Customer Reviews

Finishing the Figure: Doll Costuming, Embellishments, Accessories

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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This is the fourth book I own of Susanna Oroyan's and each one is an absolute must for the libraries of serious dollmakers. This book goes into depth about accessorizing dolls and has great illustrations for making shoes, for fitting costumes to dolls, for creating doll-sized animals, etc. It's fantastic and very easy to follow. The best part of Susanna Oroyan's books are the photographs of dolls by a wide variety of artists. It's like going to a museum. Someday I hope that my dolls are pictured in one of her books. That's a definite goal to work towards! And with her books in my library, I feel I have a great teacher to help get me there!

Susan Oroyan has done an excellent work. I bought both of her books "Designing the Doll" and "Finishing the Figure" If you own one of the books, you have to own the other one, they go together. The books have a great deal of information and details on doll making. The book is good for beginners or professional doll makers.You will love it.

Heavily illustrated with excellent diagrams and color photos, this book is not only for anyone learning the art of art-doll making but will also appeal to anyone who enjoys seeing what the creative, human imagination can devise. Just a joy to read from cover to cover and the beautiful photos will provide inspiration for many different types of artist.
Susanna Oroyan gives us the best contemporary information available from the art doll world while also providing the historical bones of costume design.

How we have all waited for this! And what a gift this book is.

In this, her latest masterwork, this gifted and inspiring author and teacher shares with us a true cornucopia of thoughts, techniques and ideas to help any dollmaker to bring the creations in our imagination into reality. This book inspires, encourages and gives answers both to questions we have and to questions we didn't even yet know to ask!

The illustrations and crisp, clear photography, as usual, are superb! For me, an addittional delight of this book is that (as well as showing me new creations by doll artists I already know and love) it introduces me to some absolutely wonderful new artists!

I just LOVE this book and can see it being another one of Susanna Oroyan's works that is a springboard and catalyst for all of us to make 'real' our dreams, moods and flights of imagination!

Thank you to Susanna, the artists who allowed their work to be seen by us and all involved in bringing this book to us!

I just picked this book up in a local bookstore and immediately got the itch to pick up some clay. I did not have time to read much, the photographs were what enthralled me. Oroyan picked some fine dolls to illustrate her book and it offers a wealth of imagination to the doll artist. The detail in some of the cosuming is fabulous and the characters of some of the dolls unforgetable!

This was the 4th book in series of high quality and comprehensive books about doll making. I finally got around to buying the last one. I highly recommend getting these books before there are no more. The other three are Fantastic Figures, Anatomy of a Doll and Designing the Doll. Susanna was a great doll artist and long time member of NIADA. She was active with her local UFDC and other doll activities. She was a successful teacher and a supporter of promoting all things creative with doll art. She encouraged and gave inspiration to all learning to make original dolls and those that are successful doll artists. She was a prolific contributor to articles in many doll magazines. She was proficient in a variety of media, including polymer clay, paperclay, and cloth. This particular book features many well known doll artists work along with her own. This book has a large variety of styles and techniques depicted. Many of the doll artists were happy to support and show their work in her books because they also believed in promoting original doll art and also recognized the fact that many doll artists can use the same type of technique but each doll will be different in some way. Most doll artists share the fundamental belief that creativity in the hands is the window to the soul, mind and imagination. No two are alike! Mine will be different then yours! If you have never seen a doll challenge, do a search on line, you will be amazed. They may feature one or two doll patterns, a set of rules and parameters, but look at how many different and wonderful creative interpretations are produced! Susanna has done the doll artist world a great favor by publishing so may techniques and styles in her books. Making these public they helped discourage any one artist claiming a certain technique all to them selves or hopefully trying to patent a technique. Her books have wonderful details, tips, examples and fantastic photos. Very high quality, a joy to have and worthy to be in any collector or doll artist's library. This book has a nice index of the artists featured in it along with a contact list. These are "forever keep books"! You will not be disappointed. I was ecstatic reading mine and I very much enjoyed viewing my "Doll Buddies" work! Susanna was a top notch award winning artist, her book "Anatomy of the Doll" was honored by the Scientific American magazine as "Best Technical Book for Youth" in 1997. She also received the award for "Best Dollmaker" of the year for teaching and publication from the National Association of Cloth Doll Makers in 1995. Susanna will be ever so missed and we were all sad to see cancer take such a wonderful person from our doll world. Her legacy of creativity and inspiration will continue to encourage us all. Susanna Oroyan 1942 - 2007.

I wanted to see the book before I decided to buy it, and checked it out at our local library. I was totally enchanted with it! I sat in the parking lot looking at all the different photos of the illustrated dolls, and was laughing at a lot of them. I sure hoped no one was watching, because I probably looked like a lunitic laughing so hard! :)
Will purchase all Four of the books, Anatomy of a Doll, Fantastic Figures, and Designing the doll..

What a fabulous book! Nothing to complain about with this one! Definitely glad I bought it.

Excellent book for the doll maker or any person that appreciates beautiful dolls and amazing creativity. It includes information on everything from making clothing patterns for your dolls to creating displays for them, with tons of information in-between. I also highly recommend "Anatomy of a Doll" and "Designing the Doll" also by Susanna Oroyan.

I design and make dolls! Having said that, I find Susanna Oroyan's books the bibles of "how to" when I am stuck for an idea or when I need to figure out how to make something work in my design.

Finishing the Figure offers both wise and practical advise on how to dress and finish a doll. IF you want to know about costuming, shoe making, hats, period costume, display, scale of furniture or objects to be held by your character it is all covered and very well and throughly here.

Ms Oroyan offers suggestions on how to judge scale and what you just might have to learn and do to make the item yourself, be it chair or display. The pictures of dolls are wonderful, creative and idea inspiring! The advise is just what you wanted, be it information on an antique costume or a display suggestion.

I keep this book along with Anatomy of a Doll and Designing the Doll within reach at all times!