Dollzone Discussion ~ 60 and 70cm ~ Part VIII

I made some new eyes for Fei-Lau today and I'm quite pleased with the way they turned out. He's wearing a new-ish wig, too, but I'm not entirely happy with it and he doesn't like it either *sigh*. It's an Iple wig and the wefts were very visible at the front of the wig which is why I sewed the snowflake buttons on it to hide/disguise that.

Fei-Lau, God of Winter Storms by ID Locke, on Flickr

 

I love the eyes! Too bad about the wig though, the buttons are a nice touch.

 

@SteamWitch Thank you. I've been having quite a bit of fun making eyes although there is a bit of a learning curve to it. The only downside is that I now have waaaaaay more eyes than I could ever use. I intend to buy Fei-Lau a new wig. it's on my ever-growing to-do list.

 

@Iron_Dog - Those eyes turned out fantastic! What materials did you use? Bummer about the wig though.

 

@Quiet and Insane UV resin for the base and clear parts, nail polish for the background colour (because acrylic paint really doesn't like to stick to the UV resin in my frustrated experience), glitter of several colours and sizes, shredded mylar and nail gems. It's a bit difficult to see in the photo, but the gold part of his eyes are actually snowflakes with dark purple gems in the center. These eyes have 4 layers of stuff to them before I domed them.

I made a pair of eyes for Kulfi (Impl Ziv) at the same time and they turned out awesome but because his eyes are almost closed, you can't really see anything *laughs*. Even in person, unless you're right right up under his nose and angle him juuuuust right, you can then see a thin sliver of his eyes. Kulfi's eyes, because they're smaller than Fei-Lau's and have less depth to the iris well, have 3 layers of stuff to them before doming.

 

@Iron_Dog those eyes are phenomenal!
Just out of curiosity, how old is Fei-Lau now? You've had him as long as I can remember (he was one of the first dolls I found really striking when I was a newbie) and he's aged to such a lovely mellow ivory color

 

@Girrl Thank you. His previous eyes were quite nice and totally fine but when I got the wheel of nail gems and there were 2 different styles of snowflakes in it, I had to make some eyes for him using those snowflakes.

I'm a touch embarrassed to say I don't remember off-hand when I purchased Fei-Lau. But! I remembered something in my email from a friend that had dates for when I'd gotten dolls and Fei-Lau arrived to me on May 9, 2013 according to that. So he's closing in on 7 years old. He is a lovely ivory shade now. I kinda wish he was still the snow white as when I got him as he is the God of Winter Storms, but all resin mellows over time. He's also spent the majority of his time in his box (chronic lack of display space and a cat that steals wigs make this a thing in my house) so the mellowing is completely even, which I'm glad about.

 

@Iron_Dog - Oh nice, nice! I've been making eyes using glass irises and oven-bake clay for the eyeballs themselves, which has worked well so far, but I've been dying to try making resin eyes.

 

@Quiet and Insane I'm using UV resin for the most part. It's much less fuss and quicker than the typical 2-part resin. The eye bases cure in about 4 minutes with a UV lamp. I bought all supplies off Amazon except for the silicone eye mould which was an Etsy purchase.

I've also made eyes out of hot glitter glue (it's a little tricky to do these without air bubbles) and eyes that are a combo of UV nail polish and high temp hot glue (I "paint" the outer base with the UV nail polish, cure that, then fill the shell with hot glue before demoulding).

I have purchased white, black and clear UV resin and I personally find that I like the clear resin best and turn the sclera the colour I need with a small drop of acrylic paint. As I mentioned, you will go through supplies pretty quick in the beginning because of the learning curve involved in doing something new. But once you figure out what works best for you, you're off to the races.

 

@Iron_Dog - Sounds like fun! I really should give it a go by the sounds of things. I like the tip about coloured sclera. I have a couple of dolls needing funky eyeballs (Salmarnir and Azrael mainly) and they'd be perfect to use as test subjects.

 

@Quiet and Insane No problem. Glad to help. And you really don't need a lot of acrylic paint to tint/colour the sclera. I swirl a toothpick in the paint and then mix that amount on the toothpick with the clear resin (stir slowly/gently or you'll cause the dreaded air bubbles). If you add too much paint, the resin won't set right and that really is enough to tint the resin for even a large pair of eyes.

