Commission Review - Circus Kane - Nexeven

Circus Kane releases very unique dolls. I know that there are those in the BJD hobby who dislike her aesthetic but I find it very refreshing and charismatic. I am usually attracted to awkward/ugly cute (but I hated troll dolls) so I was excited to have my usual customer Jo send me her Nexeven.

My initial reaction upon receiving her was that she's very tiny and delicate. She is on the small side for MSDs at 38cm but even then she has such thin limbs that she seems even smaller. Her resin appears to be French Resin since it has a translucent quality. The finish is smooth but not shiny. Sculpt wise she has subtle musculature and very detailed ears. Her face is tiny but her eyes are HUGE so she looks like a little fae creature.

The request was for a sweet young faceup with gold on her eyelids and a tattoo of the Chinese character for the word 'love' on her face with part of it extending to become her eyebrows. The main color scheme would be gold with the aqua of Nexeven's shoes. Jo suggested that perhaps there might be gold dots, yin yangs and etc on her hands and feet or perhaps some other Chinese characters for 'strength' or 'peace'. The other specification she made was that the eyelashes on her upper lid be dark and that they be pointing downwards instead of up. I think this last request was because Nexeven's eyes are just so large already that if her lashes pointed out her eyes would look even larger!

Well Here are the results ^___^

More under Cut!

Commission Review - Dollstown Alina & Dollstown Bandi & Estella

Dollstown is one of those companies that grabbed my attention when I first started looking at BJDs. They are a smaller company with two sculptors. The sculpting is incredibly detailed and it is obvious that the sculptors are familiar with the human body and bone structure. Their style is stylized but because of their familiarity with anatomy there is a distinct realism in the musculature and bones of the faces. Since their craft is so detailed and they only produce a small number of dolls cast by Dollshe, their prices are on the higher end though in my mind justifiably so. As a result I was always tempted by their dolls but do not feel like I could spend the money. Luckily, I have been commissioned several times to paint Dollstown sculpts :)

The sculpts I've been commissioned to paint are two SD sculpts (Estella and Bandi) and one MSD sculpt. (Alina) The quality of the sculpting and casting is very smooth as to be expected from Dollshe. You can see on the Dollstown website that they spend a lot of time smoothing out the sculpt before casting. There are no unexpected rough spots where paint, brushes or pastels can catch so painting these are a wonderful experience. The first thing to notice about the sculpts is that the two SD sculpts show a bit more bone structure and detail than the MSD sculpt. I think that might be due to the difference in sculpting styles of the two sculptors than the size because I've seen MSD sculpts from Dollstown that look very similar to Estella and Bandi. I would be interested to see other Dollstown sculpts to do more comparisons.

First up I have Alina. She's cast in what I think is pale skin since it is quite a bit paler than the fresh skin I've seen. The color is a beautiful warm white, not a paper white but not ivory. The sculpt is clearly hand sculpted since overall it is asymmetrical. It doesn't bother me since ppl are assymmetrical (myself included) but I know this is something that does bother some collectors. The style falls between anime and realistic since the eyes are large but the nose and facial structure is quite realistic. Experience wise, this commission was challenging because the buyer paid for the commission but disappeared for six months ignoring multiple attempts to contact her via etsy and private e-mails. Thus far I have still not confirmed that I should send her back and she has not paid for the lashes I attached. Still, I think the doll is beautiful and it's nice to look at her until the owner contacts me.

The next Dollstown sculpt is SD sized Bandi. She is cast in Oriental skin and at first glance she is very similar to the Dollstown Estella I painted a month before. The immediate difference is that Estella is an open mouthed doll with teeth parts. On closer inspection there are clear differences in the sculpts with a little more definition in Bandi's chin, a wider nose bridge and heavier eyelids. Overall the subtle differences has me preferring Bandi more although I think Estella's teeth parts are incredible. Here are photos of both so you can compare.

