Older/progress photos of Myr!

I sanded down a LOT of resin on the mid-torso to rough in the wasp waist and lessen the muscle definition. Then I sliced about a centimeter off the top and sanded it down from there, shortening the torso significantly. I expected to make the torso look short, but it was so elongated that it looks more normal than where I started, haha. It’s also now a rounded joint instead of one with a ridge like the original, so it can be moved without pulling. I significantly reduced the bottom edge of the upper torso. I didn’t change the shape of the joint, I just ground down the edge and the chest. I flattened out the chest as well, which sounds like a weird thing to do on a male body, but the shape actually looked more like modest breasts than pecs, especially with my waist mod, and Myr doesn’t have breasts, so I flattened it out to a more ambiguous shape.
Sanded down the catches on the shoulders and upper knees.
Tried to fix some of the issues with the lower knees. Honestly, they’re just not very well shaped or designed, but I tried a few things that might help. I carved out more of the back so that the edge of the cup is surrounding more of the ball and flattened the sides of the ball.
Sliced the thighs into two pieces added a mobility joint.
Sanded down the tops of the ears so I can sculpt the downturned ones. RIP Seng’s cute ears.

The elbow cup piece is actually pretty round on top, but the upper arm’s socket is oblong, so the joint doesn’t work like a ball joint and won’t rotate. But! The upper arm’s socket is actually round with the exception of the pieces that extend down the sides. If you cut/grind those down, you get a regular nice round ball joint that actually rotates and works well.
That alone reduces the annoying rotate-and-popping thing the bottom joint does, but I really really hate that so I wanted to make it impossible. I did exactly the same thing I did in the lower leg: I carved out the inner joint area of the lower arm (the bottom of the ball part) so that the double-joint/cup part doesn’t get pushed out when it bends. Uh, it makes more sense when you see it.

I didn’t change the middle/elbow/cup part at all. I did also flatten the sides of the ball part of the lower arm; that probably didn’t make a difference right now, but I want to suede the sides of the joint when I’m done.

The arm is no longer a terrible obnoxious pain. The top part moves freely and with sufficient friction (because this joint actually fits well) and the bottom no longer rotates (no more Z elbows) or pops. I also suspect the bottom bends a little further, but I didn’t really check.

I also did a mouth opening with custom tooth piece, downturned elf ears, and filled in the sides of the eyes, then did some general face sanding mods.

They were dyed with Rit Dyemore (after an ordeal where my iDye Poly wouldn’t stay the same color for 5 minutes), sueded, scarred and painted. They’ve had two custom wigs, one with Tibetan lamb and one with brushed yarn, and several pairs of custom resin eyes.

I don’t even know where to begin with posting dolls here, so instead of going through a photo backlog, I’m just going to go doll by doll.

First is Myr (they/them), my heavily modded Resinsoul Seng that I got in 2017 and the beginning of me getting back into BJDs. I’ll post more about the mod process in a seperate post, these are just more recent photos.

Another doll head I’ve had forever: High School Musical 2 Troy. This is honestly one of my favorite faces Mattel’s ever done. The eye paint is unusual and gorgeous; even with slight wonk as this one has, it has a lot of spark and personality. The face mold is nice and doesn’t have that “celebrity face mold” look at all. But it’s a small head because they apparently decided that the best way to make teenagers was just to shrink down a regular Ken. 

I found a Hunter Huntsman and I really wanted to put this head on his body using @dolldirt‘s bread tag trick, but I carved the hole a little too big. OTL I want to try using some hot glue in the neck rim to get it to work, but for now, he’s on a Fashionista Ken body. (No, the clothes really don’t fit.)

Also in the garage sale action figure haul: plain ole single-jointed, no-molded-clothes GI Joes. I kind of prefer this to the super-articulated one to be honest, if only because two of my three SA Joes have had their elbows disintegrate while sitting on my shelf. At least these guys are sturdy.

Anyway, Kocoum here is another “didn’t have a color match for a long time” head. The body looks a lot closer in real life than it does in this photo. OTL He seriously needs paint and styling (look how frizzy that top part is), but I’m way more inspired to do it after @dolljunk‘s great Kocoum. 

*insert meme here*

I got ahold of some awesome early-mid 2000’s action figure stuff from a garage sale recently ad have been looking to the best ways to put it to use. This Blaine head is actually one of the very oldest dolls in my collection, but he’s the tan version and darker-skinned posable Kens are in pretty short supply. One of the garage sale finds was the later 21st Century body, though, and it is a perfect skintone match. I really like the body too; it’s a lot more natural than other playline 1/6 I have, except for the hugest double hinge joints on the elbows and knees. Can’t win em all, I guess. Anyway, his neck’s short and I’ll probably space it out somehow but for now I’m content to finally have him be able to sit on my shelf.

Still trying to decide who gets the pale MTM body. Just wasn’t feeling Lois Lane. Here we have Stardoll and Gillian. I like the proportions of the Stardoll; she has a smaller-than-average head and the hybrid looks pretty high-end imo. On the other hand, I’ve had Gillian a long time and the posing makes her face feel more expressive. Indecisiveness.

“I have a Ken-sized suit vest, right?”

This is why so many of my dolls go naked. I’ve been hoarding thrift store clothes for over 6 years and they’re only organized into three containers: one for clothes I don’t actually like and am just keeping because they’re rare or belong to particular dolls I might sell or are particularly silly, one for dolls Bratz/MH size and smaller, and one (this one) for everything else. I am not at all lacking in clothes but there’s so much I take forever to find an outfit. I’ve tried breaking it up and that doesn’t even help because I end up needing all of them anyway. I need doll stylists.

