finally

I finished off my 6 month layaway back in September and then waited another two months for Dollzone to finally complete my order. But now, at long last, I have my DZ Raymond head that I ordered to replace my previous Kael.

And adhflijwrkewjrkwejifdsujfiosdjwerjakjdskj I love it so much. I think the blank head looks way too young to be Kael but it's fantastic and I am so smitten and I have not felt this way in so long. It's so cold out I'm not sure how well face ups will work out but perhaps I'll attempt to give that a go later. Or just wait and see if we get a random warm day. It is Texas. It will likely happen. And I can live with him blank. His face has wonderful structure.

I really didn't expect to be excited. I've been on sort of a semi hiatus from actively doing anything with my dolls for a while now and I thought it would be such bad timing on this head arriving. I thought I'd look at it and think "well this is nice" and then put it on the body and forget about it for a while. But noooo he is so fantastic.

His poor hair is a mess after spending 8 months in a box. I'm going to have to try to figure out how to fix that because this will not do. For now I'll let it slide and he can be disheveled and blank and sit on my desk next to me and watch me play WoD (or wait in the queue to). But we'll get this wig issue sorted and spend some time giving him a proper face and he will be perfect and wonderful!

I'd take pictures but he's such a mess it wouldn't do him justice. Maybe later.

Arrivals!

My package I mentioned before finally arrived! So now I can talk about what it is without worrying about inflicting further bad luck on its arrival!

I traded with someone on DoA for an Impldoll Charles. I was primarily interested in the body for my L-bi head but after seeing the Charles head in person I may end up doing something with it after all.

The body is so small though.! I was not expecting it to be quite so slim. I'd read that Impldoll's MSD bodies were slender but it's hard to tell from pictures.

I made him a wig out of a spare fur swatch I had lying around since baby Sollux stole the black fur wig I was using for one of my Unoa boys and the other two wigs were either not as functional as I remembered or too unruly from spending time in the wig box.

This is an extremely horrendous picture that exists primarily to show that he has a wig and a body now. And a random assortment of clothes I had in the right(ish) size.

The wig is extremely fluffy, which I'm not sure about. I like the color though! I haven't really decided for sure what to do with him. I'd intended to make him my new Nazoe after I sold the head I was using for the previous one but then I thought he made a cute blonde and I'm sort of tempted to make him into a younger version of Auralion.

Will give it more time before I do anything crazy. I also need to redo his face up (because aside from the eyebrows it's still the way it came to me from Yahoo!Japan yeeeaaaars ago) and blush it to match the body.

The other arrival was some appropriately sized purple eyes for Orkas. I would like to eventually get some with smaller irises but these work for now. Unfortunately(?) I like this head much better with these eyes.

My camera was being a jerk so it didn't want to pick up the color of the eyes. I had to adjust them in photoshop so that they didn't just look black/grey.

I went through a phase a couple days ago where I was severely tempted to use this head for Atlas , which would have forced me to go off in search of a new Orkas. Not something I'm eager to do because this has been my ideal Orkas head for a loong time now. Previous Orkas was modded to look more similar to this head so I'd really just be back at square one if this didn't work out.

head comparison and face up

EDIT: I may have gone ahead and gotten eyes in the right size anyway as well as a new wig. The current one is a little too coarse to sit the way I want it to and hopefully this new one will be closer to the right color. I do like redhead Orkas but he's supposed to be a little more strawberry blonde.

We are now fully committed to operation "attempting to recoup your losses is futile."

So here is the modded reminisce Vivien head (left) next to the default open eyed one (right). I don't have anything even remotely close to the right color in the right size for this head so I'm having a hard time deciding what I think.

It has helped me decide what to change if I continue working on the modded head instead of using this one.

The larger eyes make the head look larger as a whole, so now I"m not entirely sure if it works okay on the body I was using.

I am debating on whether or not to buy eyes in the right size first or work more on the modded head to see if I can't make myself definitively happy with it. If I don't keep the open eyed head then the eyes will not really be useful for anything else, so I guess it can't hurt to work more on the modded head first.

I need to close the eyes a little bit more at the top to give the impression of glaring and the right eye needs a little carved out on the lower lid in the outer corner area. This time I will also likely blush it to match the body.

packages

Two packages were supposed to arrive yesterday. Both of them were marked undeliverable as addressed, so this morning I went down to the post office so I would arrive the minute they opened. I wanted to try to intercept my packages before they were returned to their senders.

One package I did manage to get. My Elfdoll Vivien open eyed head arrived. The other is... somewhere. I don't know where. The post office didn't know where. They said they'd try to get my carrier to find it and bring it to me today but they didn't show up until really late in the day and I missed them so the package may or may not be in the apartment office. I guess we'll see tomorrow morning.

