In the words of Ice Cube, today was a good day.
I finished the torso with the armstumps looking alright. I pulled out the slumping s-o-b and it still slumped so I let it air dry for a while. I attached the other arm and filled it with some trashbags to make it so it filled out nicer. I also added the wrinkles to the shirt. That part was interesting. I haven't made clothes in porcelain clay before and I had my husband stand with his hands out and took a picture. I copied the wrinkles in his t-shirt onto the torso and voila. This is a much better torso than the first one I made which was all flat and boring and looked like it belonged on a robot instead of a kid. Again, rebuilding this was a good idea.
The reason the torso looks short here is because I have to build a shelf system inside of it for the shorts to sit in. I'm firing two pieces - head/torso and shorts/legs/feet. The shorts will slip inside the torso and I'll epoxy them together after they're fired. So I score the shelf and the bottom of the torso, apply slip and connect. Then I connect a wall at the bottom after I feel the shelf has hardened enough to provide the area for the shorts to slip inside.
I have clay in the press mold for the face. I'm also working on the legs tonight.
