Not having a great time lately, either at the personal, work or global level. Just doing what I can. Working on something I like in the off time is always good, though. Here’s faceup progress on my sleeping Soony. She’s very softly color matched to the DD1 body… I wanted her to be in-between enough that I could use either the DD1 or the Delf/F60 hybrid body if I wanted.
Today’s doll update: finally painted some 1/6 factory heads. I’d done the blushing before (pastel/brush-on sealant on Unoa and gouache on Fashion Royalty) but today I did the rest. Tried using just Acryl Gouache – I like it (it’s basically just very matte acrylic paint) but it dries SO fast. And I’m rusty!
Some blank shots of my rare bird, the unmodded Sleeping Delf Soony (Soony Special).
Sasha’s laundry is done!
This is a modded Batchix St. George head that bought from Krowbar/handy_dandy_degenerate_candy at PNW BJD Expo way back in 2017. At the time I asked if they would mind me redoing the faceup and they said they didn’t mind at all, but it wasn’t something I felt up to tackling for a long time. He finally has a body I think feels right for him (the WS Dream Valley 51cm body) and I finally felt up to starting on it. The mods were pretty rough under the paint so I sanded him some more, but not enough apparently! I’m trying to use some Vallejo acrylic primer instead of just paint, so there’s more sanding and spraying ahead for me but I think it’ll look nicer than regular acrylic in the end.
I wasn’t happy with the fit of the glued pieces on 70cm Tennant’s head, so I attached the ears and filled in some of the gaps with Milliput. This was better, but then I also remembered that I could use some of the same UV resin I printed with to cover up the Milliput bits. After sanding it looks much better!
Just some shots of Sasha all cleaned up and restrung! I gave her some brains even though I’m not very good at them. She’s just wearing an SD sweater until her clothes are washed.
Sasha doll updates! She got a good thorough wash and I conditioned her hair, then I went about pulling out her cut bang plugs (quite difficult) and replacing them. I made an order from Monique Trading Co on their last day, and while I had ordered one of their hair sample rings, they sent me four of them, so I had plenty of hair and colors to try. I picked some of the hairs that matched best – they were the regular hair type, not synthetic mohair, i.e. I think Modacrylic and not Kanekalon. I rooted them in using the tension method, and this hair was pretty terrible for that because it’s stiff and had a bend set into it pretty hard already where it was folded over the metal piece on the ring.
After rooting the bangs in I treated the hair using the sage advice of @dollsonmain , with conditioner and a straightening iron on low. I was really shocked by how soft and silky it was after this. Finally I re-thatched the part and gave her a boil wash. I decided to part her bangs instead of cutting them, which she really wasn’t rooted for, so it doesn’t look the neatest but I still prefer it to the very thick bangs that she was originally rooted with.
I still don’t have any more insight on what kind of Sasha she is other than that she’s from 1970 according to her white strings.
I got Sleeping Soony’s DD1 body all cleaned up and restrung. Did you know DD1 bodies were strung? I didn’t, haha. She can stand now! Part of me wants to put her on the other Delf/Feeple60 parts hybrid body that I have Megu on, since it would match her head perfectly, but she’s had this body for so long that I feel like it’s really hers, haha. I like the attitude she has on it. I’ll have to match the color when I do her faceup.
I finally got a chance to seal the faceup layer on LTF Soony so that she could be put back together! In between I decided that I wanted her to be a little taller so I picked up this Dollzone Mini Jing body and fullset, which is SUPER cute and the yellow resin is actually a great match. I just had to flip one of the magnets in the ears to work with the LTF headback’s magnets. I did somehow mess up her upper liner in the process of sealing the faceup layer? Just the upper liner, very odd. I’ll have to paint over it.
This is another project I’ve had going for a while… Tennant but Big! The faceplate is the full width of my printer so I did the ears as separate pieces. I got this Charmdoll body (72cm) in the older opaque resin and I like it but in photos the neck looks a bit thin for his jaw. (It doesn’t look as bad IRL so I I have no idea, haha.) I sanded the jaw down a bit, which was easy enough to do since this is the first print I’ve done where I’m trying to use the actual printed resin as the final surface – many thanks to @aishavoya for giving me a tip about using the white resin pigment ages ago. There’s also a bonus digital mockup and a bonus shot of the first try at the faceplate where I seriously undershot on how much resin I needed in the vat.
1. Custom 3D printed resin head on a Charmdoll 72cm body body in old resin pink
Soony group shot! So, a very kind user on DoA responded to my WTB for a LTF body for the LTF Soony faceplate I recently got. She mentioned having other old CP/Fairyland items she was looking to sell, and very kindly offered to sell me this sleeping Delf Soony in addition to the LTF body. I was totally shocked! I am collecting Soonies but I never would have expected to find this one. She’s wonderful. She’s on a very old v1 Dollfie Dream body, which I actually do like (especially the color, it’s a soft beige almost like RS’s Coffee tone), but I haven’t decided if I want to have her on the leftover F60/Delf parts body instead since it matches her. Also, forgive the unfinished faceup on the little one!
