craft, Doll, pullip, Uncategorized

My hands and Edna

It’s much easier for me to be inspired to write about what I’m currently working on than to write about what I have finished.

“I never look back, it distracts from the NOW”– Edna Mode.

But there is so much I have made while not writing that I’d like to figure out a way to harness the excitement of the now to that which has passed.

So, let’s try this. We’ll got on the journey of my day or my current endeavors and then endcap it all with at least one finished project. Perhaps the two things will relate…perhaps they won’t.

Today

It’s summer vacation but I had some school-related work today.

This week I go to Jr High schools in the mornings to assist students with English speech contest practice. Today turned out to be a light work-load. We worked with one student in the morning until 9:20 and then had to wait for a second student at 11AM. Between these time slots the English teacher I worked with and I made sample recordings of me reading various speeches for students to use for practicing.

Recording didn’t take long. The English teacher I was working with and I sat and talked until 11AM.

We ended up talking a bit about ADHD. I disclosed I had it and she, having read up on it a lot, had asked questions to try to understand why some of her students with ADHD DO the things they do…one example was a student who tries to cut their nails with craft scissors while class is in session. Which made PERFECT sense to my mind.

Like people on the autism spectrum, folks with ADHD often stim. Stimming is any repetitive actions that help a person self-stimulate their senses: auditory, visual, tactile, and even olfactory. Stimming behaviors relieve boredom/anxiety or distract from pain / discomfort while also burning off excess energy.

The urge to stim is NOT going to go away with a teacher or parent telling a child to stop the behavior. The underlying anxiety, boredom pain or discomfort that is triggering the need to stim hasn’t gone away. Stopping the coping mechanism may actually elevate the anxiety. Even if it doesn’t, the absence of the stimming will make the underlying discomfort hit even harder.

I’ve always fidgeted with my hands. It wasn’t strange for me, from elementary school through high school, to have art projects WITH me at my desk. Finger knitting. Origami. Drawing. Filing hard wax rings for lost wax casting. Building wax figures. Using needle nose pliers to manipulate wire into 3-d objects.

Really.

Because of the specific public schools I went to this the reaction to this varied. I was occasionally seen as a problem in elementary school (depending on the teacher), it helped mark me as a bad student all through middle school, and was tolerated in high school because I could quickly demonstrate my understanding of the class topic when challenged…and my high school cared about art. It wasn’t an issue in college because I went to an art school where I was either making things or taking liberal arts classes I had a genuine interest in.

My schools were NOT Japanese schools

I know how strict Japanese schools are about students not having objects unrelated to class out on desks or in hands. I’ve seen how quickly stimming that bothers others (humming, tapping the desk, clicking pens) gets shut down (although that’s the same in America). Often students only have the option of stimming with hands, bodies (quietly) or staring at a particular object or thing in motion.

So what’s with the cutting nails in class?

Take my hands. I didn’t need to be told to frequently massage my surgery scar to help break up the scar tissue and aid in mobility. That scar is on my hand and I can feel it

To stim I tend mindlessly rub the pad of my thumbs over the fingertips and nails of the same hand. If my hands and fingernails are smooth, no hangnails or scabs or jagged nails or chipping nail polish, it’s possible to focus on something else while my fingers and hands do what they need to do. When that smooth surface is compromised OH BOY.

The interruption of my hand movements by an unfamiliar or unpleasant sensation can quickly change my stimming to an intense fixation. That jagged nail is now the center of my world.

ADHD people are not deficient in attention. We’ve got SO MUCH energy to pour at things. We have a deficit in the ability to regulate where and how our attention is focused.

A jagged nail interrupts the motion that was alleviating my anxiety/boredom ( and allowing me to focus on the task I needed to tend to). As that stim is removed, and the underlying mental noise pours in, that jagged nail presents as the thing to intensely fixate on. If I didn’t have ADHD I could simply note that I’ll have to clip my nails later….but I have ADHD. I can’t quickly and quietly regulate my focus back onto the task at hand.

