ADDING EYES TO DANNY
Question:   I have two Dannys I into which I want to put moving eyes. I have a few questions of you if you don’t mind sharing some of your trade secrets.of the head? Second, What size eyes do you use for these 30” figures and would you share your source for the eyes? Fourth question, when painting the heads do you have to prepare them in any way before painting? If this is too much trouble please let me know.  Ron
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From Mr. D:  1) I'm one of the few figuremakers who suspends the eyes from a block of wood mounted over the eyes (rather than resting the eyes on a shelf under the eye balls).  Either way is fine, but after 40+ years and thousands of eye installations, overhead is easy for me to do - no reason to change.  I do a "rough fit" with wooden support block (usually made of 3/4" white pine).  I then fit and mount the eyes to this block while it is still unmounted and handheld in position.  After both eyes are positioned and mounted onto the block of wood, I then use auto body filler on the ends of the wooden mounting block for a perfect fit to the inside contours of the head.  After the filler sets up, I "pop" the entire unit free and then use gap filling "super glue" to re-bond the mounting block permanently in place.

2) I use 26mm eyes on Danny, 3) purchased from Dollspart Supply http://www.dollspart.com/ The halves of the plastic eyes have a tendency to come apart when being drilled for the axle, so I first glue the halves together with "super glue" before drilling.

4) Preparing the head for paint (acrylic) is not that much different than painting most other types of surfaces.  It must be clean and dry.  I often buff with a very fine finish sandpaper before painting, but if the head is clean and dry, you can skip the sanding.  (I have a "Sand-O-Flex" which makes the sanding of a figure's head fast and easy.)