I used some zit cream and UV rays to remove some stains on Pammy’s face from her devil suit. Then I dressed her in that suit. I removed her lip paint because her lips are sculpted enough not to need paint. In the mean time, I drilled out Bailey’s wrists, making them easier to swivel. Here they are finished and together! Continue reading Bailey and Pammy completed!

Besides the Swedish Pippi head that I showed yesterday, I also have a Mattel Scooter. I have long wanted to make her a Pippi, since her red hair and mischievous expression are perfect. Anyway, at first I thought that the 2007 Mattel Mad Hatter body was too small for the Swedish Pippi head, so I moved it up to a Noix de Rome Ninie body. I added some ball-jointed pegs to Pure Neemo jazz hands and used those. I also added upper arm swivels, since the Noix de Rome body lacks them for some reason. The Hatter clothing still fit on this body, but with an appealingly too-small look.

Because the Swedish Pippi head did not match the Ninie body [the head was too red], I tried the Scooter head. The skintone matches much better, and she’s adorable. I will use Scooter for Fancy Pippi. Swedish Pippi will use Scooter’s original body, which is a better color match. I need to either give Fancy Pippi feet or glue her shoes on. I also need to do her hair. But she’s very close to done!!

Continue reading Fancy Pippi updates

I hacked into my recently purchased Pampi action figure from the Medicom Stylish Collection Bambi and Pampi. Pictures and commentary below. Continue reading Body mods on a crabby little toddler, Pammy

At first there was the Gay Barbie, a Mattel Fashionista 90 with a sparkly Pride minidress. I eventually realized that I was not a fan of her headsculpt, so her dress moved to another doll, a Fresh Dolls Lynette that @trufflesmushroom rooted for me with a rainbow of embroidery floss. Continue reading Iris mockup

I have a cute kid doll on order, Redman Toys’ Last of Girl. Apparently she’s based on a 14-year-old character, Ellie, from a video game The Last of Us. I got her for $136.00 shipped, which is an amazing price for a complete figure that comes with two scalps [molded hair or fiber hair options], 8 optional hands, jeans, shoefeet, black long-sleeve shirt, red T-shirt, green jacket, backpack, gun, and knife. I got her for the headsculpt, which reminds me of a young Ellen Page. Continue reading Redman Toys Last of Girl proposed body mods

So I bought this really cute Mattel Chelsea Club kid a few months ago because they were adorable. The molded buzz cut, which I’d never seen before, the simple, relatively restrained facial screening, and the realistic outfit all charmed me. Continue reading Articulating a small 1:6 scale kid doll with wire

John did some body mods on a Fresh Dolls body to enhance existing articulation. Now that I have three Fresh Dolls, I’ll be modifying them similarly, especially for greater elbow flexion. I’d also like to add wrist articulation too…

About six months ago, I noticed a distressing lack of kids under 13 amongst my small populations. Continue reading Some of the under-13 set chez Modern Wizard

I purchased Barrett back in the summer of 2013, well before Zombieville started, because I thought that Isabel might fit into FR dude clothes. Also the secondhand price of something like $75.00 MIB for a London Calling Kyu was a great bargain.
Continue reading Barrett, the heavily modded FR guy: a custom 3.5 years in the making

My experimental project to stick a Storm Collectibles Dennis Rodman head on a Hasbro Classic GI Joe body is complete! That was fun. I sure wish I could find more cheap articulated dolls at Goodwill…
Continue reading Lakaysha done!

I made some quick and dirty knee joints for one of my Curvy Barbies today, just as a proof of concept. [I previously modded Jessyann by removing her feet and articulating her arms. For the latter, I thought about adding elbow joints by using extra ball-jointed wrist pegs, but then I found some Obitsu 27cm lower arms with Obitsu slender male hands in my raw dolls bin. Since the skin tone was an approximate match, I hacked off Curvy’s arms above the elbow and drilled out her upper arms to make sockets for the pegs of the Obitsu lower arms. I put some Aves Apoxie Sculpt in the sockets so that the Obitsu arm pegs fit by friction alone.]

