It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of videogames. I'm actually taking a brief pause from hoarding gold in Diablo III to post this >_>. The Last of Us from Naughty Dog absolutely captured my heart. Then it stomped on it, set it on fire, and then tossed it in a pile of excrement. I don't think I've ever seen a game that was quite so completely, unbearably awful to its characters. Tragedies aside, it's one of the greatest (and most terrifying) stories ever told.
I've been talking about creating a custom Clicker and Ellie custom Monster High set for months and I finally got the kick in the pants to proceed thanks to watching Feral Works' breathtaking progress on her Clicker mask.
Sculpting to the sounds of the Yogscast.
I started off by lopping the face off (and a few fingers) of a Dragon Girl Create a Monster. Instead of just sculpting the cordyceps on top of the head, I really wanted it to look like it was exploding from inside the cranial cavity. I laid down a base layer of air drying foam clay for added texture. Once dry, it's actually a bit squishy and flexible to the touch. A few days of drying later, I began to add more details using Super Sculpey. The foam clay is nice, but it's nearly impossible to create little details.
Adding texture and stability to the Clicker using Super Sculpey.
I also wanted to be able to paint these smaller details more efficiently, since the foam clay tends to soak up paint. It has the added benefit of creating more stability for the foam clay as well.
As with most of my Sculpey use, the layers are kept thin enough to be hand cured with a heat gun. Tufts of hair will be added between the cordyceps fungus. I'm playing around with a few different ideas for adding 'decay' to the body, but I haven't decided on which looks best yet.
There's still a lot more progress to go, including creating an outfit, but I'm really liking how the custom looks right now :). Thanks for reading!
These two girls were created for Machelle :). I can't even express how much I love painting Honey. I really need to get my hands on another of my own so I can really get at that amazing body detailing.
She's one of the most amazing dolls I've ever seen from a playline release. Pink and green is one of my favorite color combinations, so getting a chance to use these colors on her was so fun.
Jane is quickly becoming another favorite of mine. I really love her dark lavender skin tone. She has very nicely sculpted lips and eyewells.
I'm very glad I have my own still left to work on!
Jane Boolittle and Honey Swamp Custom Monster High Repaints
Thanks so much for reading :). I hope you enjoyed them as much as I did!
I... might have gotten a little ambitious about my plans today. These are all girls that have been waiting in the wings (you know, minus the poor Draculaura and Insect Girl that have had base colors for like... a month...) to be repainted. I can lay down base coloration much more easily when I have everyone laid out at once. Some girls use the same color blends (or colors I only need to change a bit), too, so it's easier on my airbrush. That Lucy Liu is first on the chopping block, though. She's a commission for dear Seanan :). I'm definitely excited about painting her! I love getting to paint dolls I've never worked on before. I believe she's a Charlie's Angels Lucy Liu from the movie release back in 2000 (judging from the stamp on her head).
Pretty girls all in a row, waiting for new faces.
THE WRAPPENING
I've also started coming up with color palettes for the girls I'm working on, as opposed to just... flying by the seat of my pants. I have a pretty good understanding of color theory, but I think I'll like having a preplanned color chart. Mainly so I don't have to dig through bottles of paint, to work more efficiently.
I am never without coffee.
While I was snapping WW photos, I decided to do a few blank shots of the newer dolls. I'm pretty sure you can find a blank face photo of Ghoulia everywhere, so I didn't photograph her.
Blank Monster High Gigi Grant Reference
Blank Monster High Jane Boolittle Reference
Blank Monster High Honey Swamp Reference
Feel free to use these to plan your own faceups or share them (just please don't remove the watermark). Thanks for reading!
This week I'm taking a look at one of the newest Monster High releases, Jane Boolittle. As a fan of all things dark, creepy, and a little spooky, I was really excited about a voodoo themed doll. The fact that she comes with her own little voodoo doll sloth is just icing on the cake.
Her outfit is really cool, without being too flashy. I really love the animal print, skulls, and bones.
The one thing that annoys me, though, is that her feathered epaulettes keep falling off. They're basically propped up and don't really grab on to anything. Her color scheme incorporates all of my favorite colors. I really love the blend of teal, pink, purple and red. Her skintone is also very pretty, and will be fun to repaint. It's a soft lavender with blue undertones.
Jumping right on the sloth bandwagon!
Her hair is also very nice, though I'm sure that ponytail isn't staying :). It's made of soft fiber as opposed to the rough nylon most of the Monster High girls are rooted with. It's very easy to style and combs out well. I haven't decided how I'd like to repaint her yet, but I definitely want to stick with her jungle theme. What do you guys think about Jane? Have you picked her up yet? Still looking? Passing?