( P.S. If anyone wants to sell me a F60 elf Soony, especially in WS, to complete the collection I will appreciate you very much )
( P.S.S. REALLY hoping that Fairyland does Soony for the next round of Lookback dolls )
1. CP/Luts Delf Sleeping Soony on Dollfie Dream DD1 body
2. CP/Luts Delf Soony with old Feeple60 arms and legs
3. Fairyland Littlefee Nanuri 2015 / Dreaming Elf Soony modded faceplate on LTF girl body
4. Fairyland Minifee Soony / Juri 2014 on A-Line body with CP/Luts Minifee hands
Another girl I’ve been working on since summer because I’ve very slow! I got this Torrie head from Dollmore. Torrie was actually the first BJD I ever had, about 14 years before I got this one. I had originally picked her as an alternative to Soony, the one I really loved, because she was smaller and less expensive. I eventually sold her because I was afraid to do much with her, and disappointed that she wasn’t Soony. Now that the Soony-shaped hole in my heart is full I can appreciate her on her own merits, and she is an adorable sculpt that I have no fear of doing my own customization on. I put her on the modded Resinsoul body that Juri used to be on, and the match is a lot better.
I tried something a little different with her faceup, where it’s heavily inspired by the work of Ravendolls. I don’t think she’s been in the hobby for a long time now, but her faceup portfolio and style was hugely inspiring to me when I first got into BJDs so I thought I’d try to go for that look with this doll from the same period. It’s honestly still a lot more my style than hers but it was cool to at least try to do something different.
1. Kid Dollmore Torrie head on a modded Resinsoul Rong body with Minifee #6 hands (Resinsoul wrists modified to magnets)
I’ve had this Jun Planning Ai doll (Lawn Daisy) from Tuesday Morning for ages and only recently realized that I should try some newer eyes in her. It’s amazing the difference they make. She keeps me company on my work desk.
Faceup process and a comparison between my Juri’s new and old faceups. It’s pretty fun to see 3.5 years of faceup progress! I actually really wanted the heavy coloration look originally, but I didn’t have very pigmented pastels, and the whole faceup was done in 2 layers. (The new one is 3, I’m not that NOT lazy still =p) I tried to contour her nose to look wide/flatter. I also added a comparison of a phone photo taken up close and one taken further back and cropped because she looks really different with the lens distortion.
1. Fairyland Minifee Soony / Juri 2014
More things I’ve had going for a while… I actually got a second Minifee Soony head that I wanted to use to make a darker skinned Soony. I had still been meaning to repaint my original Minifee Soony as well, since she was airbrushed (poorly) to match her old body. Since I’m waiting for the dark tanned body, I decided to repaint the new head as the original one’s character so that I could use the old faceup as an immediate reference, or keep it if I didn’t like the redo as much. I’m pretty happy with her though!
1. Fairyland Minifee Soony / Juri 2014 on A-Line body with CP/Luts Minifee hands
Here’s a newer-to-me girl, Black Cherry Dolls Cookie Brownie. She’s very fun! She’s wearing a Barbie shirt and Gene Marshall pants. She came with a very nice faceup by onion.bulb on IG, but it was damaged (lashes pulled off and took some paint with them, and rubs in the blush and lips), so I added some more blushing to fill it in.
1. Black Cherry Dolls Cookie Brownie in Copper
Also in that last post, but I received the Dream Valley body in yellow for Tennant, so naturally I went right about cutting it up, haha. He was way too tall compared to Daniel and Conchita. He’s still a bit too tall but any further height would be harder to remove. I removed a chunk from the ankles and shortened the neck.
It wasn’t too hard, just a lot of sanding to smooth it out. I did it once before on a Resinsoul body and used Milliput to connect the pieces which I think was less visible, but I got lazy here and used superglue since I could always Milliput later.
What I did was stick the calves onto the feet, then draw two level lines around them by holding a pencil parallel to the table and rotating the calves. I drew perpendicular lines across (like a train track) and also marked the back center to keep things lined up. I cut the pieces out with a Dremel (saw might’ve been better but I don’t have a good one) and used a coarse sandpaper flat on the counter to get the edges flat and even. I glued them together by lining up the back center lines and the internal channel, then sanded it smooth.
1. Dream Valley B4-04 51cm boy body in yellow with mods and Dollshe 18M Fashion Maxi Mystic hand in Oriental
2. Custom 3D printed head and body with Resinsoul Tang limbs and Dollshe 28M Fashion Maxi hands
3. Dream Valley B4-04 51cm boy body in white, unmodded