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.

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?

dressmaking and that's about it

We'll start with the lighthearted stuff.

I felt bad that my Cerisedolls Lyse (who is still sadly nameless because I keep prioritizing other things) was still sitting around in a baggy plaid shirt while other people had gotten custom clothes.

So I threw together a quick dress for her.

 I'm not sure any of these really showcase how the dress looks/functions but they were the ones that came out okay so that's what we're going with for now.

I could not locate much in the way of white fabric so the bottom is sheer. I will make a proper lining for it when I locate my material. I know I have some somewhere. I really wanted to make her something in light blue, but I have no light blue at all. Only dark blue.

It's a bit later than I thought so we'll skip the rambling for now and save it for another time.

sweater!

I haven't gotten any good pictures of the newly assembled body/head combo in the previous posts. I don't have any proper clothes for her yet so she's just wearing this black coat that obscures any sense of figure for the most part so it really doesn't look any different at the moment from the original pictures.

However, my Unoa Xyle (mentioned two posts ago) arrived and I set about giving him a face up and making him some properly fitting clothes.

I was doing such a good job of avoiding oddly sized dolls despite multiple temptations in the 51cm range. Alas, Unoas are my weakness.

Here he is in his new sweater. I need to see about styling his wig so it doesn't cover half his face. Or making him another wig. I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing with him yet. But I did make myself sell some things to make up for my impulse buy and I've decided I cannot get any new dolls until all of the ones I currently own have clothes and names.

tiny clothing

At some point I just need to buckle down and sew more often because I never let myself get comfortable enough with it to really improve much. But it's intimidating--especially in doll size. People clothes are easy. There's so much room for error. 1/6 size clothes... well, you mess up a tiny bit and the whole thing is completely non-functional.

I was going to just buy something for little Vaith, but I couldn't find anything in his style. I was really tempted to just get something cute and generic, but I finally decided to look at patterns and tutorials online to give making something myself a go before investing in something that wouldn't quite work for him (but would be darn cute).

Found a few patterns for hoodies (cuz I had it in my head that he needed a hoodie) and set about attempting to make one. It was supposed to be some easy tutorial for making one and I thought it'd be a great way to sort of wade back into sewing. Well, I messed up at pretty much every turn and ended up having to make it the normal way you'd make a shirt instead of the easy way.

On the one hand, this proves that I actually can sew (which I always doubt when making doll size things) but on the other hand he now doesn't have a hood because I botched that part so badly I ended up just going with a collar. I messed up a bit there too and it's huge and he looks like the love child of Sith and Akatsuki fashion design.

Running out the door to visit my mom for mother's day before work so I didn't have much time to take better pictures!

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.