Taking in Statik's clothes

I felt like sewing something today but didn't know what I wanted to work on. I considered attempting to start on Theorin's clothes but I figured that was likely to just make me discouraged (terrible reason not to start, I know) so I decided to work on something a little easier just to sort of get back into things.

Statik has been running around in very over-sized clothes for a while now. He's on a Shinydoll body and therefore is very short and petite compared to most normal SDs. I had him in a spare shirt and pants that I had lying around , but I had to roll the sleeves up a lot and roll up the pants by about 4 inches.

So I decided since no one else needs that outfit, I would just take in the shirt and pants to make them fit better. I think the shirt still needs more work, but the pants fit very well now.

This is just Statik sitting outside on my work table.

And just a couple more shots of Statik sitting around on the table. His left pant leg is slightly shorter than the right but I can fix that. They're both rolled up about a half inch on the inside so I can just let that down more and re-hem it.

(If one wants to see the previous fit of the outfit, my previous post where I tried the Elfdoll Tasha head on this body shows how loose the shirt used to be, though I don't have any shots of how loose the pants used to be.)

A couple experiments with Elfdoll Tasha

A while back I got an Elfdoll Tasha head in a semi-trade on DoA (someone traded the head to me to pay for their shipping costs). Anyway, I haven't done anything with her. I have no idea what I want to do with her or if I actually can make use of her, but VampireAngel13 mentioned that this was a head being considered for a character, so I offered to try out a few different looks. 

I figured this might also help me figure out what I might want to do with this head or maybe get some decent sales photos. I don't know. XD 

I didn't end up doing anything fancy with any of these. Just plopped Tasha on a couple different bodies and tried a few different wigs and took photos on the dining room table. I probably could've done more with this shoot if everyone's wig wasn't hot glued to their head, making it a pain to switch things around. I did pull off Elaria and Statik's heads for body usage. Might mess with more later. Anyway, here are the pictures. 

Here are a couple on Statik's body (modded Shinydoll) with a Dream of Doll wig. 

This is her on Elaria's body (Dollmore Glamor Eve) with Elaria's wig which I got from some ebay seller. For some reason the more dressed up look makes her look more masculine, IMO. 

And for the last wig I tried on (another ebay wig that I cut shorter) I didn't bother with a body.  It's only just now that I've realized I didn't try anything darker on her, so I'm off to remedy that before hitting post! 

Here she is with some crazy brown rock star-esque wig I have. Can't tell from this angle. Mostly just looks unintentionally unruly here. 

Here she is cosplaying Merida from Brave. 

And this is the wig that almost every newcomer who is supposed to have dark hair ends up wearing for a while!

Accessorizing

It's been a weird week and I haven't been very productive. I did find time to mess with Avignon's look a few days back and today I decided to get out my random pieces of discount jewelry to mess with Esyrlon and Theorin's accessories. When proper motivation returns I will be attempting to make Theorin real clothes, but for now he's just wearing.. neck things.

too lazy to go acquire natural lighting or even set up a backdrop. I've been cleaning the house and it's unbearably hot today so I just didn't feel like it.

Here they are from the front. Color correction makes Theorin look rather green around the face.

And the side (sort of). Theorin's hair is a mess. I didn't realize when I took the picture. Vaguely interesting story behind that: I ordered a custom wig for him because I had a certain length and color in mind but couldn't find the right sort of thing. I didn't want it to  have a defined part anywhere either. Anyway, I get said custom wig and despite having ordered it to fit a 9-10in. head, it won't even fit someone who wears an 8.

I don't know what method they used to make the wig, but it apparently involved plastic and some sort of adhesive. I had to pull out the wefts of hair from the weird adhesive stuff (which was black and goopy and not fun) and then I sewed them onto a new wig cap that I made. So after much work, I managed to get a wig that properly fit Theorin's head and is the right style. (I can't remember if I've mentioned this story here before but I don't think I have.)

Made the discovery that my Phonolus head fits on my Limhwa Mano body. Color isn't too far off either. If it didn't look too serene to be my Scileraen, I'd be sorely tempted just because I really love that head.

waffling

I spent years looking for the right mold for a character of mine, Avignon. At first I thought Soom's Olivine would be perfect and I got her during one of their christmas kit sales. I ended up having trouble bonding and sold the body. The head I kept and turned into my Lyric.

