BLOG: Josh Ramsay "On The Cheap" Doll Tutorial

I thought long and hard about if I should do this post or not - because, for me, it is an odd one. As some of you may know, I will doing my first cosplay next year at Oz Comic Con. Now, as I have never cosplayed before I thought it might be a neat idea to keep you up to date on my progress.

There seems to be two types of cosplayers - those who make their costumes and those who buy them. I don't see a problem with either way. I am doing a combination of both.

Some of you may be able to guess who I am going as after this post but - my first step - as part of my costume - was to make a Josh Ramsay "voodoo" doll essentially. So here's my little tutorial on how to make your own Josh Ramsay doll on the cheap.



This ^^^ is what we are going for!

You will need:

- cardboard

- wool (white, black optional)

- black felt

- gold nail polish

- buttons (optional)

- superglue and/or needle/black thread

- black marker

- scissors

Bare in mind, my Josh doll is not perfect! This is just to give you a working idea of how to make one - or dolls like it. All up, I spent $1.19 on felt as everything else I used I had at home :)

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Step 1: Work out how big you want your doll to be and draw a stick figure on the cardboard. Once you are happy with the size/positioning, add width to the head, legs and arms. It pretty much looks like a gingerbread man lol.

Step 2: Wrap the white wool until it covers all the cardboard. Add more wool in places you want more girth. 

Step 3: Use the felt to make a little vest. I did this by roughly guessing how wide his back was. I then halved the material so I had a square back and then two flaps at the front (kind of like a window or origami). I then cut some slits for the arms and put the jacket on him. 

^^^ Sorry if that makes NO sense at all! If you know how to sew, I'd recommend doing it that way. I just wanted to keep it in one piece.  

Step 4: Wrap some material around his arm to get a sleeve measurement. Cut out two "sleeves" (they should look like black strips) and fasten around the arms. You can use either superglue or stitch to get it in place. I used a combination of both. I also stitched a jacket lapel - this is also optional. 

Step 5: For the hair, I cut out strips of black felt and superglued to his head. I did the same with the felt eyes. If you want it to look more like the one from the video, use black wool as hair and buttons as eyes. 

Step 6: Paint a section of the cardboard with gold nail polish. Once dry, draw on using a black marker some cods and other metal detailing for the jacket. You can buy these things in store but I opted for cardboard. Cut out detailing and stuck to the jacket. 

And voila! You have your own little Josh doll!

Mine still needs some fine tuning. I need to give him more hair - which I may change to black wool (depending on if I have black wool in the house) I'm happy with him though none the less. Hopefully this'll give you more of an idea of how to make your own doll - just not for evil purposes, of course. 

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Please note, make sure you get superglue that dries clear. If you make the mistake of not buying clear superglue - like I did - use a black marker to colour in the white marks.

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