But about the head.

Wow, the eyes are so much bigger than what I did with my eye opening job. I guess I just wasn't getting a sense of scale from pictures and made them way too small? But now I'm used to them that size and they feel enormous at their regular size. Tomorrow maybe I can give the new head a face up to see if I prefer it or not.

I'm trying to talk myself out of being tempted to keep both. It would be weird to have two completely unrelated characters with the same mold, so I'd have to do something like mod the head I opened the eyes on to be sleepy again or something to justify keeping both and then I probably wouldn't alternate them like I should so it would defeat the purpose. I should just sell whichever one I decide I'm not going to use. Just a matter of convincing myself to actually do it. XD

Right now I'm exhausted from being out and about all day and waking up early to hunt down packages.

I'm afraid of talking about my other package until it arrives. I keep worrying I'll somehow jinx it despite the fact that its arrival has already been jinxed.

eye mods: Id

I was thinking last time I took photos of him, that I needed to bring Id's eyes in a bit because I'd opened them a bit too much for eyes to sit properly in them.

But I kind of put this off since it didn't seem like a very fun project and doing face ups on heads that small is scary.

Then yesterday I was ... doing something. I completely forget what. And I saw a picture of one of the little 1/6 guys on the Crobidoll website and he had these little teeth and I thought they were adorable and I decided that I wanted to not only bring in Id's eyes but also mod his mouth open a bit so he could have cute teeth too. XD

So I got out the epoxy and made his eyes a bit smaller. And, as always, I overestimated how much I'd need and mixed up too much, so I also gave him little elf ears while I was at it.

None of the pre-faceup pics turned out okay because it was night time and I forgot to turn the brightness back up on my camera. But here is one after the face up so you can see his ears. I should have sanded them more but I was impatient to see if his eye mods would be obvious once he had a face up so I just went for it before sanding more.

And here he is from the front. The eyes aren't even, which is something I also was planning tow ork on before giving him a face up, but again... wanted to be sure I was on the right track before devoting more time to it. But everything seems to blend in pretty much seamlessly around the eyes so I'm very happy about that and will go back in and work on evening them out when I'm feeling less lazy.

The worst part was doing the teeth, honestly. I'm terrible with using brushes on face ups as it is, but I'm even worse when I'm wearing glasses (and I can't wear my contacts for at least a few more days..) My eyes just have no idea how to make sense of something that precise when I'm wearing glasses. I'm sure with enough practice I'd get it down but it's very frustrating since I'm not used to it.

I can live with the asymmetry for now though. It's less obvious in person I think.

And some bonus shots of Shino after having his collar brushed so it looks less matted. He's sort of currently my favorite and has been sitting at my computer desk for the past week or so.

And now for some completely un-helpful photos!

As promised, I was productive today. And as promised, I worked on coat making. Weird, considering I never stick to what I say I'm going to do. Or, almost never..

But today I did what I said I'd do.

I have no in progress pics of the construction because it actually started at around 3am before I'd gone to sleep yet. I was pretty excited about working on this project and wasn't having much luck relaxing for sleep because I kept planning out how I wanted it to work in my head.

Late night/early morning brain got the better of me and I didn't take drape into account when selecting my fabric, so I ended up with something a little more thin and floppy than I wanted. The collar is pretty much what I had in mind though.

I didn't have any spare black fur but I did have this jacket I bought ages ago on DoA. I was really new and had no idea what I was doing and bought it based on the description. The thread didn't have a photo and for some reason it never occurred to me that I could ask for one. So I got it and immediately realized I had made a huge mistake and would never ever use it and it has sat in a drawer ever since.

But it finally came in handy and I cut it up for the collar fur on this jacket/coat/thing.

Here are two pictures that completely fail to capture any detail. Pretty much just "Shino's face" and "fuzzy collar". Black on black may have been a poor choice in retrospect but again.. me at 3am. Not the best critical thinking skills.

My planning also didn't get to the point of planning out the rest of the ensemble. In my head just putting the coat over what he was already wearing (a black button up shirt and some black cargo pants tucked into boots) seemed like a fine idea. In practice, this isn't quite as stylish a combo as I had hoped. In part because the coat looks kind of like a fur collared bathrobe.

I was much more displeased with this whole ordeal earlier in the day when I was redirecting dissatisfaction with other areas of my life onto this project. However, I went ahead and dealt with the issue after many hours of resisting doing what I knew had to be done, and I feel a lot better now.

new wig for Avignon

I had been thinking about getting Avignon a new wig and really the only thing stopping me was my inability to find the right color. But after a zillion years of browsing the marketplace on DoA, I managed to find a wig in the right color!

