#dark resin

[pendrith]

April Story Rebecca : Face Up

[puffsdolljunk]

Kiwi Day 1: First Impressions

Awhile back, after following a few doll blogs I came across Kiwi from KaykeDolls.

This is about her.

I’ve always looked at BJDs. Something that threw me off was usually the ‘build it yourself’ aspect. I couldn’t wrap my head around something that came nude, blank and bald and expensive.

However I’m also a sucker for pear shaped body types in dolls due to my own body being similar.

I BELIEVE I started following this artist during a BJD giveaway they had earlier in the year.

But anyway.

Seeing such a pretty and unique mold, I decided to take the plunge.

I asked for the works, eyes, face up etc. First off Kayke’s face ups are gorgeous. Let’s just get that out of the way now.

After some complications regarding my doll in particular’s cast, the owner decided to give me a dress and wig extra for free.

And after waiting awhile I finally got my doll. I was actually pretty patient on that note, but I will say it definitely got me into the habit of checking my email.

When the package arrived I was at work. Now Saturdays are the longest latest shifts, I was quite cranky when I got to opening. Assuming a new fancy doll would cheer me up.

With my gf watching I pulled out Kiwi, a handmade dress and yarn wig.

Immediately I didn’t get the happiness rush. I think I was too busy computing what a new type of doll. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but cranky perioding me was maybe expecting a literal angel to descend and give me a hug vanish leaving the most perfect BJD in my arms or something.

So when that didn’t happen I was somewhere between hyper critical, frustrated and right into defensive examination mode.

I only say defensive bc I had an audience of my gf who’s also a doll person.

I suppose I was scared any imperfection that I was ok with she’d silently judge or something. And if you’re reading this don’t worry babe I know you aren’t like that.

Not to mention despite being cheap by BJD standards, $200~ is still expensive by all my other doll standards.

She’s the most expensive doll I own, and that probably fueled my judgement on her. As I can only afford another splurge sometime next year.

SO! Long story short, I did have to sleep on how I felt about this doll.

My initial reaction didn’t understand what I was supposed to get I think.

As many of you know or don’t. Dark resin, is prone to imperfections showing up especially along seam lines. Any place you may need to sand down will get lighter and chalkier.

Add to this that she was an artist cast. Meaning the sculptor did all the building themselves.

So my brain didn’t immediately connect those two things could add up.

And as my first BJD finding something more handmade than manufactured was more than jarring at the time. (keeping in mind my aforementioned mood.) but I also was far from ordering from a well known larger company or anything of the sort.

So first thing I ofc zeroed in on was said roughness.

Don’t get me wrong, she is a great mold. And I honestly don’t really care about the edges now. But at the time. I was actually sort of upset.

Add to the fact her default position was very floppy.

I. Who’ve never extensively handled a BJD before, felt more frustrated than anything.

Though at the time it was 2 am. And man was I tired.

The second thing that really stood out to me was her sliding scalp.

It just kept slipping to the side.

Unlike the seam lines, this I feel was actually more of a design error that could be corrected.

Kiwi has a magnet at the top of her scalp. And a hook from her neck that latches on to a smooth bar in said scalp.

I added wax to try and stop the sliding(it didn’t work well but to explain the pic).

I believe the sliding could be fixed by a notch for the hook to fix in place.

Or a lower magnet.

That said. These dolls are no longer in production to my understanding.

The artist stopped for a few different reasons stated on the homepage of his blog. Likewise @kayke-knadle is now inactive. But the art blog remains.

So design critique is unnecessary but I still feel appropriate.

It also left a large gap between the head and scalp. Which is being covered by a wig so doesn’t matter much.

Those little dots are the metal poking out tho, I scratched my fingers a few times on those.

Something that did surprise me was that the neck bulb did note go into the head.

At first I blamed it for her lolling (which at the time frustrated me like cray).

But now I actually feel it gives a decent range of motion, so i don’t mind.

I put her together and felt further miffed.

