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, Disney, Doll, sewing, Uncategorized

Melody, complete!

I HAVE FINISHED IT!

Last I updated about Melody, as far as my searches show me, I’d given up on dying her synthetic hair. I’d pried her head off and started rooting.

MY GOD, that was arduous. The heads of Disney Animators are about the size of softballs.

Towards the end I realized that the the neck hole was so small, and the area I’d need to secure inside with glue was so large…it was near impossible to do cleanly so I…CUT INTO HER HEAD.

Desperate times.

I finished rerooting the head and the skull flap and secured the hair with Aleene’s Clear Gel Tacky Glue. Then I used Liquid Fusion and swearing to fit the head back into place.

I later, after building up enough layed of liquid fusion, painted the seams black. And took photos.

Then onto painting!

I didn’t take in progress photos. This is the final result all at once, with a little outfit I sewed her because I don’t like the idea of sending a naked doll to a friend.

This week I’ll find a box and send her off to Gina and her daughter. And never ever reroot a Disney Animator Doll again.

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, Uncategorized

Teen Titans Terra: I shrink a head

The new job kicked in hard and fast. I’m doing the work that, at my last company, would be done by 1.5 people. Suffice to say there is a learning curve. This, plus a new commute plus teaching my dance partner’s classes as well as my own, has given me a head cold and my tendonitis is flaring up.

The mixed good news is I have time to recover. It’s an unprecedented TEN DAY Golden week here in Japan. Emperor Akihito is abdicating without the usual obligatory death and his son, Crown Prince Naruhito, will ascend. The new era of Reiwa starts on Wednesday.

Y’all will be in 2019 and I’ll be starting Reiwa year one. Not kidding.

Golden Week involves a lot of people traveling and extra crowds. I’m taking my cold to be a sign that it’s time for me to practice for the 2020 Olympics…wherein I avoid any extra trips into Tokyo until bullshit is settled. My new commute already involves trains where there are train workers on the platforms pushing more people in. Adding GW or Olympics to that? NOPE.

So, what have I been making? Well shortly after things got crazy, it was my birthday…so there is NO SHORTAGE OF DOLLS.

Time to make Terra

But before all the dolls arrived I’d picked up two EAH dolls at Hobby Off. I have become resigned to the fact that if an EAH doll is given to HobbyOff, it will probably have glue seepage.

For Terra I’d use Ashlynn Ella. She doesn’t have yellow-blond hair but she does have sort of a dirty blond tan Malibu Barbie vibe that I thought would work for Terra.

I scrapped out as much extra glue as I could without losing hair and then set about to shrink her head. I figured tighter hair openings would counter balance the decrease in glue…but I also hoped I removed enough glue that the head wouldn’t rip if it tried to shrink smaller than the glue inside.

Shrinking uses acetone to eat away at the plastisizer in the doll’s head, ultimately making it smaller, and less maliable. There are risks.

As friends sent me texts in this time period I’d sometimes reply with pictures like this “I’m drinking to forget”

I used Dirili Dolls videos and blog as a guide.

I intended to do a slow shrink, where a ratio of water to acetone makes it a slower, more controlled process with less ballooning and contracting of the doll’s head over 48 hours of soaking. But I never quite found the sweet spot of a good ratio. After two tries I went for a fast shrink:100% Acetone over 2-3 hours.

MAN DOES THE HEAD BALLOON BEFORE IT SHRINKS.

I waited for it to dry and shrink down, then repeated the process one more time.

Final head next to an unshrunk EAH head.

Then to decorate!

Little by little I’m getting a handle on this scale.

I whipped up a quick outfit. In the future I think I’ll use something other than felt for her belt/pouches and gloves…but I really wanted to get this done RIGHT before my schedule got crazy.

I’ll be painting her boots later.

Here she is with the squad.

Now I just have to tackle Rose Wilson for the Girls Night Out to be complete…and I know who she’ll be made from!

Yup, from the Thrift Shop Haul that is my Father and Step-mother’s contribution to my birthday emerged two Elsas.