Now that I’m on Strattera (a selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor that helps me with my dopamine levels) I can better recognize that I an fixating on something and work at how to redirect that focus.

Even on Straterra I sometimes will not be able to refocus without first removing/dealing with the new fixation issue. I might automatically surreptitiously try and rip that jagged edge with a fingernail. During a dull meeting I WILL have to fight the urge to dip my hand into my desk and grab some scissors even though I know how socially unacceptable it is and how ineffective a tool craft scissors are for the task.

I’m an adult on medication. The average neurotypical child is going to have a worse time fighting impulses. The average child with ADHD? Even one on medication (which is hard being dosages and medication have to be adjusted as they grow) that is helping with the larger issues will have a very VERY difficult time refocusing until the fixation is eliminated.

And that’s why the craft scissors are out, in class, going for that nail. That child knows that until the issue is dealt with they will be emotionally and physically unable to do anything else. They might also know they’ll be in trouble but that won’t stop them, it’ll simply make them try and hide it…and they’ll feel like a failure if they are caught and chastized. Knowing the consequences isn’t enough to stop all impulses.

That’s why.

That’s my dance everyday. The tango of temptations with an ever changing irregular rhythm of regulation thrumming under it all.

Finished Project:

Little Pullip to Edna Mode.

If you can’t link Edna Mode to the speaking habits, intense focus, delight in a new challenge and ever gesticulating personality of someone with Impulsive/Hyperactive type of ADHD…that is on YOU.

The basics

removed wig and makeup
replaced stock Little Pullip body with a more posable 11cm Obitsu body.
scultpted onto face with apoxie scupt.
repainted face
Doll wig from Parabox.
Shrinky-dink glasses
sewed outfit with black cloth, black ribbon, and pink ribbon.
bought tiny tights and shoes from Azone.
enjoyed.

Simple, elegant, yet BOLD

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, Uncategorized

Airbrush resistance: Art School

I was resistant to getting an airbrush because I had an attitude about airbrushes.

That attitude comes from my “foundation year”(fancy term for freshman year) at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and the general disregard held for airbrushes there.

Not that some students didn’t have them and use them. This was never more obvious than on Halloween when some lazy art dudes who hadn’t given thought to their costumes (art school Halloween costumes are serious business) would go over to an airbrush-having student (usually “Sham” and his roomie) before the parties and get their torsos and faces sprayed to resemble skeletons: pathetic, half-dressed, slacker skeletons ready to get sloppy drunk. That’s what I think of when I think airbrushes, drunk skeletons who couldn’t be bothered.

It would take a few years before we would all come together against a common Halloween enemy: Don and his damned Edward Scissorhands costume. Sure, it was great….the first year…but the way he’d use it to win Milwaukee bar costume contests every damned year for the next four years wasn’t.

We were sick of that costume and sick of him.

He was a wanker. He’d eventually become an official Utilikilt vender for the North Pacific and move to Portland to sculpt and weld things and claim he’d always been named Gustav Sculptor.

Airbrushes though…

I had a buddy who worked at a Milwaukee’s Grand Avenue Mall t-shirt kiosk our first year at MIAD. He had flashbacks when I recently mentioned online I was looking at airbrushes.

We didn’t have dorms. We all just lived in downtown Milwaukee. Just responsible freshmen art students in apartments with leases, what could go wrong? (so much) The following year the school had dorms but by then no one wanted to give up the freedom …except Don, because being a RA to young impressionable incoming freshman was his kinda thing…wanker

My airbrush working buddy had an apartment with a bunch of other art student dudes who discussed which Young Ones archetype they fit. It was an apartment complex full of similarly filled apartments. The Apartment complex itself was named after Alexander Comstock who would not have approved of the shenanigans within. Airbrush Buddy and Co’s apartment was a place with nasty but loved couches where you’d find yourself sitting in the evening drinking beer, watching STNG, and not doing your art homework.