Estella in yellowed Oriental Skin

Bandi in Oriental Skin

The request for Estella was for a Victorian boy. I wasn't sure about the age since this is an SD doll but the description seemed to be for a fairly young adolescent boy. I kept the look very natural but with a bit of sickly blue shadowing under the eye to give him a touch of fragility. The colors are quite warm for this head since the base was already a warm tone. I really love how he turned out and the teeth parts were exceptionally easy to paint since the warm ivory resin was already very realistic.

For Bandi the request was simply for freckles. Considering that this is an SD sized doll, I usually associate this size with adult dolls. Since the request was for freckles I kept her looking natural as well but added a bit of brown/grey eyeshadow with a touch of pink pearl. I left the lips looking bare but naturally flushed. Overall I really like the effect of freckles and in the future will consider adding a slight skin texture as an option for realistic faceups.

Here are the time charts for Alina and Bandi. I painted Estella before I started timing my faceups so I don't have a chart for him.

Here are a few more shots so you can see Estella's teeth parts a little more clearly as well as some close ups of Bandi.

I hope everyone still enjoys these reviews. I find that my interest in BJDs tends toward the more technical and analytical side which isn't exactly everyone's cup of tea. If anyone has suggestions for a way to make my posts more interesting to them please let me know! I will work on more basic how to posts so that I can help those who are just starting out.

Where are They Now ~ Ashbet's Bimong Narae 402

I always love seeing dolls I've worked on all finished up and polished. A lot of times the owners take much better photos than I do so I thought I would share ^___^

Here are two girls I had as guests not too long ago.

Ashbet's Bimong Narae 402, Amande.
All photos by Ashbet.
See more of her beautiful dolls and photos on her flickr!

Talking and laughing! She's so cute.
More Under Cut!

Commission Review - Cerisedolls Constantine

She is teeny tiny for an MSD! The face was not much bigger than a DC tiny but the details were more delicate and specific. All in all she's an amazing sculpt and I'm so happy to have had the chance to paint her. I tend to buy dolls I want to paint even if I can't keep them but considering the price of BJDs there are a lot I just stalk or gaze at from time to time without ever hoping to see them in real life. It's one of the reasons I like doing commissions other than the challenge of making someone else's vision real.

More under cut.

Commission Review - Wilde Imagination Parnilla

In the BJD world I don't often run across dolls from Tonner much. They are very popular in the fashion doll repaint category but their dolls are usually made of vinyl and not truly ball jointed but hinged at the elbow and knees. However, they have produced some resin versions of their Ellowyne Wilde and Evangeline Ghastly line. Personally, I've always been interested by the Ellowyne and Evangeline lines because of the beautiful clothing and the darker gothy preesentation of the lines.

For this commission, I was lucky enough to be sent the dressed resin doll straight from the company. She is the 'My Odd Life' Parnilla from the Evangeline Ghastly line and the quality of the clothing is absolutely exquisite. I will do a review of her body and her costume in a later post but for now I will concentrate on her faceup.

Her default faceup is rather heavy like all Evangeline default faceups. Usually the faceup goes rather well with the outfit but this time the choice was a bit questionable in my view. The eyeshadow is a lime green paired with heavy dark green liner and her lips are a dark magenta. To me the colors are rather tropical and seem at odds with her silvery blue outfit. It's true that there are hints of a very pale green in the lace of the outfit but in most lights it just looks silver.

Here's a look at a side by side of her default faceup and my finished work.

I chose to give her an elegant made up look using silvery blue and peachy pinks. I feel like the soft silvery gown she wears would go best with something softer. I kept the general shape of the eyebrows quite similar to the original since I liked the look but softened the arche somewhat. The lip shape on my faceup is also less severe. I think the slightly pinched look on the default looks good with the severity of the rest of the faceup but overall, the default obscures the details of the sculpt.

Here's a better look at her from different angles.

I think the new faceup brings out her bone structure and shows off her blue eyes better. It also softens her profile a bit since the sculpt has very prominent lips.

