structural modifcation (revisited)

I tend to have this problem where after I get a new doll that I am absolutely in love with, I start finding flaws in the others for a bit. This is usually a pretty brief stage where I just can't see anything wrong with the newbie and and think they're absolutely perfect and end up being like a horrible parent who tells all their other kids to be like the 'perfect' one.

Well, somehow during this phase I ended up doing a wig-swap with Scileraen and Malesar. I just never seem to be able to make myself 100% happy with Scileraen, so this was probably a terrible idea.

But anyway, I ended up finding Scileraen lacking  by comparison, and it didn't help that he's always been not-quite-perfect for his character. The main thing that has stopped me from just finding a different head is that I chopped up his ears to mod on the spiky fin ears from the Vega Last Song set. And getting those pieces apart would be enough of a pain as it is without also worrying about how unsightly his ears are underneath that.

So in a moment of impulsive insanity, two nights ago I started going to town on Scileraen's face with the 60 grit sandpaper.

Here you can see the beginnings of said sanding. Only the left side has been started at this point.

Then I skipped ahead to an almost completed shot. I sanded down the cheeks and under the eyes some and over the eyes/near the nose.

I gave it a quick face up, trying to imitate the old one, and shoved it back on the body. I absolutely hated it and wished I hadn't touched it in the first place. (oddly enough, I don't get that feeling from the picture, but he always photographs better than he looks to me in real life. Looking at photos, I can never see what it is I'm not happy with).

So, I wiped his lips, having decided they were the problem, and filled in the little indent in his lower lip (which never particularly appealed to me as I felt it made his lips look a little too full and pillowy. I also took this opportunity to make him frown more.

I then let the epoxy cure overnight and when I woke up I just painted on some liquitex matte medium and then blushed the lips and glossed them.

I was still unhappy and prepared to just chuck the head off the balcony along with myself, but then I put it back on the body and gave him his wig and suddenly felt so much better about the whole thing.
Scileraen is supposed to be grouchy so the smiley lip corners never quite worked for me. (A lot of things didn't, obviously).

When I'm less fed up with this project I will go back in and do a bit of sanding and airbrushing to make sure the lips mesh with the face better (since one can still see where the mods end, because it was a lot harder to match tan with epoxy tinting.