#i've never made custom funkos before so it will turn out crap

[multiversemittens]

The topic of this week's Finnish class was hobbies and I somehow got into a discussion about how I'm making Hunter the Parenting custom Funko Pops.

[lusciakoushiro]

August Part 1

As I mentioned at the end of my last post, there were three projects that I wanted to get back to and perhaps finish;

The first was the first custom doll I attempted; Very Merri's streaming mascot, Lami. When I had first worked on her I was so excited to start that I didn't bother waiting for some of my materials to arrive. Now I'm not saying you need the best of the best to even attempt this kind of craft, but having something of a little quality will save you the headache and heartache. For those who might not know, in order to do a face up to remove the original paint with acetone. After that you could repaint the face with acrylics or build layers with water colored pencils. Seeing Dollightful build those layers I knew thats how I wanted to do it. I had ordered the same brand she had used and was awaiting them, but I was too impatient with my excitement that I opted to use the lesser ones I had, those being the Artist Loft brand. I did what I was supposed to; removed the paint, layer three layers of Mr. Super Clear and start, only the colors weren't building up at all. I had I think seven layers with nothing really showing before I said f it and went to my paints. I broke three out of four of my needles doing the reroot as well. Part of this project originally was to teach myself how to sew, but I just couldn't wrap my head around it and with where I was living at the time I had little space to work in. It was actually quite discouraging, so I gave up.

The next project was a sculpture of my friend's FFXIV character that I was trying to make for Christmas last year, using Nerdecrafter's Not Another Crap Kit. Now, I've never really worked with polymer clay, only air dry, so this was a challenge in of itself and I foolishly didn't bake it to save my progress and let it sit so at one point things just fell off. I fixed it, baked it this time and thought everything was okay, only to have it topple over one day and break so it once again needed repairs.

And the third I never actually touched, but have had the bade for four years and thats the DIY Funko. I always knew I wanted this to br FFXIV Lus, but I could never settle on the look. First it was my look from Stormblood, then I went DNC main in Shadowbringers and was gonna do that, only to fall in love with my BRD glam and go back to BRD main. I have multiple versions of Lus as the Miqo'te through my years of playing, but I realized that this was the perfect opportunity to make my Lalafell version that I fantasia into during October.

So with plans in motion I started to work on Lami, with the idea of flipping between her and the statue for my friend, but Lami took up a lot of space so I was unable to.

After doing Celes the way I did I didn't feel the need to force myself to sew and instead made a base for her to sit on and sculpt onto her.

I made an armature out of foil in the shape of a snake and glued Lami's legs together. Now I am telling you right now, this Disney princess doll was the worst base I could have chosen all because of those damn vinyl legs! Because of the weird flex they have, I had a hell of a time gluing them together.

Once the glue dried I painted her legs with multiple layers gesso and began to use my air dry clay to make the snake.

He's derpy and I love him. You cand see I also painted a wooden plaque to attach him to cause he was a little top heavy.

In this time I sadly had disaster strike... twice. Remember the chibi of Luscia I made on the BRD swing? Well somehow I managed to yank the jump ring through not only the plastic, but also the resin.

Not wanting to trash it I turned it into a standee using one of the test coasters from the Hythades standee as well as the botched flowers from the Lotura dome. And the other was sadly my Zack and Aerith snow dome.

This one had come out so well and I loved shaking it, so I was shocked to see the resin layer peeling off of Aerith. I managed to break the seal and drain the liquid only to find the situation was much worse. The resin had become bendy and I'm not really sure how or why, but I have seen two possibilities. The first thing I read said that ot might have bern too humid when I had applied the resin. I did dome Zack a day or so before Aerith so that could be why his doming was still in tact. He is leaning like Aerith which does lend to the humid theory since I attached them the same day I domed her. But let me flash forward to early November, now, I have no real reason to shake my Lotura dome since the micro glitter all but disintegrated and the stars just stick to things, but I for some reason I decided to pick it up and shake ut only to see my plastic piece of the characters wobble, so they too had a problem like the Zack and Aerith one. My Sheith one still stands like a rock and I attached it and the Lotura one the same day, so why?

Upon some more research the glycerin and the resin don't play well together. But if that was the case, wouldn't Zack and Lotura's doming peel off too? And what about the thicker resin pieces like the life stream or the flowers? Since I can't find a clear answer this put the plans I had for doing a Sheith giveaway for the domes on hold.

As saddened as I am to see my work crumble, I'm more fascinated as to why it happened. If anyone knows, please feel free to drop a comment.

Needless to say I didn't let that stop me from moving forward.