One of his roommates also worked in the airbrush-shirt kiosk. I remember them complaining about the pushback they’d get from refusing to do gang symbols and the customers who would demand that they make the already painted bunnies cuter…or that the example t-shirt had seven purple balloons in the bunny’s hand and theirs only had six and was this a rip off or what?!? (Drink)

Sweet Baby Stevus, when looking for a picture of the Comstock I found listings that included pictures of the interior and I swear to god the kitchen fixtures ( and fillings ) haven’t changed since 1994. The only thing missing is there is no keg in this picture.

So, prior to dolls, airbrushes were a source of contempt and stress in my mind: Drunk slacker skulls and bunnies that were never cute enough.

Then I learned that airbrushes are pretty much the best way to change the color of a doll’s body and head and I started looking at them, casually.

Hey, hey baby.

This year, facing the stress maybe changing jobs, I started looking again at them…

I didn’t get the job I wanted. Again. I got a letter telling me “you’re not our first choice but if anyone drops you’re on our waitlist”…which is why I simultaneously tell people not to panic about Covid-19 while also privately hoping whatever applicants got that job freak out about it and flee the country before the next school year starts

l’d been eyeing airbrushes on Mercari, hoping to buy one as an “I got the job” me-gift . I instead bought one as a “Nope, didn’t get it” gift…and shortly after declared this the YEAR OF DOLLS OR ART.

In fact I got a whole bunch of stuff all from one seller.

Tamiya spray booth, two Tamiya/Procon boy airbrushes, a MR. LINEAR L3compressor, that little moisture regulator, stands, and things to attach things and spray them and rotate them with, original instructions (Japanese) all at once for under 200usd which has turned out to be a great deal.

And then I had to wait to play with them for a week and a half while prepping for studio stuff.

This gave me time to watch airbrush videos…and time to get over the culture shock of watching airbrush videos.

I’m so accustomed to doll videos: lilting female voices (sometimes with Eastern European accents), colorful, time lapse photography and calming background music, well edited and containing helpful voice overs when needed.

Airbrush: Dudes who still used the term NOOBS, heavy metal font, sometimes barebones video editing and a lot of ambient sounds.

They’re just so much more aggressive. I don’t think I’m used to men telling me how to do things as much as I used to be…I bellydance, work in an elementary school where all the head teachers and principals are women, and I do a lot of traditionally female DIY craft.

With the studio show over I’ve had time to play a bit. As some of what I need an airbrush for is matching and changing skin tones, I’ll often be best off mixing acrylic colors and thinning them instead of using fume-laden lacquers.

with acrylics I’ve painted the ears I made for a 17inch Clawdeen Wolf ages ago (to become a taller Starfire) the seam in front will be further hidden under her hair

I know I’ll have to sit down and do some practicing lines and hand-eye co-ordination at some point…although most of the time I’ll be just turning something a different color. I think.

I also cleaned up a Pullip in progress, this time with Mr. Hobby Acrylic Laquers. I’m making a Pris from Bladerunner and doing her face in chalk pastels resulted in too much pigment fallout, it got muddy, so I removed all my work and hit it with the airbrush last night. Tonight I’m layering it with Mr.Super Clear so I can add details.

And that’s how I’m currently learning to love my airbrush and leave the bunnies and skeletons (and wankers) behind.

craft, Doll, pullip, Uncategorized

This doll will have everything

More than a year ago, my friend Ebony sent me a LINE message from a Hobby-Off. It included a picture of a baggie doll.

It was a “Alfred” TaeYang. TaeYang is Pullip’s boyfriend…her second boyfriend actually because Namu was her first and wasn’t popular. Namu is no more. Goodnight Namu.

Of course, the TaeYang Ebony mailed me about was naked, in a baggie, with some sort of glitter-gel caked in his wig for about 3,000¥

So, of course, I was all:

I DOOOOOOOO!

