Mannequins are actively used in various fields of activity. They are necessary not only for those who sew clothes. They are actively used in trade, demonstrating the available goods. Whatever you need them for, you don’t have to buy them in the store, but make them yourself.
An important part of any mannequin is the stand. Thanks to it, it will remain stable, it will be more convenient for you to try on clothes, etc. They differ mainly due to the materials used for this.
When you have made your mannequin, or rather its upper part, put it aside and work on the lower part. The stand is quite simple to make. Usually improvised means are used. It can be done in the following ways:
You will need a minimum of time and available materials. It is best to choose an office chair leg for this, which is most suitable for a stand. What matters first is the reliability of the design. For ease of fitting, the mannequin must be stable.
In various fields of activity, one has to deal with artificial parts that imitate parts of the body or the full figure of a person. In sewing, clothing trade, and hairdressing, such “visual aids” are used both as demonstration materials and as tools or devices for ease of work. If you do not need a large number of models or need to create a thing of specific proportions, you can make a mannequin with your own hands.
The mannequin is an ancient human invention. The first similar products were discovered in Egyptian tombs, repeating the figure of the ruler, complemented by a set of clothes. Similar imitations were used to practice wrestling techniques. The wooden dummy was widely used to forge armor for warriors. It became popular later as a display item for clothing in trade. Now the use of mannequins is very widespread, and sometimes these “artificial people” not only have complete external similarities, but are also equipped with numerous sensors. They help in studying the consequences of possible injuries, developing safety systems, etc.
As already indicated, these objects are used in many production and service areas of work. The most widely used and well-known are mannequins for clothing (demonstration and sewing). In any store that sells dresses, blouses, coats, several models are necessarily presented on a plastic model. This way the item looks more impressive and natural, however, such products, as a rule, have average proportions with long legs, and the suit will fit slightly differently on a real person.
A specific, but very popular among specialists is a dummy for boxing or other types of wrestling, which is used for practicing punches with both hands and feet. These objects can be either suspended in the form of a pear containing dense heavy filler, or they can be a humanoid structure fixed to a rigid base using a spring mechanism.
Hairdressers use a mannequin head for hairstyles when training and improving their skills. A realistic volumetric tool allows you to practice all operations - from styling and drying to creating complex compositions using special tools.
Classify these objects in terms of their appearance and who they represent. Based on the first criterion, the grouping is as follows:
The first ones involve full detailing of the body and face, the use of hair and eyelashes. The latter are performed in a simplified manner, without elaboration of small elements. Wigs are usually replaced with plastic hair made as one piece with the figure. Abstract ones are generally made even from geometric figures with the general preservation of human proportions. Each option can be a female, male or children's mannequin. Specialized figures of pregnant women and individual body elements (heads for hats, legs for displaying trousers) are also produced.
Any of the mannequins, especially naturalistic ones, can be used not only in retail outlets, but also at home as a hanger or an element of interior decor. Similar figures, very similar to living people, are used in cafes or restaurants as decoration.
The main task of these assistants is to ensure ease of use. They perform fittings, adjustments, and also iron and steam finished products. For individual tailoring and large productions may be required different kinds figures, both female and male, children's, teenagers.
The sliding mannequin is very convenient. It allows you to adjust the size of individual elements within certain limits (bust circumference, height from shoulder to waist line, etc.). This option is good for small production. Enterprises often use non-sliding structures designed for sewing a specific size. There are also special trouser and skirt mannequins.
The structures are hard and soft. The latter are more convenient, as they allow you to work freely with pins, and the upper part of the neck is used as a needle bed. There are also differences in the support material. It can be metal, wooden, stationary or mobile. In a word, there is a large choice. Everyone should choose the appropriate option based on their own requirements.
If you sew to order or for a family, then you know that fitting is constantly required in the process of work, and some stages are best performed directly on the person. However, this is not always possible. One cannot be done on oneself, another takes too much time, and, for example, children generally cannot stand in one place for a long time.
