#upn the sky handycraft

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In his grip

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They were left in Sparta (Lysandra and Calliope OOAK, part 1)

Not a surprise post for these who standing by my doll making processes. (THANK YOU YALL)

Yes, I made them too. It was my cruel plan from the beginning. Because Kratos just can't be fully himself without his family and the first trilogy is a fullmetal prove of this statement. Kratos literally destroyed the world, where they're dead.

After preparing to write all of this, I found out that somehow I don't have a lot of photo of them.. (Is it canon or not??) I think I was really too busy with Kratos's armor and girls didn't try to drive me insane at the final stages, but oh well. I'll try to fill the gaps in process with my rants.

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Lysandra's head

As I said, I planned that from the very beginning. Lysandra's head arrived at the same package with Kratos's. Rare photo of these two BEFORE.

And her head was absolutely perfect (you can guess the actress!), It didn't even need an extreme resculpting like Kratos. I just remade her nosebridge to make her nose looks more greek, you know.

And that's the body I choose for her. Small bust, soft belly, strong wide hips. Spartan woman TM (Is it consider as a nudity content? There is would be plenty.)

God I was so glad that her head didn't need a lot of touch ups. (at the same time I was dying over Kratos's quirasse). Airbrush for laying a skincolor. Aquarellis and soft pastels for the face-up.

I wanted her to have a calm, but strong-willed expression as we can see at concept arts from Ascension. Looking at her in Ascension I am joking often in my head that Kratos married a female version of himself.

Okay, her face turned out pretty "ascensioned". But my goal is to keep in touch with the GOW1 design. I made her hair from the light brown wool, layering strands backwards (and as I remember correctly, in Hellada more beautiful than tow-heads were only red-heads..)

I really love and adore Lysandra. She feels so feminine, and she was the only one (before Ares) who kept a tight rein on her reckless husband. And, well, she is ready.

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Calliope's head

Girls didn't try to drive me insane. Think about this lie twice, my past-me. At the stage of preparation, I found out that I can't find a donor head and body for the 8 y/o child. And the problem was not in ages. It was in scaling. 1/6 is too big (Kratos and Lys are in this scale), 1/12 is too small, 1/8 has only adult faces, etc. Fffffffffffff, it turned out in need to ask saler to print me a custom sized head with childlike features. I chose this anime girl and resculpted eyes, nose and lover lip.

I wanted her to looks like Kratos, like his little copy, so I tried my best to make them look alike.

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Calliope's body What about the body? Welllll, I planned to use Penny's box body firstly, but after some time I gave up and agreed to myself that this body had proportions of a 1 or 2 y/o child even if I like hands and feet. Good for a chibi, but not for a regular girl.

According to concept arts, Calliope should be able to press her face to Lysandra's belly. And cause I am lazy and I didn't want to sculpt a whole body from zero, I bought an 1/12 adult action body for the base and started to make 1 frankenstein body from 2.

Firstly, I decided to remove all rubber skin from the jointed carcass. Secondly, I cut off forearms and calfs and replaced them with the ones from the Penny's box body. After that I sculpted the whole new torso, thickened arms and legs, but saved the movability of all joints. Joint in the neck is questionable, but it's visibility is not bothering me much.

OKay, size comparison looks promising.. Time for painting, I mean airbrushing.

For the base color I chose dark tan of the hands and feet and airbrushed both head and body with it. (Photos as usual shows what they wants). And I also painted the face with aquarellis and blushed her body with soft pastels. I knew, all of that work with pastels won't be visible under the clothes, but I am very pleased with the realistic vibe of the skin.

And you know what's next!

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Calliope's hair Calliope is the first and only doll in my GOW party who has actual hairstyle. Her hair are done in a very tight curls? Or braids? It is hard to understand, but it made my life very difficult! ᕕ( ᐛ ) ᕗ

I'll say it right now, after many tries I had left the hope to make her curly braids reversible. Her head is too small for that. And I didn't want to use hair spray for the wool, because it could make wool looks too greasy.. But I continue to think. And remembered one thing. You probably did it yourself, if you have long hair like me. I meanб if you hold a hairstrand with two hands and start to twist it in one way, in one moment it will curl into a double spiral right between your fingers.

After remembering that I just made the same thing with wool, sealing the result with curling iron, and glued these tight spirals it to the head.

