#monster high tutorial

[thebanaltongue]

Step 10: Putting Eyeballs in Your Doll

Materials: Glass eyes (usually 8 or 10MM), sticky tack, tweezers.

Your doll has been fully painted, and she’s looking good... except that she continues to stare into the abyss of your soul with horrifically creepy empty eye sockets that make your darling little doll look like something from a M. Night Shyamalan film. Let’s fix that, shall we?

Start by taking your sticky tack and rolling it into a long little snake.

Once you have done this, wrap it around the eye. Make sure that it’s on there good and tight (so you may have to squish it around some).

Note: Yes, you can see where my fake nails were attached. They were cute, but I’m happy to have them off! Art is hard with them on. :/

Now, using your tweezers grasp the eye/sticky tack combo and put it inside the dolls head. Be careful not to get hung up on the head pin. You’ll want to watch your doll’s face as you do this, so you can be sure to line up your eyes correctly.

Note: My camera had a very difficult time focusing on the inside of the doll head. This was the best I could do, I hope it’s clear enough.

Once they’re in the head, use the end of a paint brush, your tweezers, or even your finger to squish down the tack against the interior of the dolls head. This will stick the eyeball inside where you want it.

Now that both eyeballs are inside the head, you can wiggle them around a bit to have them looking how you like!

Voila. Emily now how eyeballs in her eye holes. Everyone is a little more comfortable with this development.

Stay tuned for Step 10: Final Touches and Step 7.5: Making a Wig

As always, you can find all the steps to my monster high tutorial under #monster high tutorial in my blog. I welcome any and all comments, questions and concerns!

EDIT: Recently unrepentantly-weird​ and I opened our own shop. Check us out HERE and our blog HERE.

[thebanaltongue]

Step 8: Blushing Your Doll

Materials: Fine grit sand paper, chalk pastels, rubber/cloth gloves, matte sealant, q-tips, soft-bristled paint brush.

Every artist I have seen has a different method of blushing their dolls. Someday, I hope to invest in an airbrush to do mine. But Airbrushes are pricey and I am poor. Ergo, I stick with the pastel method.

Now, when we last left off, Emily’s head was still detached from her body, although she was a lovely flesh color as opposed to green. It’s now time for us to put Emily’s head back on her body. You’ll remember back in step one, when we removed her head, the neck pin’s wings got bent upwards.

The first thing to do is take the pin between your thumb and index fingers and gently press them back down, so that both wings are angled downwards.

Once that is done, slowly and carefully push your doll head back onto the pin. You’ll probably want to squeeze the head and twist it back and forth to ease the pin wings back over the plastic flap inside the head.

Now that her head is back on her body, you’ll want to seal her with a matte finish. I GREATLY prefer Mr. Super Clear, (aka MSC) as it goes on very easily, dries almost instantly, and has great toothing- which is important to hold the color as you redo your doll.

Take her outside and spray 3 or 4 coats of MSC on both the front and back of the doll. One coat will not give you enough toothing. Pay special attention to her face, as that is where the most of your face-up will take place.

Once you’re done, she shouldn’t be shiny anymore, and instead should have a nice matte appearance and an almost paper-like texture to the touch. Your next step is picking out the color palette you’d like to use to blush your doll.

Remember: blushing your doll is NOT doing the face up. This is just base shading to give them a more natural appearance. Although you can begin adding the eyeshadow and lip color at this stage if you so choose.

Now, according to unrepentantly-weird, as this is their character, Emily doesn’t wear much make-up at all, so I chose a very neutral color palette for my blush choices.

I use the sand paper to file the square edges down to some form of paint- which to me makes it easier to apply the colors to the small areas of the doll. I tend to go with two mid-toned colors for major areas, a dark tone and a pink tone. Again, this varies from artist to artist, but I prefer putting the calk pastels directly onto the doll, and then wiping away any excess powder carefully with a soft paint brush. For any remaining harsh lines, I rub them out with a Q-tip.

