Back to the Drawing board

The bracers didn't come out at all well from using the clay. The neck piece came out fine. It held true to shape and didn't really stick to the top of the doll or anything after it dried. The clay cracked in one spot as it dried. Apparently, when the clay dries, it shrinks and so you end up with the cracking. In order to fix it, I filled the crack with clay and allowed it to dry again. I have to sand it down now that it's dry, and seal and paint it, but I'm going to call it a success at least for the neck piece.

I'm going to have to rethink my strategy somewhat on the arm bracers. I think they need to be able to be taken off and put back on--so I'm going to have to come up with a way to do that. also the pieces need to be able to essentially snug when put on, yet easily removed. To that end I'm going to go off the beaten path. I've got an idea. I'll need:

1. pipe cleaners
2. glue
   
3. silicone calk/seal--preferably the white kind
4. Pigment
5. jewel bobble--green.

basically, the idea is that I'm going to cut the pipe cleaners to size so that they wrap around the doll's arm basically they form a skeleton of the arm bracer. once it's to the right size and shape to fit her arm, I'll glue them side by side. I'll let them sit until the glue dries--hopefully I can find some glue that will work and still stay flexible. I'm going to try fabric glue and see how that does.

Once the skeleton is finished and the glue is dried, I plan to paint the skeleton with a coating of silicone caulking material after it's been tied. Light coating after light coating on each side and it should end up being flexible and close to the right color for the project. After I let it dry--then I should be able to bend them around the arm. the silicone won't slide up or down and the bracers can be removed and put back because they are flexible. This is speculation right now, but we'll see how this turns out.

Next up --Nightwing!

The Next figure that I'm actually going to work on is Nightwing. Actually--for those of you who don't know, Nightwing is Robin as he's older. The original Robin chose this new identity when he wanted to assert his independence from the Batman. Batman had actually started training a new Robin and wanted the persona back. So Dick Grayson chose this one. I'm going with the Teen Titans cartoon verson because quite frankly I think his look is kick ass!

Starfire's Neckpiece

I worked on Starfire's neckpiece and arm braces today. I had to find an alternative to Shapelock because it's not that easy to work with unless you have a pre-existing mold. This time I tried something a little different. We're going with air-dry clay because it's much easier to shape and work with and you don't have to bake it in order for it to dry out and harden. Ordinarily--I would try to buy a piece that I could use-but there just didn't seem to be anything that came close to matching my needs.

Here's a closeup on the neckpiece:


This is just the shaping. After the clay dries tomorrow--I'll have to sand it and put the final shapings on it. Have to apologize for the quality of the picture--I only had my cellphone right there.

And here are her arm bracers:

After they dry, I'll have to go back and sand and paint them the right colors. Stay Tuned.

My Second Project--Raven of the Teen Titans

Now you see above the second member of the Teen Titans being done. This is Raven--my daughter's favorite Teen Titan. Actually, her costume was less work than Starfire's but the cape is in need of some reworking--so I'm tackling that right now. Her's is pretty simple--or so you would think. Try finding a one piece black unitard for a 1/6 size doll. The only company that makes a one piece unitard for 1/6 obitsu dolls is Azone international. Unfortunately for me--they don't retail directly to the United States. I found their clothing on Amazon.com Japan--but they don't ship here. Can't find it on Ebay either. They make some more expensive equivalents, but I refuse to pay $30 bucks for one.











So being the enterprising doll fashionista that I am, I went looking. For three weeks. Almost all my free moments. Until I happed upon a gentleman selling this on ebay. It isn't exactly what I wanted, but it's the right color and it's a one piece bodysuit. It was also $4.99 on ebay, and the guy shipped two from the UK without charging me extra for shipping the second one.Trouble is it has pants. It also is not skin tight or stretchy. It ended up looking like a work jumpsuit of the future rather than a form fitting heroine's costume. So I had to make some modifications.









This was not easy. I had to actually turn the outfit inside out, and sew the adjustments while it's on the doll. This required a whole lot of patience. I tightened it around the midsection, and at the shoulders so that it would fit tightly on the doll. I almost couldn't get the outfit back on it when I finished sewing it, but I managed it without breaking any of the seems. Hooray for me.

You can see the finished result.

My first doll project. Starfire of the Teen Titans.

Now just to catch up everyone--the project is to create a customized set of Teen Titans Dolls for my daughter. I purchased two Obitsu 27cm bodies on Ebay, with heads. The doll essentially comes as you see here--headless. There are some different sizes-- 21cm, 23cm, 27cm, 60cm, and the new 50cm sizes. I picked the 27cm because they seemed to be the most prevelant, and have a wide array of clothing available. Since this is really my first project, I have to make sure that I keep it simple.

