Sculpting: Arm and hands

A few progress pics from the other night. It's an arm, I swear! It doesn't look like much, but it will. ^~ The parts need refining of course, and once I make the wrist and elbow joint pieces, everything will actually fit together. ^~

Also, some pics of the left hand. My goal was to make something like a "writing hand"... like it was holding a pen, only a bit more stylized since that's what I like to do. I like how it came out (save for the fact that it still needs smoothing and fixing, the index finger broke off and I haven't added more sculpey over the glue). But I'll probably make a different hand as well, since this one is quite intricate and might cause problems in casting.

Dollie Resolutions for 2012

After the newest several members of my BJD family arrived in fairly quick succession, I am a bit overwhelmed with dolls! Who knew such a thing could happen? ^_~ So I resolve that this year, I shall not buy anyone new, but instead spend time and attention and lovin's on the ones I have. There are still several on "The List", but they shall have to wait! Oh right, and also I have to pay for a vacation (yay!), car repairs - or a new car (booo!),  house repairs (laaame!), and moldmaking and casting supplies.

My three floating heads (Orwell, Whisper, and Len) will have to float for a little while longer. I can live with it, see above. Poor boys! At least they're in a nice cushion-y box. :) I probably won't say no if someone offers me a work trade for one of the bodies I need though.

But yeah - you'd think not knowing where to put your dolls would be a good problem to have, but I need room! ^^; The past two years have been pretty crazy as far as acquiring new BJD faces. I've also done a good job selling those I wasn't 100% sure about. My current crew, I love them all dearly and I hope we never have to part. ♥ Except occasionally when some of them go to visit their boyfriends at my wifu's houses. :) I'm such a terribly wet doll owner. u_u The only ones I'm not all that deeply attached to are my Tinies, since they don't really have characters or storylines. But they are so CUTE, and they really embody that "doll" aspect for me.

So this year, my boys are getting spoiled. Rain and Darryn need new eyes (upgrading to urethane), the Tinies need new faceups (except Kitten, his is new)... Rain could use a new faceup, too, and chibi!Setoo. And Aki needs clothes, the poor boy still hasn't really found a style. I think it will be nice to take time to pay attention to each and every one of them. :) Hopefully Yuki will get a second pair of shoes *lol*. Silly giant SID feet. Ry somehow ends up with new clothes on a fairly regular basis anyway, my capricious little boy.

So yeah... I just hope and pray that no magical LE's show up this year that will break my heart not to have! Cause I can't buy them! ^~

Gravity Body ~ working on arms

On the right arm, to be precise. As with the torso, I made a core/base out of air-dry clay - in the case of the arms, the clay is molded around a dowel. Then I use Sculpey to build up on top of the clay. The first few layers look like nothing much except lumpy sticks... but the upper arm at least is slowly morphing into something that resembles an arm! Yey! I'll have to fine-tune the anatomy later.

Not sure yet if the shoulder hole/opening is going to stay like this, that's something I'll have to fiddle around with when I have the torso done and see how it works with string.

As mentioned before I like to cure my Sculpey by boiling it in hot water... which, I have found out, is fine for solid Sculpey, but if you have a core made of air-dry clay, there are only so many times you can boil it before that clay melts. XDD The core for the upper arm held up very well until the third boil, then it had a bit of a crisis. But nothing that wasn't fixable - if anything, the clay is now better molded together with the Sculpey. I was able to preserve the hole by re-inserting the dowel.

So I thought hey, maybe I should try baking the pieces instead? And thus I found out that 15 minutes in the toaster oven is TOO LONG. OTL Luckily, the upper arm is only slightly charred. The forearm was just the first layer of the lumpy-stick stage, so no loss there. Still, it's pretty lolzy. ^^;;;

Gravity Body ~ hands!

The hands were actually the first thing I sculpted. I just really wanted to make something new, and it went pretty well so I was encouraged to keep going. ^_^ This is the right hand, I'll post pics of the left hand soon.

This is how I usually cure my Sculpey, by boiling it in a pot of water. I could use the oven, but for a hand that kinda seemed like overkill? Plus I really wanted the control over it, didn't want to risk it charring. 'Cause I'm good at that. We'll get to that later. XD

Gravity Line boy body - starting on the core

This is how it all started... I'm copy/pasting this from the entry I made on the AngelToast facebook page:

So, working on that body! More specifically, working on the core. I'm making the core out of air-dry clay wrapped around rolled-up bubble wrap - the plan is to do the finer sculpting on top with Sculpey, we'll see how that develops. Making a core is a lot of work... I'm feeling impatient, and would love to sculpt it all! But I need to do it in pieces, so I can smooth out the inside of the core really well while I can still get at it. Once the inside is smooth all the way through, it'll go much faster - I hope! ^~

Sparrow has ears!

Little Sparrow is very close to being done... or rather, to the point where I have to make myself stop fiddling with her and let her be. She still needs some smoothing out around her eyes where I sanded a lot after already putting primer on her.

I will buy a new batch of silicone and resin soon - I am really looking forward to seeing Sparrow in resin, even more so than my other heads. I have a lot of issues with her, and she probably won't be for sale more than once... but I do want to finish her happy little face. ^^;