I then spent another significant portion of forever trying to find another decent mold for her. This time I decided on Souldoll's Ignis. I found one that was quite a bit cheaper than retail on DoA's marketplace and this is what she looked like:

After about a year or two (I forget exactly) I decided I wasn't really doing anything with her. This photo was taken for her sales thread and it was one of maybe two photos I ever took of her. And it was the only one I took of her by herself. The others were all her with Loren (her on and off boyfriend).

Anyway, the sales thread was up for months and no one was interested. And then I saw someone else selling their Ignis and liked what they'd done with her. I thought about trying to change her look for a while, but decided to just keep bumping my thread. And then another few months passed and I saw another Ignis for sale that I liked. This time I was convinced that I just didn't like what I'd done with her, so I set about wiping her face so I could redo it.

After the redone face up, I decided to try different wigs on her. The one she is supposed to wear (pictured above) just wasn't working. So I got out the box o' wigs and started trying them on one by one. I ended up rather liking her in a wig that belonged to Sasori waaay back before I got him a more appropriate one for his character.

Here she is in a dress borrowed from Selly. Ignore the wet streak of hair. The wig had bangs in the front and I wanted it to have a part so I broke out the boiling water to fix that, and it wasn't dry yet in these pictures.

And here is a better shot of her face. But it's blurry. The camera batteries were dying and I didn't have time to get one that was in better focus.

curse you, gigantic neck holes...

I got a Phonolus head in a trade on DoA. Well it was more like... as a layaway payment. So.. partial trade. Anyway, I was mad lusting after the head when he was released, but had no particular interest in any of the fantasy parts. That and I didn't have the funds.

But this works out perfectly! The only problem is that I only have one body that the head can fit on, and that's my EID body which already has an accompanying head. So they've been splitting time on the body. Normally I don't do that, but it's highly unlikely I'm going to be acquiring a body that fits the head anytime soon.

Here is a picture, for those interested. The head doesn't match the body, but I don't really have anything that would match so I just went for fit. (Felt bad leaving him in the head closet until funding for a body was available)

He's wearing Theorin's hair because I was vaguely contemplating having him take over the part. But I don't think I'll end up going that route. I did want Theorin to have less open eyes, but he's also supposed to have thinner lips and I don't think I want to mess with Phonolus' lips.

That's about it really.

EID sitting fix

I was browsing threads on DoA and ran into one on modding an Iplehouse EID body so that it can sit up without leaning against something. I've been meaning to do something about this for ages, but other things keep coming up and I end up putting it off.

But not today! I un-strung Theorin and took his torso and legs out onto the patio and set to work with my dremel!

First I made the notch on the legs go down further. The green marks show about how far down it used to go since I don't have before and after pics. I was in too much of a hurry. I briefly thought about carving in a notch in the legs in the front (seen here as ugly scratch-like things) but I'll sand and smooth that out later. Luckily the realskin color goes all the way through so it wont' be discolored.

Then I took in the area in the front part of the hip joint so that the body could lean further forward. I also carved a notch into the upper torso joint to help the torso lock into position when he's leaning forward, but it ended up not being necessary and he can sit just fine without having to use it. 

Here he is, sitting completely un-supported! He still leans back slightly, but it's not near as bad as before and I'm very relieved to not have to lean him against walls anymore!

new stuff

I got a few new things over the past couple weeks. First off was my Dollzone Moment, which was made possible by a loan from Selly (and in return I will be paying for her fancy new camera!) Win win situation there.

I'm not very good with MSDs and recently decided my last one was going to be up-sized to a small SD. Moment is at the moment the one exception to my SDs-only rule.

The next arrival was my Angelsdoll Baku, who is my re-shelling of Eskilys. He was one of my oldest bjds and one of the only ones I hadn't 'upgraded' since getting him. I feel like he looks much more like his character now (and he even fit the wig I had for his old head!) Now I just need to make him new goggles since the old ones don't fit.

And lastly, I upgraded Statik to small SD size. I got a really cheap, damaged Zaoll Luv head (complete with headback!) off of DoA. The head was originally a sleeping head, but the last owner had opened the eyes some. There also appear to be some sanding or scratch marks on the nose.

I further modded the eyes to try to give them a similar shape to my L-bi so that it might look something like a more grown up L-bi. I need to go in and add eyelids at some point, but I wasn't feeling up to the task today.

Last night I made him a new wig. The old one actually fit, but it was too short. It looks too puffy where the part is in the photo, but in person it smooths down nicer. I just tend to not notice ridiculous things like that until after I look at the pictures on the computer.

