After I upgraded the Little Fixit to a 21cm Obitsu body, I felt the need to work on the Little Witch too. I’ve been playing with these dolls more than I expected, and their limited poseability was bothering me.

Most of the Little Witch’s upgraded body is from one of the new 24cm Obitsus, recently redesigned for greater bulk, more realistic lines, less obtrusive joints, and overall greater aesthetic appeal. I love the shape of this body, the engineering, the articulation. It’s just a joy to behold, except for one thing: the squishy torso. The flexible plastic sleeve over the armature allows for wonderful flexion of spine and neck, but I detest soft plastic torsos. They don’t accommodate modding very well, either repainting or cutting down or…anything really. So, if I wanted to use the 24cm Obitsu armature and limbs, I needed rigid torso pieces.

Fortunately I had the neck/bust/shoulder piece and abdomen from a 27 hard-plastic bust Obitsu lying around, as well as upper arms from the same doll. I bulked up the neck with some Aves Apoxie Sculpt, and it was ready to go.

 

27cm upper arms were shortened and reinforced by drilling channels in upper and lower upper arm pieces, then sinking in nails and hot gluing everything together. I was going to have swivel joints there, but the upper joint of the double jointed elbows works fine as a swivel. 24cm lower arms were shortened at the wrists. Those are Hot Toys compatible fem wrist pegs and hands.

I removed the top segment of the 24cm’s torso armature, then glued the 27cm abdomen piece up in the 27cm bust piece. Then I hacked down the 27cm bust/abdomen piece to accommodate the 24cm torso armature’s waist joints. I filled some empty space inside the 27cm bust/abdomen piece with Aves Apoxie Sculpt to make a tight fit for the projecting piece of the 24cm torso’s armature. Then I hot glued it there. I now have a doll with no bulk around the lower abdomen. I plan to use an Old Joe Infirmary sleeveless long-legged leotard, made for mature fem action figures, as a fatsuit for her, lining it with fiber fill or something.

 

Legs were shortened at thigh swivels and at ankles. Height was also reduced by removing double balls at each ankle and replacing them with Takara Cy Girl 1.5 wrist pegs, offering the same articulation with a smaller size.

While I was reaming out the inside of the Little Witch’s head so that she could fit the new neck post, the drill bit skipped out of her head, gouging the back right side of her jaw, her right eye, her right brow, and the area over her left brow. This was actually not a disaster, as the Little Witch is missing an eye. I just never modded her because I didn’t want to mess up her cute face, but my Dremel accident decided that for me.

After staring at the Little Witch for a whole day of work, I knew what to do to improve her. When I went home, I peeled off the original scars made of paint. I used a small amount of Aves Apoxie Sculpt to fill in the divots on her left brow, at the top of her right orbit, and on the right side of her jaw. I carved out her right eye to make the empty socket that I always wanted. Then I painted the filled-in areas with paint that matched her skintone; thus the scars were denoted by textural difference alone. I restored her right eyebrow and painted her empty socket red.