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Glue Testing for BJD Wig Making

After being inspired by the “Crafting your own custom angora wig” tutorial thread on DoA, which is here if you are a member, I started to think I might like to try to craft my own wig too. I read through the thread about what glues to use and etc.. and then I thought to myself, why not try to use Loctite’s Vinyl, Fabric and Plastic flexible adhesive. It is waterproof, completely transparent, and FLEXIBLE! On top of this the base of this glue is type of polyurethane which in theory should make it safe for use on our polyurethane dolls. I have also used this glue in the past to plug up holes in the heads of Monster High girls, so I already know it’s safe on vinyl and doesn’t have any bad reactions to saran hair.

So, the first thing I did before going whole hog on making a test wig, was to test the glue with the material. I used power mesh fabric which is the fabric I bought for making wefted wigs a while back. I wrapped a highlighter with saran wrap and using rubber bands I stretched the test fabric onto the saran covered highlighter. Then I applied some glue to the test strip and spread it around with my smallest palette knife. I left it for 2 hours to dry and here are my results below.

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I was really happy to find that the glue peels right off of the saran. That was my first concern, that possibly the glue could bond to the plastic thus not being a viable option for wig making since nobody wants a layer of saran wrap inside their wig. XP Thankfully it does not and it also peels off with ease. The above picture shows the side of the fabric that was pressed against the saran. It’s a little shiny, and because it’s a rubbery material it provides some friction which is an added bonus because that means it won’t slide off the dolls head as easily.

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This is the top side of the fabric that was not in direct contact with the saran, note how you can’t see any shininess from the glue. 😉 This glue dries perfectly clear and it will stretch a little bit. There is a decent amount of stretch along the grain of the fabric, but much less stretch against the grain. Stretching too hard against the grain (to the maximum you can stretch the fabric before ripping the fabric) will cause some warping of your fabric and you run the risk of tearing the glue. My suggestion would be to use two coats of glue for added stability before you even begin applying any hair.

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And here’s a final shot of the tube of glue that I used next to my little test strip. So far one of the potential drawbacks to using this glue is the wait time. You have to wait around 2 hours for it to dry. Another drawback is that with excessive stretching the wig cap can become misshapen. I am going to continue on with my tests since snow storms are keeping me inside and I will continue to report my findings as I go. My next step is to create a full wig cap for my Zaoll luv and then I should have more information for you.

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Dollstown Elf Body Arrived!

Kyaaa-h! I’m so excited that my Dollstown elf girl body arrived today! It was actually a little bit torturous because I had to go out to get my hair cut this afternoon right after the package arrived so I had to wait until late this afternoon to open the package and then I was interrupted by the need to fix dinner. Anyhow enough preamble, lets just get on with the pictures!

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I didn’t actually take too many box opening pics and what I did take are with my cellphone camera. I was really wowed though after taking the bubble pack off the first hand how delicate the fingers are and then I immediately went to open the second packet of bubble pack encasing the second hand and I had a sigh of relief that nothing was broke, lol. The hands of the elf body are slender and each finger is separate, but despite their delicate look, they are not tiny, in fact later when you see the comparison with the Zaoll body you will see they are close in size to the Zaoll hands.

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Here is a resin comparison between Dollmore’s normal skin and Dollstown freshskin. They are actually very close, but Dollmore’s resin has a slightly warmer pinkier cast, however this difference is not horribly noticeable which hopefully you will be able to tell by all of the comparison and hybrid photos I took. In the end if I blush the dollstown body with some pink I think that the difference will be imperceptible, so if you were thinking to make a Dollstown/Dollmore hybrid, this is a very viable option for you.