I usually post an update every Wednesday over on Tumblr, but I've been so busy the past couple of days, I wanted to take a moment to go a bit more in depth with the new doll projects I'm working on.
NO PICTURES D:! We haven't got our faces on, yet!
You might notice that Clawdia here is looking a bit different. That's because I wanted to try removing her teeth with the cut and superglue method which has always been popular with Barbies. I loved Clawdia's character and her doll is absolutely fabulous, but dolls with perpetual open mouth smiles are unsettling to me O_O. Speaking of Elissabat and Draculaura, I posted a comparison video between the two over here on my Youtube channel, confirming that they are two different sculpts.
THE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES
NO, NOT EXACTLY, BUT EQUALLY TERRIFYING O_O. This was a moment in the removal process that I found particularly hilarious. I was laughing so hard, I messed up the first time trying to bond the lips back together with glue. Sorry, Clawdia.
This is the video I posted for the method I used, though there are plenty of other tutorials available on the web:
Basically, you're just cutting out the teeth with an exacto blade, evening out the opening, adding a few drops of super glue, and then pinching it shut until the glue cures. Then, you'll end up with how she looks in the first photo above. One thing I need to recommend is that you use a craft blade instead of the straight blade I had to make do with. I've lost my darned Xacto and have NO idea where it disappeared to. It was too late to go out and find a new one, so I grabbed the blade from my scraper. Kids, please don't ever use sharp objects on your own, always get a parent to help you!
I'm very happy with the way she turned out and can't wait to finish her makeup. As I mentioned in the video, I ended up with a bit of discoloration from the glue (turning white as it cured) because of her dark skin. This didn't matter to me, as it was painted over, but if you're planning on keeping her lip color, you might want to think about touching it up afterward :). Thanks a bunch for reading! Clawdia and Elissabat's customs will be available in my Etsy shop a little later this afternoon!
Two posts in one day!? I know, it's craziness. I was in the middle of migrating my files to our cloud storage and came across all of these photos of repaints from the last year. It didn't seem like so many until I found myself staring at the hundreds of photos in my folder.
I really worked hard on coming up with a definite style this year and though I tend to deviate from the norm from time to time, I'm pretty happy with how far I've come. In those folders, I also found pictures of some of my very first Monster High repaints...
My second Monster High repaint and my most recent. Three years apart.
I remember being pretty happy with this Gloom Beach Clawdeen when I finished. She was the second Monster High repaint I'd ever done (from 2011), and the first doll I'd painted in years since taking a break from the hobby ages ago. I was seriously out of practice, but the job market was absolutely horrible and I was grasping at straws trying to find some way that I could contribute monetarily. So, I began customizing dolls and toys. I enjoyed it and people were buying my customs.
I was so elated that people out there liked my artwork enough to buy it that it fueled me to keep going. It wasn't a fast or easy process, Monster High was quite new back then and the dolls were so hard to find in stores. I've met so many amazing people and the community has just been fantastic overall. Of course there are trolls sometimes, but the good infinitely outweighs the bad.
I'm still far from finished and nowhere even remotely close to perfect, but I'm content? I think that's the best way to put it. My techniques have changed, my materials changed, even the way I approach a repaint has changed. Three years can really make a difference. Thank you guys for sticking with me through the awkwardness :). I hope this year's repaints will be even better than the last!
Tess is a custom repainted Monster High CAM Vampire girl. She features a custom made dress by DollsAhoy! and Tibetan lamb's wool hair. She's available for purchase over here in my Etsy shop.
I wanted to try a few different stylistic techniques with this girl. I usually draw a much bigger, darker, and solid pupil, but I've recently become a fan of more softly blended eyes. I think it gives them an almost glowy, dreamy look :3.
I also tried a softer look for her lips. I gently blended the lines up and out and added soft, subtle touches of darker pigmentation.
The Vampire mold is usually harder to work with for me. Once you remove the default paint, the sculpted eyes underneath are farther apart than the paint indicates. In the past, my Vampire girl repaints ended up looking angular and harsh, but I wanted a much softer, sweeter look for this repaint. What do you think? Did I manage to make her look sweeter than my other vampire girl repaints?
I'm working through a backlog of base-color painted dolls at the moment so I can get on with the newer goodies I've recently found (Clawdia, Elissabat, Gigi!). A lot of times, to optimize my airbrush usage (since it can be a pain to clean), I line up about five or so blank girls and give them their shading, eyeshadow, and lip colors so that I can come back and add the details when I'm inspired :). I hope you've enjoyed this girl, I really love the way she turned out. Thanks so much for reading!
