3d modeling [new doll projects]

I've been on and off working on trying to make a custom head in zbrush. 

I got it in my head that I wanted dolls for my FFXIV version of Aura, Aurelien, who is at this point pretty much his own character who just happens to have a very similar name to Auralion. I shipped him with Varis, so I wanted a Varis as well. 

As Garleans are just OUTRAGEOUSLY tall, I decided on a 75cm body for Varis. I've commissioned a custom head for Varis from an artist I found on Etsy. I gave her his in game model, some reference pics, and the measurements I needed. And she added details and made things appropriate for a bjd body. 

I'm pretty stoked about it! But it'll be a while before the body I've chosen is here, so this will be more of a long term project. 

I'm not sure why I didn't go the same route with Aure. I guess because I didn't have any solid references in 3d and I wasn't confident that I could really get across what I needed to just with my drawings. Most of the facial structure info on him is tucked away in my head. 

So I downloaded Zbrush Core Mini (their free, very limited version of Zbrush) and set to work. 

This was what I came up with in there. I couldn't do certain things like add some nice spheres to help me plot out the eye shape properly, so I decided to get a more proper version when possible. Sold some things and used the proceeds to get the full version of Zbrush Core. (Wasn't quite ready to shell out for full Zbrush just yet) 

So I spent more time on the head, added some proper eye spheres to work around, and this is roughly where I'm at now: 

I need to redo the ears, and I've been putting that off because it's proving to be rather challenging. I've figured out a reasonably good method in blender, but not in Zbrush. I also need to give him teeth so he can do the sexy rabbit dentures face. 

In order to get him the right height compared to Varis, he can probably be around 50cm at max. I've considered just saying 'screw it' and making him larger just to make my life easier in terms of finding a body and not having to worry about him looking wildly out of proportion with everyone else, but I don't know. It's a bit difficult since I don't have a body the right size to test him out on. And I'm not sure my 3d printer will do a good enough job of capturing the details I need. 

A small part of me is also contemplating attempting to sculpt a body for him as well, since finding something that works perfectly for him does not seem possible. I want something lean and very androgynous. A lot of 50cm bodies are either very masculine or very feminine from what I've seen. the body I'm most leaning toward, Dream Valley's 50cm body, is pretty good in that it's not overly masculine. It also appears to have a reasonably good butt (very important). I'm just not sure how the head would work with it proportionally without having it in hand.

I have a new plan for how I might want to fix up the head for printing though. I may see about acquiring a body before I spend too much time on that so I don't have to waste too many prints if I can avoid it. We shall see. 

I'm also planning to attempt to redo regular Auralion's face up today. I wiped it the other day and used windsor and newton brush cleaner for the first time. SO MUCH EASIER than alcohol and a magic eraser. 

I mocked up what I might want his face to look like so that I'll have a reference and I'm not just making things up as I go (which is what I normally do, with very mixed results). 

Here is kind of what I am thinking. But with more gradient on the upper lip so it doesn't look so solid. The mockup looks kind of dumb, but I tested putting on hair and I think it should look pretty okay? Hopefully. Can always try again if it does not.

Muse mockup

 

Ignore the odd angle on the hair compared to the face. I just wanted to see if it could work. I do think that this might actually work better than the Saka head, because it will be larger and a bit more mature. I already have a modded Shinydoll Thaasa body I can steal for the head (if I get the head separately). 

I actually just went searching for height comparisons between Shinydoll and Zaoll, only to realize I have access to both in person and had actually answered a request for that comparison myself at one point. XD 

After seeing my own results, I do think ideally I would like the Zaoll body at some point. I'd need to mod it, but almost all of the bodies that all of my iterations of Aura use are modded girl bodies (he's much more soft and androgynous than most male bodies I can find are). 

--

Going to attempt to redo or modify mini Aura's faceup later. I'm a bit intimidated because I have not been having great luck with using the 70% alcohol for faceup wiping, and I cannot find 90% anywhere...

more clothing stuff and a possible new doll project

 I decided to try redoing the robes for mini Aura's outfit. The red felt too overpowering, so I decided I'd try it in white. I have a moderate to severe fascination with brocades, so it is not a solid white (like perhaps it should have been).

He is super not-photogenic right now. I'm hoping the wig and eyelashes help, but I may have to give the face up another go. The outfit is pretty much done though. Except now I'm debating if the collar/tabard needs to be another color to stand out more. Or maybe have a border color. 

