Sally 2.0
For this week’s doll I started by asking friend on Facebook what I should do with this doll. It’s a Monster High Scarah Scream body and head.
I’m always looking for input on new dolls.
Overwhelmingly folks suggested Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas.
I hadn’t thought to do Sally because I’d done her once before as a gift for my friend Ebony.
This will be easier, I thought, because I’ve problem solved this doll before….
If I wish to take commissions I need to be ready to do repeats of popular characters, so onwards.
Because rooting a doll’s hair takes time, and you need to pace yourself as to not do long sessions lest your hand cramp up, I knew I’d have to start quickly.
I thought I’d be doing another doll with acrylic yarn hair, like the Sally above, but I’m no longer near Japan’s 100 yen shops, which were my go-to source of cheap acrylic yarn in small amounts.
I looked online at local selection. I’ve come to terms with the fact that craft/fabric stores in America are no longer well stocked and it’s best to order online and pick up if you want to ensure you get a product. I didn’t enjoy the thought to paying three times as much as I would have in Japan and a possible wait…so I looked into my stock boxes…I had not yet photographed my wig/hair stock.
SCORE!
The first few days were dedicated to rooting hair and decorating her body.
It will later become evident to me that I used too much hair per rooting hole.
Issues right off the bat:
Hair
I’ve put tooo much hair in each plug when rooting. It had been at least a year since I last did this so I didn’t have the right touch.
Because it’s too thick, no amount of hot water is going to allow the hair to lay flat. It’s always going to be a bit Elvira/Bump-it. The hair is also too heavy for her head. I wish I’d realized this before I glued it.
Body
I made the choice to carve into the doll and then create stitches with Apoxie Sculpt.
At first I rolled the Apoxie sculpt into tiny worms but the rolling time took it past its most sticky point and made the threads hard to attach. I eventually applied a thin layer of Apoxie Sculpt over each scar line and removed sections (the between stitches area) with an Xacto blade.
After a while I had too many residual shmeres of apoxie sculpt I had to lightly sand away. This sanding, plus the layers of MSC to prime her for paint, gave her skin a too-toothy texture that stains SUPER EASY.
This would have been a potential issue no matter how cleanly I tried to work…but I compounded my issue with a whole edible one evening which…did not help.
There are folks who can partake of cannabis and be creative and detail oriented. I am not one of them. It’s a signal to my brain to ramp up the ADHD, drop any short term memory I still have, and affect my hand-eye coordination.
I lived in a country where cannabis was totally forbidden. I saw it twice in my 21 years there. This has been another adjustment to being in the states. It’s better to simply say there are folks who can partake of cannabis and function. Period.
When I took Japanese at the UW in 1999 there were a few nights my friends Em, Margueritte and I smoked it and played Dance Dance Revolution. I’m sure it deepened the musical experience for them. I, however, spent most of the time not only NOT dancing but also wondering if my feet were still there if I wasn’t looking at them.
It didn’t help and prolonged my creating by a day or so.
Early steps on the dress.
I made a collage of some online references and glued it into my planner.
I adapted an existing pattern for my needs.
Sewed it
Tried it on a Monster High Doll.
Put it next to my reference photo in my planner and sketched out what i’d paint.
Promptly lost the dress.
Made a second dress
Painted it
Added stitching and velcro.
Face: Mid-paint
Let’s take a moment to discuss base-sculpt choice.
Sally has a round face. Monster High faces are simply not round. If you use a MH sculpt you will need to translate Sally into the language of thin faces, high cheekbones, and full lips. The first Sally I did was on an Abby Bominable face, which is slightly rounder than Scarah’s sculpt and has a sweet smile.
Monster HIgh HAS made a limited edition TNBC Sally and Jack for their Skullector collection but even that is about interpreting Sally into the MH world instead of simply being a Sally doll.
They’ve made a rounder sculpt for her BUT they have given her eyebrows and made other choices that make her look more like their cast of monsters.
I have made a MH doll look like Emily the Corpse Bride (another gift for Ebony) but Emily is more gaunt AND I used apoxie sculpt to build up the eyes.
Emily and her base doll.
The hardest part of paining my MH Sally was her eyes. Those TINY irises are difficult to correctly position.
Comparing my new work-in-progress with my last Sally
When I compared my two Sallys I was heartbroken. I’d succeeded in creating a different feeling Sally but HAAAAATTED the dress.
Luckily I’d found the first base dress I’d thought i’d lost. I’d simply closed my planner with the dress still in it and found it when checking the reference photos. I repainted it.
Much better
Shoes
I’d originally used the Ghouls of Summer Clawdeen baseball shoes w/ socks to make Sally’s shoes. I loved it.
This time I was restraining myself to stock shoes I already had and not hunting for the perfect shoe.
And again this meant translating. I didn’t have any shoes with socklike shape nor did I have tiny bootlets like the Disney versions sometimes had.
The first time I primed the shoes I accidently used a primer/filler that added texture. I tried to make it work and midway through writing this blog entry I knew I had to wipe out all the extra time I’d spent trying to make it work, because the shoes scuffed too easily and do a quick repaint.
I’m not happy with my finished Sally. I don’t feel like she’s up to my standards of what I’d want to sell or buy.
Sallys years apart.
This is the reality of what it is to create within time parameters.
Sometimes you don’t have a new idea.
Sometimes you go with what you already know only to find you do not know it.
Sometimes you lose things.
Sometimes you make mistakes.
Sometimes you redo parts and redo parts and its still not what you want.
Sometimes you step away and think “i't’s as good as it’s going to get”
Sometimes you find yourself frustrated.
Sometimes you wonder if this is at all what you should be doing.
It’s time like this you have to take stock at what you learned from this, the specifics and the abstracts, because thats how you continue.
I need practice rooting hair and balancing the amount needed. I can do this.
On future projects I’ll have a lighter hand and have stock dolls near by to compare hair amounts.
I wont have an edible if I want to be productive.
I’ll better contemplate how the proportions of a dress suit a doll’s body.
Check can twice. Spray once.
I’ll try and keep a “project tray/box” so I don’t lose parts and waste time midway through.
And I’ll keep in mind that what I have created isn’t without visual appeal, it’s simply not at the technical level I normally create at.
