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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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Beast Boys

Have I made Beast Boy (the doll) his action suit?

No.

Have I made two Beast Boy animal figures?

Yes.

I saw this derpy doggie at the 100¥ shop.

One Apoxie Sculpt collar and paint job later

Beast Dog!

My MH haul came with these plastic cats.

I cut one head open and drilled some drainage holes.

Then I primed and painted.

It’s rough but it’s Beast Cat Planter!

It’s these little projects that give me the sense I’m accomplishing something creative when my schedule gets busy.

Should my self worth be tied to my productivity? No.

Is it?

Hmmmmmm.

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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.

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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”

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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.

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

Final head next to an unshrunk EAH head.

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Then to decorate!
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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.

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I’ll be painting her boots later.

Here she is with the squad.

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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.

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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.

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Updates: Continue moving forward

Job stress: Will I be under employed? Can I find a different job quickly? Will I get permanent residency? Should I just go with being underemployed and cram for JLPT N2 6 months earlier than planed?

These are the things that make me want to just nap all day. When I’m asleep, I can’t consciously worry. I’ve had a few days since learning about work that involved doing one or two things and then nap. Nap. Nap.

I know this is depression.

When I can craft, that’s a win. It means I’m not asleep all day. I’m working on my kanji and Japanese gramar studies daily as well. I’ve applied to various jobs and…if I don’t hear anything in 3 hours…will do more of that. I continue to teach dance and know I may need to increase that soon.

I’ve had an interveiw….but I haven’t heard back since.

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Protip:
Always go early to interviews to make sure you can find the location. This is extra important when you travel by train and on foot. But you don’t want to officially arrive TOO early, that’s a bad look. Hopefully the offices will be located near a Donki Hote or similar store where you can relax a bit.

Of course, this is purely hypothetical.

In doll land, I am knitting Snow a sweater and have made her jeans. I don’t plan to keep her. I do plan to try and sell her and a few of the other Disney Animators dolls I’ve done. Knitting helps. Even when I have to frog a row, I concentrate.

 

 

I’ve been modding a random 200yen figure to make a “Pretty Pegasus Raven” to try what I think is a Japanese version of Apoxy Sculpt, Wave Epoxy Putty (light weight).

Yes, taking a handsaw to a doll’s hair was…theraputic.

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She’ll get more putty layers before I’m finished.

Raven the average sized Ever After Doll continues as well. I’ve made her her cape, her arm/thingies and boots.

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I sculpted some accessories and her belt from air-dry polymer clay..but they are still drying.

And that’s how I’m moving forward. There are three dolls on my balcony drying a new layer of Mr.Superclear. I’m reminding myself that I only awoke a few hours ago so I can’t possibly nap yet. I’m thinking about lunch.

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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We are ready.

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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!

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We are ready for ….Girls Night Out!

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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?

 

 

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JINX!

I just can’t stop making Teen Titans Go dolls.

This should be no surprise to anyone who knew me shortly after college when I started to amass a collection of female action figures. It seemed like a hobby that had limits because action figures were even worse back then about not producing or short packing female figures.

I moved away from my collection and, behold, 16 years later realized I COULD MAKE MY ARMY MYSELF.

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JINX in the works!

I mean, Starfire and Raven need to have a (woot woot) GIRLS NIGHT OUT.

I found this used, bagged, Monster High Doll, Operetta, at Dollyteria when I went in last week to cash in my point card before it expired. She was stuck into one of the bins as I was browsing.

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And her previous owner had melted some of her hair, so I knew I’d be rerooting her.

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I wrote about her hair rerooting in “Hair Meditation

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Does Jinx have pink skin? Not really. It’s kind of a dusty gray/purple but when you put SHOCKING PINK hair on her it bumps the skin tone down a notch.

Does Jinx have swirls carved into part of her face and arms? Not to my knowledge but it didn’t seem it’d be that odd for her to have some sort of “jinxing” marks. Jinx in animation like Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go is WORLDS away from her original character…who was a cancer-bald badass Indian super villain in a loin cloth…and serves more as a naughty super powered teen who has moments of just fun.

