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.

an attempt at mini Aura's clothes

 I'm pretty bad at getting dolls, giving them a face up and getting them their proper hair and then letting them sit around in half-done clothes for all eternity. I have a few with proper outfits, but they're usually the ones where I was able to find something for sale that matched what I was going for. If I have to make something, there are about 1 of 3 ways it tends to go: 

1) I am too intimidated by the very idea to even get started. 

2) I make an attempt and end up hating it. 

3) I get a couple parts of the outfit done and run out of steam. 

Part of the problem is that I design things that are way beyond my skill level, so when I decided to make clothes for teen Aura, I set about designing something a little more simple. 

It's already a bit of a struggle to sew in 1/3 scale, but I figured it was worth a shot. I actually made patterns for once. I'm really bad about just eyeballing something and winging it with my sewing. 

Anyway, I wasn't careful enough to make muslin prototypes or anything, but I did try to be careful about my measurements and sew slowly. And it's not perfect, but here is what I have so far: 

 And here is a detail shot of the middle part: 

I'll probably redo the collar/tabard part because that part I did not measure and I ended up with some frayed edges because I didn't leave enough seam allowance. Other than that, it came out reasonably well, I think. There were a few parts I had to sew by hand, because they were just too small for me to feel confident doing them on the machine. 

I'm also considering doing the outer robe layer in another color, because I'm not sure about it. But we shall see. Thinking about maybe swapping to a white main robe and red accents. 

It is also a possibility that I'll be happier with this ensemble once he has proper hair. 

I still need to finish the edges on the red robe. I'm not sure if I want some trim on that or not, so I'm leaving it for now. It doesn't seem to be in any rush to fray, so that's good at least. 

Since I actually made a pattern for this, I'll likely do something similar in a different color scheme when I get a body for teen Cail.

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.