To give Jessyann articulated knees, I started by cutting her legs apart. I angled the cuts so that I preserved the kneecaps in front. I started off using a hand saw, but then discovered that I could get much easier and smoother cuts by softening up the plastic in boiling water, then using a craft knife. After removing rough plastic from the cuts with some sandpaper, I made angled cuts out of the top of the calves to accommodate 90 degrees of bend. Again I cleaned the edges of the cuts.

For knee joints, I used some spare Classic GI Joe hands. I cut the hands off just above the base of the palm, then stuck the stumps into the Curvy calves. I used Instamorph plastic to fill the space and secure the stumps in their sockets. [Side note: Instamorph is a plastic with a low melting point that turns clear and pliable if stuck in boiling water for a minute. It may then be molded for projects such as this, then cooled in place till it turns opaque for a good, tight fit. It can be removed, remolded, etc., if it’s heated to clear again. It’s like a combination of quick-dry epoxy putty and hot glue, and it’s so cool!]. I also used more Instamorph plastic to fill the bottoms of the thighs and make sockets for the GI Joe wrist pegs. These allow swivel motion of the calves as well.

Proof of concept works, demonstrating that Jessyann and any other Curvies can bend their legs if you have the time and inclination to hack them up. Like most of my mods, the joints don’t look great, but they function as intended. Jessyann’s a little wobbly, but that might be because I just hacked off her ridiculously small feet and wedged her ankle stumps into shoes. Something to think about for further attempts at this body mod…

Continue reading Jessyann’s got knee joints!

For this project, I started off with a Hasbro Classic GI Joe [$2.00 from Goodwill] and a Storm Collectibles Dennis Rodman head [$7.99 from Good Stuff to Go]. I planned an experiment in extreeeeeeeeeme body modding, which, if all went well, would yield a more realistically proportioned body with narrower shoulders and shorter limbs. If nothing worked, well, then I was only out $2.00, and I could always find another body for the Rodman head.

After much modification, behold Lakaysha. She’s about 10.5″ tall, down from 12″ originally. Since the Rodman head didn’t have much neck attached, I carved down the default GI Joe head and mounted the Rodman head on the remaining base. Hot glue kept it in place. I cut the sides of the chest off, scraped down the raw edges, then reattached the arms, sealing raw areas with hot glue and Instamorph low melt plastic pellets, which are like moldable hot glue and the coolest shit ever! [Thank you, @natalunasans!] There was no substantial reduction in width, maybe 1-2mm, but the torso’s proportions improved instantly.

I hacked out sections of both thighs and calves, redrilling holes for ankle pegs and smoothing raw areas on reattached thighs with more Instamorph plastic. Knee swivel motion was lost, but I don’t care.

I hacked off a section of the wrists, thinking that the arms needed to be shortened. However, they did not, so I removed the hands, which I had to do anyway, and reglued the cut-offs back on. I spent most of my time carving out the upper arms to get more than 90 degrees out of the single-jointed elbows.

Why yes, it looks like one of my usual rushed hatchet jobs, but you know what? None of it shows when she has clothes on! Stay tuned for pictures, once I hem her pants, find her some hands, add hair, and touch up her goatee.

Continue reading Lakaysha: body modding on a Hasbro Classic GI Joe

Today I increased arm articulation on two of my 1:6ers. One of them, Marabou, is a 12″ Playmates Uhura figure. She is a scaled up version of a 3 3/4″ mini action figure by the same company, with all the odd proportions, solid limbs, and simple joints that this entails. Her solid, chunky construction works to my benefit, however, since she has no delicate fiddly little parts to break during my modifications.