Note: I want to apologize for this section of the tutorial. The blushing did not photograph well, so please stay tuned and I will create a ‘Points To Blush’ separate post for you all following along.

I use the two mid tones on the following areas: The cheeks, collar bones, around the belly button, under her breasts, the elbows, wrists, back of hands and finger pads, thighs, knees, ankles, shoulder blades, small of back, and under the butt.

The dark of the four tones gets put lightly over the eyelids and you can fade it into the joint ares as well if you want them a little darker.

The pink I put lightly on the cheek bones if you want a light blush, the finger tips, the tip of the nose and the knees. Additionally, if you want to start there, you can put it on the lips for a natural color. 

Please be very careful when working with the chalk. It will get all over your fingers and you don’t want to transfer smudges onto your doll. Seal frequently to prevent this, and keep a damp rag on hand to keep wiping your fingers on to keep them clean between colors.

Again, I will make an additional post showing this since my camera did not pick it up. This was the best shot I could get of the blushing final.

Once you’re happy with the blush, take your doll outside and seal her AGAIN with the MSC. This will keep the chalk from smearing or rubbing off.

You have now blushed your doll. Stay tuned for Step 9: Face-Up

All of my tutorial steps can be found on my blog under #monster high tutorial. As always for questions, comments and concerns, feel free to shoot me a message!

EDIT: Recently unrepentantly-weird​ and I opened our own shop. Check us out HERE and our blog HERE.

[thebanaltongue]

Step 7: Base Painting Your Doll

Hello everyone! As some of you may know, my partner's home was broken into, so my tutorial was put on a bit of a delay. I received great advice, and wonderful support from all of you, so I wanted to thank you all so much.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled program!

Materials: Spray Paint, painting surface, old pencil, penetrable surface

To start with, you'll want to pick a paint that works for you. I made a more detailed post about base painting your monster high doll, and you can find that on my blog also under the #monster high tag.

Now, I'm a big fan of Meltonian Nu-Life Color spray; a spray paint actually created for shoe repair that works on both hard plastic and soft vinyl (a must if you ever want the paint to set on the doll's head). Additionally, it comes in more natural colors than other spray paints which, to me, makes it ideal for skin tones.

For Emily, I chose the color 'Bone'. Bone is a nice flesh tone for pale white people that isn't quite as grey-toned as Vanilla. For POC dolls, I like Chocolate or Saddle, but it really depends on the look you want. 

Start by putting your doll's skull cap back on her head. Remember, this is why we notched it earlier! It makes putting the cap back on and it staying in place much easier.

Next, stick your doll's head on a pencil. I guess you could use a pen or old stick, too, but I like pencils. They're cheap, and the perfect size to fit inside your doll's neck hole. Doing this gives you complete control and access to the doll head without touching it, which makes hitting all the hard to reach places (like under the chin) with the spray paint easy. As an added bonus, it gives you a handy way to sit the doll head for drying.

Hold you're spray paint about 10" away from the doll head and spray in a gentle back and forth pattern (do this over some newspaper or a tarp or something. I use an old piece of wood). Don't hold the can in one spot too long or you'll get drippy, runny paint. You can always do another thin coat of paint for more coverage if you feel you need it, but build up to that. Don't aim for a perfect first coat; the paint will go on too thick.

Ta-da, you have painted your doll head. Now, stick that pencil in some Styrofoam or a pencil holder or even the yard. Somewhere where it won't be bothered and can dry. The head will take longer to dry then the body and will remain tacky feeling for several hours.

Next, lay out your doll body on the surface you don't care if it gets painted. Again, you can see my scrap wood here. Hold the spray can about 10" inches away and repeat that gentle spray. DO NOT TURN THE CAN UPSIDE DOWN OR SIDEWAYS. IT WILL FUCK UP THE PAINT AND LEAVE YOU WITH GLOOPY ICHNESS ON YOUR DOLL.