I thought it was going to be too big but it's actually exactly the right size for her tiny Souldoll noggin! No need to mod and potentially destroy it! Yay!

It's so fluffy XD It took me a while to even begin to make it manageable. It was just going everywhere and I had no idea what I was doing, but eventually I googled something to do with floofy hair and managed to figure out something.

I got new eyes for him because I was hoping to replace the really really bright ones he has now but the dome is too low and they didn't fit right. Oh well. They're nice eyes so I'm sure someone else will use them.

I slightly changed where I part Orkas' hair. For some reason I am more happy with him this way. I have no idea why it made any difference at all but it did...

Still on the fence about that lower lip but I'm going to give it more time before I make any decisions about it. In person it's stopped bothering me as much but in photos it feels very large.

I am not working on Sunday and I want to attempt to make Shino and Alek some jackets then. Or at the very least make SOMEONE some clothes. This is a thing I need to do. The number of people in need of clothes is decreasing but one day that number is going to hit zero. Only new arrivals will be clothes-less. That is the goal!

EDIT:  After an  un-successful attempt at giving Ezsphrein a new face up yesterday, I sort of got it in my head that my Latidoll Chaim (who has been my Ezsphrein for years now. I think longer than anyone else) looks too young for the character I want him to be. I've kind of always resisted replacing him because of how much trouble I went to to get Chaim, but the more I thought about it the more I really didn't think he fit the role.

So I thought for fun I'd just throw this spare Souldoll Chiron head I have on the body I had Chaim on. The Chiron head was airbrushed grey to go with my Impldoll Triton body but I wiped it so I could take pictures for a potential trade on DoA and then my trade partner ended up being interested in a different head which kind of worked out since once I had Chiron all cleaned up I was reminded of why I liked the sculpt to begin with.

So I tried the head on the body and tried on the official Ezsphrein wig and I immediately liked the combination so I went to go give the head a face up. It's pretty messy in places but I'm happy with it overall.

Fun story, the whole reason I 'updgraded' Defliel from a Customhouse Chamomile into a Souldoll Killian was because his head was too big compared to Ezsphrein's. This started a sort of domino effect where over the course of a few years I ended up replacing pretty much all of my heads so that everyone was at least reasonably in the same size range and didn't look too terribly weird together.

So I guess it's sort of come full circle now.

I was initially considering attempting to sell my Chaim head but the more I think about it, the more I think I will just hold onto it and one day when I am overflowing with funds I will get him a body along with my Customhouse Chamomile head (which I have held onto for ages because it was my first SD) and they can sit around and be old school together and sit on the porch and tell these young'uns how hard it was for them in the good old days. Wearing poorly made sock clothing. Having smudgy face ups sealed with gloss sealer because I didn't know there were different types. All that good stuff.

eyelids

Exciting title is exciting.

I kid, of course.

I'm so tired today I can't seem to form a coherent thought, much less string two together without stumbling over my words and second guessing what I just said.

But I managed to make myself go ahead and try to clean up Cailath's eyelids some. After which I spent a few minutes attempting to brainstorm ways to salvage his face up before I decided that it just wasn't a good idea and it was highly unlikely that it would blend well at all. So I went ahead and wiped him and re-did his face.

And then I attempted to get some photos of him an d everything was so bright and somehow his eyes still look black and I don't even know. XD I wasn't sure about the new face up at first but after about five minutes it really grew on me. I let the sealant dry longer this time so I didn't have as many weird spots and wasn't forced to give him an excess of facial scars (but I did still add in a couple).

Cailath's new wig

I had this whole list of things I wanted to work on today and I ended up doing silly grown up stuff like cleaning instead.

But I did manage to find time to make Cailath a more character-appropriate wig. I might go in and work on it a bit more tomorrow because it's not quite as long in the front as I wanted. It's also a little more layered and fluffy but I just have too much fun with that...

I tried to get pictures of him by himself but he didn't want to cooperate until I shoved Aura in the picture with him, and then he only cooperated marginally better.

He does not photograph as well as I feel like he should. Obviously he has a lot to compete with but I quite like him irl and I don't feel like he looks as good in photos. But at least you can sort of get an idea of what his wig looks like now.

Tomorrow I hope to actually get around to properly finishing his eyelids (which right now are hastily carved in and painted over because I didn't feel up to redoing his face up at the time) but I will probably get distracted by some other project instead because that's kind of what I do.

Unrelated, but his hair looks more like 'cuddly anime protagonist' than 'assassin' but I guess that doesn't really matter since his hair (and the rest of his face) are covered when he's doing that sort of thing. If I ever get hyper ambitious I'll actually make him something resembling his hood and mask dealy. For now I will probably just focus on making him something passable and also modding his ears similar to Aura's.

