Let's not be precious now

I just ripped apart one of the moogle arms because I didn't like how it was laying or rather not laying against him. If it bugs me now it'll bug me more later so I might as well do it right. Details matter and if something doesn't lay right, ppl will see it.


I should still be able to start the molding process Friday or Saturday though.

Moogle update

Quick update on the Moog. He's almost done. Just a few tweaks to his sleeve and overall smoothening. Going to get molding and casting supplies with David tomorrow. Yay!



Sleeve/cuff detail but this is...mmm still WIP for the sleeve since you can see it is rough.

Custom House Bisou!

This little girl is slated for the block but I thought I'd show her here anyway since I'm super happy with her faceup. Her head size is similar to the 1/6 heads I paint so that might have something to do with it. Less space to mess up I guess hahah. I gotta run but here are some quick shots.

Giant Head Paint Fail

Ach.....so I suck at lashes.....and at painting eyes...thats all I have to say and I'm out of sealant so no more head painting 'til I get more. Sad....

On the other hand, her brows and her lips are pretty good and what I wanted. You can tell I gave up cause I left spots all over her face. She's still pretty....but not the kind of stuff I want to show ppl if I want to start doing faceup commissions.

Also.....I shouldn't be using day old paint....Sometimes I just do some obviously stupid things.

EDIT: Here's a pic from nDoll to show the level I want to be at. I didn't realize the eyebrow shape I painted was so close to this image. It would have helped to use it for reference. I think it would be possible to improve but will take a few more tries. An airbrush might help as well.

First head mod.

I did my first head mod a few days ago but I didn't finish the faceup until today. The bf picked up some nice new brushes for me to do super fine lashes with and I am astounded at the difference they make. As for the work, I'm pretty happy with the mod but I've found I pretty much suck at faceups on larger heads. Too tired to snap any good photos but here's a quick flash photo to show the details.


These are before and after photos. The top row is the original sculpt. I didn't like the mouth and the nose of the sculpt. The eyes are not symmetrical but I decided against fixing that just yet. Perhaps if i redo his faceup I will change his left eye to match his right. The most noticeable change is that he has teeth now. In the original sculpt, his upper lip was super thick in a weird way with a lot of extra room going back into the mouth so I just carved some teeth out of it. As you can see, the teeth aren't super noticeable from the front. I also trimmed down his super wide nose bridge to create a puggier nose and widened his nostrils a bit toward the septum to minimize the snoutish aspect of his schnozz. In the original the nostrils were set far too wide to look natural.



Not my best work and he's quite uneven. I do like his eyes but his lashes are not as precise as I would like them to be. I think I should be able to get better at this. The eyebrows and lips aren't any good either. Overall he's acceptable but nothing to be excited about. Oh, he's supposed to be a fawn but I need to make his antler nubs. He kind of looks more like a cat right now....

EDIT: Added better photos after I made some small changes to balance him out a bit.

It's a Boy!!!....head

So today, after I worked a bit on detailing the moogle cuffs ( this takes the longest time because you can only do a little bit at a time and then wait 10 hours to let it cure.) I worked on mr. man. He doesn't have a name yet...sometimes the name comes as I am painting or before I paint and other times it comes after or it changes as the process goes on. I'm babbling. It's late. Anyway, here are work in progress pics. I haven't done his hair yet so I'll post again when I do.


Here is a comparison of the Rooted Head for Slim Male Body - Dark Brown (27MSN-DB) and the Obitsu F03 head. They are both really androgynous. I wanted a manlier man but this is what they had for rooted heads. He has a big honking nose but I forgot to do side shots before I painted him. BTW his lips aren't as dark in real life. they do photograph dark as do all the lips of my dolls. Not sure why that is but I never bother to go in and fix it. It does kind of bug me though. (Oh...and yes that is Ace's head freshly rooted to bring down her hairline...and I notice also that mr.man head's hairline is wonky.....hopefully that means not all the F03 heads have ultra high foreheads cause I rather like the sculpt.)


I will be doing more male heads in the future and I'll try to get him to look a bit manlier and with lighter lips. Granted for this one I went with a lush lashed fem boy because I love dark haired boys with ultra lush lashes and light eyes....but I felt it fit the sculpt seeing as it's so girly.

A quick shot of my work table...it's turned into the photo table for the moment. But ou can see my new Li (Zili) lounging with Peyton. I got her on March 8th along with Wu (Ba'ul) and Yao (Oun). I'll do a proper intro soon. I did do a box opening vid...shame on me for taking so long to post...but I'll finish before April.


Sorry to those waiting on the moogle. I promise he's being loved and worked on....it just takes a while for the stuff to cure.. I do have an idea for a different material to use in the future for lacey parts that wont take so long. So for the upcoming sculpts it won't take this long a wait for the lace fabrics.

