#doll kitbashing

[pandorkful-dolls]

Making a Ramus doll now lol

The victims: Drew Carey body from the mid-late 90's and a Devilock Char Aznable body from the mid 00's. (Idk why my phone camera makes the Devilock body look so much more yellow than Drew's body, they are slightly different shades but not by that much lol)

Man I love it when dolls and action figures are held together with screws. :3 Makes hybriding sooo much quicker when I don't have to saw off the bits I wanna use.

I took this pic mainly because I was amused that Devilock put some kind of wax in the tummy joint for added friction/stability. I mean honestly there are worse options! Whatever works XD

The hips had screws, but they seemed to also be glued together. No prob, I like the Devilock butt better anyway, so I'm just gonna trim Drew's butt off and stick his torso on top of the Devilock hips.

Armssssss. I shaved a slant into Drew's shoulder holes as evenly as possible and greenstuff puttied the Devilock shoulder joint pegs in place. (It's a sloppy job don't look too close XD but I managed to preserve as much shoulder articulation as I possibly could with the tools I had on hand.)

Test fit...

More greenstuff and he's all stuck together! \o/

As you might be able to tell from the leg stance, I came up against a small issue with actually joining Drew's belly to Char's hips: both bodies were made before 3d sculpting and printing was a common part of toy engineering, so they're not perfectly symmetrical and have little quirks and imperfections from the master mold having been made off of handsculpted pieces. (One of those quirks is Char's legs seem to be slightly different lengths, and his buttcheeks are two different sizes. XD)

So I prioritized lining up the front over the back...

Eh, so it goes. I can live with it.

Next I need to find where I stowed all my little sample sized jam and honey jars so I can mix up some acetone goop to smooth the transition and cover the greenstuff. :3c

Then I gotta find a head to mod into Ramus, or start sculpting one from scratch...

Ahahahaha. The dangerous part of konmari-ing stuff but not getting it out of your life fast enough; I pulled both these bodies from my destash bins. ^^;; I pulled a couple more for other Lunar character dolls at the same time, actually.... >:3c

[cryptic-forge]

my partner wanted a goth noodle -> my partner got a goth noodle.

the spine is from here. i think it was one of the first test prints we did after getting a 3d printer, and has been floating around my project boxes ever since to be used for something. happened to be the perfect size to work for this noodle, without sacrificing a lot of flexibility since it's an articulated fidget toy. some of the ribs have cracked over time, but i don't really mind.

i had just enough quilt batting to finish this project, and i think i'll chill a little while before buying more. making wire&fur dolls is fun, but i'll take a second to enjoy the luxury of not having bits of hair and feathers everywhere.

[x3no9]

Second set of photos. My first Makarov kitbash! :)

[just-someone-online]

Currently obsessed with the idea of Precure owning each others merch. idk, just the thought of Saki and Mai having charms of each others Cure forms on their bags or Kotoha having Miracle and Magical hair pins is really appealing to me.

and of course, you've got the sillier interactions

Rin: What will it take to get you to stop wearing the Cure Rouge jacket for one day?

Nozomi, who's been wearing it for a month straight and only takes it off to wash it: *points at Kurumi* She has to wear something else too.

Kurumi, decked out in all kinds of Cure Aqua merch: Absolutely not.

[furanetio]

It's compatible. Huh.

MEGALOMARIA Ghillie and the Past in Sicily dolls have the same sized neck peg so it's a perfect fit.

Well. Guess I can make that USS Nimitz gijinka.

[wild-aspen]

It's really interesting to me...

I'm currently getting into two related but distinct online crafting communities.

The first are folks who make miniature models of things, usually nerdy things, often through using model-building techniques and kitbashing and trashbashing. The painting techniques I see the artists use remind me most of what I learned when I was beginning to paint Gundam models and TTRPG miniatures, which includes base layers, flat color layers, airbrushing, dark washes, drybrushing, and aging effects. I see a lot of use of foam, interesting pieces of trash, popsicle sticks, and polymer clays. There's also sometimes resin pours for water effects. When there are characters made, stages are often designed.

The other community are custom doll makers. Priming is still an important step, though the materials used for priming are usually different. Also, these artists usually use colored pencils for detail work and only use paint for certain things. The other main coloring tool are crushed pastels that are dusted onto the dolls. I see air-dry clay used here much more often than polymer clay. Some artists really get into designing elaborate stages for the dolls. These builds can also include resin for underwater effects. Also, depending on the artist, there may be clothing involved, but not all of them do clothed dolls.

What's fascinating to me is the very different techniques used for coloring the models. The folks making the miniature models and characters use almost exclusively paints; the doll makers use almost exclusively colored pencils and pastels (with many layers of a matte sealant between layers).