I should also consider doing some body switches or dyeing his. Or possibly not using a color that doesn't match next time I airbrush his head to make his mods less obvious. But I don't imagine him being paler than Aura so I'll probably just stick with airbrushing that way and do something about the body. 

Relocating Shino's eyebrows

I was just about to go ahead and wipe Shinozaki because his face up just wasn't working for me. In fact, I was so frustrated I was starting to look around for potential replacements. I haven't liked the last three or so face ups that I've given him and in the past year I've barely been able to look at him because he just wasn't making me happy at all.

Before doing something completely crazy, I decided to redo his face and possibly mod him further if that didn't work (because I wasn't really 100% happy with the mods I did to him originally but I had dumb plans for the head based on one person's owner pics. I would say I need to stop doing that but Shino was a nice happy accident.)

Anyway. I decided to try relocating his eyebrows further down before doing anything else because I was relatively happy with the rest of the face up. So I did that and made them look a little more angry and suddenly I was so much happier with him!!

I also tried a different wig on him. He has three different fiber wigs (that's two more than anyone else) and what do I do? I put him in a spare fur wig I made. It was too short but I kind of liked the look so at first I was going to just make him a whole new one out of yarn the way I did Auralion's, but then I told myself that that was a silly idea since Cailath is still sitting around in a temp wig and should be next up for a proper custom one. So I just gave Shino some small yarn extensions.

Perhaps once Cailath gets a proper wig I'll go ahead and make Shino one. I do love crazy hair that sticks out every which way. Tomorrow I should work on Cailath's. And also finish his eyelids so they look proper. Which might mean redoing his face up. We'll see.

I also kind of want to work on a few clothing projects. Iyrilaeth still needs something resembling a proper outfit. And at some point I do want to give Shinozaki and Alek some sort of fancier clothes. A couple reasonably stylish jackets might do the trick since I am not unhappy with what they wear. I just find it a little too dull. So that's my potential list of projects to choose from tomorrow.

wig fixing and a picture of Orkas

I finally managed to get Elaria's wig into a tolerable state of existence. No photos yet because it's still drying after the boiling water treatment I gave it. I managed to pour boiling water straight onto my hand multiple times and give them lesser burns a few other times. And one could definitely make the argument that it wasn't worth it since I will likely replace this wig anyway since I don't hate it now but I don't love it either.

It's possible once it dries I'll like it better. I guess we'll see.

In other news, I've become very attached to my Vivien head/potential Orkas. I'm just not sure it's right for him.. but I really really want it to be. I'm going to try getting the right eyes (purple without the really bright centers) and see if that helps. If not, I will probably attempt a different wig possible. And if all else fails I will attempt to make the actual open eyed version of the head work.

It's also possible he just looks too healthy for Orkas. Between the homme skin and the more rounded features, he's just not capturing crazed telepath as well as I want him to. His eyes are uneven so maybe when/if I get around to fixing that I'll redo his face up with more blues and blush in the hollows of his cheeks more and see if that helps. Possibly increase the bags under his eyes too. Or something. I really don't know.

Could just be that since his last face was so intensely frowny, anything will seem pleasant by comparison. I can't really put my finger on what I didn't like about his previous head. I just have difficulties with making Iplehouse dolls work in person. Alek is probably the only exception to that. Though I do miss my Akando from time to time...

It might also be the lower lip... bit more full than I imagine Orkas' would be. But for some reason I'm terrified of modding the head further? Even though I already did crazy things to open the eyes??? I'm not actually sure what is stopping me. I'm generally not afraid of modding (Cailath's head was limited to 10 I think and I modded it beyond recognition because I'm a bad person...) but for some reason with a head I've wanted for so long, it just feels like I shouldn't. That whole obligation to make it work bit I guess. I don't know.

attempted photoshoot

I've been hanging out in the tumblr bjd community more because I tend to be very timid about posting on DoA. I'm still very timid about posting on tumblr... but anyway. I saw a few people doing this "how has your photography improved?" meme and thought it might be kind of neat to try to recreate an oooold photo to do a comparison.

I'm inclined to say that the most drastic improvement is in my ability to do face ups and style wigs. XD My photography is still 90% fumbling around attempting to make a point and click camera that is marginally better than a phone camera work. I saw an interesting photo tutorial on tumblr about using redirected flash to take decent pictures in poorly lit areas but it comes out very yellowy every time and my camera only has a few different settings for white balance, none of which really help.

I did attempt to do a proper photoshoot that way because I went ahead and drew in Orkas' scar last night and I think it helps. Attempted to also get proper photos of Avignon and Shinozaki and ended up deciding I hate Shino's new face up.

