picture spam

Just a wee bit of spammage of Iyrilaeth. Not very good pictures but I modded his wig a bit more last night. Straightened some parts that I felt were curling in too much. In all the red with his hair like this, I feel like he's trying to be Arthur from Disney's Sword in the Stone.

On my next off day I need to actually try to get decent pics of him not just sitting indoors under fluorescent lighting. The first picture I managed to color balance closer to his actual appearance, but I failed at doing it again for the second one despite the lighting being the same.

arrivals!

I believe this is my first box opening since starting this blog. Others can be found in the archives but they were re-posted from LJ.

 Yesterday while I was at work, the mail tried to deliver my Nabarro Cyril. (Which I have been waiting on forever. I stalked the sculptor for months in eager anticipation of his release.) And just so we're clear, by stalked I mean I visited their blog regularly.

Anyway, I woke up early this morning so I could make it to the post office before work. Here is the box-ception I was greeted with upon my return home.

This was the wee box within a box. I was, for some reason, under the impression that this head would be larger than normal and I might have to find some ungodly huge body for it. This box immediately put my mind at ease, as anything that could fit inside of it could not possibly require a larger than average body.

Here we have the first glimpse of his head.

And the eyes that were sent with it. Wasn't expecting free eyes, but that's neat! These won't work for what I have planned for the head, but I'm sure someone else can put them to use at some point.

And then I yanked out the head by the plastic bag. Thankfully, fuzzies did not go flying everywhere. I love his profile.

And here is the head, finally free of packaging. For now, he has absconded with Batu's body. The fit is good and I actually really like how the head sits on the neck, but the body is quite a bit too muscular for how I imagine Iyrilaeth, so someday we'll be finding an alternative. For now, this will have to do. Will have to attempt face ups after work.

EDIT:

 

 Here are some pics after a hastily applied face up to test out this mold's compatibility with Iyrilaeth's character. 

And here is a mock up of what I am potentially planning to do with the corners of the mouth:

The little dimply doodads at the sides have grown on me since seeing them in person but they don't really fit the character so if I do decide that this will work for Iyrilaeth, some modding will most likely be done.

And finally, a shot of Iyrilaeth modeling a wig I modified. Because I kinda sorta want him to have a fiber wig instead of a fur one. But I'm not sure this is quite his style even if I do like it.

mod work

A long time ago, there was a failed attempt to find an alternative to getting two Nabarro Hars to play the parts of Auralion and Cailath, my Rogue and Priest twins from WoW. Given that the head was limited to 50 and finding one, let alone two, was proving to be rather impossible, I got this brilliant idea to acquire two Iplehouse Jessica heads as a substitute.

This was entirely based on one person's awesome pictures of their Iplehouse Jessica boy. And the fact that the nose reminded me of the kinds of noses Nabarro gives their sculpts.

Sadly, in person, these heads just didn't work out that well. I ended up modding one and turning it into my Aleksandr (who has been posted about here before). The other was tied up in a potential trade for months (because I originally intended to sell the spare) but then that fell through and I decided I would just turn the spare into Layne since I waffled on having the first one be him anyway and he and Alek are supposed to look a lot alike.

A few hours later I had something I was relatively pleased with. I started with the same mod I did on Alek, which was reducing the cheeks around the sides of the mouth to reduce the smirky look. ANd then I took in the rest of the cheeks more to define the cheekbones better and I altered the brow bones some and added an indent in the middle to make it appear more frowny. Could've just done that with blushing but I was just kinda in the zone and not thinking.

So anyway.. I decided to go ahead and jump into face ups at this point because I was fairly happy with it.

The result: zombie Orkas. He just didn't want to wear any of the wigs that were more appropriate for Layne and I don't have the right hair for him lying around. I happened to put on Orkas' wig and I felt like it worked the best out of anything I'd tried.

I'll probably keep him as Orkas and just add the scar and stuff. And make him look less like a zombie later. I was never 100% happy with Orkas, because I mainly got the first one because the head was cheap and I really wanted an Orkas. And I had no idea what I was doing at the time.

Right now, since Orkas' old head was Elfdoll Homme skin on a light tan Domuya body, his current incarnation is borrowing the spare spare. Which is an ancient Customhouse body that I modded a bunch. This will have to do until I can afford something that matches.

