Porcelain Doll Design and Creation: Materials, Techniques, Patterns Hardcover – September 1, 1999

Great info on caring for molds, porcelain slip and pouring the molds, cleaning, firing the pieces, and china painting and firing. There is also information on assembling the dolls and there are some dress patterns and instructions. Some of the assembly info was helpful for me but I don't make the same type of porcelain dolls as the author so naturally a lot of it just didn't apply.This book does not have any info for those of us that sculpt our own models and then make our own custom molds from those but there is still a wealth of information for once you get to the porcelain pouring stage and I am very happy that I purchased the book for that. Martha Armstrong-Hand has a great book titled Learning to be a Doll Artist for those of us who sculpt our own ball jointed dolls and make our own molds from our sculpts if you can get your hand on a copy (I have yet to see a copy for less than $125 though since the publisher isn't currently printing it.

I'll keep this book but there is not much information to learn. Just don't want to bother to return.

It was okay

This book has so much information. it was so helpful as I am new to this craft. I highly recommend this book

Excellent book on the making of porcelain dolls

This book was very well written and has beautiful pictures. However, if you want to make your own porcelain dolls from scratch - it's not for you. I was most interested in learning about making molds and wigs and this book pretty much said, "You can buy a wide variety of these at your local doll supply shop." I personally don't want to make dolls from a pre-existing mold so there's little I can do with that information. However, many of the techniques are very good and insightful and I will definitely look back on this book once I figure out how to get my molds created. The author definitely know what she's talking about, I just wish she had shared a little more of the little known facts with the rest of us.

I have very mixed feelings about this book - I picked up a lot of useful information for making my very first doll, but was also frustrated by the poor translation, potentially catastrophic errors (in converting between degrees celsius and fahrenheit, for example), and the lack of coordination between pictures and text. It is essentially a guide to preparing a commercial mould, pouring porcelain slip, firing and painting, based on one example doll designed by the author. Only one style of (purchased cloth) body is included, so the book does not cover different methods of jointing and stringing dolls. Design is limited to clothes, for which several basic patterns are given - unfortunately with no indication of the size of doll, but I would estimate at least 24inches/60 cm. A potentially useful book, that could have used better English editing and a more accurate title.

As described, nice book, speedy despatched. Thank you