Head Crown

Finally finished with her head crown design. Added some feathers on her left side to give her homage to her original helmet design, can't wait to model that one of these days!

Hrist in Cave Creek

Well I got woken up at around 6am by Hrist today... she wanted to go up north hiking for a photo sessions... >_>; So! Zzzz... getting ready, batteries charged! Camera's ready! Let's hit the road!

Arriving at the town of Cave Creek. Hrist looked a lot more excited, maybe she doesn't like the big city to much... :S

Hrist in Cave Creek

After much trekking through the desert to find some good scenic shots just for Hrist.

About a mile in...

Phew time for a short breather!

Dress Making Attempt Part II

Phew, what a project.

Costume is done!

Spent every ounce of free time finishing this thing up. Things surprisingly went a bit smoother then the other day... considering things started to get detailed. But today was definitely the fun part, adding in the various trimmings and ideas and breathing some life into this costume.

I found that sewing not only opens the doors for an entirely new creative output, it's also down right fun! Nothing better then having an idea in your head, and trying to figure out a way to bring it to life in the real world.  A lot different then my usual 3D Modeling, and a different type of reward at the end too. In short, I enjoy this project a lot!

Really starting to get the feel for my sewing machine and what it likes and what it doesn't like. Hopefully the next sewing project will go even smoother!
Think my next outfit for her has to be her biker/riding outfit :X I need to figure out how to make shoes soon too -_- sandals or something like that would have worked great for this costume dress theme.

Dress Making Attempt Part I

So... after several attempts at smaller sewing projects for Hrist, (socks, etc...) I felt ready to tackle the challenge of making an actual dress! Browsing through tons of pics and idea gathering, I decided to go with something rather simple while still having some slight advancements, (for my current beginner level) with sewing. Didn't want my first dress making project to be overwhelming where it winds up out the window hours later... ;)

Let's begin!
Creating a pattern for Dollfies is quite a challenge in itself, with their long slender bodies. After several attempts on paper first I roughed out a pattern and measurements for the dress.
I then took it a step further, I could have clipped out the patterns on paper... but I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and wound up drawing out the plans in Illustrator, then printing them out.
Picked out some cheap white fabric, cotton, perfect for what I had in mind, traced the pattern onto the cloth, cut out the pattern, then.... time to let the fun begin...
I hate collars, I hate them haha, someday maybe I'll be able to get a nice round shape, but not today... little bit of puckering, rip, restart, almost! rip, restart. There we go! Several attempts later, the collar area was finished!

Sewing it all together!

Time to assemble both sides. Phew that was easy. Inside out, looking good! OMG this is looking more like a Muumuu in its current state!    X_X     Anything but a muumuu......



More tweaking and finishing up seams so they don't fray, time to hem up the base! Chucking pins in left and right to hold down the hem, I wound up putting the pin in backwards X_X so when I flipped it up to sew it in on the machine it was a jabbing experience.... however mission accomplished on the hem!

Golden notion attached to the base.

Now to add some of the notions to spice it up!

Time to call it a day for this project! Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a chance to finish the base of this dress up before tackling the upper portion.

Hrist Meets Rose + Roadtrip!

Well Hrist went on her first road-trip today! Think she was pretty excited about it. She finally got to meet Rose too! They seemed to get along well. ;) Although Hrist was suggesting she get a new wardrobe for riding... -_-

Anyway, it was a fun photo-shoot, can't wait to do more! And can't wait to get some new clothing projects underway!

 Enjoying the nice early spring, Arizona weather while it lasts!

Hrist Arrives

The day finally arrived!

Hrist's body came via UPS on the 8th, super stormy thunderous, rainy day, couldn't have been a more perfect setting for her arrival.




I ordered Yukino from Volks to be the base model, rather then buying separate parts at a time, as I learned from my friend Animeruko, who has been ordering one or two parts at a time, and has run into a bit of a snag with Volks being out of stock on certain parts... and then having to 'enjoy' the wait game...
So I instead decided to save up and got a 'kit' package, which comes with a basic set of cloths, which I think is rather handy.

Finally getting the wig on, and the body and head together... I felt something was wrong o_O really wrong. the realistic 18mm eyes weren't doing a thing to help. So I wound up scrapping those eyes in favor of my own design I took from characters designed in a story I'm writing, if I do any more characters from my book it'll be consistent too. Hopefully the new eyes did a good thing for Hrist. bigger 20mm's and more anime like.

Little bit of photo fun with her.

Now I just need some styling spray for her hair and i can trim it down to it's correct length. :)

Scabbard Part 1

A new piece arrives! Main part of the scabbard arrived today. Looks really nice, now I'm just waiting on about 9 more pieces to be printed so I can complete it, I'll finish post processing this main piece in the next few days.

Seems like a perfect fit too so far!

Hrist Head work

Well my DDH-02 head arrived a few days ago. Couldn't wait to get started on it. I spent a week prior drafting out ideas for the face. Crossing the Anime/Realistic threshold was a bit of a challenge.
Eventually I came up with a design I felt hit a happy medium of what I was looking for, especially in the Gothic bold eyelashes. Should really help bring out her face once I get some hair for her. I hope anyway, if not, it'll be redo time. The sketches I made for her using this idea with hair seemed to work well though. So hopefully!
All the colors pretty much follow my 3D design too.

Ok... Onto the project!
Keep in mind this is my first face painting doll head project.
Quite a learning experience for sure.
Comments and suggestions are welcome! :D



Attempt #1

So I started sealing up  my head with ZM Finishing Powder Spray UV-Cut. Good stuff. coat went on nice and evenly.
Blocked in the head, Sealed another coat, did some final painting, almost done! One more coat of ZM to seal it in, Sfft...pfft...sffft.  (my expression was   !:O  wth... did that just really happen?!   )
No way... the unimaginable happened. the spray can was shoot'n out chunks... then it went totally clogged...
No idea why this happened, I did proper cleaning procedures for can after each spray...
One good thing is this stuff dries fast out in the desert where I live... maybe a little to fast...

Paint attempt #1 = FAIL  Couldn't do a thing about the chunks that sprayed on the head.... redo...5 hour project bust...
BTW if anyones got an and helpful hints/advice on using ZM Finishing Powder Spray UV-Cut do tell! And thanks!  I really loved the stuff when it 'worked'


Attempt #2

After a good 30 minutes of cleaning the head off to start again....

First two sealer coats... ended in 10 seconds of spray followed by a nasty clog... wondering if this was normal or not...
Working around the clogs, spray to make sure it sprayed, then quickly spray down the head before it clogs again, repeat.
On the bright side I got a lot of head painting practice in! :D 
5 hours later, Head attempt 2 was looking better then the first!

Paint attempt #2 = Not bad... After staring at it for a while... I decided the lashes were out of control in your face bold... loved the brows lips, the eyes... not happening. Flip a coin... to keep or not to keep. All 3 times, landed on a redo...

So let the erasing starting from scratch again begin!

 Attempt #3

Same process... learned a few good techniques for blocking in, and stuff
Paint attempt #3 = Success!
Few things I might alter someday. But overall I liked the end results of this one.

I installed my custom eyes that I made for Hrist, choosing 18mm eyes for this project.
The eyes, I made about 23 different iterations of eyes. Ironically the way the accrylic lens works the colors I thought that were meh... seemed to work the best though. o_O

Now... I need to find a hairstyle that will fit her well with some trimming :) And the funds to do it... might get another head just to paint with, I found it to be quite addicting, even at 3am to be working on a head.


Till next time!