And then he sat around until I realized who he needed to be…

I’m a Bill Hader fan girl. Stefon, I love. In an alternate universe John Mulaney and I are a power couple so I feel like Bill’s part of the family. The series Barry is bloody brilliant (but only NoHo Hank is really a viable doll). AND I appreciate that Bill Hader has been open about his issues with anxiety.

I’ve now spent a LOT of time googling him and studying his face…he’s hot. This is the hottest photo of him. I just needed to share this image. Take. It. All. In.

So, as usually I removed TaeYangs face with rubbing alcohol and fine sandpaper.

This time, because TaeYang is smooth and nearly nose-less and Bill is NOT, I had to start carving. More nose, smile lines, and after this…and this feels weird to say, opening up one eye slightly larger than the other because Bill Hader has a slight muscle issue in one eye so when he’s not actively making a face one eyelid hangs slightly lower.

And I began drawing in his face.

I feel like a creeper who is way too familiar with Bill Hader’s eyebrows.

I feel like a creeper a lot of the time, only partly because of the dolls. Recently Ebony and I split cheese sticks at a TGIFridays. Ebony and I both noticed how attractive our server was….but how I reacted was by telling Ebony “Her lips would look amazing on a doll. I couldn’t stop staring at them” and Ebony was more human in noting “She’s very attractive”

We later told the server she was pretty and I refrained from saying YOUR FACE WOULD LOOK GREAT ON A DOLL.

So, Stefon’s face is now mostly finished….although I’ll be smoothing those lip colors a bit later.

This has brought us to the stage I’m now on, building a wig.

I’ve only made one yarn wig thus far. Smaller and more conceptual.

TaeYang’s head is MUCH bigger than a Monster High doll so it’s slow going, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to find a perfect wig for Stefon.

Here is an in-process shot of it looking like the dude you liked 30 years ago and have just looked up on Facebook.

Trying on the wig midway to make sure I’m not crazy. With styling and some razor trimming this should eventually work…

And then will come the most absurd part of this process….

Tiny. Ed. Hardy. Shirt. for Stefon Zelesky. Yes, he has a last name.

Until then, New York’s hottest club is Wesh. Nine-year-old Tokyo pimp Ichiaku Guru is back with an all-new hot spot that answers the question What?!? This place has everything: trance, stilts, throw-up music, an albino that looks like Susan Powter, Teddy Graham people…

craft, Doll, pullip, Uncategorized

Flower Girl.

In late 2018 I picked up a damaged Pullip …as I do.

Her eye-mech was destroyed, she had no wink bars, and she had half of her original face paint. I detailed the damage and fixing up here.

Then she sat in a box until last December.

Inspired by Instagram makeup, I decided to go for both over-the-top make-up and to try an asymetrical design. Here I am including her in some after-gig glamour shots after I’d returned home from my last restaurant gigs of the season.

Here’s her final closeup before I rebodied her.

I knit her a top ( Pullip Off-the-shoulder free knitting Sweater pattern by Megan Nordyke) and sewed her a skirt (no pattern used for the skirt) and repainted some Barbie shoes (not shown).

This is why I went to Dollyteria for the wig lucky-bags…and scored!

I love her. Just love her.

A friend asked me if she”s supposed to be me. Not intentionally and my mom’s the one with green eyes.

Doll, pullip, Uncategorized

Caty is a doll.

Today is one of those days where I realize how much I haven’t posted.

I sat down to type up a post about a finished project I named Bi-Little Pony. The project involves a person serving as an inspiration who I have Dolled before so I went back to find those posts and found…only one post. I’d never posted the final product.

In May of 2018 I’d recently returned to Japan from a trip to America with some Barbie Made-to-move bodies in my luggage. The curvier MTM body inspired me to buy a used Byul doll I’d seen with matching skin tone.

I had a model for the doll, my friend Caty. Caty is an amazing MUA on instagram. Go check her out NOW. Caty had done a look inspired by one of my dolls. I then decided to do a doll based on one of her looks.