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And I thought I’d throw this in here, but it’s a Zaoll / Dollstown freskin comparison. As you can see, Zaoll is very pinky, so if you wanted to do a hybrid with a normal skin Zaoll, you would have a lot of blushwork ahead of you. ^^;

miodollstownelfBA

Ok, so here’s my Dollmore Mio head on the Dollstown elf body. The first shot is me just popping the head on the body…unfortunately the elf neck is a bit short so I added some cool temp hotglue to the inside of Mio’s neckhole. The after shot is after about 1/4inch-ish of hotglue applied to Mio’s neckhole. I think it’s a pretty big improvement, but I think in the end I may order one of those neck ring things coolcat sells after I get back from vacation. The hot glue essentially suedes the neck joint and I feel it makes it a little more difficult to move her head and takes away a little bit of mobility, at least in my opinion. Size wise I’m happy with the size of the head on the body. Zaoll and the Dollstown elf body have just about the same shoulder width measurements of a little over 4 inches or between 10 and 11cm, so it’s not much different than she used to look. I know a lot of people have their own preferences for body to head ratios, and some people may consider her “bobble headed”. but to me she is fine. 🙂

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Here is a quick comparison shot of Mio on the elf body next to Zaoll. My apologies that my Zaoll has no eyes or face-up. ^^; I need to wait for a warmer day to give her a face, and at this point it probably won’t happen until after my vacation. So in comparing these two bodies, the elf body is a little bit taller than Zaoll and that height comes from her legs. The torso’s of both dolls are about the same length. Zaoll of course has curvier hips and a bit larger bust, her legs are also a bit thicker.

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Clothing wise, the elf body can swap clothes with Zaoll, BUT, because Zaoll has more width in her hips, clothing like underwear and pants will be a bit loose.

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And she can still wear the Dollmore SD girl top I bought for her when she was on the Zaoll body. Oh and I should also mention that Zaoll shoes also work for the elf body as well. 🙂 Though I only have the white mary janes from their website. Well, I think that’s about it for the info. Overall I’m super happy with this hybrid, though on occasion when I glance in her direction I think her neck may still be a smidge too short, but overall I’m just super smitten with Mio in general. X3 I can’t wait now for the weather to stop being quite so bitter cold so I can blush the new body and I think I also need to re-do Mio’s face-up since she was blushed to match the Zaoll body. For the time being though she is fine.

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New CIG Eyes for Mio and Customs Update.

I was surprised today by two things. One was that my Captured in Glass Eyes I ordered earlier in the month showed up and the second thing was that my Dollstown elf body has made it out of customs! I am hoping since Chicago is close that I might receive the package tomorrow, but if not tomorrow I feel confident that it should definitely show up by the end of the week. I can’t wait to get my hands on the new body and I am crossing my fingers and hoping that a hybrid with my Mio head will go well. Then my Zaoll can get her body back, lol. Anyhow enough about that, on with the eyes. 🙂

mioeyesinfo

I ended up ordering two different sizes to give them a try in Mio as you can see from the pic above. Even though all the info is in the photo, I will reiterate it here, but I ordered Y03 low dome glass eyes from Captured in Glass (CIG). The lighting isn’t the best in this photo, but for the most part the Y03 color photographs black, which is what I wanted so I am totally cool with it. In person the eyes are a very dark gray with a slight blue tinge to them when you look at them up close. They are very similar to Dollmore’s Y03 glass eyes…so similar in fact you might suspect them as being the same eyes. When Mio is wearing the 14mm eyes, she looks more relaxed, and the 12mm eyes make her look more alert. In my opinion I think the 12mm are a bit small for the Mio headsculpt, especially if you want a light colored eye, because I fear she would look startled rather than just alert. In the end I decided to use the 14mm for Mio and I gave the 12mm eyes for my Withdoll Taren to try.

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And here she is looking all proper with matching eyes. XD Oh, I also wanted to mention….Dollmore lists Mio’s eye size as being 16mm and this is far too big!! So please save yourself some grief and buy 14mm eyes for Mio!

wreckedeyes

Here is what happened to Mio’s old eyes. These were the acrylic Dollmore eyes that came with my Zaoll. As you can see they are all cracked and starting to get a hazy look under the plastic. :p I’m not quite sure what happened here. I don’t know if perhaps the sculpey they put the eyes in with caused the eyes to go bad, or…..well I think I mentioned this before, but the very edge of my Zaoll faceplate (behind the ear and hidden) has a chip out of it. D: I think this happened because it was dropped at the factory/store because there was no resin chip in the packaging anywhere. So it could be that when the faceplate fell it jarred the eyes enough to start a crack, and once an acrylic eye gets a crack, more cracks start blooming all around. In the end I plan to save the wrecked eyes and use them when I am sculpting so I don’t jack-up any of my good eyes. May as well I figure.