And this is just part of the birthday doll haul. SO MANY DOLLS.

Such a head cold.

Updates will be coming daily for a bit.

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.

craft, Doll, monster high, Uncategorized

Cherry Blossom Season!

It’s that time of the year, when the beauty of nature is juxtaposed with a wild uptick in public drunkenness in parks.

I know this because:
I see them in bloom.
I made the mistake of meeting a friend in Ueno recently and he and I were UNPREPARED for the slow-moving packs of visiting foreigners and residential elderly packs pressing in on all sides.

CHERRY BLOSSOMS, y’all!

According to targeted adds on face book it’s also the season that CATS, and some dogs, start feeling about IKEA the way I used to when my medication was off and I NEEDED to organize EVERYTHING.

Monday evening, last week, I signed a contract for my new job. Because the train ride back to my apartment involved changing trains and Ikebukuro…I HAD to go to Dollyteria Ikebukuro to see who might come home with me.

Hello Abbey Bominable.

My quick googling tells me that Abbey’s backstory is that she’s a sexy Yeti.

From the Monster High fandom wiki.

Abbey is known as the tough ghoul at Monster High. However, she is a victim of the culture clash between the Scaremerican way of life she is experiencing with her native Himalayan culture, and, though she works hard to walk away from this, will assume her latter ways are the correct ones and the ones that inspire most common sense. Due to this, Abbey was raised with short and strong words and is fierce, confident, intimidating and often headstrong. She won’t stand for nonsense and will not tolerate any kind of rule-breaking, unless it is for a greater good.

It goes on to explain how her jewely keeps her nice and icy and such.

Sorry Abbey, it’s CHERRY BLOSSOM SEASON and you’re coming with us. Maybe we’ll stop at Ikea on the way.

The very next day, after training that literally explained things like HOW TO HOLD A FLASH CARD (and implied that Canadians use a lot of drugs) I started to work on Abbey Sakura.

Her hair was fairly stiff so I scraped some glue out of her head, used a DIY Goo-Gone, and removed her makeup. I’ll probably give it a few more cleanings and then root some pink strands into her existing hair.

My inspiration was the color of Abbey’s skin. It reminds me of the blue sky you see popping behind all the cherry blossoms in peak pretty.

I’ve been using Wave Epoxy Putty to create cherry blossoms and bark on her body.

I’m using Wave because in my googling (in my second language) it seemed a close match to Apoxie Sculpt. It’s a two part epoxy modeling agent (the chemical setting reaction starts when you mix the two parts) with a working time ( about 2 hours) similar to Apoxie…as far as I know. Most places here price Apoxie Sculpt so high that it’s about a 100% markup.

I figured that, since her clothing is sculpted right on, I’d do the same for her shoes. I drilled into her heels, shoved toothpicks into them, and started building the layers of epoxy.

The putty cures after 24 hours. I’m working it a little at a time because in order to work on, say, a leg, I have to hold many other parts of the body. I can’t do this if the other body parts are still drying.

Needless to say, my curiosity got the best of me and I found the cheapest price I could and ordered….

Tonight I’ll be playing with it and seeing how it compares to Wave…and some maths to figure out the price difference per gram.

You and me both, cat.

craft, Doll, monster high, Uncategorized

Every Day is Wednesday.

WEDNESDAY

There are updates on the job front…mainly that I have a new one but some down time before it’s in full swing. that means DOLLS.

Let’s take a look at Wednesday’s journey.

She started as on of three used dolls my stepmother included in my Christmas pack. This one was an Ever After High Raven Queen.

That started me on a journey learning about NASTY SKULL AND HAIR GLUE SEEPAGE.

The washing didn’t work.
The powdering didn’t work.
I scraped out her head.
I rerooted everything, making mistakes along the way.
Her first repaint got dark and muddy right quick.
I started over on the face.

The second repaint is more painterly than I’d planned but I went with it.OMG NAKED DOLL POSTED WITHOUT ANY WARNINGS!

