Happy Juneteenth!! This isn’t my usual content but I wanted to do something fresh and fun since art classes have wrung the joy and whimsy out of me. And I love Clawdeen (my childhood icon.)
Remember to support black artists guys 🩵 (a.k.a. me (by sending me 50 dollars (/hj))
Here is my custom doll of the Asset, from Guillermo Del Toro's The Shape of Water. I've literally been working on him for years since I would get short bursts of inspiration, only to hit a creative wall and put him away for months at a time.
While I approach most projects with a clear goal in mind, this really wore away at me since I wanted him to still look like a Monster High character, the Asset's design is incredibly complex and detailed. I would spent like 5 hours sculpting something, feel like it looks off and then get really dejected and put him away.
It eventually reached a point where I realised it had been a year and a bit of chipping away at his sculpt that I pushed ahead and primed him in black. Of course, that just made me aware of his flaws more, so I just put him away, then every few months or so I would block out his patterns and placements in pencil.
It wasn't until I saw Frankenstein in theaters that I finally felt brave enough to push on ahead with this custom, since it got me back in a GDT mood, and I rewatched The Shape of Water as well.
I realised that I was getting too caught up in the minutia of details and opted for the "vibe" of the look instead to finally get me over the line with finishing him.
It took me years to finally finish this custom but I'm so happy with how he turned out.
i'm especially happy with the gemstones, which are made of transparent worbla & colored with markers. i've made crystals like this for a doll once before, and it was nice to do a design that revolves around them.
🪐more novis!!!! I LOVE THEM!!! and i NEEEED to draw them way more!!!!! today this is una verse from orbit beach collection, i love to draw swimsuits so i just can't ignore these dolls🐠 (actually there was not very many series in all this brand, maybe i can draw at least all my favorite doll releases...)
aaaand the version without background + just line (and refs)
Hey, I found a beanie boo that I liked the design of but I can't stand those giant uguu eyes. Do you think it would be possible to replace them with smaller safety eyes akin to the old beanie babies? If yes, do you have any advice?
I was gonna answer this in a normal way, but then I got curious about trying it for myself and thought I might as well demonstrate!
So, I went and picked up a guy from the supermarket. The selection there was pretty barren today but I found a decent test subject:
Eye replacement procedure below!
(First of all, to my friend who loves beanie boos, I am so sorry for this lmao)
So! First I opened up the closing seam on his back. However, I found an extra mesh barrier inside! Clearly this is to prevent bean escape since this is the most likely seam to accidentally pop open through play. This would be a bit annoying to work around so I just sewed it back up and went in the back of the head instead…
Opened and unstuffed the head…
…And turning it inside out to get to the backs of the eyes. Whoa, these plastic washers are the biggest I’ve ever seen!! Cutting through them will take some work!
Please be very careful of your fingers cutting through these!! Be careful not to cut the fabric around the eye too, but mostly be careful of yourself!
Anyway grrrrrrr attack attack slice slice grrrr
They’re out! With a little glue I think the washers would be able to hold on perfectly well again. I’ll keep these eyes to reuse on something where they’ll be a bit more proportional!
The washers on these eyes are particularly cup shaped, fitting around the back of the eye and holding the fabric tightly against them. Now that the eyes are removed, this has left imprints on the fur!
Plenty of brushing and rumfling will help to fix the creased and flattened areas of fur, and wetting the fur or gently steaming over a hot cup of water should help too. It might take a little time!
(Also, I did make a little cut in the cheek while removing a washer, oops! No worries, that can be stitched up.)
Now we can try on a few new eye styles! Restuff the head for now so you can see how they’ll look.
I have a few sizes of solid black, from teeny dots to absolute tbh creature…
These blue eyes were a little scary… no thanks!
I even have some glittery ones like the original, but smaller! Pretty nice actually!
And even some googly eyes hehehe!
But my favourite eyes were some basic 9mm black ones! They are placed a little funny here, but the position will change a little bit…
The holes left by the original eyes were very big, so a couple of stitches are needed on each one to tighten them up to fit the new eyes. I stitched the top outer corners, to move the holes down and inwards a bit. If you wanted, you could even sew them closed completely and make new eye holes elsewhere!
Unstuff again and pop those new eyes in!
Restuff! You might actually need to add a little extra stuffing, as the fabric not being so pulled around the eyes any more will mean it is a little ‘baggier’.
Then sew the head closed again and that’s about it! The fur is still a little creased around mine, but I’ll keep working at it and it should become less visible.
To add a tiny bit more shape to the big round head, I also did a touch of threadsculpting. I ran a thread from the corner of each eye to below the chin and back, just pulling the eyes in a tad more. You might decide you don’t need this!
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