I think I also need to stop attempting blonde eyebrows. They just don't photograph well, and poor Aura looks like a ghost. 

I'm really excited for him to get a proper wig, though. I think that will help a lot. 

In other news, I've decided I want dolls for Aurelien (my FFXIV version of Aura, who has developed into his own character) and Varis. In order to get the height difference correct, Varis probably needs to be like 75cm and Aure needs to be like 50cm. 

After searching for a couple days, I mocked up a potential faceup on Souldolls' Saka. 

I'm still debating on if he looks tooooo young. But I think it could work? The other strong contender was Zaoll Muse.

Here is an image of what I have drawn him looking like. ^  

Perhaps I'll test a mock faceup on Muse tomorrow to see if that looks closer. My last resort is making an attempt at modding/sculpting/3d modeling something that is closer to how he looks. That is the route I will likely go for Varis since I have not been able to find something that I feel works right for him.

Body Mods

It's been a very long time and I've started doing some stuff again. 

Can't recall if I mentioned this but I decided a long long time ago that MyDolling Heeah would be a great teen Aura but they didn't sell the heads separately. And then when they did their discontinuation sale they did sell them separately so I grabbed two so I could make Aura and Cail. 

 I got my skin tones confused and ordered them in a light tan instead of what I thought would be the more translucent resin, so I was a bit frustrated and put them in the head cabinet for years. 

 And then a couple weeks ago I threw one of the heads on my Dollzone Annie's body to test the fit and gave mini Aura a faceup. 

 

I went searching for a body I would like for him and ended up rather impulsively deciding that the Unoa Elder body was what I wanted. So I acquired an Unoa Elder Belia. It's been a long time since I've seen my Unoa Xyle's neck joint so I forgot that they had WACKY necks that don't work like normal bjd necks, so I was struggling for a few days with what to do. 

I wasn't sure I wanted to mod the neck because if this plan didn't work out I'd have messed up the body. And I also didn't want the Belia head to not be able to attach to anything. 

So I spent 3 days or so trying to mod the Heeah head to fit on the Unoa head back. And I FINALLY got the fit just right, only to discover I hadn't mixed my epoxy properly and it was all mushy and just oozed off. 

I wasn't enjoying the process anymore and didn't want to keep trying to make the head fit right when it clearly just did not want to cooperate, so I broke down and decided to do some neck mods after all. I decided to cut the neck off just below the weird flanged part at the top where the Belia head back fits and turn that into an adapter piece for the Belia head to fit on other bodies. And then I cut off the top half of the Dollzone neck to turn that into the new top of the Unoa body's neck. 

This is the Belia head and head back on the Dollzone body. If I decide she will stay on this body long term I will likely epoxy the neck piece in place. I'm still debating. It's an older body and not the most aesthetically appealing to me, but it poses well and is still quite functional. It will largely depend on how much clothing she ends up wearing, I suppose. 

And this is the upper part of the Unoa body with the Dollzone upper neck attached. The epoxy is still hardening, but afterward I will sand it smooth and blush it to match. It is just a little bit longer than I wanted it to be, so the Heeah head sits higher on it than is probably ideal. I'll test the fit with clothes before I do more mod work though, since Aura tends to wear high collars and it might end up being handy that his neck is overly long. 

It seems I never posted this but I started it last week.

New Wig for Aura (test)

I really liked Aura's old wig but unfortunately the colors were not accurate to my mental image of his character. And since I had some spare golden blonde colored yarn lying around from making a wig for Ezreal, I've been toying with the idea of making a new wig for Aura.

Yesterday I decided to go ahead and go for it.

The major downside of not being able to find the right color in the same brand I was using before is that this brand doesn't allow me to make my strands as long. It's an acceptable length but not quite as long as I really wanted. The other down side is that it's not as smooth. It has a little bit more of a frizzy appearance, which isn't bad. It's just not quite as silky smooth and shiny as the old wig was.

But the color is more accurate. And it was either this or start seriously considering making the mixed yellow-blonde and white his canon hair color. Which could have had interesting melodramatic backstory stuff to go along with it, but I just wasn't sure I wanted to go that route.

I had to use the cap from a spritzer bottle dealy and glue strands onto that in order to get Aura's hair even close to long enough in the back. I've considered having him cut his hair shorter in Legion but it's not set in stone yet and  I think I'd still prefer that doll Aura have his traditional hair even if I did go that route.

