When everything goes wrong

The next video is now in YouTube and this time things didn't go as planned, because I was using new material. The first experiment with it was a tunic for a Monster High Create A Monster doll, but I wanted to try it also for shoes.

This video is a more realistic view on how the doll shoe projects often go. The tutorials before this one are about subjects I know really well, so things can look easy. Trying new things is always different.




Here is a photo of the shoes as they are now. I have a plan for the ankle straps and will make a video about that soon.

New foot lasts

Going through the stuff inspired me to do something else as well. I decided to use the rest of the casting resin before it goes bad. The latex is also getting a bit thick, so it's better to use it as well. So, I'm making some more foot lasts.

All this has been done before and posted in this blog, but here are some photos anyway. The first one shows Sybarite's feet with flower tape around the ankles and several layers of latex applied.

The next one is Tonner's Jessica Rabbit (17" athletic body). First with flower tape covering the ankle joints...

...and then with latex applied.

Here are the finished moulds for both.

And here are the resin castings made with the moulds. You can see the flower tape clearly, but it is much neater than saran wrap.

As you can see in this photo showing the earlier plaster castings of Sybarite's feet and the new resin castings.

Booties for Jessica Rabbit

I started these over a year ago and managed to finish the cork soles, but then abandoned the project for something else. As I was going through some shoe pictures in fashion magazines, I got inspiration to finish these.

The soles consist of four parts each, the bottom and three vertical parts that form the wedge heel. When cutting the vertical parts, it's best to get the arch correct right from the start. Everything else is easy to carve into the right shape afterwards.

Here the heels are glued in place, but not yet carved into correct shape. Also, the bottom parts are a bit too long, but they were left that way on purpose, so it would be easy to get seamless fit with the wedges.

Here are the finished soles. As there won't be anything to cover the cork surface, it is important to get the seams as invisible as possible.

As I continued the project today, I first made the leather insoles. There was no need to use cardboard as the uppers were not going to go under the insoles.

I glued the edges of the uppers to the cork. Basically, you could finish the process here and use the shoes like this. However, I wanted something a bit different this time.

These are the parts that go around the ankles. I used 2 mm eylets and glued pieces of leather to the inside to protect the doll's feet from scratches.

Here are the ankle parts glued in place.

Then I hammered tiny nails to the edges of uppers. These are not necessary, because glue keeps the uppers in place, but I added them for decoration. You need to be careful to get the nails straight or they will come out through the insole or bottom of the cork sole. The shorter the nails are, the better.

Next, I glued pieces of leather to the bottom of the soles and made laces using cotton yarn. The beads in the ends of the laces are for decoration and also to keep the ends hanging down (that looks so much neater).

Sandals for Jessica Rabbit

The winter slumber is hopefully over now and I'll be able to make some new things. First, however, there are old ones to finish, like these shoes.

The picture below shows the thinner insoles in the middle and thicker outsoles on the edges. All are made of several layers of cardboard glued together with PVA glue. The heels, shown on the back, are made of casting resin (more about that in an earlier blog post).


I covered the heels and the edges of the outer soles with fabric.


Then I covered the insoles with black satin. In this stage, you need to be careful not to get glue anywhere else than under the insoles. It's a lot easier to avoid glue stains than it is to remove them.


Next, I made the straps using narrow silk ribbon. The ends of the piece that keeps the five ribbons together are glued on the underside as it looks better. In this scale and with thin silk ribbon, there won't be too much bulging even with three layers of ribbon.


With all the straps in place, I glued the inner and outer soles together and added the buckles. The buckles are small plastic decorations I painted with gold color. The last stage was to add leather outer soles and taps (little pieces at the bottom of the heels).


Finally, here are the finished shoes on the doll's feet.

More cardboard stuff

Cardboard proved to be interesting material, so I had to experiment a bit more. Here are shoe soles for Jessica Rabbit (who has Tonner's Athletic Body with high heel feet). These are similar to the Barbie and Monster High shoes, except for the curved part in the heel.

Here the soles have been painted with gold paint.

I decided to make the insoles the same way as for the orange silk shoes. The main thing with these is to make sure there is glue only in the parts that go under the insoles, so the fabric stays neat. Also, be careful when cutting the triangular flaps. There should be no cut edges visible on the sides of the insoles.

I glued little loops for the straps. When you do it this way, you can glue the insoles to the outer soles before putting the straps in place, which makes things easier. Also, you can change the straps to different ones at any point, so you get a very versatile pair of shoes this way.

Finally, here are the finished shoes. You can vary the material, length and positioning of the straps to get different results.

Orange silk platforms for Jessica Rabbit

These shoes look simple, but surprisingly, this is the most time-consuming pair I have made so far. In all, I estimate that I used 8-9 hours for making these shoes. These are for Tonner's Jessica Rabbit, who has an Athletic Body with high heel feet. This means the feet are almost as big as American Model's.

I started with parts I originally made for American Model, although the original masters were for Madame Alexander's Cissy. The good thing about making the sole using two separate pieces is that you can use the pieces for different dolls as long as their foot size is approximately the same. In this case, the differences are in the shape of the arch and the length of the foot, both of which can be accommodated when making the cardboard parts of the sole.

The picture shows the resin parts of the soles and the patterns for making the cardboard parts. The pattern on the right is an extra one as it turned out I didn't need it. 

These are the platform parts with the cardboard parts for the outer sole in place. I made the upper cardboard part first with two layers of cardboard, glued it to the resin part and then glued the lower parts (two layers) in place one layer at a time.

Here are the plaster castings of the doll's feet, cardboard insoles (with two layers of cardboard in each), outer soles, and heels.

Next, I covered the insoles with white satin. As glue would seep through the fabric and make it lose its shine, the fabric edges needed to be glued under the insoles where they wouldn't be visible. Usually I just treat the fabric with sealer and cut the excess along the edges of the insole.

The fabric I planned to use for covering the outer soles was silk, which has the same problem as satin. So I had to be careful not to get any glue on the fabric in places where it would be visible. Only the flaps, which were glued over and under the sole could have any glue in them.

Here are both insoles and outer soles with fabric glued in place.

Next, I made the uppers. Silk is too thin as such, so I cut the uppers from thicker fabric and covered them with silk. No part of the thicker fabric was to go under the insole, just the silk covering, so the uppers needed to be exactly the right size.

I don't usually use lining, but the flaps would have been visible without it, so I cut slightly smaller pieces than the uppers from the same white satin I used for the insoles. I glued the lining in place with Fray Stop, which doesn't get hard when it dries like PVA glue does.

Then I glued the uppers into the insoles, which were now finished.

Covering the heels with silk all the way would have been too difficult, so I painted part of them with silver color. Some stiletto platforms have this construction in real life.

In the upper part of the heels I used silk I had treated with sealer. It looks different from the fabric in the rest of the shoe, but there was no choice, if I wanted a neat result.

Here the heel is glued in place.

Then I glued the fabric to the outer sole the same way as before, using triangular flaps.

All that was left was gluing the two finished pieces together and covering the underside of the outer soles. For the arch, I used silk treated with sealer, like in the heels, and the platform part is covered with a little piece of leather.

Here are the finished shoes on the doll's feet.