Little Alice

Originally I went with the full song. But, tbh, waiting for the full animation to play out got a bit tiresome. And, as much as a love the song, I was sick to death of hearing it after having to let it play for it’s entirety just to check that head movement (and eyes lighting up) happened at the right time (it didn’t for the first twenty or so attempts!)

So I made this shortened version. Press the button and the doll slowly comes to life.

I created a method of recording “cue points” in the song by pressing the button – so when it is initially released, a timer starts running in the microcontroller. Each time the button is pressed (while in “record mode”) it stores the current time (in milliseconds since the song was started) in eeprom memory so that on future presses, it knows when to move the doll’s head.

A similar method was used to determine when the eyes should light up, at the end of the “performance”.

I kept the “long version” programmed into the microcontroller – there was something really creepy about watching the doll turn and look towards Alice, seemingly in response to the lyrics in the song.

So I changed the firmware so that a “short press” on the do not press button makes it play the “short version” and a “long press” plays the full-length version.

I didn’t have time to really do to town on the base (I was aiming to complete the entire diorama as part of the Great Grimoire painting contest) so printed out some wood panel effects using photo paper on an inkjet printer and glued them onto the sides. A bit of touching up on some of the extreme highlights and it was time to call her done!

Give the song I’d chosen and original character being Alice from Alice in Wonderland, my wife came up with the name “little Alice” for the doll – and it only seemed appropriate that I painted the famous eye make-up on the doll.

[updated June 2021]

I entered the Great Grimoire painting competition….. and won!

The prize was originally for Patreon goods and Amazon gift cards, but after a few days, the organiser asked me if I’d be happy with a PayPal donation instead.

It seemed rude to say no. And given I already had about £80 in PayPal credit, it only took a few pounds more to be able to spend my winnings on yet more hobby stuff!