Now to be fair, I feel I should show you what this doll is being created to replace. You can see to the right the $4.99 doll. This one is broken--the head came off. I fixed it temporarily by using a small drillbit with my fingers to bore out a hole in the head and body, and using the top of a ballpoint pen to stick in both ends, glued together like a dowl rod.

It's not fully poseable. But this doll believe it or not retails for $59.00 or more on ebay because it's a collector's item. Now originally, I bought the two dolls because I was going to make two sets. Now that I see the kind of work that you have to put into it, I believe it's a little more prudent to make one set and then work out doing another set somewhere down the line. I'd like to eventually get rid of all the unused barbies, too and replace it with the obitsu's made to order.

Now you can see here that this is the costume for that same doll and what it looks like in comparison to the plastic original. My daughter and I selected the fabric, and I have spent a few weeks doing to sewing to make the basic parts of her outfit. Nothing is purchased on this particular doll outfit. It's completely hand sewn. It's a good first effort, and my daughter seems to like it--but right now it does not look like Starfire at all. This is because the doll the clothing is fitted on is only my working model--but you try to explain that to an 8 year old! LOL.

No longer aimless

I took a long time to get back to writing anything in here. Most of it spent writing in an analog journal of sorts and going through a lot of hard things. My wife and I are divorced now, and I suppose that's for the best. Actually, I don't really suppose its for the best, but that's the way that it is. I'm dealing with it, though not as well as I would like. I've taken to finding ways to keep my mind off things, which don't really seem to be working very well. It works for a little while, but then I get that pang in my stomach and it's back to square one.

So what am I doing now? I'm making dolls for starters. Never thought I would end up doing that, but I am. This all started because I was looking for a stupid replacement for a 3.5" Raven Teen Titans action figure. Thank God that she likes them, and isn't into Bratz. As a matter of fact, I didn't buy her any Bratz because I thought the message that it put out was not one I would want for a little girls and I'm glad she didn't raise hell about it. So when she latched onto the Teen Titans I was ecstatic--because it was something we can get into together and I actually read that comic as a boy so she Marvels at my knowledge of the team and their history. When the toys came out, you could not find the Raven and Starfire action figures because apparently Bandai didn't think that anyone would want girl action figures. It took me six months to find them the first time when the show was on and they were actually making the toys.

So now that the show is off the air and they aren't making any more of the toys-- you'd think the demand went down. WRONG! a $6.99 toy now costs $59.75 on Ebay or Amazon.com. $32.00 if you buy a used one. But you go down the girls toy aisle and you can find a gaggle of these mindlessly materialistic dolls. You can get one with a cell phone, even one with a credit card. But you can't find a superhero one, or any kind of adventure doll of any significance. It's killing me!. I am officially expressing my frustration with the toy industry over dumbing down it's toys for girls.

So I started looking for a suitable replacement and we'd always talked about making our own dolls. At first it was just a pipe dream, but I did an internet search looking for some generic action figures. I stumbled upon Obitsu. Obitsu is part of a very popular Japanese dollmaking hobby crowd. It's all custom. You start with the body, choose a head and hairstyle--whether or not you want to use eye decals, or cut holes and put in custom acrylic eyes, then the clothing. It's really fascinating. The dolls themselves are pretty inexpensive--$15.00 basically for a body if you find them on ebay. The heads usually come with them, or you can order them separately. I'm doing eye decals for this first batch of dolls. If I get good at this, then I might try the next group with cutting out the eyes. The fun part is the challenge of getting the doll to closely resemble what you're trying to emulate. As of right now, I've sewn the Starfire costume and Raven costume. Raven's costume was actually modified from a bodysuit I bought off ebay. I cut out the legs and made it into a unitard like hers. It wasn't form fitting--so I had to make it that way with a few adjustments. I'll post some pictures later of the results so you can judge for yourselves how it came out.

I spent today mapping out my next Walking excursion. 4.8 Miles--from here to the Schoolboard office and back. It's the only route that I could find that's entirely on the sidewalk. I refuse to get run over trying to walk streets with no sidewalks on them. If I walk to the schoolboard and back, I should be burning off like almost 700 calories. I was walking nightly before I moved out, but then the winter came and I didn't now it seems hard to get up the gumption to get back out there, but I'm determined to do it. It should take 1 hour and 36 minutes, according to google. I'm going to give it a try Saturday evening and see how I fare. If I can do it without killing myself, I've resolved to make it part of my daily routine again. Before winter, I was looking like two pounds a week. I hope to get back to that, and we'll see where I'm at by the end of the summer.