I'd like to get involved in some kind of crafting once I get to my new job and get all settled in. I wonder how cross-compatible some of these techniques are. I'd imagine the dark washes, weathering, and drybrushing techniques could be applied to dolls. Of course, the whole purpose of those techniques is to create very textured surfaces, which perhaps is not desirable to some of the doll artists, who might prefer a softer look.

[starfallsoup]

little guy corner. look at my tiny son in progress he is only one days old and has not a thought in his head

[renkorama]

Weird Ohs- Mama B Chassis

Part 2!

Getting into the paint details also used apoxy to give her sharper finger!

adding her shirt! I sanded the exposed area and glued the piece on with rubber cement, the overall shape was improvised, but I'm happy with how it turned out!

[cryptic-forge]

on the one hand i love robots, on the other i'm a very organic sculptor, hate modeling hard surfaces and am not that good at mechanical greebling. so sometimes i have to sit on the floor & play with legos.

i sculpted the face, but otherwise this robot is made of various toy parts, beads, and headphone cords. i used a lot of bionicle bits, because bionicle is just about the only type of robot that is easy to find in thrift stores. i was also able to use bionicle joints for all major points of articulation, and they're a joy with the way they bend in all directions and hold poses. most of this is Illegal Bionicle, though, with a lot of cutting and gluing involved.

[x3no9]

Finally got part one of my reboot Makarov kitbash done. Not happy with how red the skin on the face is though. I had to wing it with the body for now until I find the right one. I have tattooed planned for him but the skin tone doesn’t match yet.

[furanetio]

A bit out of scale but he still looks okay.

I love Mao's face plate.

[carapacewreckage]

oh my gosh she's so gorgeous! this is some wonderful work

Heyy! Building shit! The kit is Power Dolls 2 PLD X-4+(PD-802) from Plum, plus gear from both weapon kits, as well as a whole huggy bunch of aftermarket decals.

[rukafais]

i understand the struggle of "i can't draw how do i visualize this OC" and its like, okay, picrews and dollmakers have limited options (and are often limited by the artist's imagination). Heroforge perhaps not your style. You're broke as hell, so commissioning someone or finding someone who can do it on the cheap is hard. Certainly it's hard to find someone to just Do It For Free and that's a huge imposition. And learning to draw is [come back in ten to fifteen years lol]

What is also an option that I think has fallen out of fashion as programs have gotten more advanced but is still legitimate, though:

Kitbashing and editing sprites.

"but i can't draw" you don't need to. Get your hands on those game assets and edit them with your 1-px pencil or paintbuckets or whatever. Recolour them. Smash them together like dolls. You can do it in MS Paint or the program of your choice. If you want something more focused on pixel art (and still free) there's graphicsgale. Embrace the dots.

[the-aviarys-models]

Had this idea in our head for a little while, and the new Hero Forge booth tools came at the perfect time to test them out! Linda Monroe, but inspired by Mother Mary.

I find Wiggly's imitation of the birth of Jesus to be really interesting, so naturally that would make Linda the Mary figure of this religion, and I feel like it's a really interesting way to take her character. I also love how she dons a black cape to match the robes of black that the Lords are known for :) Genuinely I've always loved Linda as a character. She's such a bitch but in such an entertaining way. My favorite line from her is definitely "I hope you don't get a Wiggly. I hope you fucking die."

Bonus Wiggly Doll link. Proportions might not be the same as in Linda's model but idc it's close enough. I ended up using a lot of kitbash slots on the doll without really thinking about the consequences, so I had only four slots to make Linda's halo and ended up trying a few different approaches before settling on the one wrapped in tentacles that we have here.

[renkorama]

Weird-Ohs - Mama B Chassis

My first kit!

Plunging into a new hobby! Gonna try my best to document and share.

Found Mama at a local used toy shop on a high shelf and really dug her vibe! Her face sculpt and hair are so fantastic!

Admired the box art for a couple months before deciding to actually assemble her. Got right into painting her with no prep, which is a typical pattern when I make art. I gotta make a shitty attempt in order to appreciate the patience it takes to make a good attempt!

annnnd I got bored when it was time to paint the car lol.

A couple more months pass, I decide it’s time to do it FOR REAL! This time with PLANNING!

I come up with a whole new look for her (and the car). Good a time as any to mention that I don’t rly have much painting or sculpting experience, but I’m excited to learn! (Also her shirt is gonna be blue fur!)

First step was to remove the paint and add new embellishments with 2 part epoxy

Then got into painting her with actual nce paint and not the stuf from the 90s she came with. I'm particularly fond of the hair color!

Already a HUGE improvement over my first attempt. More to come in an additional post!