Scary Mary! She’s a Kurhn knockoff that has apparently had all of the color fade out of her vinyl. She was also on a weird little Breyer body. This is an Apple White body that has Catty hands for some reason (thrift stores, haha) but I think it works for her. It’s not as green, but, y’know, nothing is. The neck opening is very shallow on this head so the bulge at the top is very apparent, but I really can’t be bothered about it.

I’d almost forgotten this repaint to be honest, her head was too light for any body I had, including her original body, so I had experimetally stuck her on a tiny Breyer body, which was kind of cut but just not expressive or self-supporting in any way. And it still didn’t match. EAH has enough dolls in the super-white range that this one (Poppy?) is a great match for her though. I like her as an uncomfortable Cupid.

I had a big head-swapping session and finally came up with the idea of putting my Bratz heads (none of which I have jointed Bratz bodies for) on MH/EAH bodies. D’oh. Way nicer proportions than Barbie/Liv bodies.

Medusa here is my first real doll repaint and she’s been on a click-leg SIS Grace body all this time. She’s slightly lighter than the Grace skintone and slighty darker than Clawdeen. I have one Clawdia, but that’s too dark plus I only have the one, so, Clawdeen it is. She can sit now! And bend her wrists! It’s great.

I should try giving another dolls gelled curls like hers sometime.

Not-great photo of $1 doll show Janay head. She has some mystery debris on her face I can’t get off with rubbing alcohol and a magic eraser. Maybe with Windsor and Newton? I’ll probably repaint her eventually.

I got Freddie at Target (was hoping for other dolls on clearance, Descendants and EAH were the only ones at 70% off though… ) right before wisdom tooth surgery so I didn’t get a chance to unbox her for a while. She’s really cute and feels much nicer quality than I expected, having acquired some EG dolls at thrift. I actually like her face mold, but I noticed her reddish skintone was a really good match for Janay’s, and the body proportions seem okay for a regular-sized head, so they’re probably getting swapped.

I liked making the tibetan lamb wig for Clawdeen so much that I splurged on a white pelt so I can make wigs with a bit more variety. (It’s a lot nicer-feeling than the stuff salvaged from the rummage sale skirt trim, unsurprisingly. I wonder if I can condition that. ) I decided to make a wig for my neglected old DIM boy. He’s been a character I don’t care about for about 8 years, so at this point I’m exploring doing other stuff with him. I like the doll more than I ever liked the character. This is a new-ish faceup too, although it needs to be redone because I didn’t seal it well and a bit of blush came off the nose. The brows are also too solid and brown, the lip line is awful, bleh bleh bleh.

The wig looks way poofier in pictures than in real life. It’s nice and soft though.

Thank you all for the very nice comments on Clawdeen when I posted her! I feel very awkward that I don’t know how to respond to reblogs without reblogging my own post a bunch of times. @oak23, I had acually originally planned to put the ears on the side of her head cause I love your Blaine but I decided I wanted her to be hyooman.

Anyway, seeing as that post was my most popular ever (!) I figured I should get a couple pictures of her dressed for y’all. She has a BFC Ink shirt, Ken shorts, a mystery sweater, Avea’s leg guard things, and her original boots which I cut down.

Frightfully Tall Clawdeen custom! Fun stuff. I promise her head and body match in real life, I didn’t change the color of either. That’s just the camera being weird.

Anyway, I did the very obvious eye surgery thing using an exacto knife and diamond files. The head glue was, as others have noted, super weird but at least less gross. I positioned the eyes up considerably higher than the painted eyes so she looks pretty different. The eyes are 16 or 18 mm – I don’t know and I honestly don’t remember where I got them? It is a mystery. I did her faceup BJD style, it was fun.

The wig was also a fun experiment, and it hides the fact that she has no ears. It’s a very lazy plastic-and-painted-masking-tape hard cap with glued-on tibetan lamb that I got from the trim of a $1 skirt from a rummage sale at the local children’s theater, which is probably the weirdest possible source of specialty craft supplies. I have no idea why that skirt was trimmed with that.

Adventures in rebody-ing. A very awesome friend got two MTM dolls for my birthday, which means I immediately had to try out some heads.

I had two favorite dark-toned heads to duke it out for the body, Generation Girl Part Nichelle with badly rubbed lips and as-of-yet-unidentified 80’s Cara with heavily conditioned hair. I really like both of them! Nichelle’s been pending a repaint a long time, though, so I figure who wins the body depends on that…

Pale body had the Lois Lane head right now. I really like the features of that head, but she’s just not doing much for me and I haven’t been able to dress her…

Actually, note that all of these picture are taken on my bin of clothes. See how many clothes I have. Then think about the how often I’ve actually posted pictures of dolls all dressed. I need a stylist for my dolls, haha.

A few pictures of Tennant all put together outside. Thanks to @oak23 and @dollsahoy for the nice comments on the WIP (I don’t know what the best way to reply is, I’m awful at Tumblr.)! John, I’ll try the lighter next time I mess with him, and Andrea, that made me actually laugh, he is VERY my style, huh? 

Anyway, outside and dressed. Now that his shoulders are narrower he looks much better in the Rosie O’Donnell suit jacket. I cut apart his finger and tried to heat shape them but they’re soft and it didn’t take. I’m going to wire the fingers with pins, but I can’t find my metal cutters, bleh. 

@oak23, you’ve put these hands on this body, how do you get rid of that ridge on the wrist? The plastic’s so hard and brittle.