Weekend update

I'm finally catching up a little on outstanding commissions but I still have a lot on my plate.

I have mailed out JanetT's heads! She makes great costumes so I'm interested to see how Pet and Maddy turn out.

I need to do final touch-ups to MayWong's heads as well as sand and prep some action figure heads. (sanding and prepping are terrible but necessary chores if I want a good canvas to work on.)

On Thursday I was stuck in Chinatown since my sister was really worked about the 20 yo cat. He's actually not so bad but since he is having a not so good reaction to the penicillin for his UTI he's been having some issues. (I've had him since I was super little so he's impt to me.) I have to take him to the vet again tomorrow for some follow up on the UTI. I've spent a ton of money the last two weeks on vet bills. My sister has no income and she is paying for her alternative medicine school and her mortgage from whatever savings she has so I can't really ask her to handle any of the expenses.

At any rate since I was stuck there I brought the watercolor pencils I had lying around to try them once again. I initially really didn't like them because of the graininess of the lines but on the soft vinyl the grainy look is not there. I think it is because the point sinks in more. However that also means getting fine and dark lines is harder. Overall I like them a lot more and will be adding them to my arsenal. I still finish with paint tho.

Petrucchio for JanetT

He took forever. Hah...That's what comes to my mind when I look at him. Mainly it's because there were many thin layers of paint and because of the facial hair and wrinkles. It's easy to paint a pretty face. It's much harder to paint a not so pretty face. Overall I'm pretty happy with him. It was hard because the face sculpt is for a child but he is in his late 30s to early 40s and has led a hard life.

Well, here he is....the one concern is that Maddy's  huge eyes and makeup overpowers him a bit.  We'll see what JanetT wants me to do.

Commission updates for MayWong

MayWong was one of my first customers but it has taken me a while to getting around to her heads. The main reason is because I am behind on all my commissions but also because I was trying to read up on the manga Inuyasha so I can do the characters justice. These are the only two heads from her that are not based on Inuyasha characters as far as I can tell but I have gotten to a point in the manga where I feel I know the characters fairly well and will be starting in on them soon. 

Commission #5 - BJD style 1/6 head

I didn't post this head in the W.I.P. because I just went ahead and finished it in one sitting. I wasn't told the name for the character but I was given and idea of her personality. She is kind and motherly. The challenge was that she has down turned eyes but she should not look sad. I was given reference to follow, and while I think I managed follow the reference fairly closely I think perhaps I followed it too closely? I would say this style ended up being more of a manga style than a BJD style. I will ask the owner whether they want anything changed.

The base is a normal skin Volks Dollfie head Type A head with rooted brown hair . For the coloring, she specified purple eyes, versatile but not too plain makeup with a sweet smile and rosy lips.

Here is a photo without gloss. I will take a better photo after she is glossed.

#12

I have a new Obitsu head painted, but honestly I'm not that happy with her. The reason is that I was trying to emulate other artists whose works are popular and in the process while I think the head is good technically, she is sort of soul-less. Anyway this is what she looks like. She is my 12th head using an F02NC03 which is a F27-02 sculpt prerooted with brown hair.

I am looking forward to doing a kickass blonde on an Obitsu F27-03 head soon as well as redoing that one Obitsu male head I did. I'm not satisfied with him so I'm going to wipe him.

I realize I never did a good photo shoot for #11 ACE! The reason is that I still don't have what I feel would be an appropriate body for her. Perhaps I will be able to get it by the end of the summer. We'll see. She's one of my favorites so she's not for sale lol.

Currently working on:

1) Moogle

2) Modding my RS Wu's body

3) Fixing up my Volks Megii

4) Dreaming of clothes for Oun (RS Yao) and Zi'li (RS Li) who I hope to bring to my first Doll Meet in Manhattan!

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.

First Commission Completed and BJD sold

My first few commissions are for 1/6 vinyl heads since that is where I started. I finally received one of the heads, and surprisingly it was for an anime head. Surprising because I don't paint a lot of them on my own. Anyway, her name is Feng-Pei and here she is! She is on a rooted Volks Type A head.

In other news, I finally made my first full set BJD to sell. The doll is a Custom House Petite Juriel dressed ad a little Ice Fairy. There are touches of micro-glitter accenting her eyes, the snowflake on her forehead and her nails. I'm not very good at making clothes yet, but I think I will get better soon and she looks pretty sweet. Oh and she has full body blushing.

The glitter is hard to see in the photos but shows up well in real life. Let me know what you guys think.