Anyway, Marabou has gone through a few mods since I acquired her. I removed her original hands, which had only wrist swivel articulation, and swapped them for hands with hinge/swivel ball joints. Last year, I added upper arm and upper thigh swivels and also took a good chunk of height from her thighs. For the modicum of articulation she had at that point, she actually assumed some realistic postures. Continue reading Adding arm articulation to two 1:6 scale figs

I haven’t done a 1:6 scale me for years. Anneka Elizabeth was sort of one, but the one I’m thinking of is was from like 2002. It was a blond helo Jane base, customized as follows:

I used colored pencil to redo the eyebrows, widen the mouth, and add my distinctive facial moles and scars.

I sculpted short spiky hair with modeling paste, painted it ex-blond, and put glitter in it. [Glitter appeared in a lot of my customs at that stage — I also did a drag queen with individual pieces of glitter for each sparkly nail…!]

I sliced a foam earplug in half lengthwise and glued it to the crotch for the appropriate bulge.

I painted a gold band around one of its fingers and used a red bead to simulate my ruby ring [later tragically lost 🙁 ].

I repainted some clunky black Ken shoes tan to represent my most frequently worn footwear.

I commissioned Andrea to make a white poet’s blouse integrated with a black vest decorated with flames. She also made a cape. I found some black Ken pants to use for the bottoms.

Of all of these pieces, only the shirt/vest remains in my possession. [I also have lots of foam earplugs, but not glued down action figures’ pants. :p ]

A recent thread on Figurvore about 1:6 scale dolls of oneself got me thinking that, with the cheap 3-D printed likenesses available from purveyors like actionfigure2002, along with my advanced skills [?] in body mods and clothing construction, I could totally make a decent mini me!

The head would be a 3D print from actionfigure2002. I just need to get someone to take photos of me, preferably after I’ve just shaved my head. I would probably enhance the print to make it look more caricature-like.

The body would be a DML male body, preferably in the light pink skintone [as opposed to the brownish orange they seem to favor]. I’d need to hack down arms, legs, and torso to approximate my height and then break out the Aves Apoxie Sculpt for appropriate fat distribution.

I can definitely make a shirt for it. Not sure about pants.

It would actually be pretty easy!

I post here much less frequently than I used to, so there are fewer in-progress pictures unless a project has stalled before completion. Such is the case with Sylvia. In my quest to refine the shapes of my various fat dolls, I decided to fix her up and increase her posability. I’m not finished yet, but she’s already improved.

Continue reading Recent projects #1: removing Sylvia’s bad fats

Instead of doing separate posts on each figure, I’ve collected some recent body mods into a single post. With the articulation mods on Marabou especially, I feel like my skills have reached a new level of sophistication — even though the results don’t look very sophisticated. :p

Janet, one of my favorite LHFers, recently got a body, after sitting around in storage as a head! I seem to have a plethora of AA Hasbro GI Janes, so I popped the helo pilot’s head off and painted her neck with red undertones to match Janet’s head, which is an Integrity Toys Janay head [back from when they had a playline].

Continue reading Recent 1:6 scale body mods: Janet, Pearlene, and Marabou

Andrea sent me a bunch of body parts, including two articulated Mattel Stacie bodies. I plopped my Knickerbocker Annie head on one of the Stacie bodies and liked the combo so much that I decided that this would be Sheila’s form. Poor kid has been through three permutations: modded Batchix Nan Sook head on Hujoo Wings body, Souldoll Metel head on Hujoo Wings body [photo not available] and her current form.

Anyway, I’m pleased with Sheila now. She looks much more cheerful than I expected, but I have a sentimental attachment to the Annie head, which I do not wish to repaint. I like her overall androgynous, dorky, roughhousing look. I think she’s a bit younger than I originally decided, maybe 10 instead of 12.

Here she is with her doll that she loves and takes everywhere. I still need to improve her poseability by carving out the inner edges of her hip sockets, notching and slimming to increase elbow flexion — and either swapping out her hands for ones with articulated wrists or just giving her wrist swivels.
Continue reading Sheila shapeshifts.