Aaaand this is it. My poor eyes. (Lol it is Kratos on the gif, I haven't notice)

She turned out pretty good I'd say, really. They both did. But somehow the sealant I use for the doll face-ups gave an unexpected reaction on Calliope's face and after some time began to peel off slightly over her eyes. An uncritical thing, because it just made her pupils look foggy and I redraw her eyes right above it.

I just feel that I need to say some words in the end of the post to hint that I will show her face properly in the Part 2, where we're going to make clothes for them!

Stay tuned! And thank you for the comments and the tags under reposts! I read all of them and feel myself very inspired!

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Resentful whisper

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General Kratos (no-ashes OOAK, part 2)

What's going on here?

Part 1 - Head

Poor me, it's been a while. Lasted autumn was a hard time for me, but I tried to find time and strength to continue making this OOAK anyway.

Here could be a scream like" NEVER AGAIN!!", but it won't be here, because it is a lie, yeah? Yeah.

Of course I knew that making Kratos's Dominus armor is going to be difficult even with the experience I had with Ares (❤). And it was! Kratos's outfit turned out more layered, had more elements, more different textures. I am just afraid that photos can have a so-so quality, i am sorry..

Well, come on under the cut.

When I made Ares, I've already said that I wanted to be as close to the gow1 design as it possible. Not a simple task, there is only one cutscene in gow1, where you can see this armor's details closely, and also I found a couple of early concepts.

Dominus armor was also made as a custom skin for the gow3 and I used a couple of screenshots from there for the shin panels, but somehow gow3 variation of this outfit has a little different... mood.. I don't know. More bitchy vibe maybe?

Well, anyway everything starts with the cuirass.

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Cuirass

I decided to make a cuirass differently this time, taking into account that Kratos's torso should not be scratched anyhow while taking the armor on and off, because of his body art.

In some way his outfit is more realistic, I mean, at this screenshot you can see that he wears chiton under the armor. Bad news for the future-me, I thought then, but it solved a problem with scratches.

As we can see, his cuirass is a classic Lorica musculata, and I was going to made it the same way I made Ares's armor, using linen fabric and CVA glue. I wanted his cuirass be a single piece, wearing over the head, with fasteners on the sides, so I changed a pattern since the last time and started to glue.

After separating a base from the body, I started to sculpt a relief of the pectoral, abdominal and back muscles. I've had a couple of tries actually, because i needed to be sure that the relief won't crack during bending armor in shoulderstraps. After curing I sended a sculpt, put layer of a patch, and the base is ready.

Well it was an easy part. Here was a huge timeskip in real life, because I sat there and brainstormed how to make these "birds" over the chest. At screenshot you can see that their claws also forms a line of a diaphragm. An obvious option was just to sculpt these birds, but I was afraid of material cracking near the collar and armholes. So there was no other option, but to make these bas-reliefs also of the thick fabric.

Nothing scary, right? Just draw a bird, move the pattern, cut it and glue it over the cuirass.

After that I've just needed to seal all the edges with silky cord and paint everything with acrillic paints.

Oh, and sew hooks-fasteners.

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Skirt and belts

After the cuirass I went south. Because I was afraid of a rectangular piece of fabric, which could end my whole career. (I mean chiton... I wasn't ready for it. And then I still didn't have a right fabric for it.)

Okay, as a General Kratos doesn't wear pteruges, he wears skirt with two long plate belts with relief and some chain-mail piece. Same as Ares has, or I'd say, same as Freya has, yeah. Looks more like her chain-mail, also made from tiny round plates.

Skirt was an easy thing to do. I used a simple dark-brown leather with the silky golden cord over the edge.

Chain-mail is more interesting. Of course I could make my life difficult and make it by myself, but for such miniature when you can find an already perfect piece of material, it is much better. Small, weaved, metallic round plates.. with smooth surface.. I used earrings for this. Just torn them with plyers in a right way and painted with acryllics, and sewed to the skirt.

Long belts also needed to be made of metallic plates, but I sculpted them, glued to the knitted base for the realistic movability and painted also with the acryllics.

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Chiton and wraps (and bracers)

Okay, maybe one more little rant won't hurt anyone. Do you know what's the most wrecking thing you deal with while working with a rectangular pieces of fabric? You should find not only the right color, but a right feeling.

