Painting a Krampus Art Doll with Acrylic Paint

The color palette that I use varies widely depending on a given fantasy art doll that I'm painting. With humans you have a wide tonal range of flesh tones, but when you're painting fey, goblins, or other mythical creatures, there's really no limit!

Watch Painting An Art Doll with Acrylics Here:

To paint this art doll, I used the following color palette:

• Titanium White
• Yellow Ochre
• Venetian Red
• Raw Sienna
• Chromium Oxide Green
• Cobalt Blue
• Raw Umber
• Cadmium Red Medium
• Alizarin Crimson
• Phthalo Blue
• Dioxazine Purple

After a few color studies, I decided a pink, chocolate brown, and maroon color scheme was the most interesting for me to make the Krampus art doll. You can see the design process here.

I quickly played around with some color schemes in Photoshop and my favorite one was the one on the far right.

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Making a Krampus Art Doll Head Sculpt 👹

I've a great affection for the Krampus holiday figure, so much so that I decided to make an art doll of him! In this video I share my process of sculpting the art doll's head and if you would like to see how I designed him, you can check it out here.

Watch the Krampus Art Doll Head Sculpt Here

The art doll's head was sculpted with Sculpey polymer clay, my hands, and some steel tools. I knew that I wanted to give him an exuberant, open mouthed expression so I could show off his nice pointy teeth and serpentine forked-tongue. Much of the design was based on classic renditions of the character mixed with my own sensibilities. I chose to give the head a round cranium, long, narrow face from below the cheeks to give the impression of a skull-like visage. Before I could sculpt the character's head, I had to first sculpt his horns on an armature base that I then baked. Krampus' ears were crafted by attaching light colored cloth around aluminum armature wire with Fabri-Tac and then using a water/Mod Podge mixture to stiffen the fabric around the armature ear form.

If you want to check-out a cool contemporary interpretation of Krampus, you should read Brom's (one of my favorite artists-turned writer) "Krampus: The Yule Lord"!

To be the first to know when I launch new polymer clay art videos, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell icon (but because YouTube's wonky, you can also join the newsletter). Catch all of my videos here:  https://www.youtube.com/thedreamsyndicatearts. You can also find many of the supplies I use in crafting here: https://www.thedreamsyndarts.com/supplies-gear/. Until next time, make believe!

Guide to Designing an Art Doll | Krampus 👹

If you've ever struggled to bring a concept to life, perhaps my Guide to Design an Art Doll video might be of use? In it, I outline my thoughts for how I go from imaginary to a reality in designing a Krampus art doll. I use historical references as well as contemporary influences to create an original interpretation of everyone's favorite Yuletide demon.

Watch the Guide to Designing an Art Doll | Krampus Art Doll Here 

The character of Krampus has captured my imagination since childhood and its been long over-due that I made an art doll representation of him. If you're unfamiliar with the lore, Krampus is a holiday spirit who's delegated to punishing naughty children. He'll leave a bad child a lump of coal, beat them with a switch called a "ruten", or even put them in his sack and drag them off to Hell. He's often depicted as a horned, devilish figure bedecked in chains and bells, carrying a sack or a basket strapped to his back, and carrying his customary ruten. Many interpretations have shown Krampus to be a fearsome devilish creature, but he's also been depicted in humorous or even cute ways. Scholars tend to think that Krampus' origins stem from a horned pagan male nature deity that Christianity then relegated to a punitive role alongside St. Nicholas, the basis for the popularized version of Santa Claus. You can read more on this fascinating character HERE.

Krampus bringing some unhappy children along with him.

If you want to be the first to know when I launch new polymer clay art videos, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell icon (but because YouTube's wonky, you can also join the newsletter). Catch all of my videos here:  https://www.youtube.com/thedreamsyndicatearts. You can also find many of the supplies I use in crafting here: https://www.thedreamsyndarts.com/supplies-gear/. Until next time, make believe!

3 Reasons Artists NEED to Watch The Toys that Made Us | The Toys that Made Us Review

I recorded some thoughts from the Netflix documentary series "The Toys that Made Us". I enjoyed the series immensely and can't wait for the next four episodes of the eight part season to be uploaded to Netflix- I literally binged the first part in one sitting! The Toys that Made Us leads us through meeting the various quirky personalities that were involved in the creation and production mass market toys. We get to see both the creative and business side of what it takes to bring a toy to the public.

 

Watch the Toys that Made Us Review

The series is more so an overview of the various toy franchises the likes of Star Wars, He-Man, Barbie, and G.I. Joe than a deep-dive into the histories of these toy lines, which makes sense since Netflix caters more to the general public rather than creating documentary series for toy aficionados. That being said, if there were three to four hour director's cut with more detailed histories of each of these toy lines, I'd be on-board to watch them!