Finally here is a time chart for the faceup.

As you see, it generally takes me less time for a MSD sized head than an SD sized head. I didn't time the packing yet since I still have her in my sweaty grasp but packing time does not vary much from size to size.

Anyway, I would be happy to hear what you guys think about the new faceup. I will be taking full body shots of her to show how the new faceup looks with the outfit. I try not to be too matchy matchy with makeup and outfits because it can look tacky. For example if someon is wearing a pink outfit, I don't match the eyeshadow but it is ok to use a lighter paler pink or a different shade of pink if you want though a more complementary color scheme would look better. In this case I did sort of match the silvery blue of the outfit but I added some pinks to keep it from being too matchy matchy.

Posing Comparisons, FL Minifee, RS/BBB Mini and 5StarDoll MIni

It's been another long while but I have a bunch of things to post. I'm also taking time off work to concentrate on trying to improve my own work flow and to apply to jobs as well as finish off some commissions.

Today I bring you guys a review on the posing ability of MSD dolls from some of the more affordable companies compared to the posing ability of one of the most popular and expensive company. Generally I will agree that the more you pay for a doll the higher the quality but of course there are a lot of factors. Resin quality, mold quality, engineering and production quality all account for how much a doll costs. Fairyland dolls are amongst the most expensive as well as popular dolls. They are known for their consistency in quality (though there was a period of lowered quality), their beautiful sculpts and their posing ability. The engineering and precision of their joints as well as the resin quality is reflected in the price. The molds for their bodies are probably replaced fairly often because the fit of the joints are crucial to the mobility whereas joints from ResinSoul can afford to be less precise simply because the fit isn't as crucial.

Commission Update - Unoas Part 2

At long last, I was able to pick up a good camera from my friend and get some decent shots of the Unoas before I sent them back. I will consider purchasing my own camera once I've raised the funds for a good digital SLR.


02/19/2012- I painted the teeth and inserted them before taking photos. Here is a group shot. Overall the Sist plates are darker and more dramatic because it is how I envision her though there are many renditions of Sist by other artists with a very soft look. Lusis has a softer look overall.

Commission Update - Unoas Part 1

So I was finally able to ship out some heads to their owners today. The Unoas are gone and so is Amethsyt. Here is the progression for the four Unoas from L.K.

UNOAs (L.K.)

I met L.K. through ebay since she bid on and won one of my large painted eye Obitsus. It makes me very happy to know she liked my work enough to commission me to work on four Unoa faceplates. They arrived with two of them still in unopened packages. Here is what they look like all lined up.

Unoas to go!

So i've been gone for a long time. Sorry guys. It's what happens when I get freelance jobs and I do need to pay bills. However I have decided to stop taking smaller freelance jobs that hold little interest for me in terms of design since they usually end up being really terrible and due to inexperienced clients, they drag on. As a result I should have more doll time and I will reopen. However I will only be taking 5 commissions a month so I have time for my own projects if I'm not getting freelance work and if I am getting freelance work, I will still be able to complete the commissions on the weekends.

Here's a shot of the Unoa faceplates I've had for so long. They belong to L.K. who kindly allowed me to do whatever I wished. I learned a lot working on these plates and I ended up redoing three of them. Lol...yeah...I did. The only one who was painted once and only once is the Sist plate (Sullen Sun). I don't have a good camera with me at the moment so this was taken on my android. I will post better pics soon.

Let me know which one you guy's like the most!

Lusis (White Swan), Sist (Sullen Sun), Lusis Wink (Merry Moon), Sist Bully (Black Swan)

I had such a hard time finding the right eyes for these guys because they like low dome 12mm. I have very few 12mm eyes. The owner even ordered and sent three pairs of 12mm eyes none of which worked well color wise and Sist is harder to fit eyes to.

