minor update

I ended up cutting Iyrilaeth's hair after telling myself that I would just buy another of the wig if I hated myself for cutting it. But I don't, and it's perfect for him now! I've been meaning to get pictures but I've been distracted by other things and feeling mildly under the weather.

Also did a bit of face up practice. I think I may need to calm down on the reddish lines along the cheeks and across the nose. XD I think it's really cute but perhaps not appropriate for every character ever.

I should also give Iyrilaeth a proper face up (or at least touch up the one he has) since he looks almost like a blank head with eyebrows next to everyone else.

I hate face plates...

I decided today's project would be redoing Lyric's face up, and then I decided while I was at it I would redo Andael's since last time my attempts at airbrushing resulted in him looking rather sunburnt.

Lyric behaved for the most part. I had some minor difficulties but nothing I'm super concerned about.

Andael, however, is a Migidoll Noel and he uses the face plate system and is impossible to deal with. As you might recall, last time I attempted to redo his face i dropped his head on concrete and shattered one of his ears and chipped his nose. I was able to repair the ear and decided the small chip in the nose didn't bother me that much so I left it alone. Well, this time I dropped him again and chipped the area above his right eye.

I don't know how I'm supposed to hold a face plate when doing a face up. If anyone has any advice that would be great... I'm not super happy with his face up (which I went ahead and attempted anyway because I wasn't in the mood to mix up epoxy and fill another hole in his face (because he got one in his chin completely randomly. I never dropped him or injured his chin. It just was suddenly there when I was wiping his face one time)) but I'll leave it for now because I just don't have the patience to attempt it again.

Lyric looks a bit more angry than I'd intended, but then he has every right to be and I suppose it makes sense he'd express it a bit. He also looks very dead but that's also appropriate for his character.

The dark spot on Andael's eyebrow is where the chip is. I haven't finished the eyebrows yet because I didn't feel like mixing up paint and attempting to draw fine lines.

In other news, I got a free wig with a purchase on ebay recently. The plan was to cut it shorter to be proper hair for Iyrilaeth, because while I did really like the one he was using as a temporary, it just wasn't very in character.

Anyway, this wig is long and curly at the ends and Iyrilaeth is supposed to have about chin length hair, but I am finding that I actually rather like it on him as-is. I am not sure if that's just because I like the wig as-is or if I actually like it on him.

Ignore his ridiculous ensemble. I haven't finished making his clothes yet so in the mean time he's just wearing an assortment of stuff. His face up needs improving since it was just hastily thrown together after his mouth mods, but after the luck I've had today I'm going to leave it alone for a while.

I'm going to give it some time and see how I feel about the wig later. The color is perfect and if it was shorter the style would be perfect for the character. I'm just finding it hard to bring myself to destroy it.

buying and selling

I was going to try to wait to post some updates until there were exciting pictures to be had, but I've been a bit too busy or distracted to work on much the last few days.

I got a Soom Sphaler head kind of on impulse recently. I put up a thread on DoA asking people what mold might work to make a doll of my Sith Inquisitor from Star Wars: The Old Republic and that was one of the suggestions for molds with similar facial structure. The other suggestions seemed like they might work but would take more modding. So I checked the MP and found one that was reasonably priced and sort of jumped on it.

Sphaler was never one of those molds I stared at longingly and thought "I have to have it one day" but I think he will work well. The eyes aren't what I'd want for the character, but luckily he's a Miraluka so the eyes will really never be seen. One day when I have an excess of funds I think it would be neat to make more of my various RP characters from MMOs in doll form, but for now I'm just choosing my favorites.

I also decided to get a Dollzone Raymond head for Kael. I put it on a long layaway along with a couple pairs of shoes through Mint on Card since I needed the order to be over $100 and the head alone wouldn't cut it.

It's not perfect for him but then neither was my Soom Vega head, and I made that work for years. At least this time it will be a head I am choosing because I really like the look of it and not just choosing it because it's what I have lying around, which is what I have attempted the last couple times.  Hopefully this works out better, but if it doesn't I'm sure I can find something else to do with the head.

I seem to have skipped over the selling part of the thread title. Not much to say. Been trying to sell heads I don't need or parts that I don't plan to use. This originally started because I wanted to bid on an auction for a Cerisedolls Lyse (I can't remember if I mentioned this) but I didn't win. I did decide to keep things up for sale and continue to try to clear out what I don't need or what isn't working properly so I can either upgrade or save for something else.

Doppelganger

I was debating on who to work on next, because while it might make sense to just start in on working on things like Cailath's wig or his clothes next, I need breaks from my projects so I don't get burnt out on them.

I was considering what to do and contemplating various dolls I just don't spend enough time with when I glanced at Doppelganger. I've never given him a proper face up. I mean.. he had a great one when he arrived by someone much more talented than me, but it just wasn't right for his character and I sort of modified it to work with him.

----afsdlkjwrjkewljrlwekj. As I typed that sentence I realized I forgot his scar. Dangit... I'll have to add that later.

Anyway. I decided to redo him because... I don't know why. I just decided I should. And while I was at it I decided to smooth out his elf ear mods and blush them to match his body better.

I took care of the ears yesterday but then I just didn't feel up to doing a face up because I was exhausted so I put that off for today.

It's a lot like the old one but with less perfect eyebrows and eyeliner, BUT better eye shadow (because that was one of my additions to the old face up) and a cuter nose. (I've developed a bit of a thing for blushing noses a bit pinkish/red at the tip... I used to think this was such a ridiculous practice. What has happened to me?)