Overview

So I was showing my mom and sister what I had been working on and I realized that my work has progressed over the last month and a half. Initially thought Milla's faceup was really well done and that I would have a hard time doing another one, but looking back at the photos, I can see I have a little more control and detail than when I first started. Here's a timeline of all the heads I've completed thus far. I've also labeled them with the head type and skin tone if anyone wants some reference. Click to enlarge! (These are all Obitsu heads so far though I hope to try out some different ones at some point.)


Click image to enlarge. The photos of the F01/F02 heads are slightly larger than actual size in real life so this will give you a good idea of what details are visible to the naked eye and which are mainly picked up with photos. The F04 heads are slightly bigger than the F01 and F02 heads in real life.

....What is that!!!?

What is Lara looking at??? What is that huge dark shadow on the left?
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Oh...it's Slick....coming over to see why I'm not paying attention to her. And yes it seems she has the same look of horrified fascination that Lara had in the previous photo. Slick is my kitty...she is that adorable...and sometimes just as bothersome and in the way.

The above photo gives sort of an idea of how large (small) the dolls are. Keep in mind Slick is a small cat (she's even a bit on the small side for a girl cat) and she's sitting a bit behind Aili.

Aili for St. Patrick's Day

So the reason I've been slower with painting doll heads or moogling is that I've been making doll clothes. I'm not super fast at hand sewing so that means it takes me about a week or a week and a half to complete a doll. (ie. Paint doll head, blush doll body and paint details, draft pattern and sew clothes.) It takes a while but I love the results. I'm super fond of Aili and I love the personality she exudes. I very much wanted her to be the tomboy who transforms into a beautiful and alluring lady. She succeeds...visually...she is still a tomboy at heart. For this reason Aili was painted without lipstick and no eyeliner. I lover her bare face and the slight smirk she has. As much as I don't want to play favorites, I feel like she completely upstages Lara. She's currently on ebay and I feel like given the time I spent on her, I'm posting her for a very low price. I hate to see her go because I would actually love to do another shoot with her. She's the first doll I've felt this way about as I usually do one shoot and I don't really have an idea for another one. This might be because I have clothes for her and she has a painted body. At any rate, the way I see it is that I will be making more dolls/characters that I will fall in love with so if Aili goes to a good home, I won't be lacking for dolls to photograph.

To be honest I've never thought of myself as being a photographer...or rather I was never someone who thought oh I want to get better at photography. I create a lot of visual imagery but I have always considered photography and collage and such to be my weaknesses or something I'm not particularly good at. However, with dolls I've found that it's much easier to create a controlled lighting situation than with a human since the scale is so much smaller. As a result I've really enjoyed taking photos of the girls. I only wish I had more backgrounds or props and clothing. Well all in good time.

Here is Aili in her St. Paddy's finery. I think her personality comes across as rather more complex that Lara's. I hope to create more dolls at this level and that ppl enjoy them and would wish to own them.

(I made everything except the base shoe, stockings, base doll and base head)



Ah, I have also updated my commissions page to include body blushing/painting.

Aili Nudes

I haven't shot any doll nudes yet because I only started painting bodies recently. I also wasn't sure how it would be received but I had an idea I wanted to try out using back-lighting. Here is Aili. She is my 8th head and was painted before Lara, but Lara was finished first since Aili needed her St. Patrick's gown to be considered complete. Here we go!


Let me know what you think of doll nudes. I will likely be doing more in the future. As for my plan of action after Aili is, Moogle and male head at the same time. Since the Moogle clay needs time to cure, I will paint the male head as it is curing. After the male head comes Ace and then I have to start the clothes and heads for Easter! I have the concept and preplanning done already but I should sketch the faces out a bit so I have a visual guide.

Lara comes out!....in a big way.

I've been busy....poking holes in fabric and making a mess but I finally have something to show for it. (I've also been busy doing freelance animation...making it rain blood....really ...I got paid to animate cows and pigs hacking each other up this week...it was fun and I wish there were more jobs like that.)

So without further ado, here is Lara! You guys got a sneak peek a few days ago but here she is in presentable form. I don't know how to hide NSFW photos yet so I won't post those here. When I do you can take a look at her body blushing if you wish to.

Lara is a lingerie model...but her personality is very much the girl next door. Very sweet and genuine even though she is blessed with an amazing body. hahaha.

I'm really happy with her actually. When I first painted her I didn't really like her. I thought she looked too Barbie like. She still does but all my girls are different and she just happens to be the most apple pie one.

So for the next week (or 2 weeks) I need to

1) Finish Aili's dress.
2) Finish the Moogle.
3) Paint a male head.

So much to do.....the bf is also planning a trip to New Orleans...so we'll see if I can fit everything in. Thanks so much for reading guys!