To make a kid between 12 and 14, I stuck Baozha’s head [from a Medicom Bambi figure] on a Spin Master Liv doll. Unfortunately no longer in print, Liv dolls are highly articulated representations of teenagers, so they have smaller breasts and hips than, say, Barbies, as well as overall shorter stature.

I like Livs better than, say, Obitsus, as Livs’ proportions are more realistic. However, Livs have only single-jointed elbows [but double-jointed knees?!], so they lack the extreme flexibility of Obitsus. Inspired by fellow Figurvore member John/kd230692’s body mods to improve poseability in the Barbie Fashionista arms, I performed similar operations on this Liv body.

Continue reading Another Zombieville kid’s poseability improved

Because Zombieville needs kids, I’ve been piecing some together from existing spare parts and some new purchases. To fill the toddler slot, I purchased a Kelly doll — the original design, rather than the more recent elongated one, as I find the former much cuter.

However, while the original Kelly dolls are cute, they, like most playline stuff by Mattel, have abysmal articulation. Several years ago, I used my Dremel, pipe cleaners and hot glue to add articulation. I used the same principles again this go-around, refining them a bit. Results below.
Continue reading Quick and dirty articulation of a Kelly doll

I made Sheila a headcap today. I first made a core out of aliuminum foil and then covered it with Aves Apoxie Sculpt as necessary. The core gave my headcap more structural integrity and also saved me some Apoxie Sculpt. I’m surprised that I made the dead version of Isabel a functional headcap without a foil core!

Sheila also got a wig of brown faux fur, subdued with Mod Podge, with added bangs. She also got glasses.

Chaz, the Batchix Nan Sook that I first did, is at left, compared to Sheila at right. Now that I see them together, I know that I could put them in the same scene without any difficulty. Though they have the same basic headsculpt, they look plenty different. Chaz’ bright clothes, raised eyebrows and smiling mouth give her an open, cheerful air. Sheila’s open mouth, lowered eyebrows and glasses make her features seem narrower. Interestingly, Chaz looks more youthful to me than Sheila, even though Chaz is at least in her mid-20s and Sheila is somewhere between 8 and 12.
Continue reading Sheila is done!

Sheila now has a faceup and a doll. She still needs a headcap and hair. Opening her mouth and giving her straighter eyebrows than Chaz really helps to differentiate her!
Continue reading Continuin’ to make Sheila

I did some subtractive mods on an extra Batchix Nan Sook head recently. I think Nan Sook is inherently adorable, but I wanted Sheila to look at least slightly different from Chaz, who is an unmodded Nan Sook. Another unmodded head is at left for comparison, while Sheila is at right. I sanded down the depth of her eyelids and eye sockets. I also removed some of the tip of her nose. Finally I made her mouth deeper, straighter and wider. Ultimately I think most of the differentiation between Chaz and Sheila will derive from faceup, eyes, clothes, characterization and the fact that they will never appear in the same frame together.

Continue reading Makin’ Sheila

I knew that photographic inventory of my raw dolls would come in handy… I just realized that I can cobble together an 8- to 10-year-old kid from parts in my bin: one of my extra Batchix Nan Sook heads on one of those chocolate Hujoo bodies. To accomplish this, I need to:

• adjust Hujoo neckpost
• mod Nan Sook head so that it doesn’t look identical to Chaz
• sculpt headcap
• paint head to match body

 Very easy! The most challenging aspect of kid dolls is finding clothes for them.

