Wax, however, is single-minded in its purpose as it is not a finished medium. Wax creates the finished sculpture, but it is designed to be cast. Cast in plastic, cast in stone plaster, cast in porcelain, cast in metal, but cast! While I have wax sculptures that I did years ago and they are still flawless - and I could pick them up and rework them as if they were made yesterday - they are still ultimately a temporary piece. One harsh fall to the floor or being inadvertently left in the sun or near another heat source, even a firm whack, and the sculpture is lost.

Now for us doll people wax can give us a new angle on the creation of a porcelain doll, or better yet a ball joint doll. With your perfect wax piece you can make a silicone mold and cast as many dolls as you'd like (at least until the mold wears out) in resin plastic. This comes in so many forms the choices are almost endless: rubbery resin, stone-filled resin, simple white resin, colored translucent flesh-colored resin, slightly flexible resin, glow-in-the-dark... The list goes on.

The really cool part is you can do all of this at home in your own workshop once you have the training, and that training is nowhere near as difficult as you may think.