What's with the Wigs? Part 1: Hard Caps

Wigs! Humans wear them, animals sometimes wear them (for the amusement of their human owners), and dolls wear them. Well, some dolls wear them. Children's toys like Monster High and Barbie have synthetic hair embedded in their heads with machinery that is then glued in place more less solidly. Wigs for dolls are made in a similar way to those of human wigs. And they can be made faster, and in different ways.

Base

First off, let's start with Caps.

Wig caps can be made from a variety of materials, and some tend to be easier to work with while others....not so much. We'll start with a hard-cap this week.

Hard cap made with knitted fabric and glue.

Knitted fabrics have plenty of stretch to them normally, and that's great for the next base I'll show here, but for a hard cap, you're wanting to use glue to make it solid. The glue you use can be pretty much any type that dries quickly -taking a week to make one cap is annoying and uselessly time consuming- and is optionally water-proof.

I prefer to use 2 types of glues for these, either both or just one at a time. The first one is Fabric Glue! I can get this stuff at Walmart for about $8, and a bottle will do a good 30-40 wig caps depending on how much or little I use at a time. This stuff takes a bit more time to dry than the next glue, but it's sturdy and water proof once fully dried in about 3 days' time.

The second is cheaper, I got it at my local everything-everywhere store (Scattered Goods is what it's called) but you can often find it in dollar stores too. It's ALSO a fabric glue, but it dries faster. The down side is that the bottles are smaller (cheaper in price though) and it runs out faster since I have to almost triple how much I use on a wig the same size as what I use with the other glue. It dries faster though, as in, ten minutes and I can touch it.

To Make a Hard Wig Cap

It's pretty simple!

1. Take your dolls' head. I have a secondary head of the same sculpt for Amara here. It came to me damaged with her body originally, so the head she has now for showing off is a free one sent by ResinSoul (You guys rock!) I put the damaged head on an old pencil crayon.

2. Next up, cover the head in plastic wrap. With her elf ears I found it a little annoying as first, because you need to make sure the plastic is as flat as possible against the head, especially where you want the wig cap to be. Once the plastic is in place, tie it up with an elastic or just keep it tight to the head somehow. This keeps the glue and whatnot from sticking the fabric to the head permanently....don't ask how I know this from experience....

3. Find a nice piece of elastic or stretchy fabric. Elastic lace works well, but so does some thinner knit fabrics, a cut up pair of tights or pantyhose(skin color works perfect for a lot of normal skin sculpts). Cut out a piece of it large enough to cover the head, with extra to tug at. Carefully mold your fabric over the plastic wrap, securing the fabric to the head with an elastic band. From there, you can tug and shift the fabric to remove all of the folds that fabric makes. Once you have a smooth area where you want the cap to be, you can get started with the glue!

4. Bring out the GLUE! And popsicle sticks or a disposable paint brush you don't mind ruining completely. You'll use this to spread the glue onto the fabric. Put a thin layer of the glue on the fabric, then let it dry.

5. Repeat the steps of adding glue and letting it dry about 3-4 times.

Once the final coat is done, let it dry completely for 24 - 73 hours depending on the instructions of the glue container. From there, you can remove the elastic band and carefully remove the cap from the head. The plastic will come with the glued fabric, so be aware of that, you can pull it off of the fabric cap. Trim off the excess fabric, maybe add some lines for where you want to put the wig hair wefts or tufts, then put it back on the doll head so the shape of the cap doesn't deform.

Then you can get to work on the hair!

Which I will tackle next week~~~!