Handmade Soft Sculpture Dolls

Soft Sculpture Doll Basics

• Soft sculpture dolls are plush dolls often made of stretchy fabric such as muslin or a thinner knit fabric called "dolly cloth." They are completely three-dimensional. For example, a soft sculpture baby doll would have a nose that protrudes from the face, chubby cheeks and a realistically rounded head. This is where the term comes from -- the dolls are plush rather than plastic, maintaining a soft feel and appear as though the fabric has been sculpted into a three-dimensional character form.

Modern Soft Sculpture Beginnings

• Handmade soft sculptures became popularized in the 1960s in the form of activist art, pushed along by artists like Stockholm-born Claes Oldenburg and Japanese Yayoi Kusama. Many of these sculptures stood against war and materialism, but the soft and plush forms paved the way for the soft sculpture doll. One of the first soft sculpture doll makers to become an overwhelming success was American art student Xavier Roberts who introduced the world of Cabbage Patch Kids in 1983. Roberts began by selling his handmade soft sculpture dolls at art shows.

Soft Scupture Techniques

• Most handmade soft sculpture dolls are made from an artist's preplanned doll pattern. The facial features are perhaps the most difficult to create. A nose bridge can be made by sticking a needle through from 2/5 to the left of the face and pulling it through 3/5 to the left of the face and making several stitches to bring out that section of the face. Pulling the needle from the nose bridge through the bottom of the nose where each nostril would be pulls fabric back, creating the appearance of a molded nose.

Where to Buy Handmade Soft Sculpture Dolls

• Handmade soft sculpture dolls can still be found at some craft and art shows, but finding them this way is hit or miss. The Internet has created a better opportunity for artisans to sell their crafts and reach a wider audience of potential buyers. A definite way you can find and purchase handmade soft sculpture dolls is through an artist's personal websites or large merchant websites populated with independent sellers, such as Etsy, eBay or Artfire.