The Ice and Blob Girl has been my favorite release in the Create a Monster series to date. I really loved their translucent bodies and vinyl. They are both among my favorite Monster High girls to repaint.
The wigs were even better, imo, with these girls than the previous releases. I was a huge fan of the vinyl wigs, too, and I loved the fiber for this one in particular. When boil straightened, they become so soft and feathery, perfect for texturing the look with a razor cut.
This girl arrived without her default hands, however. She was part of one of the multipacks from Costco, so it's just a packaging fluke. Luckily, I keep a stash of all kinds of different parts and gave her these awesome purple gloved hands as a replacement, since they match the outfit I wanted to use :). The pegs for these hands are smaller than the wrist of the CAM girls, since they were intended for a regular release Clawdeen. I don't know why Mattel wouldn't just make them all the same, but who knows? I adhered them with a bit of flexible E6000 and they still have their up and down motion as well as a bit of rotation when twisted gently.
Stella is available over in my Etsy shop. Thanks for reading!
I've gone through a lot of 'favorite' colors over the years, but I have to say that 'Tiffany' blue has probably been the longest running obsession. I've managed to incorporate it into almost all of my site graphics and logos, haha. It's such a nice, bright color without being too overwhelming. Rochelle is one of my favorite girls to repaint because of her hair color combination. It's so cute, it's hard not to be inspired by this doll. This particular girl is still available in my Etsy shop.
'Tiffany,' Custom Monster High Dance Class Rochelle Goyle Repaint
The Dance Class version of Rochelle is undoubtedly my favorite. I love her bun hairstyle and the dance outfit she wears is just adorable (especially those shoes!). This particular version was really fun to photograph, I tried out a lot of different ballet inspired poses with her.
I wound the strands framing her face around a few pipe cleaners with a bit of gel to give them a delicate curl, as though they'd fallen loose while practicing. Her bangs were also trimmed and restyled.
If I had one complaint about stock dolls, it's that bangs can turn out atrociously bad sometimes =_=;. That and TINSEL. Tinsel is the bane of my existence. I still have quite a few girls waiting to be worked on, so keep your eyes peeled for new photos!
I finally had a chance to work on some long planned custom Monster High repaints this week. A while back, I finally found the Target exclusive Dance Class five pack with Gil. Gil is my favorite boy to repaint, I really love his sculpting and skintone. It's just a shame that he's so hard to get my hands on! This time around, I wanted to try out a couple of new techniques.
Custom Dance Class Gillington Webber, ~Sold
If you take a closer look at this photo, you can see that the scales above his eyes are three dimensional! This was achieved by using a special type of gloss varnish that dries with a raised finish. It's called Dimensional Magic, by Mod Podge. The formula applies a bit milky at first, but it dries crystal clear with a slight magnification property which really makes details pop. You do have to be careful about air bubbles forming, however, but they're easily picked out with a dry paintbrush or popped with a toothpick.
I also treated all of his fins with the Dimensional Magic. Untouched, the fins are cloudy and matte, but once the varnish was applied, it really brought out a wonderfully translucent, almost wet quality which I thought was perfect for Gil. I really hope that some day he'll have a more widely available release, but for now I guess I'll just have to stick to getting lucky!
This week's Toy Fiend post features a review of one of the new Color Me Creepy Monster High sets, the Sea Monster doll. I had some extra cute help trying out this set. I visited DollsAhoy! (Andrea) yesterday for a dolly play date; she and her son were more than happy to help me out with my new toy, hehe.
The Child tries out the color changing legs.
In all honesty, the color changing aspect had no bearing on my purchase of this set. I HAD to have that tentacle dress :3. I also really love the new color of the Sea Monster girl, she's one of my favorite Monster High dolls to repaint. Andrea's son was really getting into this set, though I think he had more fun splashing in the water than the actual color changing :).
Lots of colorful accessories!
This set includes a lot of accessories: shoes, a dress, a squishy wig,
ears that pop into holes on the wig, two sets of leg and arm cuffs, and a
neat new clear base stand which doubles as the water dish. My set only came with one ear, however, but that doesn't matter much to me and was likely a fluke. The blue cuffs have fins and a shark skin texture, the yellow cuffs are tentacle patterns. The Sea Monster's shoes look as though they're made from kelp.
