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More Progress on my BJD sculpting project.

So, I’ve got the lips looking more natural now, and I brought down the nose a little and gave it some more shaping. I also started rounding out the cranium in the hopes that I can get wigs to fit better on her since her head shape was a little off. My only concern with rounding out the cranium is that her head is getting a bit larger and I worry that her head may be coming more MSD size and perhaps a bit too large for her body. I won’t really know until I get a chance to lay out the doll again though which won’t happen until after I get the last of my comic work done for the week (probably Sunday night or Monday). Still have a lot to do with this head, but I am still happy with the direction it is taking.

Shot this pic right before I had to clean up my drawing table. I made some joint progress, as you can see the torso joint is coming along and all the joints are in place for the whole left leg. The right leg still needs it’s knee and ankle joint fitted though. The hip joints are giving me grief of course, but I won’t mess with them too much more until I am able to get the legs strung so I can see the balance issues and make corrections. The right knee joint is going to be a bear though because the foam core got twisted so the leg walls are thick in places they shouldn’t be among other problems. XP Just writing about it makes me anxious to be able to get her back out and get to work on those leg joints. I really want to see if she will stand at all, and as soon as I test that it will give me insight into better hip joints.

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More Progress on my Artist BJD

So, she has ears now, yay! But one is a tick higher than the other, boooo~. So I’ll have to do some careful sanding and add itty bitty bits of clay here and there to even it out. I tried to work on the shape of her lips a little as well. I’m hoping I was able to refine it just a bit more…I really hope I’m not overworking it! ^^;;; The other thing on my to-do list for the head is to even out the eyes, since one is just a tick lower. I think I might save the eye adjustment for when I have the headcap off, this way I can carve the wells for the eyes and then sculpt with the eyes in place.

The rest of my progress has been in cutting up the different part to prepare them for jointing. I also started work on the balls for the hip joint and have molds done for the ankle and knee joints. Now comes the long tedious work of creating all of the ball joints and then waiting for them to dry so I can tool them and graft them onto their respective body parts.

My next goal is to get the hip joints grafted onto the thighs and get the hip socket properly set to accept the joint. After that I plan to begin work on the torso joint, then probably work on the knee and ankle joints..or perhaps the other way around, ha ha ha.

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Dolly Find – Clearance Liv Wigs

I always knew about the Liv wigs as I had seen them in the doll aisle many times before, but I never bothered with them because I had always felt they were too expensive for what they were. However Target has started to clearance off some of their Liv wigs and clothing (probably they are summer goods), and at $4 the price became agreeable enough for me to try one out. I will go ahead and write up a review of sorts, but just be sure to keep in mind that this is my first experience with a Liv wig, and I have heard that not all Liv wigs are created equal.

So, first thing out of the box I was surprised to find that the Liv wigs are basically Kanekalon or Saran doll hair that has been rooted onto what amounts to a cheap non-stretchy silicon cap. The part that surprised me was the fact that in a way it’s kind of like buying a scalp. The fiber of the wig is soft and shiny enough, but unfortunately as you will soon see below in the picture that this wig is VERY THINLY ROOTED.

As you can see, there is an unseemly gap at the top of the wig where when the hair falls to either side it reveals a large bald spot. I am imagining that it is difficult to root anything in that area due to the peg which I will get to later, but still, I mean I’ve seen cheap $5 Barbies with better rooted hair than this wig.

Now here is the wig flipped inside out, you can clearly see how it is rooted, and you can clearly see the peg I was talking about. Again I think this picture illustrates just how thinly these things are rooted, but more importantly I want to focus on the peg for now. If you aren’t familiar with them like I was, the peg may come as a surprise. Apparently the Liv dolls and some Monster High dolls come with a slot in their head for the peg to fit and thusly it helps keep the wig on during play. It’s actually a pretty good idea for a playline doll considering how rough the younger girls play with their dollies. However it is obviously going to get in the way if you want to use it on a BJD or another type of doll that has no special slot. The good news is you can clip the peg off quite easily with a good pair of snips or household scissors.

So, with the peg out of the way, the first thing I wanted to do was to try it on my Slinky Neko tiny as I had heard that Liv wigs worked well on Lati Yellow and Pukifee sized heads, and my Slinky Neko girl has a similar sized head with a 5.5 inch circumference. As you can see from the photo, the wig did not fit at all. If the cap had been at all stretchy it probably would have, but the caps on the Liv wigs are surprisingly stiff and unforgiving. So the thing to keep in mind here is that for Pukifees, Slinky Neko babies and other tinies with close to a 5.5 inch head circumference, these wigs will absolutely NOT fit. I am wondering though that perhaps if the doll had a head closer to 5.25 inches then maybe the wig might work, but 5.5 and above, no.
On the bright side though, these wigs work very well on the Monster High dolls. This wig even fits with Draculaura still with her default hair in, which you can see below.