Here are 3 Reasons Why I think Artists Need to Watch The Toys that Made Us Netflix documentary:

1. The Importance of Story Telling

2. Success Isn't a Straight Line

3. Your Art Needs a Tangible Form

 1. The Importance of Story Telling.

One theme that's repeatedly echoed throughout the documentary's that a toy's advantage comes from it having some way of resonating with the public, whether that be a comic book, cartoon, or movie, things really took-off for a toy line when it had a way of creating an emotionally attachment with an audience. Toys become more than pieces of plastic to someone when they evoke the feelings related to a beloved story.

2. Success Isn't a Straight Line

Much like Edison's failed 99 filaments to get to the 1 that gave us the light bulb, the path to success is often fraught with set-backs and outright failures. The creator's of G.I. at Mattel had to contend with the decline in popularity of the U.S. military, particularly during the Vietnam War, love of Star Wars ebbed and flowed for a variety of reasons, and Barbie had to change with the times. At varying times certain ideas or projects may need to be shelved as priorities shift and others may simply not work for a host of reasons. While following your passion projects is usually the way to go, you may find that it may have to morph from the ideal to what's possible for you to complete in a timely manner. You can also take inspiration and influence from work that's come before you or even your contemporaries if you're absorbing someone else's style whole-cloth- on this topic, I highly recommend Austin Kleon's book "Steal Like an Artist".

Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon

3. Your Art Needs a Tangible Form

Looping back to story telling, once you've told the story of the world you've created through your chosen media, you need to create tangible pieces of that world that people could collect and own. While there's nothing necessarily wrong with an artist selling prints of their work, I think there's a real solid case for more "consumer friendly" items. Books, playing cards, postcards, toys, art on games, clothes- things that people would more readily touch and engage with are going to be a much easier sell than a piece of art to go on one's limited wall space.

If you want to be the first to know when I launch new polymer clay art videos, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell icon (but because YouTube's wonky, you can also join the newsletter). At present, I am launching new videos Saturdays at 2pm EST and I will keep this information up-to-date on my YouTube channel's banner and "about" section here:  https://www.youtube.com/thedreamsyndicatearts.

St. George & the Dragon Art with Art Dolls?

In the final installment of the St. George & the Dragon art piece I've been working on, I give a quick summary of the build for anyone that would prefer the "Cliff's Notes" as opposed to watching each segment of the build process for the St. George and dragon art dolls. The wire armature art dolls or puppets are built with Super Sculpey and other mixed media (I'm making a list of my art doll making supplies here) and the rest of the set is built with cardboard and wood. While the video explains the technical aspects of making the mixed media piece, you can read a bit about the illustration's concept below.

Watch Part 8 in the St. George & the Dragon Piece | St. George & the Dragon Art with Art Dolls 🐉⚔

Most of the medieval and renaissance paintings of St. George's encounters with the dragon depict a handsome knight in gleaming armor, often astride a noble steed... skewering a down-right pitiful looking dragon. I mean, the dragon's often depicted as fully half the size of the knight. I imagined an alternative narrative in which the knight and the dragon were younger, perhaps not as indoctrinated into their adversarial roles between one another. The young knight hears terrible rumors about the dragon, even lets his imagination get the better of him at times, but eventually comes to realize that the dragon isn't the awful menace that the kingdom would have him assume he is.

If you would like to purchase this piece of art, you can get it here:

• ART PRINT

• GREETING CARD

If you would like to watch the entire art doll build process for both young St. George and the dragon, you can view it here:

Crafting DIY Mini Coins 💰⚒

In the latest video I'm crafting miniature gold coins... but why? As many dragon myths go, they have a tendency to acquire a lot of gold and silver coinage, so for my St. George & the dragon piece, I thought it'd make sense if there was some gold laying around our little dragon's lair. You can watch how I made my mini coin props below.

Watch Part 7 in the St. George & the Dragon Piece | Crafting DIY Mini Coins 💰⚒

I use Super Sculpey for all my clay sculpting.

The mini gold and silver coins were made by squishing discs of polymer clay between two button's with raised designs, baking the clay, spray painting them with a layer of primer black, and lastly painting the clay coins with gold and silver paint. Once your have your clay discs formed, you can press around 30 of the coins per hour.

If you want to make the imaginary a reality, be sure to subscriber on YouTube!

If you want to be the first to know when I launch new polymer clay art videos, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell icon (but because YouTube's wonky, you can also join the newsletter). At present, I am launching new videos Saturdays at 2pm EST and I will keep this information up-to-date on my YouTube channel's banner and "about" section here:  https://www.youtube.com/thedreamsyndicatearts.

Making Fabric Art Doll Hair?