Avignon and Aura got some reasonably nice (if very 80s textbook) photos out of the deal. I have a fetish for garlands and may have put like 5 of them in as a backdrop for these photos.

face up: Shinozaki

Orkas's new head is growing on me. Of course, after I manage to order the open eyed version. I guess I'll just have to see how things go.

The humidity here has been awful. It's been raining on and off for over a week now. Horrible weather for face ups. But of course this is the time that I finally feel motivated to do them. Go figure.

Today's victim was Shinozaki. He didn't have the worst face up out of the bunch, but it was one I just wasn't happy with at all despite there being nothing really wrong with it.

His eyebrows aren't done yet. I'm really unsteady with paintbrushes so I tend to just use colored pencils for that sort of thing, and with the humidity being like it is, it takes a while for the sealant to dry enough that I can add lines to them without scratching it off.

So those will exist later. For now, this is what he looks like:

I think I put the eyebrows too high up. I have this tendency to do that because I want to put them along the brow bone. I guess technically eyebrows start beneath that point but it's really hard to remember that every time I'm trying to shade them in.

He looks a lot more pleasant than he probably should. But I guess this could pass for his neutral face. It was stupid windy out so his hair wouldn't cooperate either.

In case you didn't believe me about the wind. Photographic evidence.

Overall, I like it better than I liked his old face up. It's a bit dirty in spots because dust magically settles after I have carefully checked for it before spraying... sometimes I can get the little dust bunnies out but sometimes when I try to it just scratches off the face up and ruins everything. So I'm just going to live with it. It's not horribly visible indoors.

face ups: Orkas and Avignon

EDIT: I could just about punch myself in the face. I went to go check the Elfdoll website and they'd put a normal skin Vivien head up for sale. I guess someone must have cancelled or not paid or something. If I had just been patient I could have saved myself all of this trouble! 

I went ahead and bought it anyway. Seeing the head in person may help me figure out if I've done the eye mods correctly since it's hard to figure out based on photos.

I'm still not 100% sure this head will work the way I want it to or even that I like it enough to use for someone else if it doesn't work for Orkas... but here's a progress update anyway.

Last night I finished sanding epoxy and prepping the head for its first face up. I had this really stupid idea that I should wait until after the face up and see if I liked it before carving in eyelids. I don't even begin to know what I was thinking. Under what circumstances would not having eyelids be beneficial? I don't know.

So I gave it a face up. Hated it. My best friend pointed out that the eyelid area (where they SHOULD have been) needed some color or he needed eyelashes or something. So I wiped the head and left it alone for the night. Then today I went and carved in eyelids and decided to do attempt #2.

I can't decide if I just hate this thing because I did the mods poorly. Or because the wig just isn't doing it for me (I tried on a couple other wigs and liked it a lot better...). Or if it's the eyes I constructed for it (I say constructed because I didn't make the irises. I just assembled a base for them). The eyes are very bright. But they were what I had around that would work because regular 12mm eyes had irises that took up almost the whole eye socket.

He's a bit cross eyed here. It's hard to position his eyes properly due to the uneven eye sockets. I still haven't figured out how to fix that without potentially damaging something. I have since fixed the eyes a bit and can stand to look at him a little more. I don't like what I did with the colors on his face up. But it's better than last night. Last night was just embarrassing.

I went ahead and re-did Avignon's face up because I really want to like her and I've just struggled so much with managing to make her look like her character and look good at the same time. I tried on the first wig I bought for her after redoing her face up and didn't immediately hate it so that's something.

I am considering getting her a mohair wig or something because I just can't find a fiber wig that I'm happy with for her. It's just really hard to find the right color in any kind of wig though. I want something sort of like what she's wearing here but with slightly more red undertones. It kind of photographs like the color I want but in real life it's a more dull brown.

It's been a rather frustrating last few days on the doll front. Still haven't managed to fix Elaria's hair. I'm not sure this wig is even worth the trouble.

Mods going as expected

Which is to say, I want to punch myself in the mouth repeatedly and throw the head into oncoming traffic.

I got the dremel bit all properly attached to my dremel and drilled some holes through the area of the eyes I'd already carved out so that I could tell when I was getting close and (hopefully) not destroy the eyelids.

I started in on making the eyewells deeper, and very quickly realized I had to go a lot further than I'd thought. This is one of those cases where my ignorance made me brave enough (or stupid enough) to attempt something that I never would have if I had any idea of what I was getting into.

I kept at it very timidly until I got to about this point and figured I should stop using the dremel and do it by hand. That ended up being a very slow process and I wasn't really getting anywhere, so I figured it couldn't hurt to do just a little bit more dremel work.

Spoiler alert: this is where things start to go horribly wrong.