So, here’s my final thoughts on Liv wigs. Initially I was disappointed by their poor quality, but for $4, I mean what can you expect really. The fiber on the wig is quite nice and the style is also pleasantly modern. For now I’ve decided I will be working with this wig and I ordered a hank of Kanekalon which I hope will match well enough so I can fill the wig out more and cover up bald spots. Most people won’t do this I realize, but I’ve been in the mood to reroot lately so it doesn’t bother me. In the end it comes down to this, for a play wig for young girls, this is an excellent bargain. For a doll collector who expects high quality out of their goods, this wig is horrible, a fixer-upper if you will. If you like a fixer-upper, then by all means go for it, if you don’t, then stay far far away, lol. I still however would not pay full price for such a thing…clearance only for sure!!

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Sewing for YoSDs!

Ever since Borry arrived I’ve been excited to sew some YoSD sized clothing. I managed to get started a little bit today and I have my leggings pattern now fairly well worked out. For the waistband in the picture I used the lace frill edge elastics to add a little pizazz I guess…..and they wound up adding more than pizazz in the sewing department. Trying to stretch and sew a tiny waistband is no simple task, so there were some curse words uttered and a dodgy stitch here or there. XP The end result is fine for my Borry, but I fancied making some coordinates to sell, and they would not be acceptable for selling, mostly from the standpoint of how difficult it is to apply the tiny elastic. However my mother informs me that our machine might be able to do a stretch stitch, and if this is the case and the machine will do all the work, then heck why not because it looks nice. Either way I am planning to experiment with two different types of waistbands and then deciding from there which would be best to use.

I am really excited though with how these preliminary leggings came out, and on top of that I have all of these great matching fabrics I bought over the Memorial Day sales. Needless to say I am super excited to make some matching coordinates of jumpers and skirts to go with these leggings. Lots of plums and grays in this batch, but I can foresee some cute stuff!! Below are just a few of the fabrics I found this weekend. So exciting! Though I still have a ton of illustration work to do and relatives will be visiting soon, so le sigh, I’m not sure how often I will be able to sew this week. On top of this I also have some ideas for miniatures now too…I guess when it rains it pours!

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Slinky Neko Borry Arrived!

So, my very first YOSD sized doll has finally arrived! I was so happy to open up the mailbox and find her box waiting for me. :3 She is the perfect fit for “The Big House”. XD In fact I think she works better with some of the furniture than my Pullip, Dal and Blythe do! Unfortunately because of the time of day I wasn’t able to get any really great shots of her in the dollhouse since the room it’s in faces West and gets better lighting in the later afternoon. Anyhow, getting back to business, I bought this Borry Penny Brite fullset off of a seller on DoA. It was my first time buying a doll from the marketplace so I was a little anxious, but the seller was awesome and shipped ridiculously quickly. This isn’t my first time buying a secondhand doll however since I did buy my Lusis from Mandarake.

I figure I would go ahead and write up a little review of sorts on the doll itself, and I also plan to share some body pictures with you since Slinky Neko body images are kind of hard to find. So, first of all, the Penny Brite fullset is quite cute and definitely high quality. The set consisted of shoes, socks, dress, bloomers, chemise, hat and wig. Of course the doll came with stock dark green eyes, extra fist hands, and a rosy cheeked face-up. I would have to say, given the opportunity, I would definitely buy Slinky Neko clothing since they are adorable and quite well made. I’m not sure if they ever offer just the clothing sets though.

Here she is in just the undergarments portion of the set, and I also tried a Kemper mohair wig on her. The wig I have is too big, but I’m really loving the dark hair on this girl, so I will probably be making another wig order to Kemper soon, lol. One thing to note about the Slinky Neko Babies is that they wear a 5/6 size wig unlike the typical 6/7 for many YOSD sized dolls. I should also mention that the face-up on this girl is fantastic. I love the bright rosy cheeks! Next up let’s talk about the body though…

Now I don’t have any other YOSDs to compare her too, I can only gauge things from images I have seen, but her body seems fairly comparable to your typical YOSD. Overall I was pleased that she had long slender limbs. She has all single joints, but despite this she still poses very well, and can touch her hands to her face and such. So I will say she has very well made single joints, since some single jointed dolls are unable to touch their faces, like my DIM Danbi for example. The only thing that puzzles me about this doll is hopefully illustrated in the picture below.

So, the lower half of Borry’s torso is very slender, but the upper portion, seems a little chunky by comparison. Also the lower half of the torso is seated so far up in the upper torso that it really doesn’t allow for much mobility. Again though I guess I should say that this is the only YOSD sized doll that I have, so I don’t know how this compares to others, but if I just look at my MSDs in comparison who have great mobility in their torso joint and no additional chunkiness, it just makes me think it’s odd. This doesn’t really lessen my enjoyment of her however, she is still a cute patoot, and I know I’m going to have a lot of fun sewing for her….that is after I get all of my comic illustration work done. ^^;;; The work never ends, but I guess that’s good. I am though seriously amped to do some dolly sewing and I think I have some ideas for cute tutus, and all of my girls could stand some basic leggings.

Well that’s it for now, hopefully if you were looking for information on the Slinky Neko baby body this was helpful to you!