She’s generally Perky Goth to Raven’s more classic goth…but you know when Dead or Alive’s ‘You Spin Me Round’ drops they both can’t resist dancing…and that’s what I’m going for.

Again I used photoshop express to mirror flip images to get symmetry close.

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I still struggle working on this scale. I used to draw on huge rolls of paper and work much looser.

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Close to finished.

I also noticed the neck peg was showing signs of wear so I put a layer of Tamiya Epoxy Putty on it. Don’t want the peg to snap after I’ve worked hard.

And this brings us to the hair. How was I going to shape Jinx’s hair? Well, I decided to make soft horns out of felt and stuffing. I wrapped and stitched down some of the shed acrylic fuzz left after brushing out her yarn (SO MUCH OF THAT).

I left a patch of scalp un-rooted on both sides of the head.

I coated the patch, and the felt base of the horns with liquid fusion and allowed to dry. I wanted to build up that glue base on the horn a bit.

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This horn will later be attached to the remaining horn-hole, pinned until the bond is formed, and the hair will be shapped around it and joined with elastic. I’m still figuring out if I want to color a band of hair black between the holders or use an elastic black band for the area near her hair point. It’s temporarily elasticed on one side to keep it out of the way but I have bang/trim shaping to tidy up and some last minute face touches to apply.

But now I rest and let things dry.

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Beastie Boy

Craftsmas is coming! Craftsmas is coming!

Let’s be honest, every week is crafty up in here.

The dark months are craftholes.

I’m on medication for my anxiety and depression but when you add the darkness into that it becomes very easy to hyperfocus on a single task to release all the thoughts and energy…and one doesn’t always have the time.

I can’t very well be late to work at elementary school with the excuse “I really had to tweeze all the hair plugs out of that doll. I know I could do it after work but time just dissipated. First graders should understand.”…first graders WOULD understand but they aren’t my bosses.

Let’s get to some of the crafts I haven’t had time to tell you about.

Beast Boy!

I couldn’t well leave my Raven without Beastie, her once a season boyfriend.

I knew I couldn’t get a 17” tall one, like Raven, because Monster High doesn’t make Frightfully Tall Mansters (yeah, Manster…that’s not on me) but Beastie is a short dude. It’d be fine if he was half her height and made from one of the male Monster High dolls…Manster Hunt.

I’ve come to accept that the facial structures of MH dolls makes any cute character….hawt.

Beastie is hawt.

I’m getting ahead of myself.

I found this on Mercari locally for about 800¥.

He’s originally Fair Heath Burns: Son of the Fire Elements.

I know. He’s not green. I fixed that.

Head off. Remove the face with acetone. Prime with Mr. Super Clear! Start painting the hair.

I buffed his body with a high grit sandpaper to remove the sheen and give it some tooth for pigment to adhere to, of course cleaning to remove the dust afterwards. I primed the body with the usual Mr. Super Clean. Then I set to work using chalk pastel pigment to blush and color the body and face. This takes layers and patience.

I also added a shard of polymer clay for his snaggle fang.

Blushing is more like highlighting and shading with pigments than turning a doll one color.

For a very uniform color I’d need an airbrush.

I’m not ready to buy another tool.

Also, airbrushes remind me of my friends in art school who worked thankless jobs at airbrush t-shirt kiosks in Grand Avenue Mall in Milwaukee where they’d have to explain either that they don’t do gang signs or that each shirt will look a little different..and take abuse from people who didn’t think the bunnies or whatnot they were painting were cute enough. . Think “Make the bunny cuter” when I see airbrush equipment.

In that same mall I worked a while in a kiosk that sold a variety of Russian woodwork, nesting dolls and troll dolls,and the seasonal Christmas store owned by the same people.

All of us students there would eventually visit Pat S who worked in the bar (yes) in the food court. Milwaukee.

Back in Japan, to my doll bodies.

My small balcony in my second floor flat can easily be viewed by people exiting their apartments in the apartment complex next to me. I use it as my ventilated spray area. I wonder what neighbours make of the tiny hanging green bodies, primed faced, and full dolls in curlers.

Working up Beastie’s face.

I’ve purchased a lighted magnifier that clips on to my workspace. It helps at this scale. I’ve also found it helpful to take frequent photos of the doll. My phone flips images which helps highlight when something is off with proportions.

