I've been pretty much going to the Bristol Renaissance Faire my entire life, and my parents have been attending since it used to be King Richard's Faire, way back in the day. Since we go so frequently, my father has spent the last several years putting together a homemade suit of armor made out of beer bottle caps, which tends to get him a lot of attention at the faire. (You can see a bit of the hat in the first WIP shot below, but I haven't included his armor, since it isn't my work.)
We're on good terms with a lot of the actors at the faire, and this last faire Lady Ettie called him over and offered him a bottle cap she'd saved for him, to go with his bottle cap armor. After this, he felt he needed to come up with a way to integrate the cap, though his armor was already complete.
Enter me.
What he was looking for was a figure to dangle the bottle cap from a fishing line, and we agreed that it would be interesting if--as a tribute to the faire--the figure was based on one of the actors.
Well, we've been going to the faire a long time, but many of our favorite actors were some of the older ones, and he decided in particular that he was interested in seeing a figure of the old troll, who left the faire when I must have been in high school.
The most logical approach seemed to be making the figure out of polymer clay, as it would have more durability than air-dry clay or plaster, but would be able to be made relatively light. I first made the figure out of tin foil and wire for the armature, and then covered it in a layer of brown clay, sculpted to a likeness of the troll, and with detail anywhere I anticipated having exposed skin (like hands, feet, chest).
After baking, I painted the makeup according to the photographs, using black and white acrylic paints.
Then began to attach doll hair. This started off looking downright comical, those huge cutesy curls on his head. The beard was the most difficult, as I had to glue down already-matted hair in very small sections to shape it properly.
...but once I had matted down the hair and adjusted it appropriately, he looked a little more proper.
All that remained was to do his clothing, which consists of scraps from a pair of cargo pants (for his pants), the fabric from a tube sock (for the base of his vest), and pieces off of old car rags (for the rest of his vest). The fishing pole was purchased from Hobby Lobby, and is not my work. Everything was colored with oil pastels to give it a properly filthy look, as no troll should look like he's just purchased his clothing from a boutique.
He's actually quite difficult to pose for photographs, since he doesn't sit flat--he was designed specifically to fit the curve of the hat he'll be sitting atop.
He's around six inches tall, depending on what angle you measure his height at, and fairly light to hold--hopefully he'll also be light to wear on a hat!
Though it was my first time trying it, so the tracking isn't perfect, his eyes do follow movement somewhat. So, depending on what angle you look at him from, he'll still look back at you, which ended up being more interesting than making him simply watch his fishing pole.
Soon enough, he'll be mounted to the hat where he'll spend the rest of his days, but for now, he's just fishing and waiting.
