Lately I've been filled with the warm fuzzy glow that comes from people saying really nice things about my dolls. And not just any old compliments but those kind of compliments that really push your buttons because it is people acknowledging the very thing that is most important to you in terms of your designs. I've heard from my pattern testers and other designers and my suppliers and people who buy my patterns that they love my designs because they are all so unique - from each other and from other people's designs. It means so much for me to hear people say that because I try really hard to ensure that my designs are unique, both in terms of conceptual design and practical technique.
So how the heck do I come up with my ideas? That is the question I get most often, after how do you do your faces. The thing is that I don't get my ideas from a single source and they don't start out fully formed, they evolve. So to help inspire others here are three examples, sort of case studies, of how I came up with 3 of my doll designs. Maybe it will inspire a budding doll designer out there.
Case Study No 1 - Gather Ye Rosebuds
Sometimes I have a bit of an artistic spaz. I ask myself why I make cloth dolls when there are children starving in Africa. I bemoan the fact that I have no room in my teeny tiny flat for more dolls. I question the reason for my wild obsession to make yet more little people out of cloth. Then I remember that I love it and it makes me so happy that I get giddy.
When I set out to design my first doll to be published as a paper pattern I was in the throes of a major spaz. Then it occurred to me that dolls didn't have to be "just" dolls. They could be more. Objects in my home that did other useful things. That's not to say that purely decorative dolls are not wonderful - I have several designs that I love that are just decorative. However, the idea of a practical purpose for dolls calmed my inner freak-out and I started thinking.
First I saw an illustration in a magazine of a woman's face with a clock in it. Mmmmm...how could I fit a clock into the human form? When I think of a possible design I always start drafting the pattern in my head, so I started problem solving. I looked at clock movements and clock hands and measured them to see how big they were. How was I going to get the clock into a doll so that it worked, so that the batteries could be changed (I am my father's daughter when it comes to some things) and so that the doll was still pretty? I decided I'd mount it in a hollow cone shape to create a stump doll form. So I had the basic shape designed.
Now, what would the clock have to do with the doll? I mean I didn't just want to shove a clock in a doll 
and go - Ta Da! You must understand that I have a theatre design degree, and we design types have to have a 'conceptual' reason for everything we do. That's right I'm a wing-ding arty farty type at the same time that I'm really practical about battery changing. Go figure. So I started to think of time - sayings with time in them, poetry etc. And I remembered the Robert Herrick poem To the Virgins to Make Much of Time, more commonly known as Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May. The doll could be gathering rosebuds as 'old time was still a flyin' I suddenly had an artistic reason for there to be a clock in my doll. I decided to print the poem itself on the doll's apron, in which she was gathering rosebuds. Now I bet that half the people who look at this doll do not make the clock/poem connection. I don't care. I know it's there and it makes me happy.
At the time that all this artistic problem solving was going on I was watching a lot of the movie version of Pride & Prejudice starring Kiera Knightly. I love that film. I love that Lizzie's costumes are not pastel and pretty. Brown is one of her signature colours in that film and it works. Plus, I think it's a brave colour choice. JW Waterhouse painted a portrait in 1908 based on this poem and the poem itself was written in the 17th century but I created the Jane Austen feel with this doll for no other reason then I wanted to create the same feeling as that in the movie.
Case Study No 2 - Treasures of the Deep
Once I'd realised that dolls with a practical purpose were a great idea and a fantastic way to keep the inner spaz at bay, I was on a roll. This time I started thinking about my next design. I do a lot of my best designing when I'm not thinking about dolls. I come up with ideas in the bath tub, when I'm cooking, and this idea started on the stationary bike at the gym. This video came on with the song Car Wash from a Shark's Tale. I've never even seen this movie, but I loved the idea of the fish with the jelly fish dreads for hair. Of course, I couldn't make a sea-themed doll with jelly fish tentacle hair because that is copying and I don't do copying. But it got me thinking of cool sea-themed dolls, that could have a practical purpose. First, I imagined a doll surfing on a sting ray. Cool idea, but pretty hard to execute. If I made one of a kind dolls then maybe I would do it, but I design things so that other people have a chance of making them too without too much difficulty from a pattern or class.
Mermaids are a very popular doll character, but I wanted something different. So I thought about a sea nymph standing in a rock pool. The rock pool would have the double-whammy practical purpose as a doll stand to keep the doll steady and to collect jewellery on. Her arms and fingers could also hold jewellery I reckoned, if the whole doll was wire armatured. The wire armature would also be a different technique to teach in the pattern. Another element that I think of in the mix, is that I want each pattern to have different techniques and pattern shapes. I am always disappointed with patterns that give me more of the same.
With this doll I ended up with a design that I really enjoy using on a day to day basis. Suddenly I wear my jewellery more because I can see it and find it and it is not all tangled up in a box. To think it all started with a music video.
Case Study No 3 - Finders Keepers
By the time I came to design Finders Keepers I had two paper patterns under my belt, but I needed to shift gears slightly and design a doll to be a taught live and in person. Ages before I started thinking of doing a workshop doll, an idea had popped into my head while I was lying in bed. It came out of no where. No magazine illustration, no music video, just POP! I had an idea to make a little imp who steals your post. Your mail gets delivered and she props it up on her back and makes off with it. I jumped out of bed and wrote in my 'inspiration book' (what you don't have one of those?) - "Post Imp" just so I wouldn't forget.
Later, when I was invited by Rose Gibbons to teach at her place, I pulled out my book of jotted inspirations and looked at where I had written 'post imp'. I thought you could have a doll that holds your post before you take it to the post box, but some post is too heavy or too cumbersome and it would weigh down a doll, especially the small dolls that I like to make. So I started to think, "What is small enough that she could carry it on her back and would make her practical?". Well, given that I had just had business cards printed it occurred to me to make her a business card holder. I reasoned that she could be 'stealing' them and other household objects.
Again, to be strong enough to hold a pile of business card, I figured this doll would need a wire armature. I had already done a pattern, treasures of the Deep, with an inserted wire armature, so why not make a doll with a wrapped wire armature. The method is great as a demonstrated technique, but not so great as a written pattern, making the doll a perfect workshop doll.
Uncharacteristically for me, I had the body all designed in my head by this point but not the costume or look of the doll. But I broke my usual MO and created a head and face anyway. I loved the cheeky look of the face, but I wasn't totally satisfied. I became obsessed by head coverings. I tried all sorts of styles, but I eventually cut a make-shift bonnet and voila! From there I went with a Victorian-esque outfit and Finders Keepers was born.
I hope that some of these examples of where my design ideas have come from in the past help budding designers out there.
Remember to get a book to jot your inspirations down because you never know when those little seedling ideas will come.
Remember that perfectly formed ideas don't just pop into your head. You do need to let them evolve as you problem solve.
Remember that what works for me may not work for you. You'll find your groove. You'll have a spaz. You'll likely have many a spaz. But if you don't try it will never happen.
