Cloth Doll Archive Doll Pattern Adaptation #10 Rowan Foxglove Guild Wars Ranger

Rowan Foxglove

Rowan Foxglove is the name of my mum’s online Guild Wars character.  Guild Wars is a fantasy role-playing game, where the player can choose to take on the identity of a variety of characters to travel through different levels.  

Rowan Foxglove is a Ranger. Therefore I based her design loosely on the ranger concept art for this game.  However, I have used a lot of creative licenses when developing this doll.  For the reason that I needed to adapt the look to fit in with the materials, I had at hand to use.

 Eco Warrior

When designing Rowan, I always had the vision that her look would be influenced by that post-apocalyptic, eco-warrior aesthetic.  This is where clothing is fashioned and up-cycled from other garments in a “thrown together” need rather than for any fashion or style purpose.

Make Do And Mend: The Wrap Around Top

This was actually a scaled-down version of a customised top I had made for myself.  To create it, I took two small sections of the jersey cotton and part cut into tassels.  These were stretched to encourage the edges of the fabric to curl.

This happened by chance, and it was really fortunate that when I draped the two pieces of jersey over her torso they hung nicely.  Most notably the way in which the tassels could be tied together at the back.

The Coat

The coat is made from scraps of a mixed woollen fabric.   It was sewn together using my favourite stitch, the blanket stitch.  I deliberately placed the stitching on the outside of the seam to make it visible.  This was to enhance the ‘make do and mend’ design ethos.

In addition, a small coordinating turquoise button decorates the front of the coat.  I cheated a little and added a popper fastening on the inside rather than putting in a buttonhole.

The design of the coat is asymmetric and curves around the length of the doll’s body.

The Trousers, Boots and Cuffs

Real leather was used to make to boots.  These were sewn together by hand.  The cooper eyelets were also punched through using a hand hole punch tool.

Rowan also has leather wrist cuffs.  I discovered that this is a good creative solution to cover up the arm and hand join, which are made separately.

The trousers are made from a denim material and when fitted to the doll’s body.  Unfortunately, they were a little bit wide, so another creative solution was to include the golden thread at the hips and crisscross the thread to echo the laces on the boots.

the hair and face

I used acrylic paint to add the details and depth to the face.  Up until now, I have mainly used watercolour pencils and micron pens.  Consequently, I discovered that the application of paint can add new layers of depth to the facial expressions.

Strips of T-shirt material were once again used to create the hair.  It is becoming my preferred method and it is a really nice way to use up old jersey tops.

“In a world torn by conflict, where human kingdoms are all but destroyed and guilds sacrifice all for a chance to control the Hall of Heroes, a champion must rise from the ruins of a once-proud land to lead refugees from the ashes and fulfill an ancient prophecy”. (http://www.guildwars.com/en/)

This post was originally published 28th October 2015