Ezsphrein's updated face

I was going to just be lazy and leave the old face up on. And then I tried to just touch it up and see if it could be salvaged. I was going to just leave that, but I left him sitting on my bed and since Selly comes in to say hi most days after work that kind of turned out to be my motivator. Because it was between redoing the face up so she wouldn't see the horror and hiding him somewhere she wouldn't see him. And I decided if it was bad enough that I would hide him then it was bad enough that I should get it done rather than put it off for another day.

So I wiped him clean and mixed up a bunch of thinned out liquitex matte medium to put in a small jar so that I can just shove a few drops in the airbrush whenever I need to seal a face in the future. (Another wonderful thing about the airbrush for sealing? Even if I accidentally spray it on so thick the face looks wet, it doesn't smear the face up like my other sealants do)

For attempt #2 I just scrapped the whole black ashy look and went for a more subtle thing with greys and browns. I"m a lot more happy with this attempt.

All the natural lighting was gone by this point, so this is taken in my room. No matter how hard I try to make him look angry, Ezsphrein always looks so cute to me. This isn't entirely a bad thing though. It's part of what drew me to him initially.

5 years of yellowing and he's still too white for what's supposed to match 'volks white'. XD He's not the paper white he used to be, but he's still quite pale. I find doing face ups on white skinned dolls really difficult. With normal skin I use a lot of browns and reds, but that's usually too harsh to use on white. Anyway... I'll leave the picture up on the last entry just so I can be reminded of my failure. XD

I think I might be in love with my airbrush

So today I decided Ezsphrein's face needed a redo. It's been ages.

I was going to be lazy and just use the good ol' fashioned testor's dullcote, but it was about to rain and it was humid out and it didn't want to stick right. And when I finally did get it to coat the head, I was having a hard time blending. Now, this problem isn't new. I've always had trouble with blending when using ... pretty much any spray sealant. But apparently after only two face ups using my air brush for either the sealant layer or a paint layer to cover mods, I'm spoiled.

So I dragged out the airbrush and mixed my liquitex matte medium with water (I found that a 2:1 ratio was working pretty well for me. 2 drops liquitex to one drop water, that is). It set quickly and gave me enough tooth for ease of blending, but this time not so much that fine details were difficult. (eyebrows were super easy this time)

Alas,  I had this last minute great idea to incorporate some darker greys since Scileraen's face up is so heavy on blacks and such. (in my mind when fire dragons take humanoid form, they tend to have what looks like ash around their eyes). Anyway.. said last minute idea didn't work out so well and undid my contouring work when I positioned it incorrectly. I didn't fully realize this until his hair was on and then I was like "oh.. shit." So it kind of works like reverse contouring, making his nose look wider than it actually is. Not what I was going for. I plan to redo it. I guess it wouldn't be a bad idea to go ahead and get that done.

Quick picture of my improperly done work. But see? He has eyebrows. And I feel like the colors blend pretty smoothly. Yeah anyway... so the airbrush + liquitex matte mediium is probably officially replacing Testor's as my go-to sealant (unless there's some hidden drawback to this that I'm unaware of). It also had no trouble at all with the humidity! Yet another bonus.

trying something different

Today I did more experimenting with the airbrush. I wanted to mess with it on doll heads to try to get a feel for the amount of pressure and distance I needed to get color to show up without making spidery lines. I'm still sort of learning where I need to hold my hand to get color to show up in the right area.

I decided to try to give Id a face up by airbrush, since I wasn't happy with his old one. But I'm not yet good enough at telling where I'm spraying so it was going everywhere. However, I discovered yesterday with Kael that an airbrushed layer makes blushing with pastels a lot easier because it gives it extra tooth. So I got out my liquitex matte medium and put that in the airbrush and used that to do Id's first layer of sealant. It gave the head such a nice degree of tooth that I was able to do the entire face up in one layer. Didn't seal again until I was all done.

The only drawback was that it was a bit too toothy for making eyebrow lines. Wouldn't be a problem if I was better at using paint for eyebrows, but since I use colored pencils it was a bit challenging. Perhaps next time I'll thin down the liquitex a bit.

Anyway, new faceup is less obnoxious than the last one was. I'm having enough difficulty adapting to doing more subtle face ups (that don't include really dark bags under the eyes or eyeshadow, etc) but it's even harder to adapt to doing children.

The nice thing about using the airbrush for this is that it doesn't smell awful like spray sealants and like two drops of liquitex matte medium will cover a whole head. (Id has a small head but I went over it like three times with those two drops)

Anyway... onward to pictures!