In my latest video, I show you a method for making art doll hair with fabric. You can use most lightweight fabrics, but if you want to convey a realist hair look with your art doll, it's best to use a fabric with a sheen, a silk blend or sateen would do nicely. And bonus points if you keep on the look-out for cheap remnants or sales on natural or unnatural, if you're feeling adventurous, hair colors.

Watch Part 6 in the St. George & the Dragon Piece | FABRIC ART DOLL HAIR ⚔🐉:

Once you have the fabric you're going to work with, it's just a matter of playing around with arranging folds and creases on the head to give a look that emulates hair, putting a strong adhesive on the head (I tend to use a two part epoxy resin and some Fabri-Tac where needed), and then just sewing up the various seams that were created.

If you want to make the imaginary a reality, be sure to subscriber on YouTube!

If you want to be the first to know when I launch new polymer clay art videos, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell icon (but because YouTube's wonky, you can also join the newsletter). At present, I am launching new videos Saturdays at 2pm EST and I will keep this information up-to-date on my YouTube channel's banner and "about" section here:  https://www.youtube.com/thedreamsyndicatearts.

MAKING A ST. GEORGE ART DOLL ⚔🐉

In this part of the process of making a St. George art doll, the poseable doll's made from a variety of mixed media. Most of the materials your as likely to find in a hardware store as you are an art supply or hobby shop. The armature consists of twisted aluminum wire, aluminum tubing in the neck and used at the forearms, a length of steel wire to give the figure stability and allow it to anchor into a set or display base, and plumber's epoxy. The body's massed-out with upholstery foam and then clothing's sewn around the art doll.

Watch Part 5 in the St. George & the Dragon Piece | MAKING A ST.  GEORGE ART DOLL ⚔🐉:

An art doll's neck doesn't need to be reinforced with the aluminum tubing, you can typically just drill right into the clay if you'd like, but the way I design my characters, I like them to have thin necks because that's the way I tend to draw figures- I like lanky, gawky, attenuated characters. If I were to make a character's neck as thin as I do without putting in the tubing and drill into it, the backed polymer clay would likely crack and crumble around the drill bit.

Once the aluminum and steel wire are all twisted into place, they're secured with plumber's epoxy that's molded into a form to create a cylinder shaped chest and smaller oblong cylinder for the pelvis, which all takes about an hour to set (if you were handling the plumber's epoxy more vigorously, you might want to give it a day). From there, I use the figure's contours to sketch-out a front and back form out of the upholstery foam and cut it out with pair of scissors. These front and back pieces get attached to the plumber's epoxy with a resin based epoxy. Lastly I sketch-out the amount of fabric I'll need to sew the clothing, leaving a bit of a seam allowance. Ordinarily, it's a good idea to use lighter weight fabric, but for the look of the chain-mail armor, I used a heavier upholstery weight fabric that was kind of a pain to work with. The process of making St. George art doll probably took a couple of full work days, not including the time I spent sketching-out details or gathering materials.

If you want to make the imaginary a reality, be sure to subscriber on YouTube!

If you want to be the first to know when I launch new polymer clay art videos, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell icon (but because YouTube's wonky, you can also join the newsletter). At present, I am launching new videos Saturdays at 2pm EST and I will keep this information up-to-date on my YouTube channel's banner and "about" section here:  https://www.youtube.com/thedreamsyndicatearts.

Sculpting St. George 🐉

When sculpting St. George, I wanted a younger interpretation of our hero. Just about every time I'm sculpting an art doll, I begin with sketches and for this piece I did a few quick studies from teenage aged boys- some of the reference pictures came from Google image searches and some from this great book of Norman Rockwell's depictions of childhood. I also spent spent some time looking at prior depictions of St. George in medieval and renaissance art.

Watch Part 4 in the St. George & the Dragon Piece | Sculpting St. George 🐉:

I wanted to capture a sort of frightened, panicked expression and I was somewhat thinking of Kevin McCallister from "Home Alone", you know, the shaving cream, "Aaahhhhhhhhhh!" scene. My idea for the finished piece of art is to create an image that references the legend of St. George and the Dragon, but to also convey the concept that the dragon isn't nearly as threatening as George thought and it was his imagination making the dragon more terrible than he thought.

If you want to make the imaginary a reality, be sure to subscriber on YouTube!

If you want to be the first to know when I launch new polymer clay art videos, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell icon (but because YouTube's wonky, you can also join the newsletter). At present, I am launching new videos Saturdays at 2pm EST and I will keep this information up-to-date on my YouTube channel's banner and "about" section here:  https://www.youtube.com/thedreamsyndicatearts.