If you specialize in tailoring clothes for women, then you should buy a mannequin. The sliding option is best suited if your clients do not differ much in proportions. However, if there is someone with specific non-standard shapes, it is worth either modifying an existing design or making a unique mannequin. The tailor's version should not only follow the contours of the model's body, but also be convenient for work. In the process of trying on a product, you have to use pins and secure the parts with basting thread, so the design must be both strong and soft at the same time.
If you're working with a limited number of faces, but they all have completely different proportions, it's worth considering making your own custom mannequins. This is relevant for a dressmaker who sews for herself, her family or her closest friends. Buy professional sewing mannequins It will be quite expensive, but doing it yourself is not too difficult and less expensive.
You can make a mannequin for women, men or children different ways. The options are largely similar, but different materials and devices are used. Required and different times for execution. The purpose of the work is the same for all methods - to obtain an exact copy of the model’s body. Two people will have to do the work. One can't do it alone. Two options will be discussed in detail below. In the first case, the sewing mannequin will be made from adhesive tape and a T-shirt using arbitrary filler; in the second option, plaster bandages and polyurethane foam are used.
To perform the fastening you will need: a hanger (hangers), a hook, a cardboard tube or a shovel handle, a rigid base, for example, a cross for a Christmas tree or the lower part of an office chair, then the mannequin will also be convenient to move. When choosing a manufacturing method, focus on the available materials or ease of use from your point of view.
Before you start making a mannequin with your own hands, you should seriously prepare yourself or the model for this process. The work may take several hours, and most You will have to spend time in a tight-fitting “shell” and in a relatively motionless position, that is, you will not be able to sit or lie down. In addition, the body will be wrapped in adhesive tape or cling film, which means that air access to the skin will be limited, which will also make it difficult to breathe deeply, so you should work in a cool, ventilated area, and wrap it from the bottom up, so that the lungs, heart and neck were under the “shell” for less time.
If you are going to make a mannequin of a girl or a guy, you can choose any manufacturing method. For children or older people, the option with a T-shirt is better, since plaster bandages take a long time to dry (harden), and their weight is very noticeable on the body, especially if you put them in several layers.
To make a sewing mannequin, you will need the following:
As you can see, there is nothing complicated. Most people already have everything at home, if the woman sews, and the man has to deal with renovations in the apartment. The option with a T-shirt and filling is easier to complete. It will require less materials and time, but a mannequin made of foam in a plaster mold will be stronger and of better quality. Any of the methods will be cheaper than buying a ready-made mannequin, and most importantly, it will be an ideal copy of a specific person.
So let's start with more simple option, made using a regular cotton T-shirt. Use the old unnecessary one, as the fabric will remain “walled up”, acting as a base.
As for the length, it can be up to the hips, but it is better to take a longer one so that it can be connected with a pin between the legs. This will secure the fabric to the body. It will also prevent it from moving upward during operation.
To make clothing mannequins using the first method, you need to complete the following steps:
Now you can attach the structure to the crosspiece and start using it.
If you decide to make a mannequin with your own hands using the second method, the stages of work are largely similar, so the recommendations here will be briefer. So, you need to do this as follows:
You have learned how to make a mannequin in two ways. Choose the option you like. Both methods are easy. You can supplement any of them and improve the technology at your discretion.
The simplest boxing dummy can be easily built at your dacha. To do this, it is enough to firmly fix the base with a spring from a car shock absorber in the ground. Place a stick in it (part of the handle from a shovel), and on top build a semblance of a human torso from a bag or something similar, filled, for example, with sawdust. This option will not only be easy to manufacture, but also convenient to use.
Every little princess loves to play with dolls and braid their hair. Nowadays there are a lot of opportunities for children's creativity: you can buy books or download instructions for performing various hairstyles. This activity is useful not only from an aesthetic point of view. It helps develop fine motor skills, which has a beneficial effect on the development of the child. To prevent mom’s hair or expensive dolls from suffering during this game, you can make a special mannequin for hairstyles. In this case, the girl will be able to weave her beauties as many times as she wants, and if the manual is damaged, it is easy to make it again. Even the process of making a mannequin can be easily turned into a fun and entertaining process.
