WIP: Well, bother!

This is the story, so far.

This morning, Miss R White

was sewn and stuffed and sealed

and had layers of paint sanded to silky smoothness.

Here she is on her sketch.

She has longer legs, 

because I like rag dolls to have long legs

and she has bent knees for sitting.

So far, so good, right?

I'm happy. She's happy,

and apart from her dislike of being

 wrapped in plastic bags while being painted,

we're getting along pretty well.

She looks sweet in her chosen colours 

of yellow and black.

I felt it was time I added 

some more colour to her face.

She's a black and white Dutch rabbit,

 and on such bunnies, 

the black is a deep and rich black

and the white is a clean, cold white.

Very  striking.

I started to add some of the detail to her face,

 with a light ring around her eye.

There's a lot more work needed on the face, 

but it's a start.  

Feeling confident,

I decided to go forward

and paint on striped stockings

Alice has striped stocking in

'Through the Looking-Glass'

so it seemed just right for Miss R White.

Here she is, all taped up for painting.

But I have to say, I'm less than happy with the result.

It looks really clumsy to me.

I can't decide if it's cute and idiosyncratic

or just messy and awkward.

It makes her look like a painted toy

(which is what she is)

as opposed to a shy little girl rabbit

(which is also what she is)

I can fix it.

I think my choices are to 

paint her legs black

and sand and buff,

and then they'll look like 

black stockings.

Either that, 

or I could sew some stockings 

for her to wear.

Dear, wonderful, gentle readers,

your input, your advice 

and your wisdom would be very helpful.

Do they look ok? Am I being hypercritical?

or are my instincts right and are the stripes

a bit of a disappointment?

Be brutal!