Hello everyone
Exciting news!
(Sounded a bit like Prof Farnsworth there...)
I've released my old tutorial, Armature to Art Doll.

It's been up on the website Doll Makers Dream for the past couple of years to encourage people to do their own research (easy to find if you googled 'art doll tutorial') but I see no harm in taking it out of storage.
I'd like to point out (as I have in the first part) that it is dated. I don't personally make dolls like this anymore. In fact, amongst other things, I completely scrapped wire armatures recently in favour of plastic ball-and-socket armatures. However it serves a perfect purpose of getting you started in the basics of doll making

One thing I would add is that I haven't made armatures for the feet in a long, long time. When I used wire I twisted a little loop in the end with pliers to stop the fimo from spinning or the wire from coming out. Also copper can discolour fimo over time.
Another thing I would like to mention is that if you make a doll with the tutorial I would LOVE to see it! You can submit it to the open folder at

named "First Dolls"!
So one and all.. Enjoy!




Sculpted polyfoam is a lot easier to control the anatomy, but I think wadding allows more movement? You can heat and melt it a bit with a heatgun too then cut and shape so it's not too restrictive.
What wire did you used to use? Just plain aluminium armature wire? It's what I use (or at least used to, I'm all about puppet making at the moment) and I've never had any joint problems.