5/30/07
Yeah so its been a while. I've been busy with other things, so I tackled this phase very slowly. But today I'm basically done with the "skin".
This is the peach fabric with the eyes and mouth cut out. I had to double the fabric so you couldn't see through it. Then I shaped a little nose out of foam, and covered it with fabric.
After stitching the nose in place I laid the fabric over the foam head, and pinned up the bottom to fit. Then I sewed it in the machine. I dabbed glue around the eyes and mouth when I laid it back on the foam, to keep everything in place. Then I glued the rest of the fabric onto the head. The top was left uncovered because the hair piece will be there anyways. The back of the head was still open, from about 3/4 of the way down the back of the head to the bottom.
So this is what it looked like then.
It was obvious that I was not going to be able to get away with just having fabric tucked into my shirt for the neck (can we say, "hideous turkey neck"?), so I used heavy-duty Peltex stabilizer (this is the same stuff I used for the bottoms of the big Wilt doll's shoes I made last year). Anyways this looks better than having that big head with my regular-sized neck anyways; if you look at pictures of Mac his neck is pretty thick. I may well have to enlarge the neckhole of my red shirt though. I then glued on Velcro strips along the back of the neck and along the underside of the head and an inch or so up the back. However far down the hair is when I attach it is as far up as the opening will go, but I don't think it will go very far. As long as I can reach in there to strap on the bike helmet it will be okay.
With all this done, I had to sit down and work on the head a couple of days, just tightening up all the seams. I wish the seams weren't there at all, but if they have to be, they really needed some cosmetic surgery. (By the way the photo of the neck above was taken *after* this step, the fabric was way wrinklier right after I actually made the neck.)
So this is what Mac looks like bald. Sorry the camera blocks the neck, but I didn't have anyone there to help me tuck it into the shirt so it probably didn't look that good anyways.