For mixing/pouring purposes, I use a large diameter straw like you get at MacDonalds/Burger King and an artist palette I bought at the Dollar Store. I'll cut the straw into pieces about 1.5" long and then cut the piece into two length-wise. It forms a scoop/stir stick that's just the right size for dripping the resin into the eye moulds (slow and steady is your watch word here). You can also form a mixing cup with aluminum foil if you want to be completely wash-up free as even for 16mm eyes you're using about 3/4 teaspoon of resin.

I'll fill the mould about half-way and using a toothpick with a pointy end, gently "stir" the resin, running the point of the toothpick along the line of the iris/sclera as that's where bubbles/voids love to happen. Pass a flame over the half-poured base to pop any bubbles and continue pouring. Pass a flame again once the mould is filled and cure. Gently de-mould and you're ready to start the fun part of eye making.

 

Glad to see you and Fei-Lau again, @Iron_Dog

Silfe will be nine this year, and Talon will be 5. Talon's gotcha day is tomorrow, but I'm not sure when Silfe's anniversary is... I should have kept some sort of record, but I didn't. In any case, I'm coming up on a decade in the hobby this memorial day, which kind of freaks me out!

 

I'm going on 12 years in the hobby this October. Moswen (AoD Chi) turns 12 then, too, and I can honestly say that I can't see any difference in the colour of his tan resin. Tohan (AoD Min) is also tan and from the same time as Moswen (yea free head events!) and they're both the same colour with no difference I can pick out.

After all this time in the hobby, I'm now at 64 dolls from 5cm to 70cm and that kinda startles me and makes me wonder how that happened. If you'd asked me when I first got started if I ever thought I'd have more than 6, I'd have laughed hysterically and said not a hope in hell. If you'd asked if I'd have SD's, I'd have said no because they're "too big" and no tinies because they're "too small". I own 31 SD's, 14 MSD's and 19 tinies now and all my more recent purchases have been SD's. I guess you never can say never in this hobby. Dolls seem to have a way of... happening in my experience.

 

ah so i've stopped back by again, i did a bad thing and am waiting for Apsara. then, i saw a newer comment from BJDivas that now DZ will make other heads for that body eventually. i thought he was very appealing though, so i'm glad i did it. it will be interesting to see how it looks with a variety of heads. I will try this weekend to get out everyone for some pictures as promised comparing SD sized DZ (B70-003) and DC (a-body-02, a-body-03, a-body-06).

 

@Iron_Dog - Thank you for the tips! I'll save that info for future reference.

@Redfaery - Time really flies doesn't it? Azrael is going to be 6 next week! How did that happen? Where'd the time go?

 

I took some pics of Talon for his gotcha day on Sunday. He was very miffed I didn't give him a party, but I ordered him a VERY fancy wig from Stacy's Pink Ocean, so there is that...

 

Ooh a fancy wig is a lovely gift.
I should get Azrael some nice new shirts. His sixth anniversary was today! I took some photos, however my phone's being a bit shoddy with syncing, so I'll post them tomorrow.

 

sorry for the delay, natural lighting has been terrible and i finally figured out a place to get a decent pic. But, i finally did the photo with all my bigger boys, maybe it's helpful. there's a peach DC next to some other resin choices too. DC & DZ share resin casting right? Leslie's a B70-003. i can't wait to add Apsara to the line up. I think he will be just a smidge bigger than Cyril, and the B70-004 will be in-between the Universe & 5th Motif body sizes if my spreadsheet is good haha. finally made one i can use for comparing.

It was sort of surprising how small the A-body-06 looks - more like a 60 class, and how tiny the hands that came with him are. one broke in shipping so he is rocking a big ol' skeleton AOD hand, rawr don't mind us... the B70-003 body is shorter, but needs a larger head to look natural.

There's a few floating heads for fun in there too. Cyril is vintage, i like his buttery tone though, he is aging gracefully. gosh i've got a lot of blushing to do... if i should put this somewhere else, just let me know. i did share it on the hybrid thread since we had some similar discussion there.

Spoiler: 70cm-ish DCx3-DZ-5thM-Universe

 

@Grimalkin - That's a great comparison shot! The Timeless' shoulders are so broad compared to the b70-003!

And as promised (but very late because I utterly forgot), Azrael:

IMG20200123171518 by Liz, on Flickr

 

Gorgeous photo of Azrael, Quiet and Insane! His gaze is so intense!