A Dragon is Born: Making A Poseable Mixed Media Dragon Art Doll 🐉

It feels so good to finally post a finished fantasy art doll project. In this last installment (for making the dragon anyway) in this St. George & the Dragon piece, I show the final steps for making a poseable mixed media dragon art doll. Once the polymer clay head was sculpted, painted with acrylic paints, the larger part of making this fantasy art doll involved sewing, lots and lots of sewing. I can find sewing unto itself a challenge with making visually pleasing seams and heck, I often find threading a needle and efficiently tying-off a seam to be a difficult at times, but you get to do crafting on hard-mode when you try to do these things with protruding spikes or wire for your thread to snag on!

Watch Part 3 in the St. George & the Dragon Piece | Making A Poseable Mixed Media Dragon Art Doll 🐉:

In this video you can watch the poseable mixed media dragon art doll get finished! All told, this fantasy dragon sculpture probably took 18-19 hours of work- that was A LOT to compress down into under 30 minutes of video.

In next week's video, I'll be working on crafting a young St. George art doll where I'll be sculpting the figurine's polymer clay head. If you have any suggestions for future fantasy artdolls for me to work on, I'll happily take you suggestions in the comments below or on YouTube.

If you want to make the imaginary a reality, be sure to subscriber on YouTube!

If you want to be the first to know when I launch new polymer clay art videos, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell icon (but because YouTube's wonky, you can also join the newsletter). At present, I am launching new videos Saturdays at 2pm EST and I will keep this information up-to-date on my YouTube channel's banner and "about" section here:  https://www.youtube.com/thedreamsyndicatearts.

How to Paint Your Dragon| Painting a Clay Dragon with Acrylics

In last week's installment, you saw me sculpting a dragon head with polymer clay and this week I'll show you how it was painted. The dragon artdoll for the St. George and the Dragon piece was painted with an acrylic palette of titanium white, yellow ochre, chromium oxide green, cobolt blue, ultramarine blue, phthalo green, and alizarin crimson. One note about phthalo green (or any pigment starting with "phthalo") and alizarin crimson's that both of these tones can quickly over-power a color mixture, so it is wise to add them in in tiny increments. When I'm painting my mixed media artdolls, I like to have a few base tones pre-mixed and then I just apply them to the various regions of the face, blend, realize I didn't like a given tone, paint over it- and so on and so on until I'm ultimately pleased with the paint job. When the painting process is going well, this can take 40 minutes... and when it's going poorly, over an hour and a half!

Watch Part 2 in the St. George & the Dragon Piece | Painting a Clay Dragon with Acrylics:

The majority of my future videos will focus on fantasy characters from mythology and folk-lore, I've got some fey characters lurking in my sketchbook waiting to be brought to life. I might consider doing fan art of characters I love, but I'm still not 100% sure I will- I'd love to make a Daredevil (and a bunch of the other Defenders characters) or The Rhino from Spider-Man (The Rhino's costume is just ridiculous!) or maybe if I do make them, I'll re-imagine them as fitting into more of a fantasy setting. What do you think? I'd also love to make the time to play around with stop-motion animation with my poseable art dolls.

If you want to make the imaginary a reality, be sure to subscriber on YouTube!

If you want to be the first to know when I launch new polymer clay art videos, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell icon (but because YouTube's wonky, you can also join the newsletter). At present, I am launching new videos Saturdays at 2pm EST and I will keep this information up-to-date on my YouTube channel's banner and "about" section here:  https://www.youtube.com/thedreamsyndicatearts.

Taking Flight with my First (Solo) YouTube Video with a Dragon Head Sculpt!

I've spent the last few months getting things together to bring this first polymer clay art doll tutorial (as well as many others). In this first video, I'm making a dragon head sculpt with Sculpey and in future videos I'll show you more of my process for making poseable art dolls. The head is sculpted with a few stainless steel clay sculpting tools and, more often then you would think, is shaped by my fingers. When I'm all done, this dragon artdoll will be for a St. George & the Dragon illustration.

Watch Part 1 in the St. George & the Dragon Piece | Dragon Head Sculpt with Clay:

In this video, I share my process of how to make a dragon head sculpt with clay. This is the first part in a series of a St. George and the Dragon mixed media pieces that I'm working on.

The majority of my future videos will focus on fantasy characters from mythology and folk-lore, I've got some fey characters lurking in my sketchbook waiting to be brought to life. I've thought about doing fan art of characters I love, but I'm still not 100% sure I will- I'd love to make a Daredevil (and a bunch of the other Defenders characters) or The Rhino from Spider-Man (The Rhino's costume is just ridiculous!) or maybe if I do make them, I'll re-imagine them as fitting into more of a fantasy setting. What do you think? I'd also love to make the time to play around with stop-motion animation with my poseable art dolls.

If you want to make the imaginary a reality, be sure to subscriber on YouTube!

If you want to be the first to know when I launch new polymer clay art videos, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and hit the bell icon (but because YouTube's wonky, you can also join the newsletter).