Art Toy - Baby Queen — Chloe Lynne Choi

[I have all progress photos, will upload ALL of them SOON]

my laptop is a 7 year old potato and my PC is not synced with my photo album YET

Character Design

Story

My sketches depict a young girl with a crown that represents responsibilities and the expectations to be in a certain role. As the crown does not fit her, the young girl attempts a variety of ways to wear it. The design may depict a girl forced into a situation she is not yet ready for but is expected by those around her. I hope the symbolism can resonate with many people in a variety of situations.

Design Insight

I have attempted to create a simple design with the main focus being on the juxtaposition of the crown and the young girl. Her posture is that of shyness as she is leaning to her right, hands fidgeting behind her back, and her eyes looking up as if she were asking for permission.

Initial Sculpt

Referencing my sketches, I attempted to create my first model out of clay. I bought air dry Terracotta Clay along with simply shaped sticks to aid me.

Soon after starting my sculpt, I realized that the clay was too malleable and fragile for me to work with it proficiently. As I would work on the face, the weight of the sculpture would press into my hand and flattened the back side of the model. After many hours of slow-drying clay and remolding the same areas, I was not able to successfully model the desired posture as depicted in my sketches. This attempt with clay has allowed me to rule it out as a possible material for my art toy.

Materials

I originally designed my character as if it were going to be a glossy ceramic figure. To best recreate this texture, other than hand molding with clay, I have decided to 3D poly jet print my model with LaGuardia Studios. I will then spray paint a satin gloss to achieve the glossed ceramic texture.

Another material I want to explore is needle felting. I want to create at least one model that combines the soft and hard material. I will achieve this by needle felting the young girl and 3D printing the crown. To add detail, I will spray paint the crown in a shiny gold color.

Process

Needle Felting

As needle felting allows for more flexibility while creating, I decided to 3D print the crown component first. To determine the size of the crown, I decided that my model will be around 6 inches tall. This allowed me to estimate the crown print to be around 55mm.