By: Ramona Villegas
Freshman Noah Adachi is so much more than a cellular and molecular biology major. He’s a resourceful, creative dollmaker and writer.
Adachi attended Cameron for a semester about seven years ago but decided to join the workforce instead of completing the semester. He is now ready to get back into it.
Adachi would be happy as a lab tech after completing college. He finds himself fascinated by research and is especially interested in the genetics branch.
If possible in the future, Adachi is also interested in working at a science museum or an area working alongside children and the public as both a scientist and public educator or activity coordinator.
“Like Bill Nye, the science guy type stuff. You teach, but it’s fun, and it’s exciting,” Adachi said.
Adachi has many creative hobbies, two of which are writing and making dolls. His love for writing started thirteen years ago with a massive story. He uses his art forms to explore his stories in different ways.
Doll making was another way for him to develop his stories by literally and figuratively bringing his characters to life.
“Figuring out different ways of how I could create these characters drawing, painting, sculpting now,” Adachi said.
In the beginning of his doll-making hobby, Adachi started by repainting old dolls, as he saw people online doing by taking children’s dolls and removing the factory paint to paint on their own doll design.
Over a year ago, Adachi decided that he wanted more creative freedom when it came to head shapes, sizes and features. He still does the repainting.
“I like to mix up what I’m working on,” Adachi said.
The first doll that Adachi crafted was a clown named Jelly Bean. Adachi absolutely loves and adores clowns.
“I love them. I like the idea of them. Scary clowns, funny clowns, all of them. I like the colors. I like the shapes. They’re different, they’re unique, they’re exciting,” Adachi said.
Adachi decided to make a clown first not only because he loves clowns but also because he uses many upcycled materials while creating his dolls. He figured that making a clown would be the perfect doll to start with since clowns tend to have natural patchwork on their outfits.
“I’ll get a whole lot of fabric and stuff that’s just off cuts from other people’s bigger projects. Things that people think they can’t use anymore, and I sew little things, and so I’ll make little objects, little outfits and stuff like that,” Adachi said.
Since there is not much information for the specific dolls Adachi makes, it took many trial and error runs to figure out what works best for him. This allowed him to grow and learn overtime so each doll is a little bit better than the last.
His first doll, Jelly Bean, is very weak in the body frame since the wire was too thin, but Adachi has since adjusted and started using thicker gagged wire and twisting it to create a strong body frame.
“For the head and hands, I’ll sculpt those out of clay. I’ll use polymer clay, and I’ll just mold them in my hands and stuff like that,” Adachi said. “Sometimes, I’ll use small tools to move stuff around if I need to for detailing.”
After baking the clay in an oven at a low temperature, Adachi paints the doll’s head and hands.
After he gets the pieces from the clay sculpted out, he will attach them to the wire, usually with a two-part epoxy clue so it is secure to the frame.
On the actual wire itself, he’ll use quilt batting and cut it into thin strips and then wrap the batting around the wire and then use exercise tape to wrap around it because it’s sticky and clings to itself. If he wants to make them a little plumper, he’ll put stuffing between the layers and wrap exercise tape around the stuffing.
“That gives it a pliable body that I can then put clothes on top of,” Adachi said.
Adachi also makes the outfits by hand, not relying on a pattern to guide him. Instead he measures out the doll to get an estimate of what he needs.
“The doll kind of tells me what more I need to put on itself. Like as I’m looking at it, I’m thinking you need something else. I need to add something else, and I’ll just kinda dig around my massive collection of random bits and pieces and add things on until I finish it out,” Adachi said.
The end product is about 12 to 13 inches long.
“They’re not huge, they’re typical,” Adachi said. “Because I do them with the wire, I can kinda pose them in different ways. They can stand, they can sit. I can do different things with them.”
Occasionally, Adachi starts his dolls with a simple idea and lets it go from there by using a color, work or theme. For example, one day, he made a candy corn doll inspired by the candy corn theme. His partner, Wyn Jessie, asked him to make a fat doll and wanted it to have flowers and the color pink.
“Easy enough to be said and done. I went through and sculpted it out and just went wild with it and it turned out nice,” Adachi said.
Adachi makes human and goblin dolls because he finds it fun to sculpt the different features.
“The goblins I made tend to have really big noses and big ears because they are less human-shaped, and they also have tails,” he said. “When I make my goblins, they have cute little tails with fluffy bits on the end.”
Adachi enjoys collecting miniature toys, too. He likes to pick out a toy and make a goblin to fit the theme of that toy.
“This one’s got a little tiger, so I made him, ya know, kinda like a safari tiger theme with him, and that one, ya know, he has a little white bunny, so kinda that snow theme,” Adachi said.
Adachi’s advice for anyone interested in this art form would be just to start.
“If there’s no rules to follow, there’s no worry about doing it wrong, ya know. You just are doing it, and I think that can be applied to any kind of art practice,” Adachi said. “And, I enjoy it, and I think the major part is just enjoying it.”
For more information on Adachi and his dolls, stories, and more, visit his YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@KikuWaters.