The yarn wig and dress were ‘free’, so I can’t complain too hard about them.

But the dress did make me feel sort of uncomfortable to look at, it was unhemmed on top, it felt floppy and reminded me of days where I was braless and sweaty. And the hotglue wig actually had good grip on the scalp, but all I could see was ‘homemade’ when I saw the glue.

I did a 180 on them later.

Really I just needed to style it.

At the time I was in a bad mood, but as I saw the unhemmed dress holes allowed me to stretch it over body parts without unraveling. I found it more sturdy than I thought.

I loved the color for her hair, and yarn wigs which I usually have a dislike for, felt appropriate for a girl that felt like some sort of forest sprite. Like moss or something.

I was learning how to handle her, and over the next day or so she grew on me. Giving her this extra attention just made us bond more and all the complaints I had didn’t seem to matter as much.

Next post I’ll discuss how we’re more used to eachother and how a hair wig both hampered and accelerated my feelings towards her.

With pics of her in natural light~

[resin-roost]

Kallai got some real clothes! Well, real enough :P My sewing machine is messed up (I need to adjust the tension, but I don’t really know how...), so I threw together some rough pieces. But I think he looks pretty snazzy, especially with his fancy bow! Still want to make him a new wig, but this one will do for now.

He is much happier to be fully covered.

[puffsdolljunk]

Kiwi Day 2: Getting Along

My Ai doll was the closest thing I had to a BJD.

Saturday the 12th I received my first resin doll Kiwi.

After sleeping on how I felt about Kiwi I realized I didn’t dislike her.

I just didn’t understand her yet.

I didn’t know how to hold her, I didn’t know how to bring her to her full potential. I didn’t know her weight, I didn’t know her habits(like legs curling up) or even how her balance was.

And I didn’t know how to style her yet.

Look at all these Kiwis with their cute dresses.

Clearly the owner knew about their potential more than I did.

First I tied periwinkle embroidery floss to cinch her dress.

The lace still flipped but I have that problem irl all the time so not much to stop there.

Second, at my gf’s insistence I gave her the wig I ordered in prep.

Compare.

This made everything worse.

I couldn’t style it out of her face without it flopping over her eyes.

So I cut the bangs, but then they stood up and wouldn’t shift where I wanted them.

The yarn wig had hot glue grip and was light enough not to affect her head rotation.

The hair wig was slippery and heavy.

Little known fact, 90% of doll collectors spend their time balancing things.

It’s all about balance. And Patience.

Which I accidentally capitalized. Hm not a bad name.

That’s my girl.

Not too dissimilar to learning how to scrunch your sleeves or socks just right, her dress was just a learning process of squishing around. But it does look perfect on her.

I additionally learned how to lock her legs. Her default position is actually sitting with her legs curled.

When I twisted her thigh it locked against her knee a great design feature.

Unlike my Ai Dolls, she was able to bend her knees easily to sit. Which is what I need a lot in my dolls.

Patience... is what it took to lower her wig onto her without it sliding off or her falling over when her leg twisted too much and it’d curl right back up.

Something again that was more of a learning curve.

Patience that it didn’t slide. Patience that the hair would just stick up a bit.

But worth it? Yes.

It gave her so much personality.

As comfortable as the yarn wig was I feel like it was the default clothing you get when you start a game. You don’t have enough coins to buy clothes yet, but when you do. Heck yeah am I going to customize it. Suddenly you look less like a standard avatar.

Kayke’s face up was also again, worth it.

And while I love her galaxy eyes, I can’t help but notice all the pics on her order form have pupils.

What’s up with that?

Oh well.

Well here she is.

Nothing changed physically since the first post, but somehow she’s got more life. I’m enjoying her, and she’s constantly on my mind.

Her sculpt is beautiful and stylized. I wish I could DRAW hands that great, much less sculpt them.

She has a highly arched back and wide hips. Her legs lock into both standing and sitting easily. She leans in a little bit suggesting curiosity and intrigue.

