Today, being as I was determined to work more on the doll even if it killed me once she was dry enough, was dye day again.
At first, the blue dye I had picked didn’t take. So I mixed it with a different brand, and voila. In one go, the doll is now the appropriate color of purple.
I’m VERY pleased with how the dye took. It even did some shadings and things on the skin that I thought I was going to have to do bit by bit by hand. This last session really pushed the doll forward in her making.
Now she had to dry before the next step.
I haven’t posted a doll gallery page in a while, so here’s one. Her name is Jasmine. Her body is a Janay model: I loved working with those dolls. Their face molds were superb. Sadly you can’t really find them anywhere anymore.
She was a simple repaint.
I promised pictures of phase one, and here it is. Yeah I know: it isn’t multiple. I’m a lazy photographer. Here she is with her under color.
I’m going for purple, because the character I’m creating is that color. But she still needed fleshly undertones, and here they are. I’m especially pleased with the color of her hair. It’s a neat strawberry blonde. I may recreate that color for a future doll.
The next step is to get some blues to two a second undercolor layer. I still haven’t found the purple I’m looking for in regards to the final wash: I’ll probably have to turn to the internet for it. No problem. There are thousands of dye colors out there. I just have to figure out where they’re at.
The coloring process has been underway. Silly me: I didn’t follow directions the first tries and my husband had to remind me that dye requires heat to activate. LOL… she refused to take the color the other times. And then my part-time job called me away again.
Today she’s getting her undercolor: the basis that will bring her to colorful dark elf life. She’s drying right now, and I’ve sent the husband out for another pack of dye because the one I had just wasn’t enough. Glad dye is cheap!
Once her undercolor is complete, pictures will be posted.
Okay… I haven’t posted in a while for a lot of reasons. BUT! Today I have something to say.
I’ve been looking for the color dye I think would turn my current commission’s skin just the right color. I live in a tiny farming/mining town, so you know there are tons of denim blues but nothing such as I’m looking for.
I finally buckled down and got three different colors in the hopes I can mix and match:
- Royal Blue
Purple
Petal Pink
And I guess I’ll go from there. Unfortunately I have to work at the part-time job tomorrow, but I’m free the day after. Doll land here I come.
There was another elf I did a long time using the same type of doll body I’m going to use on this commission; for that one I had used permanent marker to color the body. This time I don’t want to do that. I want better tones and shades. So I’ve spent some time researching methods for dying her fair skin.
What I’ve found is very interesting. I stumbled across a doll restoration site; the section I found talks about “reborn” baby dolls – in which the doll artists find vinyl baby dolls and “purple wash” them to give them a more human and live appearance. The methods strike me as viable for this project.
If you’re interested in the methods, I’ll link the website here. I wish Wordpress would let me have a thumbnail of the website like Facebook does, but eh. At least it links.
http://www.prillycharmin.com/restore/5purplewash.htm
Red Leaf was created with “simple” in mind. Her face was completely repainted and molded to erase her smile. She rather reminds me of Tinkerbell, sort of. Or maybe something more wild.
I wanted to make a mermaid with no molds. Here she is.
Hooray! I’ve been commissioned to make this character into an effigy doll:
The doll body I use for these is made by Jakks Pacific. After much searching for the right body, I realized that they also seem to be no longer made. It took a while but I finally found Picketfence, one my old suppliers, who had moved their wares to an official site instead of the yahoo store I used to buy from:
http://www.picketfenceks.com/
And with that, I now have a policy that if you want a specific doll body to please supply the doll. My client happily did so. Here is Cathriara’s before picture… and the project begins!
Okay, yes. I covered her nekkid body. LOL
I did this one as a collaboration. We were going to split the proceeds, but she never sold. I’m not even sure where she is right now; I’ve moved around so much since then.
I did the doll. My friend made the loom and hand-stitched the tiny needlework.
Before Picture:
Hand-beaded and hand-sewn medieval garb. Her outfit was meticulously researched for accuracy (not always an easy thing to do.) I even made sure she had a head-wrap to cover her maidenly head.
The loom really did swing back and forth for her to work on.
