Making Aspen the Dryad, part I

So I've wanted for ages to make one of the weird super-slim alien jointed bodies sold by Doll Chateau into a Dryad. I found the perfect body for this, the K-08 male, and while it is 52cm with a head on, in scale it counts as Mini sized. She'll just be awfully tall for a 1/4 doll.

I chose the boy version of that body for this project because the girl body has huge hips and almost no ribcage ....and i know it's weird but just looking at its frail and tiny torso makes it hard for me to breathe- it's a personal anatomy nitpick/phobia/involuntary reaction I can't get around. So I bought a boy doll and will be making it into a girl who could plausibly have organs and inhale or exhale.

Then I just needed to find a head. I wanted it to be more than just another pretty face. The right face for my dryad would need to be something special, striking, otherworldly. Armeleia of Seed Doll/Seed Arts made this little bird faced head called Wol, and I knew she'd be perfect. I snagged one as soon as the order went up.

In the months before Wol arrived, I spent a lot of time working out how I would make her into a dryad. I knew I wanted a very special kind of wig, not just a green hair wig. I wanted to give her leaves, and do four or more wigs that I could change seasonally to take her outside for photoshoots. I settled on hand dyeing a LOT of fringey lace.

So much lace. So much hand dyeing. Partly I used Dye-Na-Flow by Jacquard, and partly just fabric markers for the brown twiggy bits. Each piece of lace was laid out flat, then painted and marker'ed one.
strand.
 at a time.  ....Yikes. Sometimes I wonder about myself and my idea of fun.

 Then it was time to work on the body mods. I shaved off the boy bits on the hip piece, which was easy, but the chest was a little trickier. I wanted her to have some small breasts, so I had to sculpt some in. Luckily this body has wide, low, long pecs so there's plenty of room. Here's the first few cuts with the ceramic scraper knife, and you can see my pencil guidelines. Nothing too extreme, just an A-cup size.

 Making things symmetrical before I refine the shapes. A certain amount of symmetry is desired here.

 Then a LOT of sanding! So often the key to a good mod vs a kind of shoddy one is the amount of time you're willing to put in with the sandpaper and descending fineness of grits to get a good smooth finish.

 

 Even at this stage she's not quite done. I hurt my thumb with an S-Hook at this point, (you do NOT want to know, it was pretty bad) so sanding had to stop while my poor digit recovered. 

Luckily Wol arrived to distract me!

 

 Here she is! And with her genius little s-hook holder made in the shape of a cluster of crystals! It's super sparkly in person. Armeleia hand cast it herself to include the glittery bits, so unless a bigger company wants to go to that kind of trouble they might not steal the concept. (fingers crossed. it's such a nice detail) Wol herself was in a cute little printed cloth bag I will be keeping.

I spent some time with my bandaged thumb and engaged in an evening of wigmaking. I'm pretty pleased with the results.

 Here she is, starting to come together! I am so excited! Her eyes are some I'd already owned and used on a doll I had sold on, and I was hoping they'd work for her. I love her look!


What you're seeing here on the blog is the Summer Wig, but she'll have other seasons too. From similar lace I've made her an Autumn wig in full Aspen Gold. I want to make a Spring wig with budding leaves and flowers, and a Winter wig full of ice crystals and dusted with snow.

I plan to blush her like an Aspen Tree, with lots of little black bark texture marks, and greyish brown shading and faceup.

Amadi gets Aesthetics

Remember my Simply Divine Harlequin, cast for me in Cinnamon? I showed you pics when he arrived, and I put him onto a Pale Tan Dollstown 18 male body. The combo is beautiful. Such amazing artistry in both sculpts and the styles complement each other perfectly!

So I finally found some days in late summer that weren't humid...Sort of. The American Rockies are really dry year round, but get thunderstorms out of nowhere in the afternoons of August. Humidity can really ruin your day when you're spraying aerosols, especially any kind of sealant. It can really cause problems working on Tan resin, because if humidity causes the sealant to lighten at all, it shows up amazingly well against the darker color of the resin.