The simplest option is to make a flat profile with yarn hair. To do this you will need the following:
The mannequin head for hairstyles is done like this:
All is ready. The girl will calmly do braiding. For greater realism, the blank can be easily made from cardboard, painted in a color to match the skin tone. Or even make embossed details from papier-mâché.
So, you have learned how to easily and quickly make a mannequin with your own hands. Now you can easily do fittings in the absence of a model, keep a girl busy with braiding, or make a wrestling partner for a boy.
My daughter is now studying at the academy to become a garment production technologist and they were given the task of creating a mini-collection (each student has their own theme) of three items and demonstrating it on large-scale mannequins (scale 1: 2.5). But.... the mannequins were not given out. Well, they don’t have that many mannequins in their household. There is one plasticine mold from which it was necessary to remove a double from papier-mâché. But... there is only one for everyone, papier-mâché in the amount of 3 pieces for each face takes a long time.... in general... time was already running out, but my daughter and I were not able to grab the plasticine woman. She still walks around from hand to hand. And then I have a long-standing fixed idea - to get a large-scale mannequin! I matured for a long time, I kept going over the topics of our craftswomen and collecting experience in creating mannequins. And then the stars aligned and there was nowhere else to retreat. Mom scratched the back of her head and got down to business. It turned out that creating mini-mannequins is such a fun activity! First I'll show you what happened, and then I'll post it detailed process creations in pictures. For those who want to repeat “Gastello’s feat” I will post “patterns” of mini-mannequins in two scales (1:2 and 1:2.5).
So, meet the “striped swimsuit group”!
The very first question (and I was simply stupefied at this point :-))) - where to get patterns on which to then cut the isolon? Once I tried to build them simply by taking a table of standard sizes, but... it didn’t look at all like the “figure” of a mannequin :-(. And here is a brilliant idea from Lybcha-1965! You need to remove the tape from the mannequin! On the farm I have a standard mannequin size 46 (Russian) and my daughter and I just needed a size 46 in scale! Can you imagine what a coincidence!?
The sheet was quickly cut and the skin was removed from the large mannequin using the pinning method :-). I removed the tape only from half of the mannequin, because... I have it with different shoulders (apparently it was modeled from a living person :-))), and then I simply mirrored it so that the mannequins turned out symmetrical. She took the tracing paper off the sheet. That is, I transferred the contours of the “pattern” drawn in pencil on the sheet onto tracing paper. For what? I just thought that when I start cutting the sheet into A4 pieces, the fabric might just move, but tracing paper is paper, it won’t move and there will be practically no distortion. Now we need to somehow scan all this stuff ;-). I had no desire to draw A4 size “squares” on tracing paper, because... You can miss the size and again this threatens to distort the patterns in the end. Then I took sheets of printer paper and glued them together with paper tape, joint to joint, into a strip of 4 sheets (for me, half the front and half the back each fit on 4 A4 sheets!). I carefully traced the contours of the patterns on the tracing paper with a soft pencil, turned the tracing paper “face down” onto a strip of glued sheets and traced the contours of the patterns again from the “wrong side” of the tracing paper. The drawing was imprinted on the sheets as if from a carbon copy. I drew it again more boldly, now on paper, put all the alignment marks and cut the tape. That's it, now you can scan without problems :-). I scanned it and reduced it to the required scale in FS. Then I printed it out and connected it according to the marks. The result was a set of mannequin patterns on a scale of 1:2.5.
Patterns on a scale of 1:2.5
Before
Back
Rack
patterns in scale 1:2
Bottom
Before 1
Before 2
Silhouette 1 left
Silhouette 1 right
Silhouette 2 left
Silhouette 2 right
Backrest 1
Back 2
Rack
To print the patterns in the original size in the printer settings when printing, you need to check the “Page Fill” box and print without borders.