Moogle is on the back burner but the bf is telling me to finish as is my bf....sorry for taking so long.

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.

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.

Sneak peek at Lara.

New girl. I spent Saturday on the lingerie. Next project besides working on my Irish girl (I renamed her Aili, an Irish name which means Light) I will be working on a guys head for Maywong to check out. Anyway here is a quick shot. I will do a proper shoot later tonight or tomorrow.

EDIT: Tomorrow or the next day after it is. I got booked for an on site job tomorrow so I need sleep tonight.

Giant Heads!...

Well, relatively.... I got a nice package from Emory again. This guy is fast! His store is on the West coast but I normally get the package three days after I place an order. Besides the wonderful gifts that Emory included (full size Pocky and cute Monchhichi) I finally got an Obitsu body in White Skin and it's the 27cm Small soft bust version. I also got the Natural Skin 27cm in Large bust. Let me tell yah...it's hooooooge. Unnaturally so, but sometimes you just have a character that needs melons like that. I also ordered some baldies to paint as well as a Dollzone BB July head in WS and an Obitsu Gretel head. They are 1/6 (BJD size) and 1/3 size respectively. Here are some pics to compare the sizes with a normal 1/6 Obitsu head Type 01 (F01NC07).

This is the Dollzone BB head. It is supposed to be 1/6 scale but to be honest since they make 1/6 BJDs as kid shapes but scaled in terms of adult size, this is really more like 1/4 toddler size. I've discovered I don't like Dollzone noses. I know they are one of the most popular companies but the nose on this fella is not pretty. It borders on piggish. Perhaps they aren't all sculpted this way but I can see that there are similar characteristics between most Dollzone noses. (In general I'm in love with Dollzone dolls. I want a NS Aurora but she's too expensive for me.)

This is the 1/3 size Gretel. I feel like the sculpt has a weird pushed in nose bridge. Maybe mine is deformed. Who knows. But I like it in photos. I got these guys because I need to see what working at a bigger scale is like, so in a week or two we'll see if I can pull these off!

So I've been scheming and planning. I don't have a lot to show yet but I can show you sketches of the girls I plan to paint next. I'm most excited about...


She ain't pretty but she is so coool!! I was going to paint her right away after Llewyn but after analyzing her hairline, I realized she needed some rooting to make her just right. I know I shouldn't spend so much time on just one head, but Ace is pretty special to me and I want her to be great! I'm using the Type03 head in NS with dark brown hair. Since I'm getting a male head with dark brown hair from Emory soon I thought I'd wait and cut the hair off him for Ace. The reason why I don't want to paint the face before I root is because I'm afraid of ruining the paint job with the pulling and tugging.

So instead of Ace, I will be painting this girl. She will be the one on the Large bust body...can you see it?


Let me also include a sketch of Llewyn. This is just to show how the final product really doesn't end up looking like the concept sketch. This is because the face is kind of predetermined by the headsculpt. You can always fudge some things, but you can' only push it so far. I also tend to change my mind as I'm working on a face because I want to try new things. With Llewyn I knew I wanted to try bigger eyes than I have done on realistic faces so that part pretty much stayed the same. However her lips and lashes did change as did the iridescent floral detail. (Note: She is an Obitsu Type 02 head which means her eyeballs are not defined allowing me to make her eyes bigger than I would be able to on the Type 01 or 03. However, her lip sculpt is for thinner lips so I was not able to make fuller lips than what she has.)


Oh....and yes I did work on a head. I couldn't help myself. This is Drew. She is the doll for St. Patrick's Day! I guess it's a little hard to tell what makes her Irish right now but hopefully it'll all come together. She is still a WIP. There's no sketch for her. I just wanted to do an Irish girl. Oh yah, she is also my first freckled girl! I've been wanting to try freckles. I think it came out ok. Next time maybe I'll be more heavy handed. The flash washes things out. We'll see when I take better photos if she looks ok.



She looks a little too young for my liking but I think this is due to the round cheeks of the face sculpt. The limited sculpts from Obitsu is getting to me now. I didn't consider this when I first started painting heads but now I find myself looking elsewhere for different headsculpts to play with. I have ordered some from Triad Toys as well as Dollsfigure to see how the quality holds up. They'll be here in about two weeks I hope.

Oh, um for anyone reading this, please say hi! I would love to meet you guys. Most of my followers right now (4 out of 5...hangs head in shame) are my friends in RL who I begged to follow me and have no real interest in dolls. Thank you Jangalian for following me!!!