Finished Faceup

Parsley now has her face up finished and sealed. I may make changes to it later but for now I think she's looking pretty good :)

A Whole New Bod...

I got a wonderful surprise in the mail! The fantastic Lisa Sheppard (who I know from the official Makies fan group on Facebook) offered to send me the dress I'd picked for my Parsley if I'd been able to make her, and in the package was another body and wig so that she can have a "sister" I was just so flabbergasted, she's just been so wonderfully sweet and generous I don't know how to put it into words! Thank you so much Lisa, now I need to think of what this new girl should look like. Very excited!

More Makie Maxis

Parsley, still as yet unfinished, modeling a new Maxi dress. I'm finally satisfied with the pattern...

And here's a few pics of Beatrix in a little yellow number...

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and... no, just Parsley

This is Parsley...

She is the Makie doll I intended to make after Beatrix, someday, when I could afford it. But of course life has a way of interfering with one's plans and now that the company has vanished I had given up on making her. However a very nice person on the Official Makies Fangroup on Facebook was able to sell me both the body and the wig she would have had :D With these two things in hand I decided to make the head. *GASP* Yeah, I'm not sure it's such a good idea either, but the idea wouldn't leave me so of course I had to see it through till the end. I did used to sculpt doll heads out of polymers back in the day, though those were smaller, and I figured I could at least give it a shot. So here is my first ever attempt at a Makie head, based on what I wanted Parsley to look like, to the best of my ability. It's not finished by any means, she still needs some micro sanding and this is my first time working with watercolor pencils (she is not yet sealed) but it's been fun so far and I wanted to share what I'd done up till now...

Here she is partially through the sculpt...

And again, a little further along...

After I had a start to the face, to kind of see where her character was going and get attached to the idea, I began to fill in the back of the head with the idea of going back to finish the face after...

Building up the hollow of the head. I was surprised at just how few pictures of a bald Makie profile I could find on the internet (I wanted to get the shape a close as I could) though I did manage to find one....

Filling the head with thick coils to aide in the curing and cooling (this thing is was obviously going to be thick)....

And I'm more or less finished with the face. I intended her to have a bit of a wide face and this is even a bit wider than intended but since the polymer will shrink a bit and sanding will be needed I'm pretty pleased to call this good for the sculpt. Ah, almost forgot, the eyes are glass and heat safe, I ordered them from China....

Placement of the hole for connecting the head to body, I was so pleased the bod came with the ball joint for the neck, I wasn't sure if it would....

Baked and first sanding. With the piece being so large I knew there might be some browning if I wasn't careful. I set the temp lower than recommended and let it go for longer. Luckily the head cured and I got away with only a light bit of brown on the nose and one eyebrow, which was easily sanded off....

More sanding needed, and no face up yet, but I decided to set the head on the body to see how things were going, I made her a little green dress as close as I could do to the one she would have come with (she's currently borrowing Beatrix's shoes)....

And now her face with a bit of color, still unsealed yet....

And that's as far as I've gotten. hoping to make more improvements in the future.

A little something for fall....

Some cute little pics of Beatrix and her pup outside...

Click Chicks, Custom Mini Dolls on the Cheap

My husband and I were at the movie theater recently and in a surge of childhood nostalgia I decided to go check out the games and bubble gum/toy vending machines while we waited for our show. That's when I discovered these...

These little darlings are known as Click Chicks. And at fifty cents a piece, and sporting little bodies with big anime heads (remind you of anyone?) I couldn't pass them up. I bought two and quickly discovered the second one I bought didn't come with a body, so I bought a third.

They each come with a face, a body (um.... well one didn't), a colorful hairstyle (which also makes up the back of the head), a little snap on dress, and a small sheet of sticker decorations for the dress and head (little bows and the like) and some sticker eyes in case you don't like the original eyes and eyebrows the face comes with (they wash off easily enough). And here are my experimental endeavors to that end...

Ignore the eyes on the one on the right, they looked very cute on the sheet but not so great when I put them on her. I think these dolls are very clever, the stickers peel on and off easily and it seems if you have any sort of skills with tiny painting you might be able to paint faces on them if you wanted. I don't know how the plastic would stand up to low heat in an oven, but I'm tempted to take the extra face I've got and try it out, if it didn't change much one might be able to customize with polymers as well. I could see adding some polymers to the dresses or the hair for the purpose of adding texture. Even if you couldn't bake them I know some people in the Lego community who add polymers to some of their creations and set them with a hairdryer or heat gun. Overall they are cute and have quite a bit of potential, I may do some experimenting.

A Little Makie Maxi

I started work on a maxi dress pattern for my Makie girl Beatrix. I can't say i've perfected it yet but I have high hopes. Here's B in the prototype....