Blythe Customisation Part 4

Amelie is coming along nicely.  Yes that is going to be the name of my ice queen.  I named her after a character in a series of books I am reading.  In the book she is the Queen Vampire, sounds nasty but she isn't really.  I perceive her as being a character that will do anything she can to save those close to her.  Sometimes it means sacrifices of the heart and doing things that others disagree with.  In her world, in order to keep safe those that she loves, she has to keep them at arms length and hide her emotions.  Through all her trials, she is calm  and cool.  Hence she has earned the nickname Ice Queen buy those who do not understand her.  Anyway the name is the only thing this Blythe and the books character have in common. 

At the moment I am stitching on the hair.  Even with weft hair it is taking forever.  I am also having issues with her eye mechanism.  At first I put I put the mechanism together incorrectly.  Even referring to my photos that I took during the dismantling stage, I was unable to figure out what was wrong and why her eyes weren't changing.

Finally decided to google the eye mechanism and found the blog Blythelovesme with really good, clear images of the mechanism.  It helped me to realise what I had done wrong.  I do think I may have damaged it a little though as the eyes still don't quite want to work, even though everything is in the correct place.  They work once and then something slips.  Think I stretched the bit I had wrong.

Here she is in broad daylight (see she isn't a Vampire) with her eyes closed.  Her face is completely finished though I am wondering how I could gloss up her lips.

Due to having to pull her apart again I have a little damage to the make up.  I am not too worried about it though.  This one is not going to be for sale.  I am learning to always keep my first.  They are an inspiration and a good learning tool.

Dark blue eye chips

Light blue eye chips.  These were my favourite on their own but they tend to disappear in the amongst the blue makeup.

Purple eye chips

These silver eye chips are now my favourites

A close up of the dominates.

 Back to the hair now.  Oh I hope her eye mechanism works properly.



Running!!!

When I was in primary school I was always the last one chosen for anything involving running.  Being short and chunky and kinda looking like I would do a better job as an elephants foot didn't help.  It seems strange that now, at age 39 and much much heavier, that I get this sudden urge to run.  Not run away, just run. 

I have taken to running around the back yard for the last couple of nights.  Ok let me rephrase that, it is running for me, to the average person it is probably a fast walk.  In fact my dog barely gets to trotting speed as she "runs" beside me.  At least it gets me moving, puffing and sweating.  I can't do it continuously so I run a lap and then walk and so on.  I do it for about 20 minutes with short breaks to do some weights and give my legs a rest.

So what does my body think about this?  My mind imagines my feet would moving my body like it was as light as a feather.  Instead they move it like they are chained to gravity and it is too stubborn to let go. My lungs complain bitterly and can't believe that I would do such a thing.  They are joined by my lower back muscles, which, if personified, would be dole bludgers that never get off the couch.  Yet strangely enough, I am enjoying it.  Who would have thought!

Just a quick catch up with the Blythe doll customisation: eyelids are painted and new eyelashes are in; face make up is coming along nicely (or as nice as you can get if it's not airbrushed on); and the scalp is finally dry so I can start stitching the hair on this weekend.  If I get a little too freaked about cutting the hair, I might finally introduce myself to my neighbour, she is a hair dresser.  Hmmm I could with a haircut myself.  Photos soon.

Oh its Friday tomorrow!!  :)

Blythe Customisation Part 3

Who would have guessed that I would have time to sit and do some more on my Blythe doll today.  I suppose I can thank Transperth for that.  Due to an "incident" when it came time for me to get home, the trains weren't working. 

The train driver told us we were stuck at the platform and it may be quicker to walk.  Our stop was the next stop where we changed trains, so a friend and I decided to take the driver's advice.

Unbeknown to us, there was detours on the foot path which led a lot of us walkers to cross roads that normally don't get crossed by pedestrians let alone at peak hour traffic time.  It was a good 30 minute walk in the fresh air which really only delayed me getting home by 20 minutes - in the meantime, another friend who had elected to stay on the train, got home at her normal time.

All I can say is that with all the "incidences" of trains not working and some walking required, along with escalators not working and therefore needing the stairs, I must remember to thank transperth when I win the biggest weight loss of the year award.

Anyway it meant that when I got home I didn't really need to exercise because I had already done it, so I could sit down and have some fun.

Back to my Blythe doll - tonight I touched up the eye chips and glued them into the eyeballs (so proud of my eye chips).  I also sprayed the scalp with Mr Super Clear and then used a liquid chalk to add the colour I wanted.  I will spray it again once the chalk is dry.

For the eye makeup I have a specific design in mind so you are getting a sneak peak.  I started out with dry chalk and didn't like the density it gave.  It was too light in some areas and too dark in others.  It just wasn't going anywhere.  Eventually I made a stencil out of post it notes, stuck them to her face and then used the same liquid chalk I used on the scalp to add her eye makeup. 

Liquid chalk is supposed to be fast drying but today it was doing anything but.  I had a horrible feeling that it just wasn't going to work and thought I would have to hand paint instead (dreading bush streaks).  I eventually tried drying with the hairdryer and that seems to have worked.  YAY! :)  With the face though, I had sanded it so I didn't use Mr Super Clear on it.  I will spray it on once it is dry to help seal it.  By the way, the makeup looks a lot more shinier in this photo than it does in real life.  It is actually quite matt.