This is how he looks right now. I do really like the color. I'm still debating on things like the length and less shiny aspect. One thing I definitely do like better is that it looks more finished in the back. No one ever really saw the back of the other wig, but there was a large amount of wig cap showing as well as the seams on the bottom length of hair. That always bugged me and was a large part of my motivation to remake the wig, actually.

Aura gets a new face up and I really need to work on naming.

Let me start by saying I did nothing from my previous to-do post.

Sometimes when life gets into the sub-optimal range, I focus more intently on my 'productive hobbies' as I'll call them. Things like drawing, writing, sewing, customizing bjds, etc. Creative endeavors with lasting results.

Sometimes I dive into fluff hobbies, like MMORPGs or regular RPGs or other games.

And then sometimes I just do nothing even remotely worth talking about for ages on end.

That last one has been me for the better part of the last few months.

The seemingly neverending hunt for a job that is both long-term and pays well keeps me semi-permanently in this annoying mental state where it feels like something is just ever-so-slightly off. Even when things are going well, I can't quite feel settled.

There are lots of things I feel like I should be doing that it just feels so impossible to actually get around to. We're getting to the part where this is relevant to this blog. Bear with me. Or skip ahead. I'll start the relevant stuff with a picture.

Actually, I'll save the other stuff for my personal blog. Let's move along.

After the stuff that didn't get mentioned happened, I decided to shut down my computer for a while and do something productive because it's just way too hot in my room and I thought some time away from the computer would cool things down.

I decided to start by giving Aura a new face up. After drawing a picture of him (or starting to) that I was relatively happy with, I felt like his face up was just a little too subtle. It made him look a bit washed out. I usually avoid redoing anyone with facial mods because color-matching can be a pain and sometimes the paint doesn't dry evenly and I have to start over a zillion times. Fun stuff like that.

But I decided to do it anyway.

I mixed up a color that was just completely wrong at first. It looked purpley and weird. So I started mixing another color and this one came out too yellow. And then another came out way too dark. And so finally I decided to throw down some vague contours with the too-dark color and then do a very transparent layer of light pink over it. A questionable choice for resin-matching but I think it makes him look much more 'alive'.

Anyway did the regular stuff from there. Very out of practice so there were a few places where I went in the wrong direction color-wise, but I was being very subtle with my starting shades while I got back in the swing of things, so it was nothing I couldn't cover up or tone down with a different color.

He now does not match his body at all. But he never really did anyway. Luckily the only part of his body that shows is his hands. Well, feet too but only until I get him proper shoes or make some.

I photoshopped his eyes so they would be visible and then decided "what the heck? I'll just make them glowy too." I had some nice natural lighting and the stupid preview pics on the camera made everything look good and then I get them on the computer and the whole thing is bright orange and ridiculous. And color correcting is murder on eyes that are already barely visible anyway.

This picture gives a vague idea of how his face has changed. Tragically my camera was not cooperating well enough for details so yay grainy mess.

I also made pants for another one of my dudes. Who needs a name. I feel like I have something on the tip of my ... brain(?) but it just won't quite get out there. Sometimes I think I just like creating new characters more than I like fleshing them out...

Conveniently, none of the pictures showing his pants came out! But it's all just black, black, and more black anyway. So you aren't missing much. But I'm happier now. Because before he was wearing the rest of this ensemble with no pants. And it looked completely ridiculous.

I should really go through and sell more things. But I might wait until this WoW kick settles itself out. I'm not even playing the game or anything but all I want to do lately is work on characters from it. Don't want to sell off everything not WoW-related and regret it horribly later.

tiny sewing projects

I decided to make little Aura some clothes. Only I couldn't find the material I had initially intended to use so I decided to use this scrap of red velvet. I always tell myself "you should draft a pattern and make a mock up" and then I always shoosh myself and say "nah we got this!"

I didn't really think through how I wanted it to attach in the front so the buttons are primarily there to hide the stitching on the snaps. My initial plan was those enclosures like duffle coats have but I thought maybe that was a bit weird for velvet. So snaps happened. somehow. So much more classy, right?

projects and things

My ongoing project lately is shelling cast of Selly's and my WoW characters as tinies. We've talked about things like this before but never really got around to making it happen. But this time it is looking like it actually will.

My Soom Keny is little Vaith, and then I got a Souldoll Frith in a trade to make into Selly's little Theo. She also got another doll from a company called Kids-Sky that I had never heard of before and that one is little Ivalise.

