Making Bear Babies - SculptUniversity.com

Making Bear Babies
MakingFairies.com
by
Apryl Jensen
Making Fairies.com
Bear Babies, Page 1
Making Bear Babies is easy! This booklet will show you the simple
steps to turn your sculpted baby face into an adorable little doll.
Bear Babies are posable and only require the sculpting skill of making
a baby face. The actual sculpting of a 1-2 inch baby head will be
taught in another booklet or video down the road. In this booklet you
will find instructions on turning your sculpted baby head into an
adorable, posable bear baby.
For instructions on sculpting a miniature baby face, see my Snuggle
Babes Video. You can see a preview here:
http://www.makingfairies.com/snugglebabes.html
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Bear Babies, Page 2
What you’ll need:
•Armature wire (14-16
gauge) or just double up
thinner wire
•Sculpted, Baked Baby Head
•Stuffed Animal Bear
•Scissors
•Polypellets (for weighting
the bear)
•Polyfil stuffing
•Thinner wire for wrapping
•Fabri-Tac Glue
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Bear Babies, Page 3
Begin with two pieces of armature wire, one for the arms, and one for
the legs and head loop. Assemble using the picture as a guide. I’ve
secured my wire with thinner wire I had on hand. Papertape or
regular tape would work fine as well.
Use the costume as a measuring guide for the size of your armature.
Make the limbs just slightly longer than you’ll need as you’ll be
bending the ends in later.
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Bear Babies, Page 4
Prepare the baby bear costume by cutting out the bear face and
emptying the outfit. You can re-use the stuffing in a later step.
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Bear Babies, Page 5
Here I am preparing the armature for insertion into the bear
costume. Notice I have curled the ends of the leg wire so they are
rounded and won’t poke through the costume. Do this with the arm
wire as well. Then take some Polyfil stuffing and wrap it around the
armature, securing it well with thin wire.
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Bear Babies, Page 6
This is how the armature will look when you are finished. It’s not
pretty, but is much softer this way. This armature will make your
bear baby posable, yet still cuddly.
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Bear Babies, Page 7
Insert the armature into the bear costume, legs first. You will be
adding pellets and more stuffing as well.
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Bear Babies, Page 8
Here is how it looks so far, with both the legs and arms inserted in the
bear costume.
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Bear Babies, Page 9
Here is a shot of the bear baby to show you where we are headed.
This face is not yet blushed. Notice how much he comes to life later in
the booklet with a bit of color.
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Bear Babies, Page 10
Next, fill the bear with Poly-Pellets. Leave space for stuffing and keep
him squishy. Don’t fill him up completely or his body will be hard.
Just enough to give him some weight and substance.
Next, fill in the arms and legs and body with some Polyfil stuffing.
Just tuck it in with your fingers. In fact, you might want to press a
little down the arms and legs before you add the pellets. Do what you
prefer.
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Bear Babies, Page 11
Here is what the Poly-Pellet packaging looks like.
In the next step, I attach the baby head to the armature. When I
sculpt this size of baby heads, I place the clay over a 1/4” wooden
dowel. Then I add foil and clay and then sculpt it. This leaves a hole
in the baby head. You can simply flatten the head loop (of the
armature) and stick it inside the baby head. Try it on for placement
first. Then fill the hole in the baby head with glue to permanently
place the head on the armature.
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Bear Babies, Page 12
This particular bear head did not cover Michael’s entire head as I
wanted, so I just used a little fleece I had to make a cap. First I added
a few locks of hair (Tibetan Lamb) for some wispy curls hanging out,
then glued the material over his head as a cap. Then I pulled the bear
hat on top of that and glued it in place. I used Fabri-Tac Glue for this.
I also had to touch up the front opening of the outfit and glued it back
together for a snug fit around his neck.
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Bear Babies, Page 13
That’s all there is to it! I’ll put some different views on the next page,
but we are done! Wasn’t that easy?
Once you learn to sculpt a baby face, you can make these Baby Bears
easily. They are an intermediate project. If you are just getting
started with sculpting baby faces, try SnuggleBabes. In that video set
I teach you how to sculpt a mini baby face and turn it into a cute doll
in just a few steps.
See: http://www.makingfairies.com/snugglebabes.html
This video set is available for download, so you can get started right
away. Hope you enjoyed this tutorial!
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Bear Babies, Page 15