A Husbands Horror Doll Request

I always give full credit and much appreciation to my lovely husband. He gives me endless support, puts up with my tempers when things go wrong, complains very little when dollies spread out all over the house and pretty much puts up with my mad, creative, living in the past, off my head self.

For his birthday this year I asked him if he'd like me to make him a doll of his very own. And while his answer wasn't a massive surprise I have to admit that the character he chose had me worried.
Being a huge Batman fan my lovely geeky hubby asked me for a doll of The Joker.
Specifically the one played by Heath Ledger, with his purple suit and deeply scared face, green dirty hair and make-up on his collars. So that's what I set out to make him.

Taking my dibber thing (bradawl) to one of my dolls faces has to be one of the scariest things I think I've had to do to one of them. Give me tiny collars, corsets, mis-behaving fabrics and nightmare tailoring anytime over having to do that again. Especially in such an eye-catching area as their mouth. I sat there in a sweat gently scraping through paint, varnish and clay till I had a pretty impressive ear to ear smiling scar carved into his face. And as soon as I'd done it my once smart looking man turned instantly into the cold blooded psychotic killer I was making. Even before I'd added his face paint!

Next came that of course - the face-paint. And I applied scrubbed off layers of white to his face so that the skin tone showed through in places. More mad eye-liner and a deep red pained lip-stain across his mouth and scars. Finishing him off with gloss and varnish to seal him. He looked Nuts!!!!
This one even gave me the creeps. And I know, I know my dolls are considered creepy by many, but I don't normally find them creepy myself.
It was something in his eyes and expression after the paint was added that did it, but Husband was happy and that all that mattered to me.

Next came his undies, just a little pair of boxers and something around his arm joints to tighten them up a little. And a shirt in blue cotton that had to be painted with fine spidery lines (trust me you can go check. His shirt has a pattern on it :S).Then a black cravat style tie that needed tiny white embroidery added to it, and a green waistcoat.
Easy so far, right?
No. We had a disagreement on whether or not The Joker's long purple coat was the jacket of his suit or an overcoat. I said not and Hubby says yes, so we had a frantic hour searching through Goggle Images so I could prove myself right and find the pic that I'd originally seen that shows the lovely Mr Ledger's coat open and a blue suit jacket beneath his purple overcoat. That got made and his overcoat too, and all you can see of the blue is a tiny line around the edge that I've tried to arrange in the pics so you can see it at all :)

I scuffed him up a bit and added paint for dirt and white watercolour pencil around his collars to look like make-up worn off his chin. Then added his feather hair in beige, green and mossy colours to make it look like the die was wearing off, slicking it back with hairspray to make it appear greasy.
He's still waiting for the chair I'll be making him from some vintage playing cards (Jokers of course), but he's sitting happily on our mantle scaring our visitors as they come through the door. I don't make many dolls so specific to my customers wants, but I don't think I'll be scared of any proposals after this for a while :)
I love to make my Cris smile :)
xxx