I wrote upa whole post detailing how I put the Byul head on a MTM curvy body…but failed to follow up after that. The last time I featured her here she looked like this. She had a new body and a temporary outfit and wig but I hadn’t remade her face or found the right wig for her. There might be some more photos of her here and there in the blog, but if there are I haven’t properly tagged Byul.

So, what has happened to Caty Byul since?

New face! This was the midway point.

Then I got her a new wig at Mandarake (I usually buy used wigs but Caty was sporting a her own wig in a color I wasn’t likely to find used quickly) and new eye chips by BeBeBlythe on Etsy. It was getting closer but she was still sitting around in a random outfit.

I found a pattern for the Curvy Barbie Fasionistas by DGRequiem on Etsy and some suitably bright fabric. I swiped some insane stockings from my stash as well.

And, as a final tribute I made her a simple felt beret…seen here with an almost matching fuzzy backpack.

And that should catch me up on enough Caty-Inspired posts to start writing about..Bi-Little Pony

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.

craft, Doll, monster high, pullip, sewing, Uncategorized

Acrylic Yarn: Squeeky self-care.

I’ve written before about how handy-work can be quite an effective form of meditation for those of us with minds that sometimes fight meditation.

The repetition of movement, the precision needed, and the concentration used helps clear my head. It’s not that I don’t think while doing this, I do, but it’s a quieter thinking. I don’t have the time to chase strong emotions or berate myself. With my hands busy a strong emotion may easily be noted and pass and I won’t be tempted to chase down its cause right then and there.

Let us now sing praise for 100¥ acrylic yarn…here for me at my time of need.

Without too many details, it’s been an unwelcome revisiting of the end of May 2019.

Vague story vague: within days two distinct circles of friends in different locations were revealed to contain two different types of horrible predators…and a lot of nasty information poured out of each. This week one of those two cases came to a settlement that involves only probation, no jail time, for a person who has torn through lives.

Cue the unwelcome few days of time travel none of us asked for.

And this brings me to the acrylic yarn. It’s not ALL the self-care but it is some of it.

I’m not the first woman in my family to find comfort in acrylic yarn.

My paternal Grandma Leah used to use the cheapest, squeekiest, most eye-hurtingest colors of acrylic yarn to knit and crochet hand scrubbers, sturdy foot “booties” and hard to explain dolls and toys…for cash or family.

Preferably craft-stall cash.

She lived with my father and step-family for years. We, family, all had these booties in inexplicable colors. Well, semi-explicable; they were the cheapest yarns for the best return on her investment of supplies. I also used to have a yellow and blue clown down with two distinctly different length legs where she’d just run out of yarn and ended.

Grandma Leah had a huge stash of different sources of patterns but it seems like the booties came from a hand-written letter from a neighbor. I have some of the letter but no more of the booties.

Dear Leah;

Once before I had to show someone how to make the slippers. It takes a long time to do it. I can’t read a pattern. I’ve never had one for the slipper. Thelma showed me how. I only know one way to show you.

I start with each step. I just hope your friend can follow the directions. They go fast. 1 3 1/2 oz of yarn will make a pair. They sell real fast at x-mas time. You can make a pair in an evening and more if you’re fast. They get $5.00$ a pair….

What I do to cheap acrylic yarn is a transformation in the opposite direction. Knitting builds up form. I take acrylic yarn and attack until it is broken down into thin synthetic fibers. This is time consuming.

What am I looking at?

Upper left hand corner: Acrylic yarn.
Upper right hand corner: Acrylic yarn that has been tethered to something and then brushed with a wire pet brush until it gives up hope. After this step comes using a flat-iron for hair set at 140.
Lower left hand corner: the yarn fuzz after ironing, being cut free, lined up, and attached at one end with glue to create hair wefts.
Lower right hand corner: building a wig from this insanity.

What doll is that and when did you make it?

Oh, yeah, I’ve been away from the blog. This is where I show you some of what I’ve been working on.

Googling tells me this Monster High doll is Twyla. She is a freshman student at Monster High and is a boogeyman, daughter of the Boogey Man, she lives in the Boogey Mansion. This specific Twyla is the “Coffin Bean” coffee shop release.