I was going along slowly, being very careful not to just obliterate the eyelids and leave a 12mm hole in the head, when suddenly the lower lids just start moving. My immediate thought was that I'd gone too far and they were just going to fall out, but I quickly realized that the heat of the dremel was just making them soft. So I immediately stopped, held the eyelid in place for a few seconds while it cooled, and all seemed okay. So I moved on to the next eye and did the same thing. Only on that eye, I had come in at a slightly different angle, so instead of just making the eyelid soft, one of them actually cracked.

It's not actually terribly easy to see in the photo but the right eye has a crack near the tear duct. I have glued it together but I think I will also reinforce behind it with epoxy putty.

With the eyewells deep enough for proper eye opening, I figured I'd go ahead and get started on that. I know from experience that I should not attempt to do eye openings with just an x-acto knife. I know this. I was telling myself not to do that even as I was doing it. But I couldn't stop myself. I kept thinking "it'll be so much quicker and I'll just do it until I get to my guidelines (which I had to re-draw) and then I'll switch to sanding". Well, I reached my guidelines and the eyes weren't quite even so I figured it wouldn't hurt to just use the knife a little more to even them out. Then I could sand.

This is what I ended up with. On the one hand, I did manage to open the eyes. On the other hand... the right eye is an abomination. The left it actually just about what I want so at least there is that. I will go in with the epoxy and try to fix the right eye and then attempt to carve in some eyelids. After that, a lot will depend on if I can get the face up right.

Another problem with the right eye is that due to the poor angling of the dremel, eyes don't sit quite right in the socket. Some more work will probably have to be done to remedy that. They do work well in the left though! How I wish Orkas was a pirate right about now so I could give him an eye patch and be done with it!

a dremel bit arrives!

It is here! I am now equipped to destroy a perfectly good sleeping head!

Here it is next to a 12mm eye. I think it will work just fine for what I am planning.!

arrrrrghhhhh

I was messing around with Elaria's wig last night and decided I wanted to try to re-style just one tiny part of it, and I thought maybe it was small enough to do it on an ultra low setting with the flat iron (because on occasion that works out okay) but it made the ends all frizzy, so I had to break out the boiling water. And I decided to just dip the one part to get rid of the frizz because pouring it over it wasn't working....

And then half the wig fell in the water and so the whole front part is awful now and I am having such a hard time trying to fix it and it's horrible and frustrating and I'm tempted to just get her a new wig because it was a dumb cheap one anyway... but uuugh. Just so annoyed at the whole situation.

eye mods

So, I think I mentioned last time that I was getting an Elfdoll Vivien head to attempt to replace Orkas' current head because it just wasn't quite doing it for me.

It arrived today and it's a sleeping one because I pretty much was willing to take whatever I could get my hands on. I guess if I was more patient I could wait until everyone gets theirs from the discontinuation sale and see if anyone is selling them but then that's kind of a crap shoot because if I don't get in on it then I could be out of luck.

I read somewhere ages ago that the eyewells weren't fully formed on the reminisce heads but I didn't know how to properly phrase the question to the seller and the pictures they provided made it look like the eyewells were properly existent. (Just so we're clear, they didn't try to mislead me at all. They were very helpful and took pictures for me and answered all my questions. I just didn't fully specify my intent when asking about the eyewells.)

So anyway, the head arrived and it does have some degree of eyewells but they don't reach all the way to the eyes, making it impossible to just perform a normal eye opening mod. I will have to bevel or carve the area to make them suitable for eyes.

I seriously considered just leaving it as-is and trying to get an open eyed version of the head as well and just using both and having this one be sleepy Orkas? Of course this seemed like a large financial investment for a head I'm not 100% sure will even work for Orkas. I WANT it to work for him. And if I could be guaranteed that it would I might go that route but I would probably just prefer one head over the other or get them both bodies. It would be dumb and expensive.

As you can see in the above picture, I decided against this plan. I started by marking the general shape I wanted, then I used a bead reamer to make a hold in the eye above the lower lid (because I want to leave that alone) and then I used some wood carving tools to start carving the area a bit.

I got both eyes carved in a little bit. I didn't go all the way up to my guidelines because my plan is to carve proper eyewells before I do that. I think the area in front is carved deep enough that I'll be able to tell when the eyewells are deep enough and be able to continue on my way. I misplaced the eye beveling tool I got ages ago when attempting to sculpt a head from scratch so I had to purchase a new one. Luckily I was able to find a dremel bit in what I think should be the right size for like a buck. Now to not-so-patiently await its arrival. If, in the interim, I find something else that might work I will not have to feel too guilty since said dremel bit was very cheap.