The resulting girl, Sheila Stockard, is 10 at most. Her parents are friends with Isabel’s parents. Isabel and Carter have known Sheila since she was born. They have babysat for her in the past; she calls them Aunt Isabel and Uncle Carter. While Carter is not as close to Sheila as he used to be, Isabel still sees Sheila regularly. Sheila is a rather serious kid with few friends and little interest in pink sparkly shit. She does, however, like dolls, a fact that causes her parents some consternation [and Isabel much joy]. Isabel feels very protective of Sheila, especially because she, like Sheila, was shy, quiet, socially isolated and well-read for her age. Sheila, for her part, absolutely worships Isabel. Conflict occurs when Sheila’s parents discover that Isabel has spondis. They don’t want Sheila to hang out with Isabel anymore. Isabel and Sheila sneak around for a while, but then have to confront her parents’ prohibition head-on.

Notes: Overalls if possible. Glasses. Pierced ears. Glue black boucle yarn to head, then trim close for hair.

This entry was originally posted at http://modernwizard.dreamwidth.org/1595295.html. You can comment here, but I’d prefer it if you’d comment on my DW using OpenID.

I just figured out how to shorten Sylvia’s upper arms, while retaining the swivel motion. Basically I will be fusing the upper arm swivel joint and transferring the swivel to the elbow joint.

Continue reading Adapting Sylvia’s arms

I took out about 1cm of height from her thighs right below the swivels and about 1.5cm of height from her ankles right above the swivels. I hot glued her together at the thighs, thus sacrificing the swivels there, but I preserved the ankle swivels. She’s now about 10 inches tall, excluding some molded hair spikes.
Continue reading Tonight’s work on Sylvia

Here’s the base for Sylvia, also known as Andrew 2.0.Continue reading Base for Sylvia

I don’t want to rehab the Pocahontas doll from scratch for such a minor character. I got the idea this morning, though, to recycle LHFer Andrew into Sylvia. 

Continue reading Sylvia changed forms again.

Here’s Pearlene with skull, hair and full outfit.
Continue reading Pearlene all done!

Sculpted some additional thickness onto the core of her neck tonight. I’m not going for anatomical accuracy here, but for serviceability.

Continue reading Roughing in Pearlene’s neck

Roughing in shoulders and neck this morning.

Continue reading Pearlene’s neck and shoulders

Made Pearlene an internal framework of wooden coffee stirrers and hot glue for her neck and shoulders.

Continue reading Pearlene’s framework for neck and shoulders

I mark the beginning of my doll customizing career with my first 1:6 scale Jareth doll, which I created in November and December of 2001 as an Xmas present for Jill. [After all these years, she still has him! He hangs out with her 1:6 scale dolls who use wheelchairs.] Let’s see how far I’ve come….

Continue reading You never forget your first Jareth.

Tonight I set Pearlene’s arms back in their sockets and secured the other half of the sockets to them.

Continue reading Pearlene: arms and mockup

I have been bulking up Pearlene’s body for the past few days with Apoxie Sculpt. I like her thighs and her butt the best!

The Real Heroes works well as a base body since it’s thick to begin with and sturdy enough to handle weighty additions. Its simple construction allows it to be taken apart with ease, while it provides enough articulation to do the basics.

Continue reading Adding fats, la la la

Last night I took off Perdita’s scalp, erased her eyebrows and lips and increased the size of her breasts. I wasn’t planning on adding to her chest size, but I mixed up way too much Aves Apoxie Sculpt for another project, so I decided to slap some on Perdita.

At left, a Disney Pocahontas head on an articulated Barbie body illustrates the splayed thighs that so many doll enthusiasts find "unladylike." At right, Perdita shows her current condition.
Continue reading Perdita nears completion.

Reduced the back of his skull globe and lengthened his legs back to original length.

Continue reading Peter modified yet again

I did some digital manipulations of Pearlene, and I think I can salvage her without the risky use of acetone. For example, just a small reduction of the size of her face on her head [i.e. reducing height of eyebrows, eyes and lips] makes her look so much better. I think I can get away with a repaint, a scalp reduction and a custom fat body [a modded male action figure?] to balance out the width of her head.
Continue reading Reproportioning Pearlene

Another lot of cheap nudes came today, the aforementioned Liv, P. Bo and Jazzie.