I spent a lot of time looking at eyebrows online and thinking about where resting eyebrows rest on the face (on the upper ridge of your skull socket…touch them). My Senior year of college I was in figure drawing and drawing classes 12 hours a week and doing huge pages of self portraits in my work time. I feel like I understand muscles and bones more than I grasp eyebrows. They vex me. I also don’t have much in the way of them, which doesn’t help.

Drawing in a comic or cartoony style always eluded me. I wish we’d done rapid (30sec-1minute) gesture drawings of faces like we did for live figure drawing every session. The way dolls play with facial proportions and simplification is more tied to cartoon work than representative figure drawing.

Satisfied with Beastie’s hawt face I sent many photos with texts to friends and then returns him to his body.

These pictures where taken before I remembered to add a bit of gloss medium to his eyes and lips.

I don’t yet have pink spandex to make his Teen Titans Go outfit yet so he’s been hanging out in a black top and MTM Soccer Barbie’s shorts. I’m not sure what I’m doing with the rescued TaeYang next to him yet…so TaeYang gets rotated through humiliating outfits from the Madison Christmas Box.

Making his outfit will involve finding (or making) shoes. I’m not easy yet, it maybe when Craftsmas is in full swing.

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Starfire 1.0 Finished

Because I had left over air-dry polymer resin clay I decided to make Starfire her own Silky.

To color the clear/white clay I had I added a little acrylic to a blob of clay and rolled/kneaded it until the pigment was evenly distributed.

And I set to work rolling, pinching, and sculpting.

The Silkie I’m showing you I originally considered a failure, because it kept falling forward onto its face. Then I decided to use a toothpick to make a simple hole in it so a wooden rod could be attached to it later.

After a few days of air drying I primed it with Mr. Superclear and powdered it with chalk pastel pigment to make it less glossy. After fixing it once more with Superclear I painted it with acrylic paints.

The Silkie!

Then I set about making a base for Starfire and Silkie.

I found a star-shaped wooden dish for 150¥. I turned it upside down and drilled a hole into it and inserted a wooden dowel into the hole.

I then used purple wire from the 100¥ shop to make little….body prongs. Not perfect but ok for my first try.

I then drilled a tiny hole and inserted Silkie’s toothpick base…and painted everything with the purple paint I’d used for Starfire’s boots.

And my first Starfire was finished.

The second, 17” Starfire will get the second Silkie.

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Starfire: Part 4

Last we saw Starfire had her face painted, her body sanded, and her hair done.

Onward to clothing.
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There’s not much to be said about the clothing itself. Its a miniskirt and a crop top that closes in the back. It’s shown here with the basting stitches still in.

The difficult part was dealing with Starfire’s armor. I tried first with slightly flexible air-dry polymer resin clay. As seen here. It didn’t quite seem right and the neck-piece fell off easily.

I found a tutorial on youtube to help me and decided to get fun foam/ EVA foam.

Here I am experimenting with fun foam. When attaching foam to foam I used my hot glue gun. I also used elastic, thread, and snaps to close armor around neck and arms.

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Painting a dark undercoat before using my silver acrylic.

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After silver paint and some “jewels” created with nailpolish.

 

At which point I came into possession of MOAR DOLLS.

As I’ve said, this is sort of a test run for doing a larger Starfire to be friends with my 17″ Raven doll.

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Well, 17″ Starfire is now here. My friend Rea* brought it to me on one of her trips to Japan.

*She’s such a good friend that it was only after she received it at her home (I used US Ebay) and packed it and brought it to me that she told me she has a doll phobia and occasionally has to mute me on FB and elsewhere when I’m posting too many doll progress shots.

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AND….I bought a future Beast Boy on Mercari for cheap.

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They don’t make super tall Monster High boys, that I know of, so Beastie is gonna be small…and eventually green.

And, from the same Mercari dealer I purchased some boots for Starfire.

I primed them with a dark base coat and painted them.

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But….that’s not all. Inspired by the fact I have a LOT of left over air-dry polymer resin clay I got to work making Starfire a pet AND a stand.

Coming soon.

 

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