Let the doll body dry for about 15 minutes, then flip her over and repeat.

Repeat again to do her sides/fingers.

Don't forget to bend all her joints and get her shoulders, bum, elbows, wrists and knees!

Now that your doll has been fully base painted, walk away. Go read a book or something, because her head needs AT LEAST 72 HOURS TO DRY COMPLETELY BEFORE YOU CONTINUE.

That completes Base Painting Your Doll. Stay tuned for Step 8: Blushing Your Doll.

All steps to my tutorial can be found under #monster high tutorial, please feel free to message me with any questions, comments or concerns!

EDIT: Recently unrepentantly-weird​ and I opened our own shop. Check us out HERE and our blog HERE.

[thebanaltongue]

Choosing to Paint: Monster High

So, you’re thinking about creating a custom Monster High Doll; but you’re not sure how to go about doing that. You can find a full length tutorial on my blog under #monster high tutorial, but I wanted to delve into painting a doll a little more in depth.

I’ve found that most people who do custom dolls, don’t bother base painting their doll to change the skin color- and that’s fine! There are some truly talented artists out there who absolutely floor me with their capabilities.

But lets say, just for argument sake, that you *do* want to change the base color of your monster high doll. Maybe you’ve started with a Frankie, like I did, and you want her to be a more natural color. You have a couple ways to go about doing this.

The first is using a coat or two of MSC and then painting her with Acrylics. Pros: A wider variety of colors, you can really get exactly what you’re looking for. Easy to obtain and work with. Sticks to both the head and body with the sealant. Cons: Will never go on as smooth and uniform as spray paint, will chip off around the joints. Can leave visible brush strokes. Whole doll needs to be sealed with MSC sealant before even the base coat can be applied.

Or, you can go with a spray paint. Pros: Very smooth, uniform look. Adheres better to joints of the doll. No brush strokes, can be layered on very thin. Don’t need a base coat of MSC. Cons:Less options for color, not all spray paints will work, can set poorly if not used properly.

I prefer the spray paint method, so I want to talk a little bit about that. The thing I cannot stress enough is that MOST SPRAY PAINTS WILL NOT WORK ON MONSTER HIGH DOLLS.

Monster High Dolls are a combination of hard plastic, movable joints and a soft vinyl head.

While most Spray Paints will set just fine on the hard plastic body of the doll, finding one that will set on the soft, porous vinyl is another story all together. There are very limited brands that will work.

I’ve had some success priming a doll with Krylon Fusion for Plastic and Vinyl, but it only comes in a select few colors and NONE of them are natural looking, so instead I shopped around the internet for a paint that would work with both main parts of the doll.

I would like to present to you MELTONIAN NU-LIFE COLOR SPRAY

Check out the colors! These make excellent sprays for dolls because not only do they work with the vinyl and the plastic, but they ALSO come in natural colors for skin tones.

Now, even these come with down sides: they only come in small cans, and, as far as I have been able to find, can only be bought online.

They run about $6-8 a can, and each can will do about two doll. I do want to warn you all that it will take longer to dry on the vinyl, but it will dry all the way! I recommend picking a hot, sunny day and spraying your doll, then leaving it outside in the sun to dry for a few hours. It will probably still be a little tacky, and I wouldn’t recommend trying to seal it or do anything else to the head for at least 72 hours.

I hope this helps some of you wondering about WHAT to base paint your doll with. If you have any questions, always feel free to shoot me an ask!

EDIT: Recently unrepentantly-weird​ and I opened our own shop. Check us out HERE and our blog HERE.

[thebanaltongue]

Step 6: Preparing The Doll Head for Glass or Acrylic Eyes

Materials: Exacto knife, pencil, tweezers, course sanding needles, googly eyes, Goof Off, Q-tips

I like adding glass eyes to my monster high dolls, because I feel like they add a certain level of detail in their 3-dimensional aspect that you can't get with paint. You don't have to do this, and if you want to just paint or draw on eyes, that's okay too! You can completely skip this step and go on to Step 7.