Maybe it is just me, but I think, when you make an ancient warrior doll, you can't use fabric which feels too.. modern, when you look at it or touch it. Even if Kratos was hm quite wealthy as a general, Spartans themselves were very ascetic people, they used simple fabrics with rough textures. But at the same time it should not be too rough to the body and it shouldn't be too thick, because it is underwear.

Long story short, muslin is my friend now. But sewing process is not my friend. How I am glad that all greek clothes is a differently sized rectangulars. I know I am not making chiton right, it should be wearing around the body and pierced over the shoulders. But you can't be absolutely realistic everytime. Besides, it is still an underwear, it's main goal is preventing scratches of the body.

Bracers were easy. Just a glued fabric again with the cotton cords at the edges and a schematic golden depictions of goddess Nika standing on the globe. (I discovered this today lol..).

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Sandals and shin panels

Muslin is still my friend here and sewing is not, because I needed to start with preparing wraps again, which covers legs from the toes to the knees. Hm, smart..

Design of the sandals and shin panels I took from the gow3 variant of this armor. I pretend that they are a single pieces too...

I've already had a good pair of the leather soles so I glued wraps to them and started to make a base for the shin panels. Same way I did them for Ares. Fasteners of the panels and sandals stripes are also from the cotton cords.

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And... Prepare your spirits, General is here.

Fuf. And this is it. Dominus armor is complete. But is this the end???????

No.

Because Kratos is not a whole person without the most important thing in his life. Yeah yeah, the reason this entire project took almost a year is because I was made Lysandra and Calliope at the same time with Kratos. And they are finished too at this moment. I'll try to write posts for both of them soon, but now, at the Christmas Eve I wish you have a good time with your families.

Merry Christmas, my dears, and Happy upcoming New Year!

See ya very very soon and thank you for watching.

[upn-the-sky]

General Kratos (no-ashes OOAK, part 1)

The headline is a spoiler itself, but whatever, because today is the day, when i finally can share the part of my latest work!

This is going to be my second custom of the action figure and long story short. When I had a first thought about having a tan-skinned human Kratos, I was blessed with rare enthusiasm, because we don't have any official figures of Kratos in his "golden ages" as a human and general of the Spartan army (WHY).

It would be easy just to repaint figure from mass production, but those figures are all post-vow-to-Ares. And we need to be canon. If we make Kratos from the timeline when his soul was still his, we make him fully-General!!

Why not to go under the cut to see how is it going?

Everything starts with the head as usual. I bought it last fall, I guess? You have no idea how hard it is to find a bald head with a beautiful scull. With the right proportions of the face to match the body and to match Ares. (They are going to stand together). All "action heads" are different and rarely interchangeable and I guess I used all my luck at this step, because things became so problematic after, that I nearly lost my mind. In a time I also bought a head of a nordic Kratos in a hope to make my life easier, and oh god it is giant even for a giand body I have.. This head now in my scrap.

Anyway. Let's look at our donor. Don't know who is this...

You probably think 'meh he doesn't look like Kratos' and you are right! But what do I have here? A KNIFE!

The plan was simple, I just needed to cut off his neck and face and re-sculpt this head entirely.

Step. By step. I cut and build again his eyes, eyebrows, nose, lips, chin, cheekbones, jawline, forehead, nape... until I started to see him. Hi~

Actually, you never can say, how the sculpt will show itself after painting. It is the most cruel and frustrating thing, you can like the result, but the face easily can play uno reverse card with you in the end. With those thoughts I made a new neck for him. Because default neck of the body I chose was too long and wide and has an absolutely useless point of artuculation. First try, second try, and after curing it still seemed a bit too long, so after passing some time I cut the bottom of the head a bit to set it deeper.

After finishing the sculpting I sended all and prepared everything for toning head and neck with the airbrush. Aaaand here my airbrush died. When I bought a new one with a normal compressor, I proceed. Somehow I repaint it 5 or 6 times in a row. God bless my "red stone" primer, really. Quick color match test! Nice?

Nice! Now we can finally paint his face and body. Really I have no idea how doll customizers uses pencils for such a small faces. How! Brushes and a liquid paint is the only option for me. And I am happy about improving my technique since I painted Ares! ❤

By the way, his scar is carved, you can feel it, it is just hard to see it at photo.

