When your hair is fluffy and your face undone: Starfire part 3
Last we saw Clawdeen ->Starfire her hair was overly fluffy. Each bundle of strands sticking straight out of her hair plugs.
So, it was time for a boil perm.
Of course, before a boil perm make SURE all the craft glue you've squirted into her neck-hole to the inside of her skull (to secure the hairloops) has completely dried...or you'll be making a mess with your hot boiling water.
For more precise boil perms I'd pour the slightly cooled boiled water into a bowl and dip the hair in.
Here, I just wanted the hair to relax onto the head so I poured the water OVER the head (propped on a knitting needle) over my sink.
After I did this the first time I noticed some spots that could use more hair, because Starfire has a different part that Clawdeew and needed bangs…so I repeated the reroot, glue, dry, and boil process again.
Sure, some hair came out in brushing after these steps, but not an amount that mattered. I also took the time to trim the length slightly.
I tied the hair back, protected it with a single, orphaned, sock, and primed the face with Mr. Super Clear and started to work.
I’m still not sure about when to use Acrylic paints as an eye-ball base and when to build up watercolor pencils instead. I used acrylic here. You’ll note that Starfire’s eyeballs are a light green, not white.
I continued working on the face.
And then the EYE BROW STRUGGLE began. The above Starfire is saucy AF and a little severe. But is she capturing the playful silly alien vibe of Starfire in Teen Titans Go?
I didn’t think so.
I removed her eyebrows and gave her higher, softer, pinker eyebrows.
And, because I share process photos online…I got feedback.
Some people familiar with the character thought the new eyebrows worked for the character but I also got feedback from a Black women who rightly read the doll as black…she said “ Imo, it’s just fine for a Black doll to have a long forehead and a serious expression. You made her look unnatural.”
By making the choice to make Starfire with a black doll I knew I’d have to start to grapple with whatever whitey white biases might show up being a white girl working on a not-white doll face. So I listened.
My pink skinned Raven doll reads as a lovely human face, while also being goth/otherworldly. I want my Starfire to read as human and alien. I don’t want the alien to come at the expense of her human face. Grappling with that sure as hell beats just making white dolls when it comes to exploring the art and myself.
So…off with her eyebrows and on with my eyebrow battle.
Finally I settled on this pair…the gloss for the lips and eyes was still wet and milky in this shot:
What’s going on with her hair? Time for a less intense boil perm to give her curled bangs!
And…the detail of the eyes bothers me. This is a test doll but the end result feels lower than what I’m capable of so I bought this for future adventures.
Magnifier with a built-in light!
Doll head now?…
I’m pretty sure this won’t be my last eye and eyebrow battle. If I do go with hair that’s hot pink for my larger version that might change how the eyebrows read as well. I also think I might go with a slightly more oval iris/pupil shape instead of round.
But that’s where I end for now.
Next time…dealing with Clawdeen’s fur.