Note: I would also like to mention here, that because I am doing glass eyes in this tutorial, I will not be re-rooting the doll- but doing a wig instead. While it is possible to re-root a doll that you've done eyes in, it can be extremely difficult and it doesn't usually take well.  If you guys really want a re-rooting tutorial, let me know and I'll be happy to make one for drawn/painted eyes and re-rooting.

Using a pencil or pen, draw on the shape of the eyes you want. You'll want to make them a little smaller then your end goal so that you have room to trim and sand them.

(You can see some discoloration on Frankie’s head. I’m not sure what causes this, but it does happen frequently, especially with used dolls as she was. It’s totally normal, don’t panic. You won’t see it at all once the painting is done.)

Next, take your exacto knife and perforate around the edges of the lines you drew. Do this using only the very tip of your knife; you don't want to try going straight to cutting out the eye holes because you risk the straight edge of the knife giving you odd, geometric eyes. Unless you want weird box eyes.. then, by all means, cut away. Once I have carefully perforated all the way around my eyes, I carefully start connecting them, again using just the tip of my knife. Repeat this step until you can remove your eye holes.

Try to make them as even as you can as you use your knife to round them out. Carve thin sheers of vinyl and use the tweezers to remove stubborn pieces.

Never try to remove too much at once. Once you have them the general shape you like, use the fine sanding needles to smooth out your eye hole edges. Be careful and gentle that they don't get away from you and get too big! I have found that the soft vinyl doesn’t take well to sanding. You’ll want to squeeze the head to make it a little easier.

Once you’re happy with the shape of your eyes, you’re going to cut a hole in the doll’s head that you’ll use later to insert the eyes. On monster high dolls, there’s usually already a circle around the top of the head, and I usually use that as a guideline.

I notch my doll scalps when I cut them out- I do this because it makes lining them back up and putting them back on easier, in my opinion.

You’ll notice when you’ve cut open your doll head, that inside might still have glue and bits of hair in it. Use your tweezers, Q-tips, and Goof Off to clean that out so the inside of your doll head is clean.

Now, I like to use 8MM doll eyes for my Monster High Dolls, but I’ve heard a lot of people prefer the 10MM- this is all based entirely on preference, I have bought a pack of 8MM and 10MM cheap googily eyes that I use to get the size right before ordering the more expensive glass eyes (There’s no worse feeling then ordering your special eyes and getting them in the wrong size! Save yourself the headache with this simple test.)

Now that you’ve tested it, you can go ahead and order your doll eyes, by the time you’re ready to put them in, they’ll probably have arrived! (I like glass eyes over acrylics, and I’ve found ebay to be the best place to find them).

Stay tuned for Step 7: Base Painting Your Doll! This step is currently on hold as I await the arrival of the paint in the mail, thanks for your patience! Note: I am uploading as I work on this doll- which is not every day! I will try to keeps posts coming at least once a week, but please be patient – this is something I do for fun.

ALL STEPS TO MY CUSTOM MONSTER HIGH TUTORIAL CAN BE FOUND UNDER #monster high tutorial

EDIT: Recently unrepentantly-weird​ and I opened our own shop. Check us out HERE and our blog HERE.

[selfiequeenmax]

Cheap Monster High Wig Tutorial

Here's a tutorial an easy/medium difficulty wig for CAM and other Monster High dolls based using this tutorial as a huge reference. So I would suggest taking a look at that first for better tips on making the wig cap.

Warning: This very image heavy.

I'm sorry this took so long and I'm even posting it on a different account.