The first time I tried to seal the body for blushing, I was using Citadel Purity Seal, and I did not know that outside my shop, a humid front was moving in ahead of some clouds while I worked. Rocky Mountain storms are notorious for stealing a march on you. They can come out of nowhere in less than a couple of hours. I am a Native Californian, and still not used to this! You'd think living here in the Rockies for four, almost five years now would have taught me to never trust the radically changeable weather. I need to check outside every hour or so when I work with Sealants in the Rockies. I know this now. I learned it the hard way when the Citadel clouded up on me. It looked like powdered sugar sprayed across the resin. I ended up having to scrub it off the resin.

That took me the help of another doll-hobbyist, many ounces of Windsor-Newton Brush Cleaner, and several DAYS of hard, hard scrubbing. Citadel does not let go in a hurry. Be warned. Ugh. It does Not like humidity At All, and will not be removed without a fight.

So when I came back to try sealing this doll again, I brought back my old favorite, Testor's Model Master Flat lacquer. It's comparatively cheap, it comes in adorable little bitty cans, it was the first faceup sealant I ever used, and it hasn't failed me yet! It also seems to tolerate a smidgen of humidity better than Citadel did, 'cuz I used to use this stuff in a coastal California town, and it has to be practically raining outside for humidity to affect it.

After a wall of text like that, you didn't think I'd leave you without pics, did you? Here he is!

Aneirin- Saint to Monster, part VI

This is part 6 of a series.  (Other posts may contain Anatomically Correct Doll Nudity.)
Part 5
Part 4
Part 3
Part 2
Part 1

Well, it's been a long haul, and the most intensive modification I've ever done, but he's pretty much finished.

 I went back and did more contouring to his faceup, and an absurd number of coats of Tamiya spray enamel to the lengthening mod I did on his neck. He has two pairs of ears so far, the Shy/Sad/Sleepy ears, shown above, and his regular Upright ears. I mean to make a few more pairs, but those will be further projects. These are his minimum needed ears. (not a phrase I ever anticipated typing...)

 Here is his full body glory! (but this was before I added color to his nipples. Oops.) I may be adding more color to his claws on his feet, since they don't photograph like I blushed them. He does stand on his own pretty well.

 

Here he is all finished up and wearing his little raggedy kilt wrap. People on Den of Angels commented that he looks confused about being indoors. he does look quite baffled by walls and carpet, when his preferred home is a forest. I can't wait to get him outdoors for some photoshoots.

Thanks for following along! I really appreciate everyone who's been following this whole long escapade! 

Amadi Arrives

I'd always adored the head sculpts by Simply Divine but never had a good reason to get one.This last year,  I was able to ask them to cast a Harlequin sculpt in their Cinnamon resin, just for me! And they did it!

I made him a hardcap wig out of tibetan mohair stuff.

The only body these guys look the very best on, to my eye, is the Dollstown 18 Male body, which is huge and expensive, but with some Christmas money, I finally got to order one this year,

And this week, it arrived!!

I put him all together and... WHOA.

His name is Amadi.

And here's a little skirty thing I made him. He is HUGE.

Aneirin- Saint to Monster, part V

It's been a long term project, but we're almost there!

 (This post and the links below are likely to contain Anatomically Correct Doll Nudity- NSFW or for especially shy people) 


This is part 5 of an ongoing project.
See Part 4
See Part 3
See Part 2
See Part 1

I've been very busy but I've had snippets of time here and there to work on my dolls as art therapy against depression. It helps. 

Here's what Aneirin's leggies look like now!

They've been  bulked up with Apoxie Sculpt, sealed, and sprayed with Tamiya paints. His hip sockets, which were prone in testing to chipping, have been sueded with actual leather pliver suede. This helps him to stand pretty well by himself.

Next he'll need body blushing. I was gonna do some of that today but the weather turned out too cold.

I also made him a raggedy lil' skirt cloth thing to wear. He's not big into bothering about his clothes.

I remade his wig, because the poofiness was bothering me. This time I made a "hard" style cap and applied the little yarn dredlocks to that.

His new hairstyle is a lot of dreds with the top half of them tied back. I also started his faceup in this shot. Just some basic contouring and color. His ears will get done when I do his body blushing. He looks weird without his eyebrows. So:

All that's left to do is a few more touchups and then to get this boy body-blushed!

Next part! 

Part VI

Tiarnach- Melancholy

Tiarnach is a Soom Chrom head on a Granado Nuevo body,

and he's surprisingly good at looking melancholic.

Aesthetics by me.

