skull mask part 2

It took pretty much the rest of the day, but I finished the paper mache part of the mask. This thing does not photograph well from the front. And the plastic over his face was a bit too loose so the mask didn't mold exactly to his face, but it's pretty close.

After several coats it was starting to hold the correct shape on its own so I was able to do the underside.

And once that dried I was able to remove the plastic and put the mask and his hair back on. It ends up looking really strange from the front, but I rather like it in profile.

It doesn't really 'need' paint because I used a kind of off white tissue paper for the paper mache part (courtesy of one of Selly's Sephora purchases I believe). But I may go in and add some brownish accents or something to make it look more aged and dirty.

At some point Scileraen will get his actual clothes. I've been putting that off for ages though. But at least now he has one more accessory.

skull mask

I write (and occasionally draw) Scileraen wearing a mask over the lower half of his face that is part of a dragon skull. A few weeks ago I found something I thought I could use to help me construct something like this.

It was something like the above. Just plastic thing in the shape of a longhorn skull. Mine was less detailed but I can't find a picture of it and I didn't take any before cutting it up.

But here is the shape I was left with after cutting it so that it would fit over his face and be somewhat proportional to his head.

Here is me testing the fit against his face before I start my project.

Because I want to make sure it molds properly to his face, I want it to be on him when I do this. At least initially. So I've covered his face in plastic to keep it safe.

And then I secured the mask on his face and created a smock out of more plastic so that it wouldn't drip all over his body. When my brother was in high school they had a venetian mask themed dance and I made him one out of a basic mask form, adding embellishments with cardboard and then paper mache-ing the whole thing. So I figured I'd try something similar with this because I want it to be more matte and to hold its shape somewhat.

Here it is after a couple layers of paper mache.

And from the side to give a better idea of proportion since it ends up looking quite a bit bigger from the front.

Now I'm waiting for this to dry so that I can work on it more.

structural modifcation (revisited)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

structural modification

I had planned to put off actually modding Scileraen until tomorrow during the day. But then I wasn't particularly tired and was in such a good mood I decided to just go for it! To hell with caution!

Since the porch light would disturb Selly, I gathered my wood carving tools from my printmaking class, got one of my functional respirators, and grabbed my packets of sandpaper. Then I locked myself in the bathroom with a bucket of water so that I could keep resin dust under control.

I wrapped my left hand in an oven mitt and a towel because whenever I use carving tools I inevitably cut my hands pretty badly. Luckily, this time things went smoothly and the process was injury-free!

I drew lines for where I wanted the hollows of the cheeks to be and really roughly carved in the basic shape. Then I pulled out my 300 grit sandpaper and sanded until the surface was relatively smooth. After going up to about 1500 grit it was back to being the same color as the surrounding un-modded resin.

While looking at the jagged shapes my carving tools make, I got the idea to give Scileraen his forehead scars because the jaggedness reminded me of the weird crinkles scars get. So I gouged up his forehead and it's not pretty but it is accurate to his character. (kind of odd that I feel that way seeing as normally I find scars appealing.)

I didn't want to wipe the face up I just did earlier today so I just modded without wiping it and then sealed over it after and just touched up the modded areas. I can sort of see the line between the two parts, but it's not very obvious. Not near as bad as when I tried to mod my realskin Akando without wiping his face... that was pretty terrible looking XD

Anyway, here are some pictures where you can (hopefully) see the mod work that has been done:

Right side of the face.

Left side of the face.

And fairly straight on.

They're not perfectly even, but I'm pretty happy with it.! Also, the wig is dry now (it doesn't look it, but it is.) I used hair glue on the ends to bring them to points but the rest is just the way they naturally stay after my boiling water treatment. I am also pleased with this! I'm sure most people wouldn't find this look particularly appealing but I had a really specific look in mind and a fur wig, while easily styled this way, would have made his hair look too soft. And it's not supposed to be soft.

wig modding and more faceups

Scileraen is one of my bjds that I really struggle to properly bond with. I think he has a lot of potential and when I do take the time to try to make him work I feel really attached, but it's one of those cases where I got a mold because I saw potential in it, but what I wanted required a lot of modding. And I'm impatient when I first get a new doll and often just want to enjoy looking at them rather than spend ages sanding them.

So I did some quick mods on him but then left things alone aside from that. I'm hoping to get some more serious stuff done sometime this week, but for now I re-did his face and wig (which is always a huge pain). This time I decided that rather than attempt to assault it with hair glue I would try styling it more permanently by arranging strands and pouring boiling water over them so that they'd stay in that position better.

Hair is still drying, so we'll see how it works out for real later. It has potential to work for what I want though.

Ear mod: Scileraen (Limhwa Mano)

Originally posted: May 6, 2009, 02:06
I've been on a bit of a creative high lately so between projects that need to be done for school, I try to find time to do things like hack apart bjd limbs and add joints or repaint figures.
Well, one project I'd been meaning to work on for a while was Scileraen's ears. I usually draw him with dragony ears (being part dragon and all) and I had an extra pair of 'fin' ears lying around that I decided I was not going to use with the person they originally came with. So I set about attaching them to him in a rather permanent fashion.
A bit of paint later, he had properly red ears that (I think) work well with him! Re-did his face and dyed/styled his hair while I was at it!