First, the Liv sacrificed her hands to Prunella. I cut open the Liv’s forearms at the wrist seams as unobtrusively as I could manage so that the body is available, albeit handless, for further experiments.
Continue reading Prunella, Deedee, Pearlene and the salvage dolls

Continued to work on him tonight.Continue reading Hackin’ up Barrett

I’ve been hacking away at Barrett today…

Continue reading Cutting Barrett down to size

Hacked off a centimeter from each of her ankles, pried open hack-offs to rescue ankle pins, drilled out new ankle holes and jammed ankle pins up there, tightening with hot glue. Gotta do something with her hands next. I like them, but they are way out of scale.
Continue reading Shortening Prunella

I got a package from Andrea yesterday [the first at my new address, yay!] containing, among other things, Prunella Jones. She came to me under the name Gavali, a repainted, rerooted High School Musical Gabriella head on an articulated Ballerina Barbie body drilled to accept action figure hands. Naturally, Andrea did the reroot and repaint, as well as the custom zip-up jumpsuit.
Continue reading Prunella the slightly unhinged

Ever since one of its legs broke off, I’ve been saving both the body and the leg, primarily because a body with that size tits is pretty rare.

Now that I have grown much more proficient in drilling, hacking and Apoxie Sculpting things, I think that I could reattach its leg using a long pin through the top of the thigh and anchored into the crotch. This fix would prohibit rotation at the thigh, but would allow swinging back and forth. That’s good enough for me. Then Anneka, even though she is now in storage, could have her body back. 

This entry was originally posted at http://modernwizard.dreamwidth.org/1539701.html. You can comment here, but I’d prefer it if you’d comment on my DW using OpenID.

More correctly, I should say that Peter has been altered to fit the walker. I took at least 2cm, possibly a bit more, out of both his thighs and his ankles. Yes, I am aware that he now looks ungainly, with long arms, massive hands and short legs. I’m okay with that. Very few people have idealized proportions. ^_^

Continue reading The walker now fits Peter.

I swapped them out for the Sideshow Dead Punk’s. I have yet to paint his skull ring because I don’t have any silver paint.

Continue reading Peter’s hands

Isabel on fat body with neck sanded to reduce egregious dents.

Continue reading Sanded fat neck

I broke out my N95 respirator and my safety goggles today and went outside to do the final rough-in of the first fat doll’s neck with my Dremel. I started off with a cutting disc, which was not a good idea. Then I ran out, bought some deburring bits and used them. I doubt they should be used for my purposes, but they work, so :p.

Here’s Isabel on the fat body after I reduced the height of the neck and tapered it further. Now I just have to sand to reduce the most egregious gouges. Woo hoo!
Continue reading Gougity gouge gouge: or, The State of the Fats

Tonight I restrung the torso and legs with thinner elastic and less tension. This made the doll a little floppy while greatly increasing poseability. I must admit that one of my favorite traits of BJDs is their stringing. It can be tight for standing and/or holding long-term positions, or it can be looser for more naturalistic seated and lying postures.

Then I gouged out the front of the ankle sockets so that the feet could point perpendicularly from the calves, rather than slightly down.

I spent most of the time mangling working on the neck. A quick test revealed that, despite my earlier hopes, the 1:6 scale adult head on the 1:3 scale unadapted toddler neck did not work. Continue reading Fat doll as of tonight

My original plan to make a fat 1:6 scale mature BJD body was to use a 1:3 scale toddler body and splice forearms/hands and calves/feet on it from a 1:6 scale mature body. However, I recently acquired a 5StarDoll 1:3 scale toddler body with surprisingly delicate hands and feet, so, being an eminently lazy individual, I wondered if I could just swap the 1:6 scale hands and feet onto the 1:3 scale body and call it a day.