Which brings us to the first topic I wanted to talk about. I've been working on some sort of temporary outfit for little Liss and the first one turned out terrible so I decided to start over. I made decent progress on my new outfit last night and then today I messed up the next part but I think I know how to make it better when I do it again. After work I shall give it another go.

I also bought a couple dolls to be Aura and Cail to finish out the group a little over a month ago but then I saw this listing on DoA for a doll I'd never noticed before. An Aileen Doll Cedric. Apparently the initial release had him with both a cyclops head and an elfy sort of head but i'd only ever seen the cyclops head and wasn't interested. However, the elf head looked perfect for little Aura.

Because I had already gotten another doll to be Aura, I ignored the sales thread for close to two months. Or I tried to. I checked in on it regularly, vaguely hoping that someone else would snatch him up so I would no longer be tempted. Finally, I decided that Aura was too important a character for me to settle for anything less than what I considered perfect for him, so when I sold a head for enough money to buy Cedric I went for it.

He arrived today and he is so perfect for little Aura. He has such uniquely posed hands and his little non-jointed torso makes him sit and stand up so straight, which is wonderful for wee nobility. And his facial features look very much like he could grow up into my adult Aura.

I will be slightly disappointed if this means that he doesn't look enough like my potential Cailath but I will live.

Edit:

little Aura has a face up. I am not yet sure how I feel about it yet.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

wig making

I've been meaning to make Auralion a new wig for a while now but have been very intimidated by the prospect since he has a rather specific hairstyle.

I read a lot of tutorials and watched a lot of videos and finally decided on a method I thought would work well. Then I proceeded to get sidetracked and after buying the materials I put the project on the back burner and ignored it for a solid two weeks.

Well then I started work on my mod project for Aura's twin brother, Cailath, and while I didn't think the head turned out similar enough to be successful in that regard, I did grow rather attached and wanted to make a proper wig for the as-yet-nameless head.

So I went out and bought a children's wig from the party store so that I could deconstruct it and sort of play around with wig making.

After watching a few more tutorials I decided that for the sake of practicing (since I don't know what style I want to go for yet for him) it would be easiest if I didn't have to sew, so strapped a plastic bag over his head and hot glued down some lace in the shape I wanted for a wig cap. I then cut away the plastic bag and started to hot glue down wefts of hair. The entire process was extremely quick and easy and looked surprisingly decent (in my opinion) considering the materials used.

Anyway, after this was done I decided I really wanted to make more wigs just for fun so I looked at yet more tutorials and decided I wanted to attempt to fix Aura's wig after all. But I initially decided I would be lazy and just try to make a clip on ponytail for his wig.

So I gave that a try and was less than pleased with the results. If I did it again I think I could do it better but I didn't have the right color to work with anyway and I had used all the longest wefts from the wig I bought to make the attempted ponytail and it seemed like more trouble than it was worth to try to detach them.

I still wanted to fix Aura's wig, however, so I decided to try my original plan. This was to use yarn to make the wefts myself and then brush out and straighten the yarn before attaching it to the wig cap. Since I had also planned for this to just be a prototype, I went with the same plastic bag, hot glue, and lace method. Then I brushed out tons and tons of yarn wefts and used a flat iron on the lowest setting to straighten them.

The yarn that I thought matched Aura's original wig well ended up almost white so I attempted to mix in a brighter yellow I had. The result made it look more like he has streaked hair and I almost scrapped the project after gluing down the first strands, but I decided it would be good practice to see if I could finish and get the style right. Since I was working with really thick yarn, his hair ended up thick enough to make the ponytail without any fancy additions, clip ons, or two part wigs.

I was going to just leave it be after finishing the ponytail but I ended up cutting and styling it and I think I might actually keep it as his official wig.  It ended up looking much better than I'd expected. It's kind of a lot to adjust to because he's looked so prim and proper with his neatly parted long straight hair for ages and now he has all these layers and spikes. It's much more accurate for his character but it's a big change after all these months of dealing with the temp wig.

I couldn't decide on one picture because I wanted to show various angles of it. There are a few things I'd change if I did it again but for now I'm fairly pleased!

a busy day

As mentioned in my last post, I decided to sell some things because I needed IOS Infernale. There is an 80-85% chance he will be my Istthraen, a character I have wanted in doll form for years.