Oh gosh here I had a big exhalation, because sculpt didn't do a sucker punch to me, while it could. I didn't give him a too angry face for a yet-secret reasons, but wow.. he is.. so young. ?? and.. human-like It is easy to forget that there were time, when Kratos wasn't 200% done. It is so mind-wrecking. I.. it is hard to show at the pictures how much life and personality he actually has irl. I will gave you a better pictures next time, when I get used to him, I just see now how easily electric and natural lights and shadows change the perception of his face. But.. still wow.. He needed the last thing. His beard. Here could be a lot of curses, because it ate 3 days and 4 tries to glue and form it, but it won't be here! Let's just have a small laugh, because I used actual goat wool for his goatee. And we finally can assemble him!

What's next you ask?

I kinda have nothing to say except 'I am making his Dominus armor now 👺'.

Thank you for watching and commenting in tags if you did it when I made Ares doll, I love you guys

Stay tuned! Skeletor will return very soon!

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🔥

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Just a sneakpeak, Ares's armor is in process🧵🪡

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Give me God of War!! (Ares OOAK, Part 3)

What's going on here? IT'S FINAL

Part 1 - Head | Part 2 - Armor

Million years ago, somewhere near the New Year Eve, when my ooak Ares's armor was complete, I was like: "naaaaaaaaah, accessories will be easy to make". It was a huge underestimation of the situation, as it can be seen now.

I actually had no particular reasons to do it, I mean, his sword would be enough to feed my appetites, but I was like 'I am already decided to make his weapon anyway, why not to replicate attributes of his spider personality from his bossfight with Kratos??'

It was the time when I still had a smile on my face, because at that moment it were problems for the 'future me', and at the first week of January I was very excited about the new challenge. Let's see what we had here under the cut!

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Sword

I decided to start with the thing, which don't need to repeat the same process 6 times

Everything looks pretty understandable, if you decomposite such a simple weapon as a sword. You need to make a handle, you need to make a blade. Intricate design of the handle is required! But the blade sat me on a couch and made me think.

The first thing that you see, when you look at the 3D model, his sword is hecking huge. Like it is half of Ares's own height or maybe a little more and he should not just be able to hold it in his hand, but to stand with it. Doll specifics. You just can't make things heavy. (And I don't really use doll-stands for shelf storaging. I mean if your doll have her own legs, it should stand properly on them by herself.. maybe it is not very clever, who knows..)

Secondly, the blade is actually formed from a fire which flows from all four dog's mouths. If it is a fire, it should be slightly transparent, but have an orange color. And have a wavy relief.. But still be a physical blade. While I thought what material should I use, I made a handle. Ares, you are a dog person, we got it (I guess Cerberus is not safe from pets and playing with fireball every time Ares visits his uncle in the underworld)

After two failing attempts to make sword's blade from the hot glue and epoxy resin I decided to scare plastic with scissors. Actually it turned out very nice. Then I needed to save transparency of the plastic after coloring and make a flamy relief. And glue everything together, sticking fire flows to the dog's mouths. Like this!

It was faster then I thought. ___________

Spider legs

Okay, things became complicated here. First of all, I had a very important question for proforma.

Ares has only 6 insect legs. Is he a spider.... 🕷 or is he a scorpion? 🦂

Spoiler-not-spoiler, he is a spider 🕷 if you thought about it too. Because if we compare his beast anatomy with spider anatomy, we will see that Ares's human legs are the 'missing' 4th pair of "walking legs" (total: 8). And his arms are the palps (which spiders uses for stuffing mouth with food. Or doing palpation, lol).

Secondly, I was a naive summer child, I was like "I will do them in a couple of weeks. I even made a workpieces in one day! And a draft mount for them, which is going to be somehow installed on his back. I need just one or two weeks to finish everything, right??"

AFTER A 2 MONTHS of frustration I admitted to myself that I don't like.. everything about my first view of the finished piece. Put our naivety aside. There were critical points I thought:

Legs need more points of articulation.

They should have relief and blade-like fire tips. We will stay close to the concept art, but god dammit no more dog heads, I see them at the lower pair of legs, but we ignore they are here. It is just too much of dogs, we have plenty enough already.

Ares should be able to stand by himself with them. It means legs should be light-weighted despite their size, and they should be firm at the same time. And there is 6 of them, which means even a small weight will be x6 times multiplied.

We need to attach them to the back normally in the aggregate with the already existing armor and horizontal installing, maybe using an additional slings. Also we need to show how his spider legs distorted and broke his armor between his shoulder blades.

Modification should be removable, cause I want Ares 2 ways, in his own persona look and in his spidersona look.