This evening, that’s what I did. I actually complicated matters a bit by modding the 1:6 scale hands to nest in the 1:3 scale wrist balls and thus provide a slightly smoother transition between the forearms and hands. I just stuck the 1:6 scale feet on the ends of the 1:3 scale legs, though, which is why they are slightly shorter than they should be, as they do not have the extra height provided by the 1:3 scale ankle balls [which were fused to the 1:3 scale feet].

Anyway, the result looks pretty good for about an hour of work, as far as I’m concerned. The ankles need modification, though, as the shapes of the sockets are preventing the feet from standing flat. This particular body also has horribly tight stringing, so it needs to be restrung more loosely. Other than that, it’s pretty much good.

Here’s a shot of Isabel [on temp body] next to the fat body in progress. It’s obviously shorter, which I like, as it adds to the impression of what Isabel would call a "dumpy" shape. Not everyone is elongated and skinny!
Continue reading Fat doll in progress!!! \o/

Just like yesterday. First, in an effort to whiten Novella’s head, I stuck her in a shot glass of 70% isopropyl alcohol with a plastic bag rubber-banded over the top so the alcohol didn’t escape. I soaked her from 6 PM last night to 1 PM this afternoon, then cleaned her off for 45 minutes with a melamine sponge.
Continue reading Today I worked on dolls all damn day.

This guy over on One Sixth Warriors [OSW] did a bash of a short, fat, wide, round character, Pigsy, who I guess is from a video game. He got into all sorts of molding and sculpting and redoing for metal accessories, joints and headsculpt. I, however, am most interested in his clever use of parts from a baby doll as the base for the torso and limbs. It’s such beautiful work!

Now I want to make some fat 1:6 women! The last time I made a short, fat woman, Margie, I started with a 1:6 male fig, shortened the limbs, added a bust with polyfill, carved up and sanded down a male headsculpt for the head and rebuilt the neck out of Sculpey. I enhanced the illusion of great girth by giving her baggy clothes. I loved her, and she was perfectly fine for a minor character, but, as with most of my customs, she was pretty raw, held together with hot glue and swear words.

I want to make more finished and detailed fat 1:6 women now. I’d love to use baby doll parts to give them wide, plush shapes, while trying not to compromise basic articulation. I want to give them actual hair and flattering clothes. Short skirts! Tank tops! Palazzo pants! Form-fitting blouses! [All of which will be very difficult because my sewing skill is limited to crooked hems in a running stitch.] I want to repaint them with lively expressions full of character. I want them to hang around my shelves being bad-ass and awesome!

Today I finally did something constructive with dolls besides purchase them. In order to articulate my Girls of Many Lands doll #3, I mounted her bust on a Jakks Pacific Juku Couture body, which, being 9", was just the right size. As a result, my GOML, now named Isabeau, is articulated at wrists, ankles, knees, waist and neck, a great improvement from her earlier statuesque state. Her outfit obscures most of her articulation, but you can see her striking a pose below. Previous adventures in articulating GOMLs are here, and here..

All I know about Isabeau is that she is a member of the Colonials, the oldest vampire clan in New England. She is probably one of those people who died young, but acts much older than her death age because she has had years in which to mature. She strikes me as less of a girl and more of a small woman.
Continue reading Articulating another American Girl Girls of Many Lands doll

When I first made Qingting, a Hun type vampire and associate of Chow Bang, she was an American Girl Girls of Many Lands doll on a cut-down Obitsu body, but I didn’t like that because it was too tall and the arm fastenings too frail. I now have a new body for her, closer to her original height of 9". See photo below for how I transferred her original torso, hands and feet onto a 23cm Obitsu framework.