Supplies I used: Mod Podge Jumbo Braiding 100% Kanekalon hair Paint brush approxiamtely 5" x 5" cotton or cotton mixed fabric (in a color similar to the hair you're using) Clear plastic film (aka saran wrap) Bobby pins Scissors Suggested supplies: Newspaper (for the ground if you have carpet because the hair will get eveeerywhere) Tape Measure/Ruler Alligator clips First thing is first, make the wig cap! I did mine mostly in strips because the first two times I could not get the half circles to work on the monster high doll. The head may be too small for this.  (See tutorial)

This diagram shows how I did mine. The circle represents the head from a top view. Sorta. The black strip is the middle strip and the blue ones are strips layered over the black at an angle. I suggest trying to make the horizontal pieces (in purple) that go in the front and the back. I didn't do them but I think it provides support for the shape. (Note: The diagram is nor accurate for size of strips.)

Let it dry overnight like the tutorial says. The next day you can start glueing the braiding hair. What I did was take a pack of the braiding hair, unfold it and then cut it in half. Use an alligator clips to keep both of these together. Then I would gather a small hank of hair and then fold that and cut it in half. I used bobby pins to hold the small hanks together. Even with this you'll have a lot of hair going every where.

(This is the length I used)

Start as the tutorial states. Trim the edge you are gluing to the wig cap to make things easier.

Try to use as little glue as possible, this will make things look better in the long run, for this first wig I failed at that some what. If you want you can try using a stickier glue. I struggled to get the hair to stay at times. I have no clue how using something like fabric tac would work instead. But remember fabric tac is water resistant, MOD PODGE is NOT. Do not use water anywhere near the glue. Fabric tac you can supposedly thin it with acetone but I haven't done it before. I suggest letting the glue dry some before moving on. I used a hair dryer to help decrease this time, otherwise it can be almost fifteen minutes before you can move on. Once it dries a bit you can press back down on the hair, as it'll be stickier and hold better. Glue will get all over you, and if you aren't carefully you can move the hair too much. Using the hair drier even on low will straighten the hair, if you don't want that to happen you can try it on cool.

Things start to become difficult as you reach the center top of the head and the forehead. I glued the bangs at slight angles in preparation for bangs.

Here is another diagram. The circle is the face, while the gray line is the hair line. I layered the bangs, one side first, then the next side on top of that and then again. So on until it looks full. This is when you'll want to try to use the least amount of glue. Try to do it in smaller pieces, and make sure it's on the drier side before you do the next layer.

This next part is harder to explain and do. I took chunk and glued it facing the wrong side so I could fold it over to create a part. Here's another diagram. Once again gray is the hair line. Blue is where you want the part. Green is the hair. Dry it quite a bit while it faces the wrong direction. You'll fold it over and use heat. This is the only part that you must use a blow dryer on, otherwise it won't fold.

What it looks like in practice.

Here's a second diagram for the next part.

 After this you can put a rubber band around the head to hold the hair in place while you finishing heating the part. You'll want to push the pieces down at points when it'll try to lift up a bit as it tries to dry. Once that is done, you're mostly finished!

Remove the wig from the head and take off the saran wrap. Try the wig on your doll. It'll probably be loose. That will improve. Take it off and flip it over. Now glue hair along the edges of the hair. The bangs should be glue at angles centered around the part.  Let it dry.

If you don't want to straighten the hair, you're basically finished! Just trim up the hair and you're done.

Other wise you can boil water and pour it  down the hair. FAR FAR AWAY FROM THE THE GLUE. If you used the blow dryer on heat, then likely the hair nearest the wig cap is already straight. If you didn't then you can do that before you pour the water on. I used an electric kettle to heat up the water and wooden tongs to hold it above the sink while pouring it. You can do this different ways. You can dip it in a pan but that has more risk of dropping it. Be safe no matter what. Let the hair dry, I let mine dry lying down but you can also rest it on the doll.

Cut it, and if you desire use the blow dryer to style it. You can try curling it by winding the hair around straws, pinning them with bobby pins and applying heat. Don't use too much. Just keep an eye on the fibers. The Result!

