adafriend

[adafriend]

Olive the otter got a revamped outfit too!

[adafriend]

Sewing 1890s Day Dress in Doll Scale

I went slightly overboard with this second historical doll project. Here's my first one. The style is from around 1897 and more of a middle class style. As with my first doll outfit, I tried to stick to historical methods as much as possible, but the scale forced me to do some deviations. I hand-sew everything though sewing machine was already widely used, because in this scale it's easier to control the stitch, there's not that much to sew anyway and also I just really like hand-sewing. Here's all the items I made. As said, I went a little overboard. One thing that's missing is the corset cover, but the layers of fabric were creating enough bulk on the waist as is so I decided to not make one.

This time I decided to try repainting the face. I don't have any doll customization materials, so I used acrylics. After couple of attempts I got decent results. Acrylics can't make as smooth and delicate finish as pastels, pencils and gouache, which can be used on vinyl with basing sprays, and I'm not experienced with painting small details on 3D objects, so it's a bit smudged at points, especially with the other eye. I aimed for 1890s very neutral make up and the type of expression that was popular in fashion plates and other illustrations.

Undergarments

Combinations and stockings

The combinations are split crotch as they were in the period. They are from thin cotton voile I have a lot of and is very appropriate. I didn't have really tiny enough lace for this, so it's kinda bulky, but I think it's okay enough. The stockings are cotton knit, which fits well. The garters are not actually necessary for this doll since her legs are rubbery.

Corset

I made the corset from a firm-ish linen and satin rayon pretending to be silk as the fashion fabric. The stitching of the boning channels is not super neat, this fabric is very unforgiving, I didn't have exactly matching thread and the scale made it very difficult. I of course didn't have tiny busk, so I used small hooks, sewed thread loops for them and used narrow metal wire for the edges. I think it looks surprisingly right on the outside. I used the same wire as the boning to reinforce the lacing on the back. I didn't actually use boning elsewhere but the tightly packed linen edges in the boning channels kinda work like lighter boning. I think it keeps the shape pretty ways even with just that. I stitched cotton tape inside to shape the corset further. I also didn't have tiny metal eyelets so I hand-sewed the lacing holes.

Bustle pad

The bustle pad is from linen and stuffed with tiny cabbage.

Petticoat

The petticoat is from the same cotton as the combinations.

Outer wear

Skirt

The fabric is cotton half-panama. It's pretty thin, but firm. I would have liked to use a woven wool, but I didn't have any that's thin enough to work in this scale. I think this cotton looks close enough in this scale to a wool with a tight weave, so I'm imagining it's that. My problem was that the cotton was white, but I wanted light brown. I wasn't going to buy any fabric for this, so I did the reasonable thing and dyed it with red onion peals (I've been doing natural dye experiments so this worked well for me).

Shirtwaist

The shirtwaist is from the same cotton as the undergarments. Yes, I dyed it too. I didn't have thin enough cotton in a color that would fit with the skirt and the purple bow, so I dyed it light blue with fabric color. Since I already went the trouble of dyeing I decided I might as well make a small flower print to it since that was popular in the era. I didn't want it to jump out too much but the lighting makes it even less visible. I made it with a white fabric pen. The collar and cuffs are reinforced with linen. I also sewed small stick-like beads to the cuffs on both sides, so one acts as a button (I sewed a buttonhole too) and the other makes it look like they are cufflinks. The bow is from the same fabric as the corset and the belt is sewn from the same cotton as the shirtwaist. The buckle is from a barbie belt.

Waistcoat

The waistcoat is from the same fabric as the skirt, thought the lapels and the back are from another satin rayon. I tailored the front panels and the lapels by stitching the linen interlining with tailor's stitches (I don't remember if that's the correct word in English) into shape. There is some wonkiness on one side of the hemline for some reason.

Boots

I made the slightly insane decision to make the shoes fully from leather, like they would have been in the period. I had an old broken leather wallet I had saved in case I needed some leather scarps. It has fairly thin leather, so it was workable here. It's light brown though, so I used black shoe polish to darken it. I wanted black or very dark brown shoes. I stacked the heels from glue and leather pieces and carved them into the right shape and sewed the shoe itself to leather shaped as the sole and glued it to the heeled and shaped sole. After I had shaped the shoes and the heels as much as I could I painted the heels black.