Anyone who wants to trade 12mm non-acrylic eyes for a $10 discount off faceups, send a pic of the eyes and I'll let you know if I can use them.

Next up : Obitsu alice mods + faceup, MayWong,s heads, J.T.'s heads, + more action figure heads. Yeah, it's going to be a lot of work....after which I will stop accepting action figure heads and realistic 1/6 vinyl heads. I will explain why in another post.

Unoa update for L.K.

Yes, I am trying to work through the commissions! I applied the silver, gold and copper leaf to the Unoa heads this weekend. It took a looong time. There is still some clean up needed  but this gives you a good idea of what they will end up looking like. I think I need to draw them.

Light of Day

Hah! I took awful awful pictures last night thinking I could function at four in the morning. I took some new shots outside for better lighting to show the faceups better.

Birthday Weekend

My birthday is a Palindrome this year! It's on 11-22-11 but I celebrated with some friends this Saturday to avoid Thanksgiving weekend. I was still fairly productive though. I finished two commissions and worked on my own Custom House Prayer Choa. Here are some pics. The commissions turned out fairly well but I only took pictures of one so far. This is Eden redone. You will remember her from before.

Commission updates

So Audry is completed and approved but I don't have a return address to send her off to since the owner had ordered the head from Volks and had her sent directly to me!!! I have sent an e-mail to the owner but have not had a reply yet. Hopefully she will be claimed. This is a photo of her glossed. Her banks keep falling into her face so I didn't put her on a body for a photo.

W.I.P. RS Mei (Eden) for Samantha T.

Yes I'm alive. Here is a W.I.P. shot of Eden for those who don't check the W.I.P. page. ^__^

ResinSoul DJ Girl Body Pelvic Mod for Sitting.

ResinSoul has very nice facial sculpts and I generally like the shape of their bodies though there are a few details I don't like. Since we're only looking at the RS 42cm girl double jointed bodies for now I will focus on that.

Aesthetically I don't like the half melon shape of the bigger bust which you can see on deer hoofed Yao but that is acceptable compared to the fact that these girls can't sit up by themselves. I think it's odd that they didn't bother to fix the sculpt since standing and sitting are the major requirements of BJD posing.

Anyway I've been putting off this mod for a while since I was scared to work with tan resin and leaving a white scar. Fortunately the mod was a lot easier than I expected and with proper sanding, there is no scar. The resin pigment for Light Tan dolls from RS/BBB is distributed throughout the resin.

Tools Used:
1) Pencil
2) Foredom (You can use a dremel or carefully cut with a craft knife.)
3) Respirator! (Very impt. Resin dust is toxic.)
4) Sandpaper in a gradation of grits. (I used 220-800)
5) Water. (Don't dry sand. Wet sand for a smooth finish and to reduce resin dust in the air.)

Process:
1) Figure out how much I want to cut and draw a pencil guideline.
2) Use Dremel/Foredom/Craft knife to get rid of most of the resin to be reduced. Don't go right to the pencil line. If you make a mistake here it would be hard to get rid of the mistake so leave some space here.
3) Wet sand using lowest grit until you reach the pencil line. This makes for a nice smooth even curve which may be hard to get with a knife or even a dremel. Make sure you round the edges a bit so it's not a harsh straight edge.
4) Finish off by wet sanding with higher grit sandpaper until you reach desired smoothness.

So here are the pics. I didn't take any in progress pics since it's pretty boring and self explanatory.

The pencil line I drew on the unmodded pelvis piece and then the modded piece. No scar!


Yao and Li have the same stomach and pelvis pieces. The thigh pieces for Yao are just modified thighs from the normal 42cm double jointed girl bodies so the upper ball area is the same. Yao is unmodded and Li is modded. As you can see the difference isn't very noticeable and they both stand solidly after restringing. I will suede them later just to improve posing. For now they are just restrung and Li is modded.

A closer look at the pelvic area. Li's pelvis piece has slightly higher leg openings.