I started having problems with isolon from the very beginning, that is, at the stage of gluing the interlining. Well, it didn’t want to stick. Then, after joining the seams, the chest somehow pressed inward and... well, it’s not really a coat at all. I was saddened and sat down to think about how to enlarge my breasts. Thoughts flowed in the direction of pressed synthetic padding (as I do on quilted cups) and then... urrrrrrr... the thought came: “Why not make the whole mannequin according to the principle of quilted cups?!” After all, iron-pressed and quilted stytepon is a very shape-resistant and at the same time plastic material! No sooner said than done! And the work began to boil. Each mannequin used 1.5 m of padding polyester 1.5 m wide. I pressed it into 6 layers using a wet iron. The result was a sheet 0.5m x 0.75m. From it I cut out pattern parts without allowances. You need to trace the patterns very accurately!
Then we take a piece of calico or chintz and glue it with knitted sheepskin. Like this
We cut out pattern parts from calico with allowances around the perimeter of 1 cm
We put padding polyester parts on them, stitch them around the perimeter at a distance of 1mm from the edge (of padding polyester) and machine stitch the entire part. The distance between stitching lines should not exceed 3mm!
All the details were quilted. Then we cut off all the allowances flush with the contours of the padding polyester. We also cut out the dart solution. We put marks for connecting the parts (they are on the patterns) and hand-sew all the parts end to end. First darts, and then “relief” seams. We iron them a little, using an iron to form the smooth lines of the future mannequin (especially the chest). I ironed the chest on a small foam ball ;-). And we close the seams with strips of adhesive interlining. I did this not to hide the threads of the seams, but so that when the mannequin is arched around the circumference of the hips and waist, the seams do not become an angle, but lie in a smooth arc.
So I assemble the back separately and the front separately. And I also sew it seam to seam with handles to the “tie” - the silhouette. This is what happens.
Then, again, I manually connect the front and back along the sides and shoulders. For convenience, I first connected the halves of the mannequin with an elastic band along the waist line. Then, after connecting, I removed the elastic band.
In the photo you can see that I made one mannequin with pieces of handles (like on my big mannequin), and the other two without handles at all. The patterns in the links are given with handles, but if someone wants to make them without them, they can simply be cut off along the armhole lines that are on the patterns. The silhouette pattern will also need to be slightly corrected, removing the bulges of the arms.
After connecting the halves of the mannequin, we insert a wooden stick - the future stand - between the central parts of the screed. My sticks have a diameter of 1.2 mm. I bought it at a construction supermarket (across the road from the house ;-)). Stand height for scale 1:2.5 is 64cm. For scale 1:2 - 80cm.
The stick was inserted, placed at the bottom of the mannequin in the middle and secured with several stitches on both sides.
You don’t have to fix the stick in the neck area, because there is a very small distance and it is clamped quite tightly between the ties.
Now we fill our mannequins with ordinary medical cotton wool. You can use small scraps of fabric or padding polyester. But cotton wool turned out to be the most convenient for me. Each mannequin took 300g of cotton wool (3 packs of 100g each).
At first I thought not to stuff the mannequin, but then I tried it and it turned out that it holds its shape better, the “chest” doesn’t sink in and the shoulders on the back become round and beautiful :-). Here is a photo to compare the stuffed mannequin and the unstuffed one. A! The not yet stuffed mannequin strives to take the shape of a circle from below. But our body is not round, but oval in cross section! :-)) In general, when the mannequin was filled with cotton wool, it became very similar to a large real mannequin
After stuffing, we close the mannequin with the bottom, which is also made of compressed and quilted padding polyester. Attention! At the same time, DO NOT remove the wand from the mannequin, because then it will no longer be possible to push it through the bottom of the mannequin due to the very small hole in the bottom (we simply won’t be able to move the ties apart in such a small hole)! And we can only put a mannequin on a stand with a stand already attached from below.
Now you need to cover the mannequins with supplex (bi-elastic material from which swimsuits are usually made). We cut it out in 2 layers according to the silhouette screed pattern with an allowance of 1 cm around the perimeter and 3 cm at the bottom.