 I should have gotten a better shot of the ears without his hair in the way but oh well. As you can see they don't match perfectly. I used to be so good at mixing paints to match other colors but lately I've been having a lot of trouble. I'm not entirely displeased though since my ears are also more red than my face so it doesn't feel entirely absurd.

And here is his as-yet-scarless face. The next time you see him (so long as I'm not a lazy butt) that will be a thing that exists.

mind games with myself

Every time I work on a project, I sort of have a routine I go through. It goes something like this:

-reach a point where I think things are okay
-take pictures for reference
-realize there's a problem
-decide to ignore the problem because I just want to be done
-ignore the problem for a few hours/day/or longer
-decide I am just too unhappy to allow the problem to continue to exist
-finally break down and try to fix the problem

Usually this results in going back to step 1 and repeating this entire process multiple times.

Anyway, after some serious contemplating and some helpful comments I finally found my motivation to mod Cailath's head more. So I broke out the epoxy and worked on his chin, and then decided I might as well do the eyes while I was working on that.

Right now I am waiting for the epoxy to cure but I think this will work out better when it does! (hopefully. I'm often quite optimistic right after doing something and it's not until later that I realize where I went wrong)

And a few hours and some sanding later, we have face up results:

I gave him some facial scars cuz I imagine in his line of work he would have some. Also there were some spots where the blushing was coming out darker for no particular reason and I just didn't feel like starting over from scratch, so it seemed like a good idea to just add extra scars to cover them. lol

twins

I took a bunch of blank in-progress shots of Cailath's head during the modding process, but they're all kinda blurry and gross looking.

So here are some crummy face up shots:

I feel like he looks a lot more similar to Aura now, aside from the nose and chin. The cheek and jaw area is allowed to be different because Cailath is a rogue and a lot more active in different ways than Aura. So that's fine. I guess if I break down and mod his chin and nose more I might also change his eye shape a bit  But for now I am happier with him than I was.

humidity

It's been annoyingly humid the past few days. I love rain and all but I wish sealants weren't so sensitive to that sort of thing.

I did more mod work on my would-be Cailath head. I got his mouth and nose working a bit better. I think I'm going to do more work on the eyes though. I will either change the shape or just give them a more closed appearance like Aura's.

Also attempted to give Scileraen a new face up. I'm starting to doubt that he's the right fit for the character but I'm not sure who else he would work for.

And I also attempted to visit the hardware store in search of something I could attach to my plastic armature to make removable tails for Anna and Istthraen. No luck but I will come up with some other method. Maybe I could find some way to meld an appropriately sized bead with a screw...

I'm sure you're all quite sick of this by now

Even though I liked my last attempt better than the first (sort of), I still wasn't happy with Avelarion and since he's one of my favorite characters I decided I just could not ignore the issue and pretend things were okay. I just didn't enjoy looking at him and I kept trying to come up with reasons why but in the end it was actually the yellows.

His face was too yellow and it just kept making me think it looked unhealthy so this time I decided I was going to use mostly reds and pinks with a little bit of blue and yellow and do way less contour blushing.

Here is a picture of just the head outside before i got around to gloss and such. Mainly here because I couldn't get a decent detail shot indoors. I need to set up an area with good, controlled lighting.

 This time I am finally ACTUALLY happy with it instead of just trying to convince myself I am. I want to try to rig up some other way of attaching his crest, in fact, because I will not be able to remove it without ruining his face up if I just hot glue it on like I normally do.

Also at some point I really need to finish smoothing out his hands and airbrushing them to match him. And I need to move past prototype stage on his ears.

happy mistakes(?)

Right after my natural lighting shot of Avelarion's new face up last time, I managed to overdo it on the hot glue and ruin half of one his eyebrows. This forced me to wipe the head I wasn't sure I liked anyway and redo it.

Today after work I set out to fix his face and attempt to do something I'd be happier with this time.

I limited my colors to only four to try to avoid the muddying the face suffered from last time. Sadly that still happened somewhat thanks to the sealant, but overall I'm less displeased than before. I think more dramatic face ups just aren't my comfort zone.

my new dremel bit

A bit ago I found this buffing and finishing bit for a dremel and the picture with it showed someone smoothing out wood with it. I thought it might be handy for smoothing out mods I'd been working on and save the effort of sanding by hand.

Well, I tested it on resin and it actually sands the area down. I guess resin is less tough than wood so that makes some sense. What I did realize I could do with it was sand things down for modifications much more smoothly than with my normal dremel bits.

So let's backtrack a bit. After doing Deidara's mods I decided I wanted to update Sasori as well, and a bit ago I took a picture into photoshop to see what I'd have to do to make it work okay. It seemed like potentially more trouble than the head was worth so I only got as far as marking the areas I'd want to sand down and then set the head aside.

But with the new dremel bit in hand, I figured the worst case scenario was that I destroyed a head I was considering just ditching anyway, so I might as well test this on it and see if I couldn't attempt to pursue the mods I'd had in mind.

After some sanding, his cheeks are definitely significantly slimmer than before. It is now probably safe to start on additive mods like making the eyes smaller.

After that I decided to grab my Leon Kennedy Minimee who has been sitting around collecting dust. In person he just felt far too flat. And that would be fine for certain types of characters who are supposed to be more stylized (such as Sasori and Deidara here) but the features he did have just didn't mesh with that flatness.

So I grabbed him and decided to go in and define his brow and cheeks more.

I didn't even bother to wipe his face first, as you can see. I figured I could use the places I'd attempted to blush in structure as guidelines for actually carving it in. I am relatively pleased with the results so far.

BONUS! Natural lighting shot of Avelarion's face up. His head feathers came off when I tried to sit him down on the chair. This resulted in some mild face up chipping but that part won't be visible once I put it back on anyway so not the end of the world.