Out of practice

When one doesn't do face ups in a few months, they get a bit out of practice and forget how to do simple things. When I'm doing them every other day (or on something like a regular basis) there are things that I remember to do or not to do.

As I mentioned in the last entry, I've begun to get back on a doll kick again. (in no small part because I have an incoming head that I have been looking forward to for months). So I've been spending time with the various dudes and ladydudes, mostly being more pleased with them than I remember being when last I was doing a lot of doll stuff.

The major exceptions to this have been Theorin and Defliel. Theorin's solution probably includes eye mods, but I'm not sure how to do additive mods on a doll like him, given the translucency of his skin. Defliel's issue was the face up I gave him months ago that I never was entirely sure I liked. After a while of trying to get used to it and even hanging out with him on a more frequent basis, I finally just let him sit on the shelf and tried to forget him for a while, hoping when I came back to him I'd be okay with it.

That was not the case, so today I wiped his face and proceeded to go about giving him a new one. Since Testor's Dullcote hates winter, I busted out the handy dandy airbrush (my sealant method of choice anyway) and decided it was about time I make his ears match his skin tone anyway. I've been lazy about sanding them smooth so that they mesh better with his head, but since they're mostly covered by hair it's not a big deal. Now, at a glance, they look like they match.

I tried about three or four times (I forget) to do his face up with my airbrush. I got better with each try, but I really need to just assault a head I'm not in any hurry to get done with this method so I can figure out how to do it right. I can get the left side of the face right almost every time, but for some reason I just cannot tell where I'm aiming the thing when I do the right side and this results in all kinds of weirdness.

So I finally gave up on that and decided to just go the pastels and acrylic paints route. This is where being out of practice comes in. I was just having at his head with the colors. This is something that often looks decent to my eye without eyes or a wig on the head, but the minute those things are present I'm like "OH GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE?!"

I actually felt like the first attempt wasn't too bad, even with the eyes and wig, but it just was not Defliel at all. I tried leaving it for about thirty minutes, and sometimes when I looked at him I liked it. Other times I hated it. In the end, hating it won out and I wiped it (mostly) off. I was fairly pleased with the lips and eyebrows, so I left those.

I re-did the blushing with subtler colors and was much happier with it. Until the wig and eyes happened. Again.

Here are two shots of the new face up. They helped me realize the eyebrows weren't quite even so I have fixed that since. But didn't bother to take after pics.(It also is painfully obvious that his body has not aged anywhere near as well as his head. Not that the two were a perfect match to begin with but it wasn't quite that bad.)

Of course, I say that and then feel compelled to take more pictures...

So here is another shot of Defliel. I actually think I like this shot the best. I also feel like my major problem with this face up is that he looks too pretty. I mean, he's supposed to be pretty. He's Illaiea's brother and half the cast has a crush on her.

Things I'm happy about: while Def looks like he walked out of a Japanese 3d animated movie, he also looks less depressed and miserable than before. Unlike Lyric, Defliel is not constantly in a state of feeling tormented and uncomfortable. I feel like he can pull off a reasonable degree of confidence now and this pleases me.

new clothes

Haven't done a whole lot with doll stuff, but I've had a bit of a resurgence of inspiration since ordering my Cyril head. (The one that, for those who have seen my wishlist, I have been eagerly anticipating for a while).

So while I transition from eagerly anticipating his release to eagerly awaiting his arrival, I am gearing myself up for getting back into things at least enough to give my potential Iyrilaeth a face up and such.

Anyway, for the most part I had been ignoring the doll world since going back to work, but I have tried to keep up with my sales threads a bit better than I usually do when I drop off the face of DoA for months at a time, and I ended up trading a head I was selling for some custom made clothes.

My trade partner was super stellar and made me a shirt, two jackets, and a vest in trade for one head. I feel like I got an unfairly good deal, but I'm super pleased so I'm not complaining.

The aforementioned shirt is for if Selly ever decides to get a Marshall Lee doll, but the coats and vest were for two of my hardest to clothe dolls, Statik and Avignon.

Here is Statik in his coat and vest. It has been forever since I've even glanced in the direction of my camera, so I'm rusty. I wish my sketchbook didn't have that weird block o' text on the back of it, throwing off its capability to double as a tasteful backdrop.

And here is Avignon, finally wearing something she would actually wear (not that I didn't like the white dress). Now she just needs some pants and shoes.