Name swap!

From the moment I purchased my 17inch Clawdeen Monster High doll I had been trying to think up what kind of character this doll would be. I was finding it hard to think up any ideas or get inspired. So I thought perhaps if I got all of her makeup off and tested some wigs something would surface. The initial result of this experiment, a bare face and wig of rolling locks, was that she looked so cute and sweet. Great! I've been wanting to use the name Lille for a character for a while and I thought it would be a wonderful fit... sort of.

 

On the other side of the doll story there was Luna, my EBL Samedi Marche Blythe. When I was going on a crazy Blythe purchasing spree I was working my brain to name all of my new girls. Samedi was the hardest one to name. You know when a doll's name will just come to you because of how she/he looks? Well, this little one's face kept giving me the "L" name vibe, but I could only think of Luna, Lulu, or Lele. I wasn't sold on those names, so I just gave up and chose what I thought was the best of the three; Luna. Deep down "Luna" still didn't feel right, but I didn't want to introduce her without a name! (What!? Naming dolls can be this big of a deal? YES! Character creation is serious business! Haha!) As time went on I needed to do something, and luckily I was able to come to a perfect solution!


Name swap!

 

I follow Lora_Arellano on Instagram as she is so inspiring and one awesome, talented lady! I was surfing my dashboard one day when I come across her spectacular posts! I instantly thought of my Clawdeen and who she would become. I loves the dark glassy brown eyes and the overall sultry look paired with body mods. Just seeing this gave me a bunch of other ideas for creating my doll's character and style. Woo! Inspiration!

Now that I had more of an idea what direction to take her in I knew for sure Lille would no longer work as a name. The revelation unfolded. Hey! You know what would work perfectly? Luna! But then what about my Samedi Marche...? I couldn't have dolls with the same name. (Why do I always run into this problem?) Wait! Durr! Name swap!

 Name swap!

You can stop with that now.

Ok sorry...

Now Luna is Lille and Lille is Luna and we can all celebrate! I am very excited to get Luna (Clawdeen) started in her transformation. I decided I would try doing an eye opening on her since she is more like a BJD and I am not familiar with painting 2D eyes on a vinyl doll. I'm not familiar with opening eyes on one either, but I seem to think that it go just fine... With my past two project turn-outs I don't know what to believe anymore. Haha. You live and you learn! Crossing fingers that I hope I will still have after I attempt this! See you soon!

Failures and lessons.

Everyone fails at something, sometime in their life. Maybe even a million time before a breakthrough occurs! There's one thing I struggle with and that is facing failure. Sometimes the thought of failing at something will stop me from even attempting it! That's why I haven't even tried working on the tons of Monster High and EverAfter High dolls I have! Other times I will have this delusional idea that I will be pretty good at something right off the bat, and start a project full force to later realize it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. And actually, I kind of suck!

Working on the Souldoll Asiter has proved to be that type of journey. I've carved Blythe before, I've done a tiny bit of apoxie modifications. I thought this would work out just fine! I was wrong! Over-carving, asymmetry, and ignorance have gotten the best of me. I cannot for the life of my get both sides of the face to match up (the liquid eyeliner curse!), and that's caused me to over-carve to where I can poke my x-acto right through the crease of the eyelid to the inside! I also thought that I didn't really need to look at references, I could just use my own mind and eyes. PSSSHAW! What do they know!?! So it looks like I must move back to adding more apoxie to build back up what I took away.

The lesson of this is that I must not give up! I am determined to make a beautiful and unique doll! I really want to get better at this because I enjoy the idea of creating something (character, creature, prop etc.) from an idea with my own two hands! I will take a break to look up more infomation about sculpture and in the meanwhile work on completing Evey, my Blythe doll. Which reminds me! I also have a 17" Monster High Clawdeen doll now! Maybe I can practice working on vinyl doll faceups with her first since she's so large! Wish me luck!