This plan showed that there was actually a LOT of work to do.. And I decided, eh, let's make legs again with the new concept of articulation.. and a new back piece. Then we'll figure out where to go next..

A MONTH LATER, being very frustrated again, I suddenly found a perfect workpieces for the tips of the spider legs, group up and made an effort!! Sometimes in customizing you just need to find a right piece of plastic to push the project further.

Legs (before and after), back piece and intermediate assembly:

Quickly (before I lose a grip again!) increasing a thickness to the legs, creating a reliefs, and always remembering that I need to leave it as light as possible. Actually my brain creacked at this moment, gladly I could feel how close I am to the finish!

One more assembly before painting. By the way, each leg had an individual relief, like an individual fingerprint on each finger. Just a small detail, which i like a lot.

And it is fine! Two painted back pieces of armor, "normal" and "spider". Love, how wavy 'metal' looks, like his back under the armor was destroyed too. (His face had really painful expression when he grew them before the fight with Kratos. And there was blood on them)

And a final assemble! Turn on his music theme "Duel with Ares" and MEET HIM in his "beast form"

Oh, you forgot your sword, baby. Here you are. Are you happy now?

It is really difficult to make a good photos of him in action. For the more free posing he clearly need a stand, but, well, for the first time I have a lot of good photos.

It is ironic that making these accessories really needed a couple of weeks in total, but ate more months than a whole armor. And I am very proud that I finally finished this customizing progect. With all of my love to old GOW games I want to say that Ares is gorgeous, he deserves million art and fanfics, he taught me how to love character again, he...

He is not happy. Why? What do you mean I forgot the main "accessory"? We have NECA Kratos at home!, isn't it enough?...

....he said it is defenetely not enough, agressively clicking with chitin. Look at him, he feels so lonely without his perfect warrior... Looks like Skeletor will return with Kratos next time! %) because somehow Kratos IS already here, I mean his head and body... Was it my cruel plan from the beginning??

God help me Stay tuned, people

[upn-the-sky]

There is a price to pay for everything you gain

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Give me God of War!! (Ares OOAK, Part 2)

Just a reminder that there was Part 1 of this madness.

OKAY

I wanted to wait until I finish sword and spider legs before making a post, but there are three days after finishing the whole armor and I can't wait, I am screaming about Ares's supremacy.

Now I can say, it was hard. And the most hard thing was finding a balance. There are differences between Ares's 3D models from the different years, even in color palette. And I wanted to be as much close to the first game design as it possible. Some features were fully recreated from GOW1, some others I found more good at latest model from GOW3 and reworked them according to it. So at the end we have a good symbiosis I think.

Now let's a take a bow and look a bit closer at the mess under the cut.

Preparatory process

Until eyes are frightened, you can't do anything. To be honest I had no idea from where to start, the plan sounded like a "How to draw an owl" tutorial. Complexity of his armor scared me as hell, and after spending some time with drawings, where I tried to figure out a hook and loop system, which should attach parts to each other, I gave up and started to make his scaly iron belt, it felt more easier. YEAH.

Iron belt

You can see it at the screenshot. Well, one of the versions. Seems, it has no purpose beside decorative, I mean, maybe it can protect the groin, but eh, not really, honestly. At GOW3 model of dead Ares it became more detailed with round flower-like pendants and a little green jewel drops, but also it became golden as all metallic elements. I decided to make everything silver, but anyway, belt is very beautiful and I headcanon it is the same belt, which Ares gifted to his daughter Hippolyte in the past.

I weaponised myself with the smallest crochet hook and red thread and started to knit. WHY KNIT YOU ASK?? I don't know, it is easier for me than sewing all these scales %) Maybe they represents some fishy motives? (His connection with Aphrodite). Or serpent? (One of Ares's children, who was killed by Kadmus). Maybe green jewels is a hint to his mother Hera, because she loves emeralds. Who knows.

Scales, flowers, suns, glass drops.. If I were Ares, I'd present it to my beloved warrior daughter too.

Pteruges

As an example of the true manliness, Ares wears a skirt of course. He is not a barbarian, who hides his beautiful freckled thighs in the pants! How dare we to judge..