The Color Me Creepy set includes a recolored version of
the original Create A Monster dolls whose limbs, lipstick, and eyeshadow
change colors with icy water. The dolls also have one little spot on
their clavicle which changes color, the Sea Monster girl, here, has a
tiny tentacle which shows up. You're
supposed to fill the blue pen with water and place it in the fridge,
but Andrea just tossed a few ice cubes in a dish to save time. The blue water pen also split in two and I was unable to click it back together. Again, this doesn't matter to me, but it might be a pain for someone whose children are excited about playing with this set. Of course, you can still use the pen, it just won't have the cool outer casing.
Using the 'friction tool' to draw designs on the doll's legs.
Icy water changes the skin color from light blue to an inky looking
black. This is facilitated by a coating on the doll, however, which I
suspect might be prone to rubbing off and flaking with vigorous play.
The red 'friction' tool is moved along the skin to generate heat and
turn the black color back to the original blue. You can also just hold
it in your hand for a bit to warm the piece back up. As with all of the
CAM dolls, the limbs easily pop in and out of their joints and the head
attaches easily, with no anchor.
I know a lot of people were disappointed with the plastic wigs, but I love the way they look! I really like not having to spend ten minutes making sure every hair is in place for photos, too >_>. It's not for everyone, but it's a nice change of pace for me. This version of the Sea Monster girl also lacks the molded tentacles on her arms and legs, which I actually prefer for re-dressing. I'm pretty sure this is just a Create a Monster Vampire body with a Sea Monster head. Overall, the quality of this set is a bit lacking. The makeup is pretty awful and sparse, but I think this was the exchange in order to incorporate the color changing materials. For kids, I think they'd have a bit of initial fun with it and probably end up tossing this into the pile of 'things which are never played with again.' I definitely wouldn't consider it a need-to-purchase unless you're really keen on having all of the releases. For me, I just wanted to repaint a different color Sea Monster girl and steal her accessories, haha. If it's the accessories you're after, though, I'm positive they can be found separately second hand. I'm also happy to see a whole doll instead of an add-on with missing or mismatched pieces (I'm looking at YOU Design Lab =_=). Even though it's not particularly mind blowing, I also like the clear stand. It reminds me of the stands for some of the higher end figures I own. So what do you guys think? Will you be picking up any of these sets? Have you got them already? Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!
Hello there! Hope everyone's having a good week :). This time, I'm taking a little more in depth look at my latest repaint, Raven Queen from Ever After High.
Before After
I am still enjoying working on these dolls very much. Now that I've completed the current releases in their default hair and clothing, I'd like to branch out with complete custom versions :). I wanted Raven to have a heavy lidded look with sultry, smoky eyes and dark coloration. I still believe Mattel missed the mark when it came to designing the default makeup for these girls. Their eyes are much too small for such round, large faces. She looked like this for a while, due to some unforeseen sick/pain days ;_;.
Clawdeen, Raven, Maddie, Cleo with base colors.
If it's appeared that my last couple eBay auctions have been wonky, it's because they have =_=. I'm working on transitioning all of my custom doll listings to Etsy because frankly, I'm being eaten alive by eBay fees. I post custom availability pretty much everywhere, though, so you should always be in the know of where they're listed :).
I finally got around to finishing my Madeline Hatter repaint! It took a bit longer than usual because I had a specific look in mind for her :3. I wanted it to be just right! This repaint is currently available for bid or purchase on eBay here: Maddie's Auction
Maddie <3
Everything about this girl is just perfect for me :). I'm in love with pastel colors lately (who isn't, right?). I wanted her to have large, sweet, and curious eyes. I kept the rest of her makeup color palette very soft, with pastel hues.
Maddie's doll is unique in one aspect that I failed to mention in my earlier review: She's very tiny! She's a full head shorter than the other girls in her line and I find that absolutely adorable. Even in the Monster High line, the majority of the girls are the same height (save for Nefera, Howleen, and Twyla, but they are older and younger than the main cast). I would have loved for Draculaura to have a height more representative of her character on the show. Up next is a custom I created of Skull Shores Cleo de Nile, which I nicknamed Aria. She's already been snapped up on the 'bay, but I wanted to go into a bit more detail because this is my favorite version of her that I've worked on so far.
Custom Repainted Skull Shores Cleo de Nile
First of all: THERE'S NO !@#$%$ING TINSEL. I absolutely loathe the type of tinsel Mattel uses for her hair (and Nefera's), it always becomes separated from the thread and ends up looking stringy and gross. It's also a complete pain to sit there and remove each strand. Why they couldn't just use the type of tinsel they root in Abbey's hair is beyond me. All of the other girls in this line have some kind of skimpy bathing suit with a skirt type or pullover coverup. I love Cleo the most because of her fabulous palazzo pants. You don't need a skirt and a tiny bathing suit to look fierce :).
