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been ahwile since iposted in here, been abit busy but anyways.
Im currently working on making paper mache dolls and so far i laready have a thunbnail skecth of what itkinda want it to look like , but I plan to make afinal skecth of it thats more refined and has color to it. After that I am coing to determine what types of shapes Ima going to need for the dolls bases before maching it.

materials
i have and plan on using
hot glue gun :used to attach the pipe cleaner wires so to give them extra strenth so they won't just go kapoot
news paper and math paper(alternating layers.
card board from twelve packs of soda. used for the entire body parts of the doll
wires from pipe cleaners(crafting kind): used to be able to postion it befor maching and make certian prts a bit moveabble
regulagr comp paper(used to attact the shiny sihide of the cradboard box of the soda box so the mache will stick better
rupper cement
poster card paper : used to cut out stencil shapes of the doll form


what i am wondering if any one can see any problems that i cant see and might run to before i start the whole process of the doll(note this doll is also my business artand craft logo)

Hmm... Well I don't know much about papier mache except you slather wet sticky paper together, but I can tell you a bit about structure.

Since papier mache is sometimes runny and quite wet, you'll want something that will not get soft and soggy when wet. So if you plan on using cardboard to hold your doll together while getting it wet with papier mache, you may want something thicker or not paper-based at all. It will get soggy and not hold you doll very sturdy.

An alternative might be something like a thin piece of tin foil or waxed paper, that won't get as wet, that could go around your basic structure to protect it from getting wet or maybe some plastic bits to replace some of your paper base-parts.

For the structure of the doll itself, instead of completely constructing the doll using all cardboard and pipecleaners, you could construct kind-of a "ball and stick" form. You can just form the doll using the papier mache over the basic doll structure so you'll have more flexibility on what the shapes' details could be.

EG: A ball for the head, connected to a ball for the chest with a pipe cleaner or something.

Hope that was useful in someway! If not... erm... ignore all that ^^ii

have you tried balloons taped to a skeleton?
edit: I'd make an internal skeleton for him out of some thicker gaged wire. That way he would hopefully stand up better after the paper dried.

Last year as an extra credit art project a group of kids (myself included) made a paper mache whale which was about two feet long. Our method was to use a bunch of wads of newspaper bound together. Awesome idea, as far as how much is available, but it makes the outside REALLY LUMPY. Not exactly what you're going for, I'm assuming?

Personally, I recommend using a mixture of newspaper, wire, and balloons. biggrin Just don't use wads of newspaper if you're not willing to triple check and see if there are no lumps where you don't want them. Also if you put a little pressure sometimes it caves in :/

Well Since I'm going for a human shape i jsut thought of combing some in expensive wooden dowels with the wire byr wrapping andaround them and hot gluing then for a tighter surface as for lumps i could always sand away until its realitivaly smooth enough. I would jsut need to make sure to have enough paprmache on it and for parts of the body that cant hand mache or would suffer to much form too much i plan to fill thos parts and a some limbs with sculpey clay.

If you want to use paper based materials, why not go for "Creative: PaperClay" biggrin It's very sturdy as well and works like clay, although thinking on it, it might be considered a papermache' type material. It's usually already made into it's "clay" form, so no need to mix anything up. Sands good and you can add on to it once it dries and sand it again. Veranuem's suggestion of Celluclay is a good suggestion as well.
For a core that you want to get rid of after it dries, you can use styrofoam that's carved into a smaller, slimmer, basic shape of the doll to make it hollow, just be sure to create a hole that you can scrap the foam out. For surfacing to make it smooth you can order some Mr. Surfacer (usually hard to get as it's almost always out of stock everywhere >_< but they come in variations of 500, 1000, and 1200), but if you're not wanting to deal with getting that, here's a "recipe" I found that's suppose to be from a translated a japanese doll making book:
You'll need: Liquitex Modeling Paste, Liquitex Gesso, and water
300cc modeling paste
50cc gesso
150cc water
mix together and add watercolor or acrylic paint to provide overall color. 5 coats recommended and then sand brush marks away with a fine sand paper. Also makes a very durable and ideal surface to paint on. A matte varnish or Mr. Super Clear (again hard to get) to give it a protective coating.