Blythe a Day: June 3rd- 9th

June 3rd: Rainbow- Knit the rainbow.  Monroe working on a silk rainbow top.

June 4th: Laundry- Gidget is having one of those days where she has to wash clothes to have something to wear!

Extra: A chihuahua is always nearby.

June 5th: Decisions, decisions- Merrick is debating, healthy orange or sugary cupcake.

June 6th: Seashore- Peach and Pretzel are packed for the seashore. I haven't broken it to them that we are land locked.

June 7th: Don't give up- Nova posing with my grad school official transcript.  It was a challenging two years, but I did it.

June 8th: Stars/Moon- Moon showing off her star on her cheek and moon eye chips.

June 9th: Birthday- Lemon says, "It's my birthday and I can wear my dragon suit if I want to."

Extras:  

Top view- placement of items to get a clear view of face

Close up

Toy soldiers and chihuahua

To show the scale of the soldiers

Brown Petite!

In the second lot of Petite Blythe heads, one poor girl had issues.  Not sure what happened to her but she appeared to be a victim of a botched custom job.  Some of her issues were:  odd paint (did not want to come off even with sanding), no philtrum (it was sanded to a peak), and the left side of the nose was almost sanded flat.  The eye chips were scratched from where someone attempted to pry them out.  I sanded and buffed them to where they look tolerable.

I had sanded a little already to fix her.

I have never carved or sanded down a petite- a little goes a long way.  Her nose was tricky since it had been heavily sanded already.  I think I successfully shaped it to look normal though.

I thought I took a photo before the next step.  I guess I went to do so and got side tracked.

Before MSC.  The body was from a previous experiment. 

(See: From Busty to Flat Chesty)

Final:

MSC makes a huge difference!

Almost finished!

Last weekend I finished up the re-painting of my new custom doll, a brown Blythe.

Unfortunately, the face plates and eye mechanism were not a perfect fit.  I took the mech out and tried to alter it. This did not fix the problem but it relieved some of the pressure on the arch. I decided to take the tbar completely out and hand roll the eyes.  The lids open and close with the pull chords.

I order a lovely piece of Tibetan mohair that in auburn that I plan to make my own wig rather than purchase it.  I think I saved at least half the cost and I get the experience of making my own wigs.  I bought seconds to make smaller wigs for Petite Blythe and R's Little Pullip.

I've decided to keep her eye chips the stock colors to make her   look more stock Blythe-like.

No name yet.  I will think of something soon.

Progress-ish

The paper got caught by the wind.  Fortunately nothing was damaged.

Still pissed over how the paint is spraying.  In this next photo you can see how the paint is speckling. The back plate has been sprayed with MSC already (then I stuck my finger in it GAH), the face plate looks terrible!!

I am going to sand her down again and try respraying her.  Then try it again.  The MSC seemed to even out the back plate's paint and made it look prettier.

When I stuck my finger in the MSC (at right bottom screw hole), it caused a huge wrinkle.  I will be sand that area down again as well.

Every time when I start a painting project I think I've got if figured out.  Well, I don't.  The last time I bought this paint it sprayed nice and smooth.  This can seems to cough it out...

Ugh.  I will make this work.

The Licca is still tacky.  I may strip the paint and get plastic primer.  I should have did that first, but you know, I apparently like to do it the hard way.

I do hope to have this girl together by Monday.  She will be so lovely if everything else goes as planned!

Painting

I always say I'm going to take progress photos and then get into the moment.  I sprayed my head pieces and the Licca body yesterday.  I do not think the Licca is going to work.  The legs felt like they were drying but this morning they are sticky again.

I'm not overly thrilled how the paint is spraying from the bottle.  In fact, it pisses me off considering how much I paid for it.  I'm hoping another coat will even out the overall look.

I will spray the Neemo body today and give the Licca body probably a week dry time.  Since I have 3 body options, I don't feel as rushed to get things finished.

After I painted the face plate, I realized that I did not enlarge the eye sockets to compensate for the painted eye lids.  That will require repainting.  Since the paint is not as smooth as I wished for, I'm going to give her a light sanding before the next coat of paint.  If I'm correct, this is a proper way to paint anyways.

I will attempt to get a photo to insert into this post later.

Trying it again

Lately, I've been gathering supplies to give another African American Blythe a go. Since my last attempts, there has been a fair bit more experimentation and a good article written on these lovelies.

Here is the supply list:

Head plates
Eye mech- about to order
Cool Cat dome- about to order
Belton RAL paint- about to order
Non-tilt neck Licca body
Hasbro World of Love, Soul body
Pure Neemo Flection Medium body
Cool Cat Scalp
MSC
Mohair wig- will order eventually

I know that the paint will match Soul's body, but I wanted to experiment a bit on the other 2 bodies. The Licca body had to be taken back from R (she's not happy).  It was the Ebay one that was stained and discolored-- perfect painting candidate. (See the label "Licca" for the post)

I may eventually order the 2nd dome piece, but I have spare scalps.  I will glue it down to make the wig stay on better.

The prospective date for this project to start will be in about 3-4 weeks depending on how quickly the pieces will arrive.  The paint is in the US so that should be snappy. If the eye mech makes it before the dome I can go ahead and start the project.  The dome really doesn't have to be painted.

I plan to spray paint the head plates without any carving.  Essentially, I want her to look exactly like a stock Blythe with different skin tone.  I may attempt to paint on lips but I doubt it. I just want her to be simple and pretty.

Hopefully all will go well.