mioskirt

And somehow while I was changing out her eyes, she wound up grabbing her skirt and I thought it looked cute so I took an extra shot. XD I played around with photoshop a little and did some post processing. I usually use PS for illustration, not photo processing, so this is another thing to learn for me! Well, hopefully I will have more news to tell later this week when I hopefully get my Dollstown elf body, so I’ll blog at you later. 😉

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Doll wigs, SD props and a Customs retention.

So a lot of doll related things have been happening, but I just haven’t had the time to blog since it’s been the holidays and I am trying to get everything together to go on vacation in January. The first thing that happened is the wig and headband I ordered in a For My Doll GO arrived. Here is a shot of Lulu in her new wig and Sona is wearing Lulu’s old wig.

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I have to say that this is the second wig I have ordered from For My Doll and I couldn’t be more pleased with the quality of wigs from that shop. Frankly I consider my FMD wigs to be of better quality than the one Leeke wig I own. Anyhow, I really like this wig on my Lulu, but I’m not sure how I feel about Sona in Lulu’s old wig. It’s cute and looks a bit more mature over her old pigtails, but I think I may still be questing for a wig yet for Sona. I think maybe I also need to try to buy other colors of wigs besides brown, but I just can’t help it!! I love dark brown hair and FMD’s “mild black” is the perfect deep brown.

Aside from the wigs, I’ve begun working on creating an SD sized bed for the first piece of furniture for my room box. I have my plans all drawn out and my wood bought, but I’ve only just begun cutting and painting. I really hope I get a chance to work on it some more before my vacation because I’d love to make a blog posting and share my progress, but I also have to double up on my work so I don’t have anything due over vacation AND I also have to finish hemming my dress among other vaycay prep.

Lastly the Dollstown elf body shipped a couple days ago and I was super excited to follow it’s tracking until suddenly after arriving in Chicago today it was detained by Customs saying “customs retention: other” D: I’ve never had this happen before so I popped on DoA to see if anyone else had this trouble before and sure enough there is a thread dedicated to it in the buying and shipping section. After reading through the thread I feel a little better since another user said that packages are processed through Chicago’s customs very fast. I’m really hoping that it only has that status since it arrived after 6pm on a Saturday and it just waiting for Monday’s work week to come around. I am going to be a bundle of nerves until this body arrives since I will be leaving on the 17th for vacation and it must arrive before then! D: I’m going to keep my fingers crossed that my package clears customs on Monday. The last thing I need is for it to get stuck in customs for a week or more and then ship when I am gone. I’ve heard where EMS packages won’t be kept for any longer than 5 days even in vacation hold mail. Oh man….I just don’t think I can say this.. D: enough…lol. If this has taught me anything it’s to not order things before vacation, even if it is in stock and will ship within a week and you still have a month left before vaycay so it should be “safe”…because apparently everything will go wrong.

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I’m selling my AE Yara.

I decided it was time to sell my Asleep Eidolon Yara since she has spent many years in a box. ^^;; I feel kinda bad, but I think it’s because I am no longer as much into the larger “anime eyed” style dolls as I used to be when I was younger. She’s still a pretty cute girl though and I hope someone will give her a better home, because she deserves some fun!. (T_T;;) Anyway my sale thread is up on DoA here: http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?606193-Asleep-Eidolon-AE-Asleep-Eidolon-Yara-MSD-%28Normal-Skin%29-150-shipped&p=10497863#post10497863 You must be logged in and have marketplace access to be able to see it.

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She will come with the curly blonde wig, green glass eyes, ecru star dress, spare jeans, and her original default acrylic eyes and her authentication card. I also still have her pink storage box so she will come shipped in that. I’m asking $150 shipped for her.

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EDIT: SHE IS SOLD!