All dolls tell a story.

A well storied doll captures a moment in time that implies a past and suggests a future. A story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. A well storied doll tells a story from beginning to middle to end by capturing a middle that has an obvious past and an unavoidable future.

This is Groovin’ Granny. Her story is pretty obvious.

This is Skeeve, The Sorcer’s Apprentice, Holding a Void. The title of the piece and the posing of the doll tell a story. What is this apparently important nothing, that he is holding on to, and is he going to break it?

On the other hand, Prince Elvin is simply a “noble” clothes-horse with an Attitude. It’s not obvious until you see the quality of the clothing and the expression on his face.

And the simplest Mermaid Holding a Dead Fish has a different emotional load…

than the self-indulgent, Her Royal Highness, Exalted Princess of Marisea, Trying On Her Imaginary Tiara.

There are two types of story-telling dolls:

Static dolls show a costume or are part of a scene. Their story is told by the scene or costume.

For example: Prince Charming’s story is told by the title, the pose, the prop pillow, the missing shoe, and the costume.

Implied motion dolls show an incomplete action. The doll may be held in an impossible, mid-leap pose, with an armature, or it may be interacting with a prop that allows the body to be out of balance (such as a cane or a stick).

For example, the High Priestess dances, balanced on her toe, in a book written on an ancient scroll lying on a stone alter.

The key word is “balanced.”

Michael Dances Spartacus is landing from a leap. He looks like he will land successfully because he is balanced along a moving balance line.

Tarzan on Broadway, a Broadway Bear, swings from an armatured rope with an obvious carabiner holding his harness to the rope.

Mae Rose in the Garden is sitting in an armatured swing hanging from an armatured tree.

Mimi’s Mannequins are just Mannequins. You can use them as dress maker’s dummies to learn about pattern draping, or you can add facial expression, costumes, and objects to tell a story.

To pose a doll, so that it stands up by itself, or to pose an armatured doll that needs to look natural, you have to understand “balance,” and “equilibrium.”

The human center of balance is in the middle of the chest, directly behind where the ribs join in the front. It is centered side-to-side and centered front-to-back.

A string hanging from the center of balance, with a weight on the end to hold it straight, will always be inside the base of support if the doll is balanced.

Here, I have made the torso semi-transparent so that you can see the line of balance.

The base for a doll is always the area defined by its support points.

For someone standing, that’s basically the feet and the area between them.

If the line of balance is inside the base, the pose is stable.

If the line of balance is outside the base, the doll will either be actually falling, or appear to be in motion.

A woman has smaller feet, holds them closer together, and may make them smaller still from front to back by wearing high heels. It isn’t easy staying balanced in high heels.

The blue polygon is the base. The red dot is the line of balance. The white dots are the stiletto heels and the black area is the sole of the shoes.

Now, let’s look at how this works: each of these poses moves the body weight around, yet because the balance line stays within the base, each pose is stable.

It is possible to imply movement with a static pose that is between a previous motion and the following motion.

When the body is balanced around the line of balance, the body seems to move along the line of balance. This is how the High Priestess and Spartacus are posed.

When the body is unbalanced around the line of balance, the body seems to be falling.

Notice that when the line of balance is moving, it moves along a curve that rises and falls with gravity.

The snapshot you take of expression, proportion, balance, motion, clothing, and scene determines what story your doll tells.