But to me, she’s one of the many used dolls I bought off a girl in America using a charity shop go-between.

Let’s check out what I did with her.

She’s loosely inspired by the aesthetics of Disney’s Haunted mansion.

I used the Rococo Hime Lolita dress pattern to create this outfit. If you’re thinking of using easy fraying fabric like I did….don’t. headaches.

I sanded off the “spirit swirls” or whatnot on her legs and used chalk pastels and acrylic to create a bat motif.

I created this wig with exhausted acrylic fiber, a syrofoam egg, a homemade wigcap, and a handful of things from the 100¥ shop.

Then it was time to repaint her face.

I repainted her shoes and added accents. Again, solid nod to 100¥ shops.

And finally, some earrings:

As for me, tonight I’ll be brushing, brushing, and brushing yarn and slowly creating wefts…allowing the feelings to come and they must…and focusing on what is really a low-stakes unessential and beautifully absurd addition to the strange world of things I make.

Stefon.

Because…this world has EVERYTHING.

craft, Doll, pullip

Holly went roughly.

Doll fixing while cleaning:

Picked up this damaged, unwigged, naked Audrey Hepburn for about 2,500¥

What she’s supposed to look like.

Reality.

She was missing blink bars…which didn’t much matter as is because her eyes had been modified so they stuck out too far for her eyelids to close anyways.

I’d found a listing on Mercari for two sets of blink bars and two sets of eyelids for this generation of Pullip (three-part head with body type 3) for 500¥ MINE!

I found her generation of eye mech at Dollyterria with some large eye-chips the same time I bought her. 500¥ MINE

Good thing too!

Her body was in good shape but I had to figure out what was up with her eyes.

Ok. Eye-mech broken. Replace and save for items that can be used to repair future eye mech.

Eyes…wtf? Some sort of doll eye has been hollowed out and fitted (and smashed) over the eyemech eye area. This is probably the stress that eventually broke the eyemech.

Useless to me.

With Audrey’s face off I took the time to remove the rest of her face. Her lipstick had been removed by a previous owner.

Then I put her eyelids in, put in a new-to-her eye mech, inserted her new eye bars and reassembled her.

The eye chips in the eyemech also stick out a little too much, interfering with her blinks, so they’ll be replaced when I decide how I want to repaint her.

But there we have another doll ready to face-up when inspiration strikes and we still have two pairs of extra eyelids and one pair of wink bars.

Doll, pullip, tutorial

Replacing broken knee joint

Rehab:

While cleaning up my craft room (as part of a Mom/Craftmas is coming I’m also tackling “to do” unfinished work.

This might be my inability to avoid distraction or it might legit be reducing my clutter/ getting things prepared so that craft work can begin whenever I’m ready.

Dal surgery:

A baggie Dal I picked up recently experienced a broken knee joint when I tried to put her in her bunny outfit.

The knee joint broke off inside the thigh….wedging itself there and in the shin.

Upon further inspection i realized that this rescue Dal has forearms and shins a pinker color than her body…so she’s not new to surgery.

I had an extra knee joint from rebodying the footless Monomono/Bedhead Dal, but first I needed to remove the joint.

I took my dremel tool and carefully drilled a hole into the broken off joint. Then I screwed a smallish screw partway into that hole. I used my leather man tool to then pull the screw and joint out.

I repeated the action to the other half of the broken joint.

Then I used my extra joint to thread everything back into place.

Surgery finished, broken parts disposed of, doll ready for future modifications!

Do It Yourself: WFU

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

Tag Archives: pullip

My hands and Edna

Today

Finished Project:

Simple, elegant, yet BOLD

This doll has EVERYTHING

Airbrush resistance: Art School

This doll will have everything

Flower Girl.

Caty is a doll.

Here I am. Little Me.

Acrylic Yarn: Squeeky self-care.

Holly went roughly.

Replacing broken knee joint