The easy part was to make a leather stripes and pierce them with the rivets (little nails, which I cut after this to left a head only). The hard part (which I had a chance to feel over and over again) was to figure out how to attach it to the body and hide all of the fasteners, and how to let stripes flow on his thighs and how the hell it should cover his.. godlike butt, I can't believe I wrote this.. %)

ANYWAY, A MONTH LATER I decided to make it a single piece with the iron belt, by creating a two-part wide leather base, attach knitted waistband to it, then join the each stripe to the separate piece of cloth to make them movable, then attach this cloth to the leather and sew some hooks. Aaaand the final result!

Cuirasse

I just say I literally hanged up myself with it. Here will be ranting...

Let's just think that it is not enough just to recreate appearence. In making 3D you can ignore some aspects like hidden straps and strings, which keeps armor conjoint on the human body. But how to make it wearable to the doll body, which is not soft and has a stable reliefs? How to make armor firm and shaped, but not completely firm, so it can be taken off from the body? Yes, my wish from the beginning was to make whole armor with a possibility to take it off and send nudes dress Ares in different outfit, which i will also make someday. How to make it light, so the doll can stand by itself? How to make it textured, to make it looks rough, to imitate metal or at least used condition? How to make metal parts without using a metal?

OKAY, WE NEED TO BE CANON - I thought and it was a day I decided to not invent armor, but use an experience of the hellenic people, who was smarter than me, I guesse. Because long time ago these people invented Linothorax - composite armor made of laminated linen fabric. ____

First of all, I splited Ares's cuirass to the segments: chest+collar segment, belly segment, spine segment, which emphasizes Ares's love to hunching over a little, and a waist-and-lower segment. Plus cuirasse has chained shoulder straps and side straps.

Well, when you have all elements, it is easier to imagine a complete piece. After that you just buy fabric, glue, chains, 27 hours for your day, new eyes, paint and other stuff. You wrap the body with the film and tape to protect it and start to glue. And here it is time for me to shut up, I know, you are here to watch a process, not to read an essay. I started from the front pieces of course. You imagine a pattern, you cut it, you glue it to hold the natural body forms as close as possible. Collar was formed right here. Gladly we can remove Ares's head when we want to do it...

Waist piece (eheh, spider butt (͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ) and first attempt to assemble the cuirasse. Here I literally lost my last brain cells and bravery, stopped the process and didn't make straps until the last week.

Anyway A MONTH LATER!!11 after the first assemble I started to sculp a relief of the reinforced chest and the metallic collar. Also we can check how's our decapitated dogs doing. Here you can see a belly piece of the cuirasse, which needed it's own dog decor. I was that meme boy with a knife, yeah..

Seemed they doing great! I felt that and decided to finish arm armor. Shoulder pads and bracers Thankfully making them requires the same process: cut a pattern, glue it, repeat for each arm. Here is close ups of the leather "feathers" pierced by rievets, chained bracers (I am very proud that I recreated it fully like at the Ares model. Bracers has no other strings and stays at arm only because of the chains) and shoulder pads as a base and as a complete, fully Cerbered piece. Actually this part wasn't really difficult, I've just delayed the inevitable.

Boots The first GOW novel says he weared sandals!!! Bloodstained SANDALS! But this novel was written much later, so we are making rocker boots. ᕕ(シ)ᕗ HEY!, we are laughing here, but Ares is smart, Ares don't want to break his toes by kicking someone's helmet! Maybe after having some experience %)))

Well, as I said in my previous posts, his boots was the most agressive part his armor. Heel and shoes toes should be firm, but sole should stay soft. Also the whole construction of the boots should looks monolite with the greavers which cover up the layers of the material above the ankles. Don't forget about the chains and double emotional damage, because there is two legs!

A little more damage as a person you receive, when you understand that you need to process each edge of each piece, because all armor pieces has visible layers. And only after that you can paint everything, draw Ares's assymetrical ornaments and dress him up.

That's how we reach the end. Here he is. O defence of Olympus, father of warlike Victory, ally of Themis, stern governor of the rebellious, leader of righteous men. Kratos's yes-homo partner and his personal most vieceful enemy.

Ares! God of war!

Thank you everyone for your patience while reading this duvet cover. See ya in Part 3, Skeletor will return soon with a sword, spider legs and normal photos. And stay tuned, I will post some portraits next time!

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Sneakpeak of the new "God of War" ooak

who can it be? 👀🦋

work in progress, huge post about the new heads will be soon.

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Ares's design and other stuff

Okay, I now feel myself very stupid, because I thought that Ares's refusal of the sandals in his GOW1 design is some strange fictional decision.