[adafriend]

My Grey Twigling Gamine in new Bustier I sewed. Really pleased with this gorgeous doll

#LegitBJD #ArtifexKindred #TwiglingGamine #BallJointedDoll #BJDsewing #BJD https://www.instagram.com/p/CTIuETVpUhL/?utm_medium=tumblr

[adafriend]

人魚姫　Den lille Havfrue

doll making & design：宇野亞喜良 AQUIRAX / akira UNO

1967

#illustration #宇野 亜喜良 #AQUIRAX #akira UNO #japan #宇野 亞喜良 #art #宇野亜喜良 #宇野亞喜良

[adafriend]

Playtime with dolls, 1931. From the Budapest Municipal Photography Company archive.

[adafriend]

little lamb

ooak art doll

[adafriend]

Shenanigans have occured.

[adafriend]

my first fully complete custom!! (and also like the third i've started but let's not talk about that...). i redid her eyes, brows, darkened her lips, and added lashes! it doesn't look super great close up (especially if you're looking at them from below), but i learned a lot and i love her! i also did little detail repaints on her various accessories like i do with a lot of my dolls. she's wearing toralei's skirt and hiss's collar as an ankle bracelet because i wanted to introduce more red to her palate (if you couldn't tell from her eyeshadow)

"before" photos and details under the cut :)

when i got my neon frights ghoulia, her head was a little deformed, her hairline was (and still is) really uneven, and her faceup was pretty wonky and misplaced, so she was a perfect candidate for customizing. even though her hairline is uneven, i LOVE her blue hair and her cute little pigtails, so I left it. yes, i'm ocd and wish it was even, but people aren't symmetric either and i need to remember that.

here's what she looked like before! it's kind of hard to capture how wonky it looked in person because (my brain at least) tries to compensate for it in a photo, assuming it's just a bad angle, but no it was that bad if not worse lol. rip the minecraft eyeshadow but i like the green eyes a lot better

and for posterity, i technically started this custom december 3rd.... that's when i removed her faceup anyway. i fell off dolls for a while because life got busy and i definitely need to get back to it because this was so much fun!! there are little things i wish i could fix/had done better, but i had a blast with it and that's what's most important, especially for a doll like this that wasn't perfect to begin with

now to finally finish off rum :) i have been working on her concurrently with ghoulia, she just needs a lot more mods between the hair and the body painting

[adafriend]

27/31 amigurumay | Clever detail

A clever little detail I learned to use in my amigurumi is embroidery.  While making birds I found out a lot of them have subtle gradation of colors in their feathers, something that's very hard to do while crocheting.  You either make one stitch grey, or the next one white, there is no in between.  Well, that was until I taught myself how to embroider.  Now I can make what looks like the white tipped feathers of an african grey, or the complex feathers of a green-cheek conure, just by embroidering!

Pattern: African Grey and Green-cheek conure by me @mevvsan (link to my shop in bio)

Yarn: Epic by @yarnandcolors

[adafriend]

LPS Custom #8: Centipede Alien Cat Inspired by the album cover for Stranded by Red Vox.

Done for the alien toy custom collaboration hosted by dolly_lolly_playtime on Instagram! ( #aliencustom23 )

This was one of my most complex repaints and sculpts yet! The design is inspired off of one of my favorite space themed songs, Stranded by Red Vox. Since the collab was alien themed, I thought it would be perfect to incorporate it as a motif. I also thought centipedes would help give the main design a unique look. (aaannnd the cat portion of the design is just because I only have shorthair bases left lol.)

I've actually made a "making-of" video for this custom this time! you can view the video below! https://youtu.be/sTc3RJpIFBQ

[adafriend]

I usually don’t share blank dolls but this one is just too cool and different

It’s a collaboration between Forest Doll and an artist I think is called Kazehara Ibara? I think the sculpt name is 小耗.

