craft, Doll, pullip, sewing, Uncategorized

Reggie.

It’s come to my attention that when I post updates of what I’m working on, dollwise, it can be a little hard to follow if I show multiple dolls. Fair. I mean the “Groove” dolls (The company that now makes Pullips/Dals/Ect) are rather inter-changable once you remove their wigs and clothes and are sanding their faces.

Remember her?

She’s the first doll I ordered from DollyTerria in Ikebukuro…and when I did I’d mistaken her from the Monomono Dal with the elf ears I’d eventually buy in person.

So I had a Pullip doll with no blinking eyelids or eyelid bars. This sent me on an adventure of buying eyelids/eye mechanisms only to learn the subtle differences between generations of heads/eye-mechs. Eventually I had eyelids and wink bars for her AND a whole different head from another doll with eyelids and wink bars AND picked up an extra Obitsu body for the new (2nd) head.

I see why this is confusing.

This is the doll that literally had a dead bug in her head, eww.

This is the face I removed. It’s not the original face of the original doll. Someone had already done one “faceup” on this and had put in new eye-chips that had once been intended for teddybears.

Eye chips are flat underneath so when using eyes intended for stuffed animals the prong that goes into the fabric (and then gets anchored with a safety screw) has to be cut off and sanded.

This is her face most of the way through repainting. Some of the pigment I used is actual eye-shadow instead of just chalk pastel and watercolor pencils, thus the shimmer.

I ordered these eyes from ChewyRabbit on Etsy. I ordered a 12mm which is a smidge small but work.

I sewed a dress…once more using the scraps of that skeleton fabric I STILL have. The gather is a little uneven but it adds “character”.

I picked up those boots (Azone) and a dark blue/black wig used (1,000 yen each) at Mandrake Akihabara. I don’t think I’ll ever want to make shoes. This is an Obitsu body, I’m using it as the base body and have given her original body to the extra head. Confusion. No real reason for it.

Then I went to America for 10 days.

Meet Ozma the Cat. I am Ozma the dancer (stage name) and my mother sometimes signs on-line replies as MOO, Mother of Ozmas. She doesn’t watch Game of Thrones.

Returning to Japan, I was happy to see my ChewyRabbit eyes had arrived! The next day, as I waited for my luggage to be delivered, I assembled Ronnie. I have a few weeks before I’m back to working both of my jobs, so expect many crafts to get completed…or half started..probably both.

The wig originally covered her half of her eyes. I trimmed back the bangs. She’s obviously a little evil and scary. The eyes strike me as too matchy-matchy with the eye color, but it’s grown on me.

A friend noted that she look a little Evil Veronica. That led to me I’m calling her Reggie (short for Regina) as the trio remind me a bit of Archie, Reggie, and Jughead.

She’s getting a fabulous jacket later…but riiiiight after posting her on Instagram and FB THIS awesome thing happened. Meet my on-line buddy Caty T. WOOOOOO!

Caty is a MAC MUA who also bellydances and is AMAZING and young and talented. And I’ve already stolen a bunch of her looks for an inspiration file and am marinating on a Caty inspired doll because that’s the sort of person I am.

From Bug-head to Judhead’s Bud, that’s Reggie’s journey.

archie, craft, Doll, sewing, Uncategorized

Terror’s make-over is complete.

What have I learned?

Carefully layer the fixative spray, let it fully dry, and paint up the eyes and whites first.

Also, you can’t make the Archie doll look trustworthy. You can only raise his craftsmanship. He’ll always be eldritch. He might slice you where you sleep but he’ll do it with a better quality of shank.

He no longer stares straight at you.

Archie before…not my Archie. Mine had a better shirt.

But he now looks like he’s spotted the two Archies standing just outside of your view. And that’s when the attack comes. Not from the front, but from the side, from the other two Archies you didn’t even know were there. Because Archie is a pack hunter, you see, he uses coordinated attack patterns and he is out in force today…

I finished his shirt yesterday. I do wish I’d actually focused and drafted his sleeves/shirt. I really just winged the whole shirt and had regrets later. I am happy that I had the leftover fabric for his bow tie.