Eyes glossed

Tonight I made a pattern and sewed her her dress. It was fiddly and there’s some stray marks but I’m ok with it.

She’s still without shoes but I ordered a 16 pack of shoes from Mercari yesterday.

And it’s only Monday….

craft, Disney, Doll, Uncategorized

Snowover it.

Ahh…my first week of relaxation and catching up on crafts, sort of.

Because of how the dispatch company I work at is set up, this year they pulled English assistants out of the public schools a record week before graduation, adding another week onto our unpaid downtime as part-time workers before our contracts begin again in mid-April.

So, I figured time would be abundant and I’d tackle crafts.

I’d also study for the JLPT N2 this year, something I’ve been doing daily since the new year begun but have been afraid to say anything about lest I jinx it.

I decided, last Tuesday, to just tackle another large Disney Animator doll from the BOX OF DOLLS. I picked one of the three Snow Whites I have.

I’ve long thought that Snow White wouldn’t be thrilled with the amount of Snow White merchandise that features apples: apple scented Snow White hand lotion, apple earrings, and so on. If I were Snow White I’d sure have some serious apple-related trauma to deal with. My idea was to keep Snow White herself, but update it to a Snow White who has been THROUGH her ordeals and come out the other side.

I think this is the 1st generation of the Snow White Disney Animator’s Dolls because she has the shortest hair, which was in keeping with the vague idea I had for her.

I pined her hair away, covered her body, and then removed all her makeup with 100% acetone. There were faint hints of where her lip color had been but I’d be giving her darker lips so it didn’t matter.

Then I sprayed three layers of Mr.SuperClear (MSC) UV Matte (allowing them each time to dry) and started with the first layer of chalk pastels.

Then, over the next day, I built up pastels/water color pencils and layers of MSC…feeling MUCH better about my grasp of eyebrow shapes and location but like I need to do some sketch studies of eyes before my next few dolls.

It’s at this point that friends on social media usualy remind me how deeply creepy these images are.

Then came the tattoos. I primed her chest with MSC and got my magnifying set-up out and started to free-hand. Some doll customizers use nail transfers to do doll tattoos but what I wanted to do wouldn’t be readily available in that form.

My friend Whitney has awesome tattoos and the idea of adapting Snow’s bird-buddies for chest tattoos draws heavily from Whitney’s real life ink. Whitney’s birds are more traditional but she has AMAZING Oz-related sleeves…and I have a poppy on my back and use Ozma as a stage name. We met way back in the day on LJ just because of Oz-related icons. More on her later…

This is the tattoo midway through.

As you can see, the sword and the apple are a visal riff on the Evil Queen’s heart box. You know the one she had handy to be all “Hey, huntsman, go kill Snow and THEN put her heart in this decorative heart-stabby box.”…except instead of a heart being stabbed it’s and apple because…well… DAMN APPLES.

Snow wouldn’t be the first person to have tattoos to commemorate what she’s survived. Nor…as I look at the face-up I gave snow…would she be the first person to gank make-up style from a problematic source.

More detail work.

This would be around Thursday, at which point I got an email from my company saying:

Hai!
Yeah.
So…. your next contract? It starts on your birthday. Yay. We’ve cut back your hours even though you were very specific. La la la la la. And we’ve put you in a school situation that you’ve specifically said “NO, Don’t. Nope.” to so there’s that. HAPPY WEEKEND.

Dramatic re-enactment of my reaction to this.

Sure, I was planning for this to be my last year with them. It’s part of why I’ve upped my Japanese study rate and desire to get N2 and eventually N1 certification…so I have more options. But ESCANDALO none the less.

I have since contacted my company with questions…and got a lovely email back that answered approximately 25% of my concerns/questions.

Luckily, my resumes are ALL up-to-date.

Saturday, after teaching dance classes, this is where Snow is. Her lips and eyes have been fixed and glossed. I found a 100¥ bandana print headband and reduced it to her proportions.

Here’s where she started and is now.

And….here is Snow and Whitney…because as soon as I posted Snow, Whitney was all “I love her but she stole my look.” In turn, I stole a picture of Whitney looking very Snow.