But seems like it is KINDA CANON??? In mythology Ares has Thracian origin (or at least he keeps favoritism towards this area of the Hellada). Thracia was the most nothern part of the Hellenic Greece, has very cold climat (and a huge influence by the celtic tribes). What i am getting at... Thracian peltasts commonly weared enclosed mid-calf fawn-skin boots named embades.

Ares is not strange, he just absorbs military culture.

(By the way, unlike the other civilized polises, Thracians considered tattooes as a sign of nobility. I wonder if Ares has one... if he has not, he probably absolutely loved Kratos's huge tattoo.)

(Oh, maaaaaybe he has no any tattoos, but that's the reason why he has some "body art" on his armor!).

(I think his mom Hera is just against of it lol)

(Ares is mama's boi, he won't tattoo himself against her wish even if he want to.)

(BTW-2, first Aphrodite's concept art from GOW3 shows that she has AN OMEGA TATTOO RIGHT ON HER FOREHEAD, which was enough to pisses Hera off for all eternity in sum with Ares's and Aphrodite's romance)

[upn-the-sky]

Thank you for explaining everything. I really appreciate it. Also don't worry, I completely understand that it's difficult to capture the colors perfectly because in GOW 1 Kratos mainly appears in darker lighting. However I have a lot of reference of Kratos's pre-ash skin, if you would like, I can send you some if it helps.

Btw you're right that colors can appear different because of lighting and camera quality. So I'm not mad or upset because I know you're trying your best. Anyway I hope you know that I'm not trying to be harsh. I just wanted to give feedback.

Hi again, Anon! I think I have enough references, but you can send it to the quick messages. Anyway I love pictures of Kratos! ❤️

[upn-the-sky]

hello!!!

you know.. I recently read the official God of war 1 novel and only fell more in love with Ares/Kratos, but I'm also amused by the fact that Athena loves Kratos. Do you think Ares himself knows about this? If so, how do you think she reacts to the feeling of falling in love with her "frigid bitch" sister?

By the way, more questions.. How long have you been making dolls? You're selling them at auction, right? if so, for about how much?

Hi, Anon and thank you for your ask! Welcome to my fort, where we love Ares and Ares/Kratos! Glad too see another fan of the novels! ❤️❤️❤️ >Do you think Ares himself knows about this? I think even if he knew, he didn't believe that it were true feelings. I think he doubted that she was able to feel anything close to affection at all. >If so, how do you think he reacts to the feeling of falling in love with his "frigid bitch" sister? Ares's reaction:

I think he classificated any closeness to his sister as a very stupid desicion to make. Especially when you are a mortal. ____________________________________

>How long have you been making dolls? Well, Ares was my first fully customized doll ever.. 👉👈 I've had big (70cm+) asian ball-jointed dolls since 2012, but my maximum in customizing during these 12 years was making wigs for them. I've never painted them or made clothes, I really did nothing except wigs. I don't know what have happened.. It was a regular day, when I was just "let's make Ares from scratch!" %) And here we are. >You're selling them at auction, right? There is nothing to sell, I mean as I said, I don't have any other dolls yet)))0))000))))00 And the ones I have will stay with me. (And I have never sold anything I've created before..) >if so, for about how much? You know I was wondered of how much money I've spent to make Ares.. In my approximate calculations, expendable materials and tools only ate ~300$... Plus, if you make it for selling, the "work process" itself costs something.. I don't know, will you buy a one of a kind doll of your favorite character for the spherical 500$? ahaha

[upn-the-sky]

I hope you don't mind my feedback but I noticed Kratos's action figure skin looks pale. I'm not sure if the lighting is making him look whiter then he appears but can you please make his skin color darker? I only request this because Kratos's original skin color in GOW 1 is brown or dark olive before the ashes.

Besides that I love your action figures and I think you did an amazing job! You're extremely talented and the way you make faces so detailed is impressive! Btw I just gave feedback because I just want you to improve but I'm not trying to attack or bully you.

That's how it looks if you recreate scene in the dark temple, using fire as the light sourse just like in the game. Tone looks pretty close to me..

Please understand that for the process I take photos only in a cold LED light or in the morning light, when white balance at its highest, because it is the only way to show small details of the painting. (Also we had no sun today, so pictures turned out colder and lighter). Otherwise photos will be bad, because my camera is not very good and "see" his skin very differently in a different light.

I am doing my best to be close to the original..