I wasn’t quite expecting it to be so huge! Usually super stylized dolls like this are closer to 1/6 size 😳

[adafriend]

Vintage Barbie “Belle” dress done, and Miss Seventeen is simply smashing as always. I doubt she wears this plain cotton with an ounce less grandeur than she would purest silk after all.

She’s one of those dolls that inspires me to sew a lot, my very favorite kind of doll. I have a sneaking suspicion about the body on her. I think it’s an exact scaled down dress form. Even drafted clothes fit her almost precisely right off the bat. This is a HUGE departure from BJD bodies which feel way more organic. Miss Seventeen is like … mathematically calculated.

When I was in school I used a dress form from the 50’s (in 2011! … it was a poor school) and it was the same, things drafted using the standard methods straight from the book just FIT. That never ever happens with a real human body, or any BJD I’ve worked with so far either.

I believe this doll’s body was made purposefully to hang clothes off of. This clicks with me MAJORLY.

I went to the local fabric store to see about silks, and they had a ton as usual. All brilliant and beautiful! They didn’t have the emerald green I envisioned, but as I was standing there I realized that any one of those colors would look fabulous on Miss Seventeen. After that revelation I wandered the store and every single fabric seemed perfect for something or another to sew for her. I managed to escape with only a zipper, but if I hadn’t had that thrift relapse earlier this week I would certainly have walked out of there with a MOUNTAIN of potential Miss Seventeen wardrobes. I might need to go back for my birthday.

I need to name this doll.

[adafriend]

False Face, a very rare g1 pony (?) with no clear manufacturing origin that is theorized by some to be a possibly malignant extraterrestrial presence who tries to blend in with toys for unknown ends . I think she is nice though. they pop up on ebay very rarely from sellers who are quickly deleted afterword, but thats really not unusual theres like a thousand ebay accounts that do the same thing w counterfeit postage stamps

[adafriend]

[adafriend]

Sweater Girl was made in Japan presumably in an era when the oldest Barbie faces were still the thing to imitate. I've been calling her Chie as a call to her origin and era. She still needs to have her legs set in a non curving sort of direction and I would really like to either give her a bun or polish this ponytail situation (she's only rooted at the hairline) but for now she's in something that vibes with her sweater.

[adafriend]

more carol

truly love this doll so much

(blythe clone doll made by Winn Dixie in 2009, customized by me- more info here )

[adafriend]

So this is rather ad hoc and not remotely the project I meant to work on today, but after seeing that post from @dollsorwhatever about her recent 'Blyth' acquisition I started to get nostalgic for the Fake Blythe Wars of 2001--which is to say, that period when it seemed like every doll company on the planet was desperate to ride the coattails of the Kenner Blythe renaissance. Many tried, really only one survived, but the doll market was irrevocably changed. We're still seeing the effects today in the form of lines like Decora Girlz, and...basically every doll MGA has ever made. But in the beginning there were the few, the great, the largely forgotten--Little Big Eyes, and (slightly less forgotten) Diva Starz. Both tried to capture that Blythe mystique, both largely failed, but they still managed to create some pretty adorable dolls in the process. I must admit I've neglected these girls rather badly, but now that all the old gang is coming out of storage, it's only right that they should take their place on display again.

L: Little Big Eyes; these dolls didn't have individual names, I called her Violet. Only thing original on her is her denim jacket, the rest is mostly Barbie. Boil perm curls still holding strong after 20+ years.

R: Fashion Diva Starz Miranda, from the glow-in-the-dark line. TBH I don't remember much about Diva Starz other than that they shared the shelves at TRU with other dolls I found more interesting. In retrospect I wish I'd given them a bit more attention.

L: Modern knockoff Blyth, easy to find if you know where to look. Mostly just here to look pretty and show what her predecessors aspired to. I do have an *actual* Blythe, but she's still in storage and probably too fancy to hang out with these femmes anyway--

R: Pullip Bouquet, working on her Weird Barbie vibes. Knows she's the the only true success story in this lineup, but staying pretty chill about it.