I’m currently knitting Snow her own yellow, wide, sweater. Tomorrow, as I take my train to my first job interview, I’ll be bringing my knitting needles to relax my nerves. I also have enough left over denim fabric from making tiny doll jeans to create some jeans for her.

I’m glad I have art supplies to ride out the stress.

craft, Doll, monster high, Uncategorized

Chibi and M size Raven

This morning my friend Emily and I were talking about the traumas of the past year and Teen Titans Go, as 40something young women are wont to do.

It’s our habit to try and schedule a good face-time session each week.

She’s now watching Teen Titans Go, which excites me more than it probably should. She now gets why I find it utterly relaxing and mind releasing…and enjoys facetime displays of the dolls I’m working on even more.

We dig Raven. She’s got some anger issues but being the daughter of a demon will do that. She often just wants to be able to escape into a book or watch Pretty Pretty Pegasus. She cracks lame jokes and laughs at them. She has a deadpan delivery…and she doesn’t suffer fools/foolishness.

Emily and I discussed “What Would Raven Do?” regarding dates that waste our time or continue to push boundaries we’ve set.

“Raven would totally give a look, make the pound fist if she had to, and go read a book. She knows that sometimes being alone is better company than being with someone who exhausts you and doesn’t replenish that energy for you. If you get home feeling exhausted and not in a good way…Don’t. Do. That. Again.”

We also discussed how the Pokemon character of Dugtrio BETTER not wait after a week or more of chatting on a dating app where you’ve explicitly said “Not into polygamous relationships” to disclose his other heads.

This of course brings me to Chibi-Raven. She’s DONE!

WHAAAAAAAT’S This? Two Ravens?

Yup.

As I was working on Chibi-Raven I also completed the faceup on an Ever After High doll I bought at Hobby-Off. Faybelle Thorn, except without wings, earrings, stand, or handbag.

I previously explained that her hair is a mix of three different colors that I rerooted when I wrote about the meditative nature of hair reroots.

While doing her face-up I did play around with both Ravens.

This is the first Raven I’ve made that doesn’t cheat and give her bangs to avoid sculpting or rerooting.

I’ve sewn her basic body suit/leotard.

My goal is to finish her outfit and accessories in the next week so I can take the girls out and try photographing them during cherry blossom season.

But as for today they are all wrapped up and packed, along with Beast Boy and Cyborg’s head, to travel to Ueno.

A friend of mine, who I know from my first years here on the Chiba-Wisconsin Sister City program, is currently in Japan with his whole family. The last time I saw him I dressed like a cow and helped out for a day at his cheese-related-booth at an international trade thingie.

This time I’ll be meeting his daughter Sara, who is 8 and a BIG fan of my Teen Titans Go dolls. Her father has shown her pictures, she’s used his FB messenger to chat to me about my dolls, and she is REALLY excited to see them.

We are ready.

craft, Doll, monster high, Uncategorized

Jinx! She’s ready.

My spring break is here. This means things are getting done!

This is in part because I work for a teaching dispatch company and when I’m not dispatched I don’t get paid. So in this month of freedom I will get paid for the dance work but not the English teaching. Thus it’s time for cheap creative fun.

Jinx is done, mostly.

Finishing tiny spandex and stitching on tiny mesh cleanly is a work in progress. Someday I may redo Jinx’s stockings and I’ll probably change her black hair elastics to wider spandex but here we are!

We are ready for ….Girls Night Out!

But wait…you might think…aren’t your Jinx and Starfire dolls SO MUCH smaller than the 14″ Raven you made?

to which I say….what part of I have time now and am obsessed don’t you understand?

Do It Yourself: WFU

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

Tag Archives: faceup

Power Puffing

Melody, complete!

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

Teen Titans Terra: I shrink a head

SHOES for Wednesday

Cherry Blossom Season!

Every Day is Wednesday.

WEDNESDAY

Snowover it.

Chibi and M size Raven

Jinx! She’s ready.