White Faun- Fayeth has a face

I’m pretty proud of myself for dragging my fancy camera out and making myself remember how to use it. 

We got a snap of warm weather here in the mountains today so I was finally able to get a faceup on this little darling. Now all she needs is white eyelashes.

Some hobbyists claim that people have looked down on them for owning ResinSoul dolls. (i’ve never seen it meself.) Ju has actually been on my list of Grail-ness for years, in spite of her low price. I just had to figure out what I wanted her to be. 

Fayeth here is a ResinSoul Ju in white on a hooved Soom Adamelli/Shale body. She’s been made to match it by some creative blushing, as the resins do not normally match at all. I made her wig of Tibetan sheepskin, but her eyes are from evilBay.

"I aten't Dead". Dolly Plans as they stand now.

So I've been off this blog while the school year kicks my butt. So much has happened this 2014 that it's hard to fit it all in. I will now attempt to anyway.

Personal news:
I have moved to a House, and my downtown art studio is being moved to my home. Now I'll have a room for dollies sewing and photography, and an outdoor studio for sculpting, modding, armoring, leatherwork, woodwork, casting, prop making and other messy pursuits. There will even be a ventilated Spray Booth for Safe Faceups in any weather! Right now I have the indoor Craft Room half set up, and it's been SO much easier to do things in there.

In June, I finally figured out what's been so wrong with my health, probably for years now. I am diagnosed Non-Celiac Gluten Intolerant. Making the change to eating totally Gluten Free has been a daunting, life altering shift ,and I've been taking it pretty hard, but I'll adjust eventually. I am trying to find a balance that will work for me, with ways to make vegetables my number one food pyramind base when I hate them so much. Uck.

Dolly News:
Some dolls have been let go, and some new faces have come along!
Sir Malcom, an Iplehouse SID hybrid from the Court group, and Fiachra, a Nobility doll hybrid, have both been sold on. Their characters are not fleshed out enough to justify me keeping such a huge bulk of costly resin around.
I posted my work on Moira, my new FL Minifee Mirwen mod, earlier this year.

 I have also acquired a longtime Grail dream, a ResinSoul Ju head on a Soom Adamelli/Shale body with clear "crystal" hooves.

 Isn't she darling? I made her a wig after a few false tries. Somehow the braids  kinda make it. I've always loved the Ju sculpt. I had to blush her to match her snowy RS resin to Soom's ivory, so I hope her head will mellow out soon and make that color match a bit easier. Maybe I can put her head under a UV lamp to hurry it along. I've done that with other resin- doesn't harm it a bit.

This is Jules! He and his gal-pal Freckles have come to live with me! They are sharing a Pukifee body. I finally have every body size of FL tinies, so I can craft reliably for each of them! Jules is a Juri '11 Multihead, and Freckles is a Zio Multihead faceplate set (Not shown, obv.)

Dolly Plans:

Remember this guy? Aneirin is my Dollshe Saint frankendolly mod, and I am so excited about finishing my outdoor Studio because I will finally get to really get busy with sculpting and modding in a work environment designed for that! I want to finish Aneirin so badly. He and a few other half done mods that really needed the right facilities will finally get my attention.

Sculpting! 

All I can say is those of you who have been wishing there were more >Size 0-2 dolls available out there... Well, start saving your pennies because I have planz.

Things the doll hobby does not have much of: Dress size 14-16 Ladies, in SD or MSD size. Men who have any body fat whatsoever- I don't mean obese, I mean not-shredded or lean. Mature faces. Mature MSD faces.  All in skintones from white to pink to tan to black, heads separately available from bodies, multiple hand options, multiple bust options, possibly even multiple limb options.

If those things interest you, watch this blog.

If, on the other hand, you are a recaster (thief) or recast supporter (buyer from thieves), get lost. You are not welcome here until you quit giving thieves money for stealing.

The White Faun- experiments with Angelina Fibers

This is my Soom Adamelli, an MSD sized doll with clear resin hooves. She doesn't have a head yet but I'm awaiting a Resinsoul Ju head with long elfy ears. She's going to be a pale forest fae, ethereal and feminine.

 I'm experimenting with making her clothes, after failing to find anything for sale that would work for her. This garment was made with Angelina hot fuse fibers. I will try again once I get more fiber, but this is a cool looking start, I thought.

So far she has no name.