We sew along the sides and shoulders along the markings with an elastic stitch (I use a back-and-forth stitch, but you can also stitch it with a narrow zig zag), leaving an unsewn hole in the neck for the stand. We cut the allowances to a width of 2.5-3mm (no need to make any gaps), turn them inside out, stretch them onto the mannequin and... we understand that adjustments are needed. We remove and make changes. It turns out that for a good fit you need to round off all the sharp corners in the area of the shoulders and arms. And on a mannequin with handles, also reduce these same handles by 1 cm on each side. (bottom photo on the right)
We sew along new lines, cut off the allowances, turn them inside out and again stretch them onto the mannequin. Hooray! Everything worked out!
Now you need to pull the supplex onto a thread from the bottom of the mannequin.
And this is what happened:
The mannequins are currently put on auxiliary sticks.
Now let's move on to the stands and stands.
The stand was made from planks purchased at the same construction supermarket. We bought 2 planks measuring 50 x 20 cm and my husband sawed them for me into 4 pieces 20 x 20 cm with a thickness of 1.8 cm. I used a drill to make a hole in the middle with a diameter slightly smaller than the diameter of the sticks. I sharpened the sticks on one side with a knife like a pencil. I coated them with Moment-gel glue and coated the holes inside with this glue as well. And she hammered the sticks into the holes. It turned out very strong and reliable. On the bottom, on the base of the stands, I glued 4 squares of leather in the corners so that the stands would not slide on the table.
When the glue on the stands had dried, I smeared the pieces of sticks on the sides with it, put the mannequins on the stands, pushing the auxiliary sticks up (thus taking them out of the mannequins) and turned the mannequins 90 degrees around their axis so that the glue strips came into contact with the details of the silhouette screed. That's it, the mannequins are firmly glued to the stands!
Now a little reasoning. I think such a mannequin can be made life-size, because... It turns out to be quite light, but holds its shape well. Pins can easily be stuck into it and you can even iron on it.
You can use a pattern of adhesive as a template. A silhouette screed can be made using the margo_kt method, but with minor amendments.
What exactly are the amendments? When I started tracing the shadow of the mannequin, and then took a control measurement of the bottom, it turned out that the error in width was about 3.5 cm. That is, the width of the shadow turned out to be 3.5 cm larger than the real silhouette.
First, I did everything as indicated by margo_kt. But there were errors not only in the width but also in the height of the silhouette. Then I decided to outline the shadow in 3 stages. First, I placed the lamp at waist level and outlined a piece of shadow. Then she placed the lamp at chest level and again traced a piece of shadow, trying to connect the lines with those obtained at waist level. Then she again moved the lamp, only now to the level of the hips, and again outlined the shadow, connecting with the lines obtained in the waist area. The main thing is to install the lamp exactly in the middle of the mannequin (vertical axis) each time. After all these manipulations, a fairly accurate outline in height was obtained. And in terms of width, I simply removed the extra centimeters in accordance with the bottom measurement, under the ruler. That is, it was narrowed by 1.75 cm on each side.
If you like to sew and not buy stylish outfits, you need a mannequin - a special tool for creating clothes that reproduces the human body in its shape. Have you thought about it, but store-bought products are expensive, bulky, standard sizes? There is a solution - make a mannequin at home according to your own measurements and purchase a unique design that copies your figure.
The mannequin in Europe was invented by an Italian monk in the 14th century (although blanks for modeling were used during the reign of Pharaoh Tutankhamun), but entered the tailoring business two centuries later. It was first used by cutters in the Netherlands and France, then by tailors and merchants in other countries.
Initially, the mannequin was made from wood and clay, and then from wax, plaster, and papier-mâché. Currently, doll mannequins are made from polystyrene or fiberglass, and tailor's mannequins are made from polyurethane foam.
Making a mannequin is not a difficult job, but it’s a hassle, so in addition to endurance, perseverance, and the availability of free time, you will need an efficient assistant with a sense of humor.
