Place the arm down on a piece of freezer paper or plain paper, with the joint flange down. Holding your pencil STRAIGHT UP AND DOWN draw around the arm, while holding the arm down firmly with your fingers. NOTE…If you slant your pencil inward, the doll will be skinnier. If you slant your pencil outward, your doll will be fatter. It is very important that you hold your pencil STRAIGHT UP AND DOWN for drawing around all of the parts for this first doll pattern. The vinyl doll is in proportion, so if you slant the pencil in for the arms and out for the legs etc. you will lose that proportion. Later you can play with the pattern you have designed to make any proportion you want. Long skinny legs and arms. Big body and tiny head. Big head and little body etc. The shapes and variations are practically limitless! …NOTE…I have noticed that some of the vinyl dolls arms are a little short for their bodies. After you make one doll from the pattern you are designing, you may need to lengthen the arm pattern a little. This is especially true for the lady dolls. The doll I am using needed to have her arm pattern lengthened 1/4" between the shoulder and elbow, and 1/4" between the elbow and wrist. She didn't look awful with the shorter arms, but I wanted them more true to human proportion. TO ACHIEVE TRUE HUMAN PROPORTION the finger tips should be 1/2 way between the crotch and the knees.

If you wish to make un-jointed, stitched on arms, draw about 1/2" past the top, rounded shoulder area, then straight across as shown below. This is for a lady, child or baby doll.

When you get to the hands, you won't worry about the fingers since we are making the simpler mitt hands for the first doll.

The hands are usually turned slightly so just draw around the whole thing, making a curved, thumb-less mitt.

You will need to lengthen and round the mitt out a little, since the vinyl hand probably curves inward so it loses some length.

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