What I do feel guilty about is ruining a perfectly good sleeping head when they are potentially being discontinued. But I imagine I'll get over it if this works out okay.

contemplating some things and random photos

I've been giving a lot of thought to my collection and what I want to keep around and what I want in the future. I have a lot of dolls on my wishlist, but only a few of them are actual dolls I plan to get. The rest are pretty much just "if I win the lottery I am getting all of these".

As always happens when I either get a new doll I love or finally get someone set up the way I want them to be, I sort of re-evaluate what it is I'm doing and why I have certain dolls. There are some I'm just not happy with as-is. There are some I almost feel obligated to keep for either sentimental reasons or because I really want to have their character 'shelled'.

The first thing that really jumped out at me was Orkas. His head works but it's not perfect. I mean. It technically has everything I want but it doesn't elicit the response I want it to.It could be that he needs more mod work or a new face up or something, but I decided to go ahead and get an Elfdoll Vivien head because that was what I initially was considering before I decided to mod the head to have a similar expression sort of.

Another recurring problem doll is Avignon. She definitely needs a new face up. And a proper wig. I thought about trying to make the current one work by retconning the story she's from but that's just not working for me because it goes against my mental image of her. So I need to find something in a style that at least works a little bit.  Stupidly, my argument against selling her is that she has custom made clothing. Of course, the other issue is actually getting her to sell. I tried once and no one was interested after something like four months of thread bumping.

Shinozaki probably just needs a new face up. So I'm not too worried there.

I'll probably finally break down and get Andael a longer wig if I can. I just always pictured him with like chin length hair and his barely reaches his eyebrows in the front.

Defliel needs a new face up and I think I'll be fine with him.

And I think if I can get Orkas fixed I won't have any problems with Eskilys or Id. But I've always posed and photographed the three of them together a lot so it's hard to enjoy the other two as much when Orkas isn't working.

I'm still on the fence about my Souldoll Chiron head. Right now it's airbrushed grey and on my Impldoll Triton body. It's so smirky in person. I'm not sure if that works for what I want to do and then I was waffling on potentially using him for Malesar or for the Psiioniic. And really I just have no idea what I want to do with him but I'm not sure if I want to sell him or not.

I have a Dollstown Seola7 head that's been sitting in my doll clothing drawer for ages now. I had almost forgotten about it ever since Statik stole the Thaasa body he was on. I wish the head was smaller so I could get an MSD body for it or something, but it's as large as my SDs (I originally had the larger Seola head but it was just too big). I just don't know if I'll ever get another body for him and he always felt so out of place with everyone else but I got the head out for potential sales photos and he's so cute... ARRGH. >_O

I'm relatively happy with everything else. If I do sell my Seola7 head I think I will use one of my Unoa face plates to remake his character in a smaller size. Once I can actually buy a body that will hybrid properly with them that is.

I kind of like that idea actually. One of the reasons I've been less than motivated to get another body is because I'm not sure what I'd do with them if I did. I'm not as heavily into Air Gear as I was at the time so making them into Akito/Agito again feels like a big expense. And Statik was the second character I used my L-bi head for and he's grown up into a Zaoll boy now, so that's also not an option. So having a specific character is actually good. I'll give it more thought before deciding to sell my Seola head.

Oh yeah. And I got a picture of the Rabi head that came with the body I got for baby Sollux.

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.

Id's new wig

A basquillion years ago, I drew the only picture of Id I've ever drawn, and I gave him this sort of bowl cut type deal or something. I don't know. I didn't put much thought into it, but for some reason I have adhered to it fairly strictly for years.

Today I finally decided that I wasn't entirely pleased with this arrangement, so I started grabbing other wigs in the orange-red range out of the closet and trying them on Id's head. I didn't really worry about them being the right size since I'm fairly confident in my ability to mangle a wig.

One of Orkas' old wigs looked pretty good on him so I decided to take it in some to fit Id's head. Just about the instant I got started, the aforementioned confidence disappeared. Orkas has always had fur wigs so it wasn't anything super challenging, but I was still a little worried I'd get the shape wrong and ruin everything.

It's a bit wonky at the top but otherwise works well.

Now if only I could figure out how to work eye positioning in dolls his size. It probably doesn't help that I opened his eyes myself and they aren't quite even.

back from A-kon

I mentioned a while back that I put Aura on my Popodoll 68cm body and was much more pleased with that match than when he was on the Angelsdoll body I had him on before. Well, I gave it more time and decided that despite the fact that I have at least once in the past drawn him looking a little more muscular, this didn't really mesh with my mental image of him. It was more based on influence from in-game images of Blood Elves.

Or rather... I didn't decide this. I was browsing DoA and saw a thread asking people what they thought about the more muscular trend with dolls these days, and for the most part that doesn't bug me at all, but there are definitely certain characters I wish I could get less muscular bodies for. For example, I always felt that even the relatively slender Domuya bodies were too well-defined for Lyric. If I was sure it would not make him bobble-headed, I would get him a Doll Chateau body, but I'm a little concerned the 60cm body would be too small for his Soom head. More research may be in order.

