A Gift for My Principal

I made this figure for the principal of my school. My school district is going through consolidation and they are closing the school I'm at. "Dr. W" I'll call her, came out of retirement to be the principal at our school (since the previous principal got transferred to a different school which left a vacancy).

This is a gift that I decided to make for her because I feel she did a great job at helping us get through this tough time. I have not given this gift to her and I sure hope she doesn't google something and this site pops up!! I am working out how to present this to her. I'll have to attach pictures when she does receive the gift.

Here is a picture of her:

I talked to many staff about what outfit Dr. W often wears. No one could seem to think of one. I did notice that she often wears this black sport-type jacket. She is also famous for her heels. That was a must for my figure. I decided to go with her school picture as the rest of my reference for what outfit to sculpt on her. Dr. W also wears a lot of skirts, but I opted to go for a pants look.

I used a Joyce head, torso, and arms/hands. I used a Vampire Darla legs (since this figure had heels on). I removed Joyce's hair, sculpted on ears (which eventually got covered when I sculpted on the hair), I also sculpted on the T-shirt, shirt, and jacket. I also had to cut off the butt off the previous figure because it was rather large and Dr. W is a smaller woman. I then resculpted the bottom. I should have shaved more off the knee area but it doesn't look so bad the way I left it.

Here is the figure with the sculpt process:

It took me a few tries to get the eyes just right. I am so pleased with how it turned out. This is my first figure I painted that actually looks like the person, only action-figure-ized.

I initially was going to go with black pants. After the figure was nearing completion, it looked like she was wearing pajamas or sweats. I wanted a more business woman look. So I painted the pants a dark grey. This is not a typical outfit she'd wear, but it's close.

For the background and stand I used a plastic stand that comes with DST figures. I sculpted the bricks on the back wall to look like a school wall (although our walls are more tiled--the style 50 years ago--since the building is turning 50 this year--our closing year, go figure). I painted the floor to look like a section of our floor. I etched in some tile lines to make the base look like tiles. After I painted it, I coated it with some scenic water to give it a shine. I also used 3 banner flags and painted them purple (with white lettering)--our school colors. On the banners I painted, "Star Polishers, Power Tools, and We Nurture They Grow." Dr. W. has these themes she talks about so I had to get that into the piece. That is why you'll see stars around the top of the wall, flowers at the front of the base, and a tool box full of tools.

Here is the finished, painted Dr. W. figure.

Like I said, this is a piece that I hope she will treasure. I know I am proud of how all this came together.