Li still doesn't sit perfectly. As you can see she leans back a bit. I can mod her hips a bit more so she sits straighter but for now I'm pretty happy she can even sit up on her own. ResinSoul really didn't do a very good job designing the bodies for posing. As you can see the shape of her buttocks and thigh muscles causes the sitting pose to naturally lean backwards.

On the other hand, sitting with a lean is still much better than what Yao can do. She needs to be held to be in any sort of sitting position.

When laying down, Li can hold her legs up at about an 95-100 degree angle. Yao cannot do that at all.

From this angle, you can see what the changes are. With the legs still angled to the body, Li's thighs are pretty much flush with the modded leg openings while the original shape of Yao's pelvis does not allow the legs to bend toward the body. (I am holding Yao's legs.)

Voila! It's a pretty easy mod but any kind of mod scares me before I do it because I don't want to mess up the doll. I do feel more sure of myself now though and if anyone wants their RS pelvis modded, I can add it to the list of commissions I do or you guys can try it yourself! It's really easy.

EDIT: I realize from some questions ppl asked on forums that they are not sure how much to cut. I am adding a picture to illustrate.

1) While doll is still strung, position leg in a sitting position to the body so you can see the amount of gappage. The width of the gap is the same amount of room that is needed for the leg to sit correctly in the pelvis.

2)Using a pencil mark the same gap width above the highest arch of the pelvic cup for the leg.

3) Draw an arc similar to the curve of the leg if it were sitting correctly.

This is how I figured out the curve. I basically did this once and didn't have to remeasure or retrace. when I cut my pelvis and sanded I sanded directly to the line and the leg just fit perfectly. I think this was purely luck, but you can also help luck by being careful! So just prepare yourself well and things should go well!

Playing catchup.

I need to set a day or two during the week to be my blog days. I have been working on things but I don't post them here. My bf sees the pics I take of my dolls for ebay and wonders why I don't post them. I guess the reason is that I forget ppl might like to see pretty pic spams lol. Neway I will do some posts of the two CH dolls I customized and sold as well as a new Obitsu head. For now I wanted to show my own dolls with some new faceups.

I've had these guys since March 8th but I was afraid to do their faceups because they were tan dolls and because I dunno..I was just scared. The first time I tried was a month ago but it had been raining so much that the MSC frosted like crazy and then I got scared for a month again. My RS Dark Tan Wu is still suffering from frosted MSC stuck in the lip line but my two Light Tan girls have their faces on.


There is still a slight difference in color between the MSCed head and the bare body but that is to be expected as having a matt texture immediately means there will be very slight frosting. It's similar to matt frosted glass vs shiny clear glass. Here's what her head looks like on her body. Currently my Li (Zili) is disassembled to mod her hips so she sits better. I'll post on that so you guys can see how to do it.


And last but not least, my floating male SD head.


I think he looks better this time around. A lot more natural. I think this might be my last forced natural faceup run. I am quite happy with the looks on these three heads so I will go ahead and go back to my more stylized faceups. Of course there are still areas that need work but I think for now I am capable of doing natural bare faced looking faceups.

First Volks!

Volks is one of the main BJD and garage kit companies out there and is well known for the quality of their resin. I've always loved Volks garage kits but the price for the BJDs have always frightened me away, though to be honest I'm not a big fan of their sculpts. However, amongst the ABJD community, Volks is on a pedestal and I jumped on a recent ebay auction for an old damaged Volks MSD. I have no intentions of keeping her though. I really just want her to see if I can bring a doll back from sun damage and mistreatment.

So here are her box opening pics. I made a video but I'm having trouble uploading. I will update with it soon.

She is a Volks Megii in Oldskin. She was made in October 2002. Here is her box with all the papers. (Excuse my messy work table. Little Hani and Mars are peering out.)

Compared to my D.I.M. Happy girl (Peyton but she needs to be resculpted.)

She is definitely yellowed with some random weird blue stains.