Anyway, with one of my sales I was asked if I could do another face up on the head for them. I was a little nervous about that since I've only ever done face ups for myself and Selly.

I did sort of a 'mock up' version yesterday, laying down the general colors and blushing to give the person an idea of what I was getting from their request, and after getting the go ahead I started on the real version today. Luckily, they were online and I was able to get feedback relatively quickly after sending them new pictures!

Between messages, I started work on a new robe for Auralion. His old one was just cotton and I figured he'd want something a little more ostentatious than that. I had this sort of idea that I might want to do the robe in black but I wasn't 100% sure that would look okay, so I made both versions.

I also made his pseudo-tabard thingy but it came out way too wide and kinda wonky so I'll have to revise that later. I'm not sure if the black would work okay if the thing didn't cover most of the lower half, but for now I'm pretty sure I like the red better.

 Here is the face up I spent most of the day on and off working on. Some of the blushing detail is lost because indoor lighting tends to do that. But it shows the basics of it reasonably well.

Now I just need to figure out what I can use as a face protector for shipping since I'm not sure I have any around.

outfit progress (now with 'gloves')

Today I painstakingly crafted the glove dealies for this outfit. They're pretty simple, but it was a pain to get them right. The first attempt was fine with just the crushed panne velvet, but the brocade ruined the stretch so it didn't work anymore. If I had been thinking clearly, I would not have done this all in one piece and would have used snaps or velcro to fasten it in the back or something.

Anyway, after multiple attempts, I got these to work. I ended up having to hand sew most of them because I'm not good enough with the sewing machine to be accurate on such a small scale.

I'm relatively pleased with the results, however. Eventually I plan to remake the base robe in red silk and then add a semi-tabard dealy down the front and back so that the lower half of the robe doesn't look stupid boring by comparison.

It absolutely did not occur to me to even look at my sketch plans until after I posted this picture. I added the little parts around the wrist as an afterthought when I felt the gloves looked too plain. I was wondering why I didn't account for that. Then I realized that I DID. I just forgot. 

in progress clothing

after I got home from work today I got busy making outfits for Aura. I completely screwed up on the hood/cowl deal. I don't even know how it ended up the way it did but it comes to a point in the front and it was supposed to just be straight across. I don't know what I was thinking. So it looked weird and I added another layer under it and I liked it better. I still need to do the semi-tabard dealy and the gloves but I think I actually like this version of the top part better than my sketch or the modified version in my head.

I could not shoot this from an angle that didn't make it look stupid, so here's the best I managed.

attempting to design clothes

As much as I kind of like the look of the temporary outfit I have Aura in, I want him to have something of his own that isn't made of spare clothes and Batu's belt.

So I kind of sketched out something based on Priest tier 9. It's simplified because I couldn't make that outfit without wanting to chuck my sewing machine out the window after about five seconds of effort. Among other things.

So I sketched this thing out. I can't decide between the more WoW!Priest colors of greys and whites and black or something. And then the more blood elfy colors of red and gold. Aura's first RP outfit was red and gold but his actual priest tier 9 is more greys and whites.

The red and gold is probably more Aura cuz he's a flashy arrogant jerk. (But I love him that way). And he'd look too much like a unicorn in neutral colors. His hair is already lighter than I'd hoped (but it's growing on me) so I think the red and gold would liven him up some.

It's really hard to resist the urge to picspam him constantly. I'm so utterly and completely in love with his sculpt.

broken camera

My poor camera has combusted after six years of loyal service. I managed to get it working for a little bit this morning (long enough to take a zillion pictures of Auralion) and then once I turned it off it wouldn't work again.

So have some picspam and then I'm probably going to head off to start pricing cameras. Mine will be sorely missed.

 My camera didn't want to focus so out of over 120 pictures, these were some of the only ones that weren't blurry beyond recognition. Poor thing was so close to dying, but it was kind enough to allow me one last photoshoot.

Aura's hair is more of a platinum blonde irl but in photos it comes out very white.

I'm happier with this attempt at his face up. Hopefully once he has properly sized eyes he'll look better too! Right now he has 12mm eyes in and they're far too big. But I have some green glass ones in 10mm that should be coming soon. Found some cheap on the MP so that was exciting! Now I just need to make him some proper clothes instead of letting him borrow Batu's waist tie dealy combined with an inside out kimono. XD

Sadly there are 900 people in line ahead of him for clothing. But that doesn't always mean they get priority. So we'll see.