Size wise, she’s around 8 inches. A good size and weight for me.

The resin gives her a weighted balance that feels comfortable to hold.

Comparatively she’s the sort of doll size I like.

Not sure what scale though. Is this still 1/6th? She’s so stylized I can’t really tell.

I haven’t tried on any clothing options yet so that will have to come.

In the meantime I’ll be finding some tape or velcro to secure this wig.

A few of my dolls don’t have names. But Patience works.

I had to wait for her to be made after all. Then it took me some to start to really understand her. And in the end I love her after all.

Thank you @kayke-knadle-art

[resin-roost]

What’s this??? A box?! :D A somewhat smooshed box :/ 

BUT NEVER FEAR! The prize inside is intact!

Who is she? xD

Such hat-hair. Very Vogue.

(I was so excited to start working on her, I cleaned her right away lol)

My beautiful Ninon arrived today! Many thanks to Andromede on DoA for being such a joy to buy from (and from deciding to part with this gem)! I knew from the moment I saw her that I had to have a Ninon by Cerisedolls, and Caramel was my first choice of color. I am so happy.

Also, Toni is excited about this adorable outfit Andromede included with her! :D

Her name is Sanaa. She has a girlfriend on layaway with Iplehouse (a CREAA-J Zinnia named Piper), and is my very first lesbian :P I can’t wait to paint her and make her some clothes! I think she will mostly wear western fashion, but I do want to make her a saree for visiting Mum and such things lol (she will be classy af either way, lbh). 

She is PERFECT and BEAUTIFUL and I LOVE HER!!! ♥

[resin-roost]

Did Mahariel’s faceup today. Might go back and add a bit to the lips, but boy howdy, those tiny vallaslin. Lookin mighty fine, if I do say so myself! Got so excited that I finally pulled the trigger on an order of some alpaca fiber from Etsy, so we’ll see how I do, wig-wise...

I had a really hard time with his eyebrows, actually; I ended up doing them darker than I’d’ve liked, since he’s going to have auburn hair? I wanted his brows to match, but I suppose I can say he dyes it... lol. Heck, I might end up hating the lighter hair on him and going dark, anyway, we’ll see! But Kallai in my game had reddish-brown hair, so I’m starting with that. Gonna be sad to lose most of the swirlies on his forehead, honestly xD

...I might experiment with attempting to give him teeny tiny eyelashes. He deserves big-ol’ cow eyes.

Oh, sealant on dark resin. Such troubles you cause me. I’m having a heck of a time doing Trinn’s faceup, too; had to clean her twice before I got a good base layer down, now I’m waiting for an order of pastels since I don’t have anything good for blushing her but the black (did her brows and some base lashes today, though). These photos show every bump and bit of dust on his face, it’s honestly not that bad in person!

Hooray for responsibility procrastination hobby productivity! :D

[resin-roost]

Finally got Trinn’s faceup to where I’m happy with it! I really like the white lash and brow lines? It doesn’t make any sense (to me, an amateur artist, lol), but they were just so flat and boring with just the black and the white adds so much dimension! I also feel like I finally made friends with my liner brush as far as lashes and brows go, so I was quite pleased with that development. And the crowning feature, SPLATTER FRECKLES!!! The reason she is currently bodiless is because her body is currently being sealed in preparation for FULL-BODY FRECKLING I’M SO PUMPED. I love how they turned out, even though they took a few tries :) 

I actually really like these eyes in her?? I think they were Theo’s for a while, lol, I just pulled them out of my random eye bag xD They’re a bit big, but it makes her look gnomey, which I dig. Trinn started her life as a halfling, but I’m really into her as a gnome, and I think she’s chill with this development.

Anyway, have a pic sans wig (although her wig is FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC if I do say so myself, and I finally figured out a good work-around to my dumb choice of white cap fabric that doesn’t hide her adorable ears!).

Trinn is a "dark tan” Kobalt made by Otherside Dolls

[dolltimestories-blog]

Manons by Lillycat cerisedoll