She isn't missing any toes, but her pinky toes are sculpted so that they curl underneath. This is normal for old volks dolls before they updated their body sculpt.

Random pink stains from body blushing and you can see the blue stains all over her body.

The seller did not mention the broken and repaired finger. I wish they did but considering I got it for such a low price, it's to be expected.

Her face is in okay shape. There is some staining and it looks like someone tried to sand her to remove her faceup where her eyebrows are. This is something that boggles my mind since there are much better ways to remove a faceup without marring the sculpt. Overall though, her face is intact and no features have been sanded away.
This is the interesting part. Looks like the previous owner (I'm the third) somehow let this get into their pet's maw. It's been chewed on and there is some sort of sticky substance on it.

All in all, not in that bad a shape. There are no magnets in the headcap so I will install some and try to reduce and even out her yellowing after I clean her up. This is a photo of her after I took off most of the dirt and old paint. As you can see, no need to sand off the paint. Just use some Winsor Newton Brush cleaner. You can also see the discoloration. From what I can tell she was posed in a sitting position with her right side toward the window as her right side is much more yellowed than her left side. She was pretty much kept nude as her yellowing exist all over her body and it's pretty obvious it is from sun exposure. Her back is almost unyellowed except by the minute light bounced back from whatever surface was behind her. You can see that her armpit and inside of the headcap is pristine since there was no light exposure while everything else is yellow. Let this be a lesson to everyone. Keep your dolls away from light! I can't understand why someone would spend $400 on a doll and not keep it in good condition.

Faceup Spree

I spent most of this weekend on doing faceups. Sometimes I just need a break from one project, so now that I've indulged my faceup yens and taken a bit of a break from sculpting, I will be heading full force back into sculpting.

In regards to my faceup skills, here are areas I need to improve in.

1. Crease Line

2. Lip Part Line

3. Top Eyelash liner.

4. Eyebrows are better now but still needs improvement

5. Lashes are better now but still needs improvement

6. I want to try for a cleaner very natural look and see if I can do it well

So here is the newly refaced CH Petite Juriel. Her head sculpt is skewed and I'm not sure if it is from the molding process or if the original sculpt is screwy. Either way, the shots here don't show it. It's most noticeable from a lower angle. Still, I don't really like the sculpt of her lips and I'm going to sell her after I finish body blushing her skin to match her face and making her a dress. The blue looks a bit cadaverish but I hope that doesnt scare ppl away from her. She is a snowflake fairy after all.

Today I finished my first set of twins, CH Juniors Ren and Rena. As I mentioned before, I hadn't realized they were the same sculpt when I purchased them since they only have one photo of Ren and he had bangs in his face. All the same, this is one of my favorite headsculpts from Custom House but also one of the hardest to paint. It may be the fault of a worn out mold, but the eye crease was very bumpy. This is a problem because the sculpt of the eye crease is very deep so it was hard to smooth out and painting a bumpy surface means wobbly lines. The mouth is super cute but also hard to paint due to the depth.

One thing I have noticed about CH sculpts (since I have so many) is that often times it is hard to change the mouth expression because of how they sculpt them. There is a ridge around the corners of the mouth so it looks weird if you don't follow the line. It's been mentioned before that it is hard to make Hani and Uri look happy instead of glum, and this is the same reason for Ren and Rena. I tried to make Rena smile a bit but I don't think it worked. Anyway, lots of room for improvement.

Ah, yes, I know that the twins have different coloration. Ren (Allen) is a blonde so his eyebrows are lighter and I made his skin more peachy/bronzey while Rena (Drew) is a brunette with more pink toned skin. They are fraternal after all and can't be expected to look identical.

Also, although I like her faceup better, I am going to sell Rena and replace her with a Yeondu. As much as I like the headsculpt and I love the CH body, I can't justify owning two of the same sculpt.

Okay guys, so the rest of this week I will mostly be sculpting. No more faceups unless it's a commission.