Mandrake Roots

Mandrake root from the movie.

Made a stab at the mandrake root dolls tonight.  Debated over a couple different mediums to use.  I started with hot glue, especially on the face.  I looked at pics of the mandrake roots from the movie and realized that it was more of a melding of features--the nose was still pretty defined, for example.  But the brows were pronounced, the neck melded into the body, the fingers trailed off into root-like ends.  The glue was great for the face and the smaller details, but I used the foam great stuff on the body and limbs.  The nice thing about the foam is that it can be trimmed off if it starts getting wild.  Just have to wait now to see how the foam puffs up.  After I get the faces a bit more wrinkly old-manish, I'll spray them with a light brown, then possibly go back over it with some different colors.





The dolls fresh from the thrift store. Had to cut off some of the clothing.

First layer: I took the glue gun and made some details on the face.  Most important was to emphasize the eye and brow line, as well as to deepen/widen the sides of the mouth.  I made extra lines all over the face as well as the forehead.

Second layer: Adding 'great stuff' insulation foam, mostly staying away from the face (don't want to lose too much detail), but focusing on the limbs.

Next up: spray painting them with a lighter brown.

 

What I realized soon after was that the foam, while very valuable in camouflaging the doll form, some of the foam ended up looking a little...poopish.  So next up is to do some cutting.

I went back over them with some different color paints--darker browns, gold, cream, yellow, just whatever I had available.  

And as a last step: put in some fake greenery

 

And into the pots they go!

Some before and after shots: