Doll, pullip, Uncategorized

This doll has EVERYTHING

After a long delay I finished taking a used TaeYang and remaking it into Bill Hader’s SNL character Stefon.

Why? Because it brings me joy.

Here’s the before and after on the face.

I wrote about and photographed the process in more details here, February of 2020.

What you’re seeing above is:

removal of paint and wig
carving into and sanding the face to change the features/shapes
opening up the head and inserting new eye chips.
painting the face (actually drawing chalk pastels and watercolor pencils…I still differentiate dry and wet media work from when I was a drawing, not painting, major)
creating a custom wig cap and then making a wig out of brushed acrylic yarn
Sculpting some rings with apoxie sculpt.

Over winter break I was trying to rest my left hand, hoping that buddy-taping and resting my injured finger could heal every thing and I wouldn’t need surgery. Spoiler: it didn’t.

My plan was no knitting, limited sewing, no small dolls (that I’d have to hold in my left hand, only large enough dolls I could rest on a surface while working on….and I made Stefon his iconic shirt because most of that was painting with my dominant hand.

I already had stretch white fabric from making Powerpuff Girl tights. I found the right shade of green fabric in the form of a kid’s tank top at a used clothing shop for 100¥.

After sewing the shirt I used a combination of acrylic paints and ink to make a simplified version of the Ed Hardy shirt Stefon wears. I used a photo of the original shirt for reference. The SLN version has removed the Ed Hardy logo, so I didn’t include it either.

I dressed him in a pair of fake snakeskin pants I already had from another used doll. I may make costume acurate black cargo pants in the future. As the character is behind a desk you only get to see his legs in the wedding finale. I figure the difference between the sort of black pants Stefon WOULD wear and the actual pants he DID wear are inconsequential because most of us are filling in that information in our minds.

The final touch being getting him a pair of boots. I am not ready to start making tiny shoes and boots. I just am not.

And now I have the doll who has everything.

craft, Doll

Maybe we go deeper.

Setbacks and stashes.

What kind of person am I?

After getting some disappointing but not unexpected results in my life, I take stock of what I have,l and then take two Ambien (the full dose) so I won’t stay awake with worry I can do nothing with.

And the following day, as I head home from work, I’ll get a flash of the night before and check my emails.

Yes. Indeed. Ambien me did order “Thr Artist’s Way” on Amazon. Because, my friends, is the kind of person I am.

The kind who thinks, things aren’t as I’d hoped….maybe I just need to be more of an artist.

It is time to stop searching for more projects and use what I have…

Because last night I did take stock… and these are only the dolls I haven’t started working on…my used doll stash. This doesn’t include my in progress pile.

19 Disney animators dolls
One giant monster high doll
One 17 inch monster high

One tall Rapunzel (plays music)
Two My Scene dolls
Seventeen monster high dolls
Two EAdolls

One TaeYang
One Namu
Two factory Blythes
One Dal

March, 2020, the year of the dolls begins.
I’ll still dance, and teach dance, and work my day job. …and need Ambien from time to time.

But we’re going on a doll adventure, folks.

craft, Doll, monster high, Uncategorized

Sakura

Welcome to my continued adventures in assuming I’d already shared something because I finished it a while ago but when I looked I’d never posted a final product.

Back story short:

I got a Monster High doll at Dollyterria in Ikebukuro. This was before my haul of MH dolls. This is the doll and I wrote about being inspired by cherry blossom season here. Click through if you want more info on how this started.

I then started using Apoxie Sculpt…and started sculpting all the things.

And then I never posted about it again, even though I finished it in May of 2019.

I painted and painted.

The doll’s previous hair looked sad when contrasted with her new body so, inspired by Dollightful’s Sakura Pink creation, I rerooted with fake hair and so much pink 100¥ shop yarn!

FACE! Now, a half a year later, there are things I’d change. I may go back in some time to add a pure black to the eyes…but I’m trying to present without insulting myself so that’s all I’ll say.

Before and After

My issue with the eyes wasn’t until I took these photos and few days ago, outside a small bar near me that has a lot of flowers….an old man came out, saw me, giggled, and said “nice photos?’

I’m sure I’ll find more items I have spaced on presenting.

I…I make a lot of stuff…not just dolls.

Doll, living dead doll, pullip, sewing, Uncategorized

Here I am. Little Me.

It was about a year ago I brought home a Living Dead Doll, Hush, from my local Hobby Off and opened her baggie to be assaulted with the stench of nicotine. I wrote about scrubbing and scrubbing to remove the nicotine stains.

Eventually I got her down to an ivory white. She’d never be the same pink as her unexposed vinyl but it was good enough…then I waited for inspiration. She came to me in the form of Little Miss Muffet.

Little Miss Muffet was never actually made by Mezco Toyz, unlike Little Bo Creep. What struck me about her was that she was dressed like me. Maybe not the make-up and the tiny tie but everything else looked like it could have come from my closet.

I decided to make me.

Hush’s hair was string and smelled. It had to go. I started re-rooting her with strands of red and brown 100¥ shop acrylic yarn until I had a version of my bangs/fringe and ponytail.

In the last year I have discovered the wonder of buying glasses on-line. I’ve worn glasses since third-grade and needed them even earlier than that. Contacts aren’t easy for me to wear. Hard/semi-permeable contacts can handle my stigmatism but have caused scratches and pains in the past. Two week disposables can mostly handle my stigmatism but not perfectly and my eyes get itchy..I wear them for dance performances and little else.

For years buying good frames with the latest “as thin and humanly possible” lenses mean spending high hundreds of dollars…so I’d stick with the same frames for 4-6 years. Now for the first time I have one “safe/formal” pair of lenses that looks like my last pair (but with updated prescription) and two rather cartoonish over-sized frames…like the ones pictured above. My me would need glasses.

I had seen some doll sized glasses in a gochagocha machine a few months back and went to Akihabara and on Mercari to score some being resold.

Now, my doll has three pairs to choose from as well. the arms of the frames were too long so I had to snip them, drill to insert wire into the ends of the arms, and create newer “ear loops” with Apoxi sculpt….which I don’t appear to have photographed.

I’m glad I found oversized frames for her. I’ve drawn a cartoon version of myself with over-sized lenses since mid-college. Without the frames her face looks a little too sweet.

That’s one of the huge takeaways I’ve had with this. Remove the make-up from your average Living Dead Doll sculpt and it’s a very traditional looking base.

Face almost finished it was time to dress me up!

Someone in a doll customizing group suggested that 1/6 Yo-SD shoes would work for LDD dolls. So when I found these…which are nearly identical to a pair I wore in late college (except mine had a pink nose and pink inner ears) I bought them

Clothes!

I found a free pattern on Ravelry for “Raglan Sleeve Doll Sweater for 10″ Ann Estelle” which worked for LDD dolls and knit two sweaters, one in black and one in burgundy.

I found a free sewing pattern for a simple a-line (reversable) dress on-line.

Last I made her a skull skirt (no pattern because I had to pleat to the specifics of the fabric print I was using) and modified a houndsouth skirt I had in my stash to fit her.

Ta-Da!

Transformation achieved!

I know it was a success because when I sent my friend the above photo, without context on what I was going for, I received back a string of shocked LINE sticker and “It’s YOU!”

She even has a hedgehog!

And, last, here we are posing together…with the other oversized frames I bought.

So now I have two me-like dolls. Little Me and my first Pullip face-up.

And I suspect when singing Anna from Frozen 2 starts showing up in thrift markets…I shall make another me.

costuming, craft, Doll, monster high, sewing, Uncategorized

Little Dead Riding Wolf

One of my finished projects this summer was Little Dead Riding Wolf.

You may have noticed that I never show concept sketches. It’s not how I work. It’s never been. With dolls as with creating dance costumes I start with a very hazy concept, maybe gather some inspiration, and let the tools take me where they will.

I’m not proud of this. It’s just what I’m comfortable with.

In art school I’d just tackle large sheets of paper and see where the drawings took me. I think in my fine arts classes, because I drew (worked in dry and thus relatively fast materials) and i wasn’t majoring in illustration with need to think of a client, it was encouraged.

When I started dancing I was more comfortable soloing improvisationally than I was confident in making choreography…but in grappling with how to learn AND create choreography I’ve become a better dancer overall. In this new-to-me art I think some pre-planing and concept sketches would save time AND help me be more productive overall. I just need to figure out how to start that journey.

I’m getting that out here so I can think on it.

Little Dead Riding Wolf started out hazy.

The concept was part of the original doll’s name…I had one from the 20 doll haul.

And I knew that I wanted to do 1). more experimentation with Goth/Fantasy concepts on darker skinned dolls 2). unraveled yarn to create kinkier textured hair.

I bought red and brown acrylic yarn at the 100¥ shop. I unraveled it and re-rooted her head.

I covered her hair to spray her with a few priming layers of Mr. Superclear and got to coloring with chalk pastels, water color pencils and acrylics.

Next came how to redress her. I decided that Little Dead Wolf would want to warn possible grandchildren she met in the forest NOT to mess with her. I set to making a skull from Apoxie Sculpt. Nothing says “nope” like the skull of your vanquished enemies.

I drafted the cape myself. The red/black velvet is left over from a dance costume I made for myself.

The making of that and the lace beading can be found on my costume page.

For the rest of the outfit I turned to Requiem Art Designs. Etsy: DGRequiem is THE source to turn to when you wanna make doll outfits but don’t want to make your own pattern AND are willing to pay another artist. I went with her Rococo Lolita pattern.

And I took a trip to Nippori (our fabric street) for remnant scraps.

Let me tell you, it took me two tries to get the brocade to behave. I have a less than perfect version I’ll find a use for.

Then I made a short skirt using her pattern AND a longer skirt by free-styling it.

The awesome belt came off one of the other MH dolls from my haul.
I layered those two skirts. I’m a huge fan of the idea that you just layer fabrics until they look expensive and fabulous.

For a final touch I painted those horrible purple boots to match her new outfit.

I’ll need to make her a basket soon but for now I love her.

craft, Disney, Doll, sewing, Uncategorized

Power Puffing

Where have I been? I’ve been doing my summer thing. I’ve made a lot of stuff, done some social things, and visited America for 12 WHOLE DAYS.

And now, with my day job lurking beyond this weekend it’s time to start catching all of you up on my projects.

First up we have a work in progress: Powerpuff Girls.

I have a ton of Disney Animators dolls so Ariel is becoming Blossom, Snow is Buttercup and Aurora will be Bubbles.

First I had to clean them and do many days outside with 10% Benxol Peroxide acne cream to remove stains.

Which brings us to hair.

I’m ok with Blossom’s hair being more red than orange but neither Ariel nor Snow have bangs.

Which meant removing heads in order to properly root some bangs in.

I had to do the same thing with Snow. I also figured there are two waysI could interpret Buttercup’s hair. It can be slick with the up wave at the ends or I could make it more of a messy curly bob as her out of place hairs and morning illustrations suggest. I’ll be going team curly. Why not? More variation.

Aurora/Bubbles. Her hair just didn’t have the right part to do ponytails AT ALL AT ALL. I’ll work at making her a wig because I am never going to reroot a whole ‘nother of these heads. I’m sewing my first large wig cap for her, as I couldn’t find a light colored 13inch doll wig cap available online in Japan and I have stretchy nude fabric in my stash.

I’ll be buying a used wig of Mercari here later to remove blond wefts from, cheaper than buying them new.

And I’ve started on Blossom’s face.

I have already drafted a pattern that’ll work for the dresses, I did that back in the early stages when I thought I’d just learn a bit more about hand sewing by using a book about sewing for dolls….ya know…that thing that lead to all these DOLLS and Repaints.

And that, my dears, is only the start of what I’ve been up to.

craft, Doll, monster high, pullip, Uncategorized

Feeling sad for my dolls?

“Is it weird that I feel kind of sad for the characters that the dolls originally started out as?”

This question was asked by my friend Doug when I posted a picture of a Kaoru in progress.

First, you get to feel what you feel.

We all go through enough stress that we don’t need to be negatively judging our feelings if they aren’t causing us (or others) emotional or physical duress. Feel Away!

It’s natural to have feelings about what I’m doing to dolls.

Dolls are powerful. They contain emotional resonance. Dolls are small representations of humans with a long, varied history. They’ve been used for rituals (magic/religious) since we’ve been able to create them. They range from high art objects to rudimentary crafts. The dolls (or action figures) we played with as children are no different, we imbued them with a wide range of emotions and tasks in our creative play.

Some of my friends have pediophobia, a fear of dolls, and which is also due to the power of how human representation in dolls affects us….not that any of those friends are following this blog.

How Doug feels about the characters I’m changing might also have something to do with how I know Doug. We met at American based Anime conventions in the late 90’s. I don’t think it’s any fluke that the character face that finally made him ask this was quintessentially Japanese/Anime-like.   I don’t know who the head I’m transforming into Kaoru is. I have no clue if it was any character from a particular series or just a cute head. I bought it as a head in a bag….no context…but Doug has identified the base anime characters I’ve picked up before for transformations. He probably has more emotional connection to them by knowing them as anime/manga characters and knowing what their backstory is, wherein I’m just picking them as blanks to make them into a character or an idea that resonates with me.

I also know nothing about Ever After High dolls or Monster High Dolls. I look into the characters once I have a doll, but it doesn’t influence their transformation.

Now, as for if I feel remorse for the original dolls I’m working on.

Easy answer: No.

I’ve long been fascinated with doll mutilation, HI BARBIE!

My Freshman or Sophomore year of art school we had to bring in a collection of a certain type of objects for one of my art classes. I chose mutilated barbies. It was easy. I know girls and boys are rough on Barbies. I asked my high school friends if they could provide me with naturally child-mutilated Barbies and I quickly had a pile of gnawed/melted/broken bodies and a few shorn heads.

Shout out to my Sophomore year roommate, Tor Imsland, who often had to endure these things all around the apartment, sometimes opening the bathroom door to find them floating in the bathtub.

I also read up on Barbie and followed up on Barbie related artists (many of whom mutilate Barbies and deal with the psychology of how we react to dolls in peril).  The idea of working with damaged dolls has never emotionally bothered me.

Additional answer:  No, because I don’t mess with dolls I’m emotionally attached to.

If I get a vibe from a doll that it’s fine the way it is, I don’t mess with it. I love the sculpt of the Baby Moana from the Disney Animators dolls. It also reminds me a little of my friend Ebony. When I got one in great shape I knew I’d make some outfits for it and enjoy it as it is. I’ve since received a messier Moana baby but I’ll probably just transform it into a cuter Moana.

More Answer:

I think of myself as making dolls better..which also is a testament to emotional attachment.

The first used Groove/Pullip/Dal I bought was a combination of “Hmmm, what are these dolls about” and “OMFG what did they DO to you poor doll? I’ll make it better”

I love a baggie doll. I’ve learned to have boundaries about how much work to put into dinged-up humans if I’m not getting anything from that relationship. With dolls I get SOMETHING, some change, from the work I put in.

Let’s look at two dolls to illustrate how my emotions fluctuate from doll to doll.

For my birthday, Ebony gave me two baggie dolls.

I love that my friend went into Dollyteria, not quite knowing what she was looking for but knowing I like dolls in baggies and that I need more dolls of color. She came to me with these two My Scene dolls.

My Scene: Madison and Hudson.

TADA.

My Scene “Hudson”…I do not have ANY emotional attachment to him. I think he looks like a douche.

So, within a day I was sending Ebony pictures like this, to let her know I was getting THE MOST out of Hudson….my way.

Yup, cutting his hands of to try and get more articulation. Removing his insane hair. I’ve sawed off parts of his feet to sculpt him new ones.

This is how I will make Hudson a better man.

Hopefully, this man:

Katya Zamolodchikova

As for My Scene Madison?

Far gentler treatment in how I handle her and present her. I’ll saw off Hudson’s flat feet in a hot instant and show you the pictures. If I sawed of a doll of color’s feet I probably wouldn’t show the process of it until those feet were right again.

BECAUSE DOLLS AND IMAGES HAVE POWER.

No one needs disembodied Black heads on their feeds. No one needs to see hand-less Black Dolls. Maybe someday dolls of color will be as mass produced as white/white passing dolls (Licca) and those images won’t resonate but we’re not at that point.

But Madison isn’t getting sawed.

She’s going to chill on the shelf until I’ve worked up the nerve to try and turn her into a woman I DON’T WANT TO FAIL in making. There will be no naked object photos of this process. Too much feelings there.

Legit scared about falling short on this but know I won’t get better at dolls of color if I don’t try.

Finally:

It’s ok to have your feelings about my dolls, or your dolls, or your action figures. It’s natural to shift between seeing them as dolls/humans/personalities/totems/ritualistic objects.

They are ultimately your feelings to have.

barbie, craft, Doll, monster high, Uncategorized

Why do you want to shrink heads anyways? Four Reasons.

Shrinking heads is the craft of using acetone to break down the plasticizer in a vinyl doll’s head to make it smaller (and less elastic). The chemical make-up/proportions of vinyl can vary wildly so it’s not an exact procedure.

I mentioned on FB that I’d be using my down time to catch up on my blog and a friend asked, ” Is the topic of ‘why shrink the heads’ covered in the blog? I’ve been wondering.

That IS a good question.

A few of my friends check in and read this blog. For most of them I’m the only insight they have into doll crafting. It is for them I that I try to explain why to shrink heads, even though I’ve only done it once and don’t know much myself.

Here are Four Reasons Why.

HEAD TOO BIG WANT SMALLER.

I know that seems obvious, but is it? Many of the dolls I’ve been working on thus far have deliberately large heads (all the Pullip/Groove dolls, Blythes) so I understand it seems odd I’d start shrinking heads now. What makes one oversized head fine and the next becomes an issue I need to address?

For me the line has been Ever After High dolls.

Their heads are just too big and round for my tastes. This one is also missing hands and has glue head.

Because I have more box dolls from GINA for my BIRTHDAY.

Back to EAH heads. I’ve used them at original size twice; once for Wednesday (because she’s got a huge forehead and is still partly a child) and one for Raven because she’s not human.

But when it came to making Terra, a human girl who just happens to have powers, I wanted that head a bit less large. The difference is small and I wish I’d taken better photos. Still, I give you the Professor replacing Drake….Because the Professor doesn’t groom underaged girls.

It’s still a big head but less so. In an attempt to prevent head collapse I may have filled it with too much stuffing as it shrank. not sure.

2. Shrinking heads highlights aspects of head mold/design.

Sculpting of heads creates variability in the thickness of vinyl at different points of the face. These differences become more pronounced when the plastizicer is removed, creating sharper, more dramatic features.

This is where I steal photos from people who’ve done this longer than I have. these come from Dirili Doll’s Website, I used her videos as a guide.

http://www.dirili.com/mh/fastshrink1.html

http://www.dirili.com/mh/slowshrink1.html

Below is a Lagoona Monster High doll. Right is untouched, middle is a slow shrink, left is a fast shrink. See how defined the eyes (although with paint on it’s hard to see) and the cheekbones get? Yeah.

3. Photos of heads in jars.

Probably my favorite reason.

4. Can do minor reshaping when the vinyl is pliable.

After you remove the head from the acetone it will be fragile (and if you shrank fast, it will also be giant, bloated, and jelly like. After about 24 hours it won’t have completely set and you can sinfluence the head shape with consistant pressure (over 2-5 days)

This photo is from another tutorial of Dirilli

Which, as you can see, I’ll probably do just because of the photos I’ll be able to send friends.

And that’s why you might want to shrink a head.

craft, Doll, monster high, pullip, Uncategorized

Apoxie Sculpt. Everything.

Apoxie Sculpt is soooooo much better than the Japanese alternatives I’ve been trying. True, they’re just two part modeling epoxy and they don’t market themselves as Japanese alternatives to Apoxie Sculpt but they’re what I have been using.

NO MORE!

It might be pricier to buy here but…I’m in Japan. I’m where the sealant of doll choice (Mr. Super Clear) is at all hobby shops. I’m in Model Mecha!

Apoxie sculpt is silkier, less irritating to my skin (I tried wearing gloves but after a while they get in the way) and less grainy.

I only bought one pound (two 8oz containers you mix) and I’m already understanding why people buy four pounds at a time. When you have Apoxie Sculpt the answer is to SCULPT EVERYTHING.

Hey… these shoes don’t really suit Wednesday.

SCULPT SOME SKULLS.

I want a Pretty Pretty Pegasus figure.

SCULPT IT.

Do I really want to try and glue Clawdeen Wolf’s detached wolf ears back onto her skull for Starfire’s ears? No?

SCULPT SOME EARS.

I want to make an Edna Mode dolls but no existing faces really work.

SAND DOWN THAT LITTLE PULLIP AND START SCULPTING.

And, of course, I continue to sculpt my Sakura inspired doll.

The ony thing left for me to figure out what sort of armature and dark magic is needed for me to sculpt a golem that can go to work for me next week while I stay home and create.

craft, Doll, monster high, sewing, Uncategorized

SHOES for Wednesday

Doll shoes.

Pesky little doll shoes.

Ever After High dolls have SLIGHTLY larger feet than Monster High Dolls. Sometimes. Not always. Sometimes they can swap shoes and sometimes MH shoes are just too small for EAH.

This is what I have learned.

After buying some MH shoes.

So, I turned to one of the EAH dolls I picked up at my local Hobby Off and took her shoes. High heels would have to do, even though I’d wanted tiny shoe/boots I could add a buckle to.

High heels would have to do. Using an X acto knife I removed an extra front strap and scraped off the flower detail where all the straps met

Using my new best friend APOXIE SCULPT (Oh, I love you Apoxie Sculpt. Let us never speak of the two part epoxy putties I tried earlier. So you are expensive? I live in the land of cheap Mr. Super Clear, it evens out) and made tiny skulls.

I then painted the shoes with black acrylic.

Once the skulls had dried overnight I painted them, glossed them, and attached them with hot glue.

YAY!

(I picked up three MH stands for 500¥ at Dollyteria. yay.)

And thus Wednesday is done! I’d take her out for some outdoor photos but it’s raining.

Do It Yourself: WFU

The dolls and art of a woman in Japan trying to be better.

Tag Archives: custom doll