temporary fixes

I always kind of marvel at the number of things I seem to have neglected to mention on here. A lot of things from last year, really. I was not in the best place emotionally and sometimes I just didn't feel like talking about stuff as it happened I guess.

But I'm feeling chatty again so have some information on something I neglected to talk about before.

Sometime last year (I cannot for the life of me remember exactly when) I acquired a Blossom Doll Molly head in a trade (at least I'm fairly certain it was a trade? I could be mis-remembering) and I briefly tried to put it on my white skin Impldoll body but I didn't like the proportions so much and I also had already made clothes for that body that I didn't feel suited the head. So I put the original head back on that body (which is also too large for it) and Molly ended up in the head cabinet.

I spent most of the pursuing months on and off looking for a cheap body for the head. I strongly considered one from Mirodoll because they're just so darned affordable, but ultimately I decided the amount of work I'd have to put into it to make it work the way I wanted it to would not be worth it.

Then April Story had their closing sale and I was very very tempted because I felt like their bodies were far more elegant and well sculpted and the price was really good. But ultimately I decided to be financially responsible and I passed on it.

Fast forward to about a month ago. I had enough spare money to afford something relatively inexpensive (as I had not yet gathered the motivation to start selling things) so I put up a WTB thread and set a maximum I was willing to pay and within a day three people had gotten back to me. One of the three had an April Story body up for offer and I jumped on that offer.

Because of the seller's class schedule they were not able to ship until last week, and yesterday the body arrived.

Sadly, it is still too small for the head but it will do for now. Initially it really bothered me but it doesn't so much now.

I couldn't find a wig I liked on the head until I tried on Aura's old fiber wig. I was about to get set up the boiling water to make it lay flat again (because I'd boiled the back to make it capable of being in a high ponytail) but then I got this idea to try to style it.

I initially wanted some sort of bun, but I was having a great deal of difficulty getting it to stay in place as the hair was just a little bit too short to wrap around itself enough.

So I decided to try a braid. But the high braid look wasn't working quite as well as it did in my head, so I ended up wrapping the braid into a sort of bun type deal and holding it in place with toothpicks. But then she had hair still hanging down in the back (cuz that was part of how Aura's hair was styled) and too much visible wig cap, so I was messing with ways to pull the rest of the hair back and ended up doing yet another braid along the base of her neck. It looked fairly ridiculous so I looped it around and pinned it onto the braid bun and it still looks fairly ridiculous but oh well. It'll do for now!

Have some pictures.

 I could not get the side shot to come out clearly for some reason.

And here she is from the front. There are an absurd amount of flyaways because the wig was boiled to lay in a very specific position. At some point I may boil it again in its current position to calm that down, but for now it doesn't bother me much.

 My other temporary fix was to give little Sollux one of Id's spare shirts that he never uses.

This is a truly horrendous picture but for some reason he would not cooperate. The shirt is ridiculously out of character for him but at least he's not half naked like he was before. I need to make so many clothes and I'm having such a hard time motivating myself to sew. I suppose I could do something crazy like buy clothes but finding the right sorts of things is so hard...

baby Sollux gets a body

I drew this picture a while back of Sollux and Eridan (two characters from Homestuck, for those who are wondering) when they were little, and my best friend said we should get doll versions of them as little kids. So I set out to find good molds for them and we both chose ones we liked.

And then we stopped RPing homestuck and sort of stopped having this burning need to dollify them, but not before I acquired the head I wanted for Sollux. For the past ... almost year(?) it has sat in the head cabinet without a body because I needed to get one in grey skin and it just didn't feel like a priority anymore but I figured one day I would come back to it.

Well that day came last week. Someone was selling a grey Fallindoll Rabi on Ebay and I decided to get it to see if I could hybrid it with my Soom Lami head.

Yesterday, the body arrived and the rabbit head it came with was actually surprisingly adorable so I might hold onto it for something else. The neck was a lot thicker than the little Soom guys' necks are, so I had to widen the opening with wood carving tools. It fits pretty well now. Not perfect but not bad.

Then I set about airbrushing the head grey. It took like 10 coats or something to cover up all the pink, but I think it matches the body well now. I let the paint dry overnight so that it wouldn't impede face up attempts. It still kind of did because it dried thicker or more splotchy in some spots so I wasn't working with a very even surface, but I didn't feel like it needed too much detail (and if I change my mind later I can go back and try to fix it with acrylic paints or something).

The body is a little more shiny than I am used to, but it poses really well and seems quite sturdy. Also, he has little rabbit hands and feet, but I can live with that. Might one day replace them with hands from a company that actually does grey skin but that's not a huge priority and would probably cost me almost as much as the whole body did. XD This was kind of an exercise in extreme frugality.

But without further ado, here he is. His eyes aren't the right color in real life but I photoshopped them to look the way they're supposed to eventually. I was potentially going to use a different wig for him, but this was an old one that one of my unoa boys used and I just ended up trimming it to the right length.

He will also need proper clothes but he dresses pretty simply so I don't see that being a huge issue. Just need a black t-shirt and some dark grey pants.