Materials:
Manufacturing process:
The initial stage of this version is similar to the previous one, that is, first the winding is done, and then the plaster.
Prepare:
Progress:
To summarize, it is not difficult to make a mannequin based on the recommendations and photographs provided, but to better study the process, watch the videos below.
Hello, dear readers!)
Today is a post for needlewomen. Namely, about how I made my mannequin. I’ll tell you what it took, how it all happened, and my sad, but now EXPERIENCED conclusions. Don't repeat my mistakes)
I made a mannequin based on videos and articles. I didn’t want to bother with plaster, foam, etc. My goal was - FAST, SIMPLE and CHEAP to make a mannequin for your figure, to make it convenient to make changes when sewing, to model and come up with different styles and learn to work with fabric.
Here is the video that I thought best suited my purpose: And yet - simple and understandable.
So.
How we made a mannequin
My husband wrapped me in film, from neck to hips. And then with tape.
Here was the first sadness. Construction tape is thick, but... Since my “details” are quite miniature, many lines have been smoothed out, especially SHE’s chest. It turned out to be a smooth board)))
I think next time we'll try with regular tape.
If there is emptiness in the bra, then stuff something in there, otherwise the bust will squash under the tape, and you will get a distortion, as happened with us. This is the second failure.
And further. It’s better not to wrap it tightly, because while we were wrapping the top, all my internal contents went down into my stomach, and in the dummy it turned out to be too big, I had to cut it down.
They wrapped it in several layers, cut it along the spine in a zigzag (without cutting the T-shirt!), removed it, and glued the cut. All this took 40 minutes. I cut the mannequin’s belly from the navel down and overlapped the edges to reduce the volume, but still the mannequin turned out wider at the waist than I did. This is how beautiful it turned out:
As soon as we glued it together, I saw how CROVE I was! One shoulder is more developed than the other, my collarbones are skewed, I’m all stooped, although I tried to stand very straight while wrapping. Now I’ve taken my posture seriously, doing special simple exercises, conducting an experiment, preparing an article)
As a spine, we inserted a long tube of rolling paper from a photo salon into the mannequin (you can ask for it there). And they began to cram “Woman”.
At first I used old rags (collected from relatives), but this turned out to be a mistake, because the stiff fabrics did not fill the voids well and had to be cut. And the mannequin had to be stuffed very tightly.
In general, I started using newspapers - a super solution! They fit very tightly and did not fall out. But the chest was still stuffed with rags, and when our mannequin fell “on the chest” once, it finally squashed and now you can’t immediately tell where his back is
I tried to keep the tube in the center. It took a lot of newspapers - about 80 (8-sheet).
The remaining roll of tape was inserted into the neck (it was the perfect diameter), and pieces of paper were inserted into the cracks. My husband screwed the skein to the tube with screws.
He made the bottom out of plywood (he cut it out with a jigsaw somehow. In general, it was a man’s job. Of course, it was possible to make cardboard, but with plywood it is more reliable and stronger.
I simply placed “Woman” on the fabric, traced it around the perimeter, made two such parts, machine stitched it with a knitted seam everywhere except the bottom, and pulled it onto the mannequin. It turned out that the cover fits the mannequin perfectly, and even tightens itself at the bottom under the plywood. I left it that way.
I entrusted this to my husband. He used a shovel handle and plywood. Adjusted it to suit my height. It looked like this:
Later, when the mannequin fell more than once, the husband strengthened it with additional planks. Now she doesn't fall
Ready! Happiness of creativity! Convenient fitting!
So, has the goal been achieved?
Achieved:
Not achieved:
So some things were justified, some were not. But in any case, it has become MUCH more convenient and easier to sew, model, and CREATE! You can also dress up a mannequin and see from the outside whether things fit together or not. It's like a doll from childhood, only BIG!)
This is my childish delight. I think I’ll sew it this way for now, and when I start mastering shoulder pieces with darts, I’ll take a look, and if it doesn’t work at all, then we’ll make a new mannequin.