I almost forgot, I have carved a smile into her mouth as well. 

If the scalp has finished drying by tomorrow, I may just have to start stitching the hair.  OMG I am getting sooooo excited about how she will turn out.  It may be a while before I photograph her in full finished beauty as I am waiting for Awsumgal to find the pattern she designed for one of her beauties. 

Blythe Customisation Part 2

When I decided I was going to customise, I had no idea that you could paint your own eyec chips.  In fact I had purchased 4 pairs of eye chips ready to go.  They were the closest I could find to the colours that I wanted. Ignore the dust and flakes - I scanned them.

It wasn't until I did some blog surfing on Blythe customisation that I came across an information regarding Amy.  Amy creates the most gorgeous eyechips and I hope one day that I can get somewhere close to her skill.  Below is my first try.  A bit dodgy but I am proud of how they turned out.  The scanner shows up the imperfections, which is a good thing because I can see now where I need to touch up and clean up.  The first pair are purple; then medium blue; dark blue; and grey/silver.  Really need to do something about the pupils in the greay/silver ones.

I also started on carving the mouth into a smile.  I found another tool today that may work better so I will give it a go.  It is kinda of like a circular point nail file with a sharp point.  Found it in with the screw driver set.

Next step is to colour the scalp.  I am thinking of using liquid chalk followed by a matt spray called Mr Superclear (according to my research this spray is great for anything to do with dolls).  Anyway I can only try.  If it doesn't work then I will try something else.  Might not be able to do any more till the weekend though so stay tuned.  My little ice princess is slowly forming.

Blythe Customisation Part 1

I finally have enough supplies to start on customising my Blythe doll.  I purchased her as she is: naked, pale and really tatty hair (this is the brushed version).  I have no idea what she was originally but I am hoping to make her into a beauty.

Thanks to the lovely inspiration and information from Awusmgal I have finally got my mojo to get started.  You should go check out her blog.  She does so much wonderful stuff with dolls.

Also on surfing the net I found out about Kate.  She also does customisation.  She has the most gorgeous hand painted eye chips.  You can see them at her Estsy Store here.  I had already purchased new eye chips before I found out that you could buy clear ones and paint them.

I have purchased most of my tools and supplies from Cool Cat.  You can also find them on ebay.  Most of the tutorials on how to customise I am getting from the Puchi Collective.  They are very helpful.  They also have free patterns for clothes as well.

 

 

Opening up the head was relatively easy.  There are screw at the back that need to come out and then I used a teeny tiny flat screw driver to open her from the sides.  The head is in three sections: front, back and scalp.  The scalp section is screwed to the front (inside and hidden) but I think this girl had a screw loose, because the scalp section fell off without any help from me.

This view is from the top with the front and back pieces held together.  The eye piece needed to come out which meant using a screwdriver (with tape on it to prevent damaging) to push the entire eye section out.  By this I mean the eyeballs and the eyelids.  The instructions I read said that a lot of force would be necessary and to try and expand the head sides out by squeezing the chin and the forehead.  Well that just didn't work for me.  In the end I got a towed and used it to help push the sharper edges of the sides out, while I manipulate the screwdriver in and under the eye. It kinda of look like something out of a horror movie with the screw driver going through the eye socket.

I eventually got there and ended up with her head finally in pieces.  Unfortunately there was more to come with the eyes.  I had to remove the eyeballs.  Each eyeball has four eye chips that also need removing (I hated the original colours).

This is a different angle of the eye mechanism.  You can see the eyelids.  Between the eyelids is a white clip that needed to be removed.  It took some convincing but I got it there.  Once this was removed I could take all the final pieces apart.

I didn't get photos, but to removed the eye chips, I soaked the eyeballs in warm soapy water for 30 minutes.  I then got the glue stick from my glue gun, heated one end on a candle, and then stuck it to an eye chip.  After five minutes waiting for it to cool, I was able to twist and pull and viol la - one eye chip removed.

Now we come to the scalp.  There are two sections to the scalp: a soft rubber section the hair is stitched on and a hard scull dome.  There are different types of scalps and apparent the one I have is the one the Puchi Collective really haven't given a tutorial on.  Apparently I have a Radiant Blythe scalp.  The soft rubber section of the scalp ans three wide fingers that slip into three grooves on the dome.  In my photo below you can see where I have managed to pull out one of the fingers and half started on another.  These were actually glued in place in small sections so I had to use a fine craft knife to saw it away from the edge.  Consequently there are a few rough edges.  I also had to use the small screw driver to help lever it out.  Even without the glue there was a real hold on the soft scalp.  Unfortunately there was no option for tape on the screw driver this time so there are a few war wounds.  Luckily this section will be hidden.

Finally the soft scalp was removed.  Removal of all that hair came next.  Let me tell you I am itchy all over and I am sure all of it went in the bin.

Next I think I will try and paint some eye chips and see how they go.  I also have to paint the top of the soft scalp to match the colour of the hair I will be adding.  At the moment it is a hideous dark ash blonde colour which will not go well with the light blue/grey hair I have for her.

I am also going to try my hand at carving a smile in her mouth and also angle the eyes a bit.  I wouldn't recommend this for anyone else's first one but I have had experience in carving wood, clay, and soft concrete.

Will post more later.  Right now I need a shower to wash of the invisible doll hair.