But I'm getting off topic. Aura, Andael, Statik, Esyrlon, and Doppelganger also have more slender builds (of the non-muscular variety). Doppel works just fine as the 60cm Dollmore body is tiny and works perfectly for him. I'm content with the Domuya flexi-perennial body I have for Esyrlon. It's a little more well-defined than I imagine him in my head, but the overall size is very good. Statik has a modded Thaasa body which leaves him with almost no muscle mass, so I'm happy there.

Andael and Aura have proved more problematic. Neither of them is supposed to be more slender-emaciated like Doll Chateau's bodies and both of their heads are too big for some of the other options out there. I still haven't figured out what to do with Andael, so for now he has to deal with improper body types, but I got an idea a while back for Aura.

I wasn't sure if it would work or if it was too stupid, so I never really mentioned it. But I saw some pictures of the Dollstown 18yr girl bodies and thought the overall shape looked really good. So I did some research for a while and tried to see how it would compare to other dolls in that height range (trying to keep his height relatively close to Cailath's and they're both supposed to be in the 70cm-ish area)

Anyway, I dug up almost every spare doll part I had lying around (as well as some things like lego sets that I hadn't opened) and managed to scrounge up enough money to buy one second hand. It's freshskin so it doesn't really match aura's head, but then I'm not sure what would since Har is an odd sort of pinkish color? I might eventually dye it to match better but for now since you can really only see the very tips of his fingers (need to get him bigger hands at some point) it's not a big deal.

The body arrived RIGHT before I left for A-kon. I was kind of hoping to get the mods done in time to bring him with me, but I didn't have enough time so I just really roughly sanded down the chest and had to call it good enough for the time being.

I did a little more work on it today since I don't have to go back to work until Tuesday. It's still not quite in a state where it's worth showing off, but I tested his clothes on it. I kind of hated it at first since they were made for a body with wider shoulders, so I sat around lamenting the waste of money and decided to try to find someone else the body might work for. I considered giving it to Avelarion and had his robe and head on and everything, and then for some reason I decided to try Aura's head on it again.

I think I like it better this time? I can't decide if the clothing combo looks good or completely ridiculous.

 The first one kind of helps show how slender it makes him? And then of course my camera didn't want to focus for a straight on shot except for the one time I was screwing around holding the camera at an angle. But there he is from the front. I don't feel like he looks exceptionally bobble-headed so that is good. As I mentioned, I'm really waffling on whether the red on white is good or bad. I'll probably re-make his base layer robe with another brocade of some sort if I decide the white isn't working for me. I do like the idea of a pattern on it. Also, Avelarion's robe is far better constructed than Aura's was.

Hopefully this will also give me some motivation to update Avelarion's outfit. Aura's gloves need re-designing I think. And I may go back in and line his hood to help hide how badly brocades fray. Possibly assault it with fray-check?  It was meant to be a prototype. I didn't expect to actually like it as much as I do. I would re-make it but it turned out completely different from the pattern I drafted, thanks to my failure at sewing. But I ended up liking the messed up design better than what I had planned so I'd have to figure out how to make the same mistake again on purpose. XD

Anyway... I'm really happy with it aside from the clothing fitting difficulties. If money was not an issue, I'd buy like three more of these bodies to do the same mod to (and maybe even some to not mod and actually use as girls). It definitely has a lot of the issues mentioned in the Dollstown 18yr thread like the difficulty sitting up un-aided, but it's so elegant looking that I just really don't care.

Got distracted and it randomly occurred to me that the Spiritdoll Elegance body might work well for Andael. Will have to look into some head size comparisons between that and Migidoll and possibly save up for that next. That is of course assuming that Batchix and Donn Kinney don't steal all of my money this summer with their impending doll releases... Maybe I should shoot to start saving for a new body for Andael this winter. XD

And in closing, here is my favorite shot of Aura from my mini shoot today. I love when his hair is being crazy and unruly.

I know I've already written like an entire novel for this entry, but one more thing occurred to me. Iyrilaeth's new wig (which I should get some pics of real quick) --okay back-- has blonde and white like Aura's does. Anyway, I think this is kind of a cool coincidence because it's sort of my headcanon that in my story's universe, those two are related somehow. Aura only has one kid, Elaria, and having Iyrilaeth be older than them would ruin the timeline, but I never planned out Cailath's children so it's possible Iyrilaeth could be descended from his line. Just random thoughts. XD

And in closing (for real this time) here is Iyrilaeth's hair all cut and stuff.

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