My son wants to make a waldorfish style action figure

[prairiebird]

That probably just made no sense, sorry!

He is 9 and came to me asking how he could make his own doll that would be in the style of a Waldorf doll ie: natural materials/soft. He wants to do some things like elves and wizards, and then go in a different direction and do representations of Greek Soldiers or Revolutionary War soldiers, where he'd make the doll and then put together the outfits himself. He thinks a lot of the Waldorf dolls we looked at online or that my girls' have look too 'girlie' as a baseline, so he wants to make his own.

I don't even know where to start to help him with this! I do some general sewing, but nothing 3-D. And when I look up general Waldorf doll kits, they either seemed geared toward girls or have a cherubish chubby face. (In my searches, I ended up picking my my two daughters another few dolls, but that's probably not going to help my son no matter how fun that was for me!)

Any ideas? Thanks!

[LuxPerpetua]

You may get better responses if you post in the toy crafting forum.

One thought, a lot of local craftstores have small soft doll bodies pre-made that you could purchase. Then he could just make the clothes.

Another thought, I currently don't sew but I've had quite a lot of luck with crafting felt and hot glue. To make something 3-D you just cut out two identical pieces (like both sides of a dolls body), stuff with cotton balls/stuffing/wool, and then hot glue the sides together. Your son is probably old enough that he could make clothes for his action figure out of felt as well. It's relatively cheap and very easy to cut and glue.

One last suggestion would be to by those wooden pegs that look like people and let him decorate one of those. Sometimes thrift stores have nice chess sets with large wooden pieces, and the king and queen from those make nice bases for a Waldorf-type figurine.

[chfriend]

We've had some lovely times making pipe cleaner action figures....These make lovely gifts as well. One of dd1's friends made her "Ancient Egypt" action figures when they were younger and dd1 was completely wrapped up in how mummies are made.

http://www.ehow.com/how_2314910_make...ner-dolls.html

[Lillian J]

I would think that maybe something like this Waldorf inspired knight could be be easily changed to fit the kinds of images he's after by experimenting with narrowing and otherwise changing the face, lengthening arms, etc.? Lillian

[BeanyMama]

I'm making samurai/ninja action figures for Christmas for my littles! I'm using wooden clothes pins, scraps of cloth, yarn and some oval wooden heads from the craft store. It's really been a lot of fun. The husband and I have a bit of a competition going on with making them.

If he can handle a hot glue gun you could probably totally skip the sewing

[Savoir Faire]

Well, they aren't soft but you could definitely make them Waldorfy--- I'd suggest Wooden doll parts, they have them on Etsy and remind me on the Little People shapes.

I just bought some to decorate for my daughter's doll house for Christmas.

Here's a link to where I got them.

[Mommy&Will]

Maybe he could find a Felting book and make felted dolls. Enchanted Gypsy makes some incredible stuff... look here for inspiration:

http://www.etsy.com/shop_sold.php?us...&order=&page=6

Needle Felting books on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Wool-Pets-Maki.../ref=pd_cp_b_1