If you find that the wig is still too loose you can do what I'm planning on doing. Put the wig on your CAM monster high doll. Push a sewing pin (like the ones with the yellow heads or whatever) in through the top of the wig to the head hole all the way down. You might have try this several time before you get it. If you like how the wig is resting on the doll with the pin, then take the wig off. You can now take a bobby pin and use hot glue to glue it near the pin. Be sure to take out the sewing pin before it gets glue on it. Hold the bobby pin in place while it dries. This should allow the wig to lock into place. I tried it with normal sized bobby pins and it was the perfect size. If you don't have a cam doll, but a regular one without hair then you might have to try something else such as double-sided tape or sticky tak. If anyone has anything else to add to this process, like trying a different glue or fiber let me know the result! If you decide to use mohair just go with the process shown in the tutorial.

Hope this was useful! PS: And, remember I am in no way a professional (I'm a novice) and you shouldn't expect a high quality wig from this, just one for fun.

[bjdmods]

Fixing Monster High Legs-- Knees/Lower Legs.

Ohhhh 'kay. So while I was shirking everything and redressing my Monster High Draculaura, I came across quite the... situation. Shoes are a bitch to get off. Seriously, how these were designed for children is insane omg.

ANYWAYS I did some googling and research and came up bone dry for how to fix this issue, so I thought I'd do my own, short and easy how-to.

Here is the issue this post will be telling you how to fix:

This is for fixing the lower leg piece, where it snaps off at the knee, not restringing the upper leg.

Check it out below the cut.

I was lucky enough to have both pieces intact with neither the pin(knee/circle) or peg were damaged.

If they are damaged, you can contact Mattel and have them help you with replacement pieces.

Step 1: Take a moment to realize that this is not a Create-A-Monster set and the leg should not look like that or do that when taking off shoes.

Yup... Yup that's broken.

Good, now moving on.

Here you can see the pin and that it has a small seam in the center.

I figured what needed to happen is somehow pull apart this pin/hook enough to shove the peg of the other piece back in.

The best way I saw this was to use jewelry pliers.

The above are flat-nose pliers, however round and others will work just as well. As long as they're relatively small and tapered to a point.

Now unless you have four hands available or you're a Hindu god, it's a good idea to have your doll on something with good traction, like one of these rubber-grip things used to open pickle jars:

This is just a small suggestion since my desk is unnaturally smooth and I ended up accidentally tossing shit all over the room. Was like a freaking slip 'n silde.

So now that you got that, take those pliers I mentioned and lodge them through the pin like so:

With some finagling, you should be able to gently open the pin enough to shove the foot/lower leg piece back in.

Ultimately what will happen is you'll be able to get the peg between the pin enough to keep it open while you remove the pliers, and from there you shove the leg back into place with a small "click."

Unfortunately I didn't get pictures of this part since it requires such finagling, the entire process took maybe thirty seconds between getting the pin opened and shoving the leg piece back into place.

Tadaaaa~

Fiddling with the leg and try bending it a little to make sure it's all in place. Keep in mind that leg will be slightly looser than it was, but it's still plenty secure. And you now know how to fix it in case of future snags!

Good as new, if awkwardly posed. (Also just above her head you can see Leviathan! Yeah he's still being worked on, but unwanted illnesses have been getting the way.)

And now that you've fixed that, there is an easy way to avoid things like this happening in the future.

Take a cup of warm to hot tap water, and just let your MH soak their feet for a bit to loosen the shoes, making them easier to get off:

These blasted but gloriously fashionable culprits tore the legs off my CAM set next. (Luckily those are supposed to be able to come off, so it's no worries!)

It also should be noted that Mattel now makes their Monster High shoes with a softer type of plastic(these shoes are from a Wave 1 doll from 2010), making them in comparison MUCH easier, but this is still a good failsafe tactic if anything's a little snug.

I hope this helps someone, and I hope I was able to explain this well enough. If there are any questions, our ask box is always open!

~ R

[bjdmods]

Includes cleaning off default, removing hair, re-applying new face-ups, and re-rooting.