dye project and face up test

I was browsing pictures on tumblr in the bjd tag and saw someone with a tan IOS Infernale head (I didn't even know he came in tan but he looked great!). Anyway I realized that I regretted getting him in WS (the main reason I did was because the hands I'd been saving for him for YEARS were in Soom's CW)

So I decided I was going to make him more in the NS or tan range. This presented an interesting challenge since I've never dyed a WS doll before (well not a full doll at least and not a natural skin color). The first run he came out very purpley and I had to go out and get more dye in tan and yellow to try to balance him out. The body is honestly pretty uneven but I'm hoping that with some creative blushing I can make the parts a little more cohesive, and the next time I get it in my head to do something like this I'll know to err on the side of more yellows.

Also did more body switching and Avelarion ended up on one that was too pink for him so I used my light yellow and tan mix to bring his body into a more mid range peachy tone to match his older head better. Normally I don't really care about resin match as long as whites are with whites and peachy tones are together, etc. but I figured as long as it was there I might as well.

Don't have any pictures of that. I figured I have other pictures of dye attempts up on other entries and boiling water and slippery resin pieces are already a potential disaster waiting to happen without adding a camera to the mix.

I did get this one before shot of Istthraen's head and body disassembled though:

This is before round 1 of dyeing. There are no pictures of the purple monstrosity. The dye also mixed really unevenly the first time so he had all these dark 'veins' and he legitimately looked like someone who'd had their circulation cut off.

I keep getting distracted. Not sure if I mentioned yet that I decided to give both of them new face ups as well. I guess that only makes sense with Istthraen because I had to wipe him in order to dye him.

I ran into a tutorial by Bluoxyde that mentioned that it's a good idea to use a mixture of warm and cool colors because the contrast helps them stand out more, so I decided to attempt to apply that principle to my next face up attempt. I was going to start with Avelarion but I got a bit ahead of myself and accidentally started before his sealant had dried, so I had to wipe him again and start over. I decided to do Istthraen while I waited on that.

It's less dramatic than the last one I gave him but I'm actually really pleased with it. Was hard to photograph though. I gave it a try but it's late and there's no sun and all the lights in my house are so yellow.

I was lazy and just didn't even bother wiping the tongues from his first face up. I feel like they work fine though. The eyebrows are uneven now that I see them in photos but he covers half his face with hair anyway so I'm not that bothered by it.

Avelarion will probably have to wait until tomorrow to get a face up.

Really minor updates

It has been so long since I posted here that I don't know what I have posted about and what I haven't. So I'll just kind of start rambling and you can ignore it if it's something that's been posted about.

A loooong time ago, Kael had a Mecha Angel body, but I never really warmed to the 80cm size. So I looked and looked to find a smaller alternative and discovered the Spiritdoll Proud body, which was in the 70cm range and had broader shoulders and a less slender build than many 70cm bodies I'd owned in the past.

So I sold the Mecha Angel body and purchased that. Later on down the line, having less disposable income, I came across a cheap SSDF body and decided to get that and sell my Spiritdoll body. Kael was a bit bobble-headed on the SSDF body but it wasn't so bad I couldn't stand it so I was fine with that for a while. But then a while later when I had more disposable income again, I found a (relatively) cheap Spiritdoll Proud body and decided I preferred that look after all.

So I got that body and gave it back to Kael and used the SSDF body for my IOS Infernale head.

But then recently I got a damaged Iplehouse Arvid head on impulse (he's missing most of one ear and has a chipped eye). I've wanted an Arvid for a while but never really had a set idea of what I'd do with him, so he kind of sat around being neglected because I didn't have any brilliant plans for him. I've kind of hit that point where I'm fairly content with my collection and there are only a few very specific things I can think of that I want.

So for whatever reason, I tried Kael's wig on the Arvid head and decided that he probably better fits my mental image of Kael than Soom's Vega did anyway (as that was more of an "I already have this doll so let me see if I can't make it look like this character I want to create" type deal). So I gave the Spiritdoll body to my IOS Infernale and I'm much happier with the proportions.

Sadly, my camera refuses to capture this and his head ends up looking huge.

I also decided to give Esyrlon a new face up a few months ago. I never posted it because I wasn't happy with it. I tried to give him lighter eyebrows because he has white hair and I felt like it made more sense, but I felt like his face just looked very washed out. I probably just need more practice with this sort of thing but anyway... after months of not even wanting to look at him, I went in an darkened his eyebrows and was instantly much happier with him.

Still might redo the whole thing at some point but for now I'm not unhappy enough to bother with it. Esyrlon is spoiled anyway and gets more frequent face ups than anyone else.

Another project I've been very slowly working on is modding a head to be a twin for my Nabarro Har, Auralion. I got a head from a fairly new company called Panda Workshop a while back and it sat in the head closet for a long time. I feel like the overall structure is similar enough to Har that it could be modded to look at least fairly similar to him. So that's been sort of an ongoing project. When I have more free time I will probably take shots of both heads from different angles to get a better handle on what would need to be added or subtracted to get the most similarity.

The head is in a more WS color because that was all the company offered, so I will probably see if I can't dye it a more pinkish or even light tan color since Aura is supposed to be the less healthy looking twin. I'd consider just switching which head portrayed which twin, but as Aura is my favorite, he gets the head that I know is functional and that I paid a small fortune for.

arrival of IOS Infernale and face up attempt

IOS shipped my Infernale exactly when they said they would. I was very impressed. He arrived over the weekend while I was out of town for A-kon and my mail carrier was kind enough to call me on my cell phone and get my permission to leave the package with the apartment office so that I could pick it up as soon as I returned. (This saved me a trip to the post office. I was very happy!)

I got home Sunday night but was able to get him from the apartment office on Monday morning before work. For the last couple days he's been sitting around without a face up because I was intimidated.

My last two attempts at face ups came out... less than stellar, to put it politely. I'm very easily discouraged when I fail at something so it can take a while to push past that. Adding to my anxiety was the fact that Infernale has an open mouth with two interchangeable tongue pieces and I struggle with doing face ups on dolls with the tiniest bit of teeth showing.

After a bit of arguing with myself, I decided to gather up my airbrush and pastels and assortment of brushes and head out to the balcony to get to work. It is absurdly hot outside today so I was quite uncomfortable, but luckily I was in my project zone so I didn't notice until I was all done.

I didn't really get any in progress pics, because I didn't want to get too attached while there was still the possibility of screwing it up terribly, but here are some pictures of the face once it was pretty much finished.

I think I overdid it a bit on the red under the eyes and on the eyeshadow. I really struggle with face ups on WS dolls.

Here are the tongue pieces post-blushing. These were a pain to do because they're so small and they wanted to fly off the table when I tried to seal them. And then the pastels didn't want to stick to them so I had to airbrush them and they kept getting stuck to my fingers and falling and collecting dust. I'm going to have to break out the tweezers if I redo these guys.

And here are some shots of the completed head with the two different tongue pieces. It was already a tight fit, but the layer of gloss on the tongues made it even harder to get them in and out. I'm sure there is some chipping of the paint in their future.  I was, however, relatively pleased with the color.

And here we have a shot of him on a body which may or may not be his permanent one. The hands I've been saving since 2008 just in case I ever decided to shell his character. They came with Soom's Vega - Last Song and they've been sitting in a closet for about five years now.

Not 100% certain about this wig, but the one I was planning to use didn't look quite right once he had a face up. (really liked it before that though). Will see how it goes though.