The next photo shows another GOML I’ve worked on recently. She was original a Yupik Native Alaskan character, Minuk, but she has now been repurposed and rearticulated to be Maggie, Absinthe’s sort-of niece.Continue reading Articulating American Girl’s Girls of Many Lands

I redid my brunette Juku Girl’s left eyebrow. She looks much better now. Continue reading Juku Girls redux: modded brunette

When I first saw that someone on 13doll was selling American Girl’s Girls of Many Lands dolls for a steal, one of them called out to me. Spring Pearl, portraying a Cantonese girl in 1857, charmed me with her sweet wondering look and her beautiful, bright, brocaded outfit. She told me right then and there that she was a Hun type vampire, and she needed to come home and be with Chow and Baozha and the rest of the Hun, not to mention the whole LHF cast.Continue reading Qingting the Chinese vampire, or, Hacking up a collectible doll

Now she has red and purple paint blood in her hair! Even better! Continue reading Things are even worse for Cindy.

She started off as an innocent, perkily smiling Colonial Barbie head and turned into a shambling disaster! I was going to do a simple repaint on her, since I found her face cute in a somewhat manic way.

To reduce the appearance of derangement, I wanted to cut out her teeth and glue her mouth shut. I did not make a clean cut, however, and she seemed to have fangs or broken teeth worthy of some sort of undead creature.

The unhinged lower jaw, head wound, anxious look and bloody garments followed from there. What an improvement! Continue reading Something very bad happened to Cindy.

So I decided to add a character to the LHF cast. More accurately, I decided to make a doll of an extant, but currently unseen, LHFer: Junior. Junior is Margie’s grandson, between 2 and 3 years old. Absinthe takes care of him sometimes when his parents, Margie’s daughter Laurie and Laurie’s boyfriend Johnny, are at work.

Anyway, I had a spare Kelly lying around from Kinjou, who gave me one so that I could try making the default Mattel idiot grin into something with more character. Kellys and Tommys actually have cute headsculpts, but their use among action figures is very limited because of their minimal articulation. Here you can see the swivel head and single axes of rotation at the shoulders and hips. Ugh.  Continue reading Quickly and sloppily articulating a Kelly doll

Here are the results of another lazy project of mine. I was going to make Margie, Absinthe’s foster mother, as a complete, separate doll, but I got bored, so I just finished her head and stuck it on Davry’s body. I redressed Davry’s body and gave Margie some breasts made out of polyfill under her shirt. Voila.

Margie is posing next to Mark because Mark represents what Margie’s head looked like before I started work on it. To make Mark’s headsculpt into Margie’s, I carved down the forehead and the brow ridges. I also narrowed the nose and chopped a lot off the tip. I took a lot of width out of the jaw and the chin. Then I sanded with 220 grit sandpaper until most of the nicks from my crappy carving were sanded out. I gave Margie a new paint job mostly with pastels, painted her hair and made her a bun from Barbie hair.

I have now successfully made a dumpy, homely character!Continue reading Yay! Fat doll success! Here’s Margie.

Kathlen arrived today! She’s such a cutie. Her head is perfect for Absinthe’s upgrade, especially the serene sleeping face. However, Kathlen’s body is much too short. Below, Kathlen stands in a line-up with some of the shortest LHF characters with my 1:6 Frank for comparison. From left to right, they are Kathlen, Susie, the old version of Absinthe, Davry, Little Will and then Frank [not an LHF cast member]. I’d like Absinthe’s upgrade to be shorter than Little Will.Continue reading Short characters in LHF

My concept of Will’s physique has always been closer to that of my 1:3 Jareth doll, rather than the ridiculously muscular soldier’s body he’s had for years. Unfortunately, the custom head that I use for Will won’t fit on any of the skinny male bodies…until now. Tonight, after a long silence, I broke out the Dremel and my drawer of bodies in an attempt to transfer the brawny neck assembly from a Dragon male body to the scrawny slender Obitsu male body.  In order to balance out the thicker neck, I imported Will’s original muscular arms [so he doesn’t have twig-like upper limbs]. I have yet to ream out the torso to allow for neck poseability, but you can see a mock-up of how I want Will to look below.