This page lists my 'CG Projects': everything I started and have not yet completed. Some projects already have a separate page, others get a (lengthy) progress report on this page.
Once I have picked a head I usually give the doll project a name as well, although sometimes I decide on a different name once the figure is complete.
Once a project has been completed it will be moved to its own page.
The body is already completed, all I still need to do is make her a 'Black Canary' costume but getting the bodice right sofar proved a bit tricky.
She already has her own page.
This cloned Barbie body was left over when I used its head for Denyse.
It happened to be the only body with a skin tone close to that of the tan Kayla/Lea head I wanted to use.
I wanted to change this bodies fixed neck joint into a CG-style ball jointed one and wanted to replace the tiny arched Barbie-style feet with larger ones.
I described the modifications on a separate page.
The replacement feet falling apart 'threw a spanner in the works', I am currently investigating how to make new matching feet.
One thing I looked at was replacing the feet with new feet sculpted out of epoxy clay (Apoxie Sculpt). There is a ratchet mechanism at the base of the ankle that relies on the foot to be flexible.
Feet out of epoxy clay won't be flexible at all so I looked into changing the ratchet mechanism by cutting a groove in the disc.
However during my experiments the rigid ankle mount inside one of the legs also broke, rendering the leg rather floppy. It looks like the plastic of the old Dragon body is well past its life span.
On top of that the top of the DIY neck post broke loose when I fitted the head, leaving it lodged inside the head. It took quite some effort to get it out again without damaging anything.
So things are getting from bad to worse with this bash...
As this bash was not going anywhere for over half a year, I decided to make some temporary stump boots so I could move Kayla from the projects box into my display cabinet.
Getting another similar body made me decide to move Kayla from this body to the new one.
Then this bodies torso joint broke and I had to disassemble Kayla for the repair.
Once repaired I decided not to put Kayla back on this body but use it for Tia instead.
This project remains listed here until I made Tia some lower legs.
Another tan cloned Barbie body, identical to the one I initially used for Kayla.
I got this body from Saffy who had repaired a broken left knee before.
The repair was done well but repeated glueing had caused the repaired leg to grow longer. Since I had the pair of legs I cut off from the body for Kayla in my spares box, I decided to replace the left knee and lower leg.
After repairing the leg, I shortened the neck and added a neck joint, similar to what I did before.
After modifying the neck I filled and glued any loose seams, filled all sink marks with CA glue, cleaned up all seams and glue spots and sanded and buffed the body.
I am also looking into replacing the feet with larger flat feet, preferably with articulated ankles, I plan to experiment on the left-over spare legs before cutting up the legs on the body.
Finally I plan to touch up the pink-ish wrist joints and elbow joints with some tan paint.
Polly-S PF-41 "Earth Yellow" is a good match for this skin tone but gets scratched off easily.
Some of the Barbie heads I bought are bald, including this 'LA Girl' head. I decided to see if I could use the same method and rooting pattern on a Barbie head as I used on the CG heads I (re)rooted before.
I also wanted to try a better method of rooting with interlocking plugs.
So I first peeled off the flocking on the side of this head (it could easily be scratched off using a fingernail) and wrapped the head in cling film to protect the face against smudges and damage from handling.
Then I decided on a rooting pattern and used a sharp 0.6mm drill bit to drill a pattern of holes in the scalp.
I planned to give her bangs so after taking the picture I did drill an additional row of holes in the front of the head for the bangs.
I picked red-auburn saran hair, I think she will look great as a redhead !
The rooting method I am using is a bit elaborate but the result is beautiful, even on the inside of the head where the interlocking plugs create a beautiful braid-like pattern.
What I am doing is using a pair of helper threads, one for the latest plug and one for the previous plug.
Using a needle I pull the loop of a folded helper thread from the neck hole through a hole in the top of the head, leaving the ends of the thread hanging out of the neck hole,
then I thread a plug of hair through the loop of the helper thread and pull the helper thread back into the head until the folded end of the plug comes out of the neck hole.
Then I thread the folded loop through the folded loop of the previous plug, remove the helper thread from the previous plug and pull the previous plug back into the head until it is taught.
I could probably pull the folded plugs through the head straight away using just a needle but then I have to thread all of the hairs of a plug through the eye of the needle and have to make sure to keep all of the hairs together once the folded plug sticks out of the neck hole.
The helper threads make it a bit easier IMHO at the cost of having to perform a few more steps, which is fine with me as I am not on a deadline anyway.
As I loop each plug around the previous one, I apply the hair in a spiral pattern, starting with the lower hair line on one side (in this case right hand) above the ear and ending with the parting line.
The parting line itself I root in a Z-shaped pattern.
This is what it looks like with only the parting line left to do:
Rooting the head completed, next step is a lot of 'hair play' as I need to weave both the parting line and the hair for the bangs.
For the bangs and the parting line I blended in some streaks of gold to make the hair really 'zing'.
Some nerdy facts: there are 73 plugs in the lower hairline, 34 more in the parting line and another 22 for the bangs, I did not count the holes/plugs in between those areas, but the total amount of hair used is 6 grams (i.e. less than half a hank).
This was a first indication that I had used not enough hair, it also shows a bit in the pictures: there is too much space between the rows of hair plugs, causing some bald spots to show up.
In the meantime I found a novel way of adding a few hair plugs explained in this YouTube video by 'A Thousand Splendid Dolls' : take a plug of hair, tie a knot in the middle of the plug and pull each end of the plug through an adjacent hole.
I do have to be very careful with drilling holes for additional plugs as a sharp drill will cause the loops of any plugs in its path to break...
Another body bash. This one was already started by its previous owner who combined parts of a BBI Perfect Body and a Twilight Magic body.
However the Twilight Magic hip joints require stringing, so I plan to replace the hip joints with leftover LM Slim body hip joints.