I made him a whole new sweater as well, but that’s mostly because Snow looks so good in his original. I might make her an Archie homage outfit.

It occurs to me that now I have dolls in different sizes this can be my crash course in how to adjust pattern sizes for different shaped people. I do get asked about if i can be commissioned to make dresses and costumes for people other than my self but I’ve stuck to costumes for people around my size who live locally (so I can do fittings) instead of learning more about adjusting and scaling patterns.

…who knows. Maybe I’ll tackle Reggie later with the repaint skills I’m gaining.

Or maybe I’ll throw him in a box, tie it with chains, and hope I never hear any strange noises coming from it.

Who am I kidding…I’ll hear those noises…those low, dull, quick sounds, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I know the sound well, too. The beating of the old doll’s rage…Reggie…the other terror.

archie, craft, Doll, sewing, Uncategorized

Terror Gets a New Pair of Pants.

Well, I couldn’t very well leave Archie pants-less. He’s scary enough. Even with the make-over an apartment guest recoiled slightly at his visage.

After the ass-reduction Archie couldn’t very well wear his old pants.

Also…Archie has some ugly pants.

Comics are a hellofa drug.

Trust me, they are a repulsive fabric to behold.

Fuck the Patriarchy! Not worth fighting over.

But, accurate to the classic look.

This is just included because I saw it and now want a world where Betty seduces Veronica in Sexy Archie Drag….because that’s EXACTLY what she’s wearing.

There’s NO WAY I was ever going to find orange fabric with a black grid in the right scale. I didn’t like the original fabric enough to alter it either. So what I needed was to find a real-world interpretation of what those pants might be.

I used a Harris tweed with a subtle plaid pattern including flecks of orange. Then I altered the original pants and used them as a pattern. The original pants had pockets but two layers of tweed gets bulky.

I also repainted and scuffed up the shoes..and gave them dark soles.

Cuffs! That inseam could use a pressing.

When the stores reopened here I also hit a “Hobby-off”. Book-Off/ Hard-Off/Hobby-Off are a chain of resale shops selling books & Manga, furniture and home stuff, and geek stuff.

I am now off the Kinder-Egg grid for a Maz Kanata.

There are now Maz busts available online but I don’t want Maz or toys to totally takeover my apt…so I set out to upgrade Maz.

Before

After (Her base is somewhere, will find when tidying up later)

It’s mostly just messy washes but it gives her a bit more depth. She’s really tiny. I will need even smaller brushes and magnifying visor if I do things on this scale.

archie, craft, Doll, sewing, Uncategorized

Archie, Whatcha gonna do with all that junk?

Archie comics introduce me to the word jalopy as if it were normal 80’s slang. In fact, I’m pretty sure I owned a copy of Archie’s Mechanics #2. In retrospect Archie teaching us about mechanics was absurd because it was Betty who knew how to fix his car much of the time. Patriarchy!

archiekink

New Car Kinks you say? Are you talking about… Archie’s TRUNK?

Damn, Archie Andrews! We didn’t even celebrate Thanksgiving but here you are FULL OF STUFFING!

Now, I don’t want to booty shame, I’m just saying I don’t remember Archie backing THAT ass up. Maybe that’s a failure of my imagination. Maybe the artists deliberately hid Archie’s Badonkadonk the way TV shows expect that pregnant actresses will carry boxes and wear hoodies and no one will notice CHANGES.

Deliberate Couch Placement

It was also my theory that the doll butt served to help this 18-inch Archie (not a euphemism) sit if you didn’t want to pay for a stand. My friend Randy had another theory.

“That butt was probably an evolutionary adaptation that allowed him to hang off of even the smallest of outcroppings to murder-leer.”

Spoken like a true house guest who has encountered Reggie and Archie in my delightful apartment.

Randy knows about the make-over because I sent him photos… because that’s what I do when a friend is having too-few spoons to go do something social and comes to me for a “get out there and do that thing” pep talk. I send creepy doll photos annotated with the demands the dolls have. I’m a…friend. I’m not always the friend you want and rarely the friend you deserve but I am a friend with a LOT of photos on her phone.