Bipolar: Monster High Edition (formerly picture hosting post)

I originally made this post so I could use the image hosting on Monster High Arena, but I might as well put my captions in there.


My bipolar disorder is not:

What my extended family thinks it is

What my coworkers think it is

What my roommate thinks it is.

What is is:
hella confusing

It made more sense in context. (original post 2/29/16, updated 5/7/17)

Ghoulia's pants:

 Drafted the pattern a couple days ago, and have been tweaking it.

Problem with working with flippable fabric is that it's easy to mess up and make two of the same leg

This is just entirely to show off my grandma's Featherweight machine. It's a great machine.

 Here she is on her dresser,

And the whole top of the bookshelf, filling up surprisingly fast ^^;

Kitty in the Garden

There's these flowers in the garden outside my door. Some of them are purple, but most of them are white.

 They went perfectly with Kitty's color scheme.

Then she went tree climbing.

The more I work with her, and have fun dipping a round photographing her, the more I realize what work needs to be done.

For example, she needs a longer skirt on that dress, so she isn't always stuck holding her skirt down with her hands.


And an update on the top of the bookshelf drama:

Maddie says one girl can hold another's hand without it being a big deal, but it looks like it might have meant a bit more than that to Kitty.

Registration: Lorna McNessie

You guys know what a weeaboo is?
And you know how a tea-aboo is a weeaboo for England and a freeaboo is a weeaboo for America and the like?
What's a weeaboo for Scotland? Because that's my family.
My grandma one time kidnapped the author of Outlander.

So, even though I said I'd put buying dolls on hold:

 Lorna McNessie, folks. (Also, I googled the origins of if Mc really means Irish and Mac really means Scottish and that's not true, she can be McNessie and still be Scottish. Rottish? She's from Rotland, which is their pun for Scotland. Costa Shreika is my favorite of their puns.

I was looking at her in the box and her scales and fins would be so much fun to texture.
Also there's an issue with her belt that makes it so you can't have the belt and the tail and the stand at the same time.
I don't think I'll get too elaborate with her, because I like how she is and I have so much to work on anyway.

And I know it's a bit insensitive to canon to take pictures of her at the beach, because of the whole freshwater/saltwater subplot. But unfortunately, I don't live three blocks away from a lake.

I don't have a picture of it, but her stomach isn't scaled, it's just got a celtic knot on it. It's weird.

Things Ghoulia Now Has

A dresser with a bookshelf, three drawers with chalkboard notes and doodles, five books, five issues of Dead Fast (bagged, boarded, and buttoned like a true nerd), and a Dead Fast action figure/bobble head.

As previously mentioned, all the girls are getting a piece of furniture each (Frankie will have the little dress form that's floating around. Kitty has the floor lamp, and Maddie's getting a glass bottle with a Drink Me tag). Ghoulia's is the first to be done. I might put a little fabric runner on the top to make it look a bit more complete, but so far I'm happy with what she's got.

Here we've got a couple of the doodles, Dead Fast (who is a repainted Deadpool), and her books. You can't see the titles, but I'm pretty proud of them. They are:
~Her Home Eek textbook
~Add Another Nought: Quantum Physics
~SUDO-ku: Making Your First Linux OS--The cover of this one was the sudoku puzzle from the newspaper. I'm so proud of this title
~Perl and Lisp: A Love Story--This is the cocker spaniel book. I was winging it.
~STAY--There was a very interesting advertisement, and I cut out part of it and stuck it on a little book for the hell of it

And on the other side, Dead Fast.
They're all just newspaper clippings, folded in half and doodled on. The boards are a piece of watercolor paper that got destroyed. The buttons are post-it notes and the bags are taped together ziplock bags.
Personal pet peeve is when you can't find actual comic bag buttons or yard sale stickers, so you have to use tape, and then when you reread them you rip the bag trying to get the damn tape off. To save Ghoulia that pretend struggle, she has pretend buttons on her pretend comic bags.
My friend is sending me clippings from an actual comic preview catalog, so Ghoulia's definitely going to have more comics in her future.

Converting the drawer shelf to a bookshelf was actually pretty easy. I spraypainted a piece of watercolor paper (I recently had a whole pad of it ruined) with the same paint the housing got, and then Super Surface sealed it until it got stiffer. Then it was just some glue, and bam, bookshelf.

Speaking of bookshelves, it seems there's some drama on the top of The Bookshelf where The Collection lives:

A lot of the time, I just shove them into place, and then adjust the heads and hands to look more natural. Today, this was the scene that was formed.

It's like two friends can't even hold hands without getting some judgmental stares from the nearby girls. I mean, I know one of them's tiny, but maybe they're just sharing a special friend bond.

We shall see how this develops.


Things Ghoulia does not have: pants.

Spoiling Myself

I had to spend a lot of money on my car today, so I also decided that meant I could spend a bit of cash on myself. So here's a haul picture and a picture of some nice dinner I got.

These pan pastels were 75% off. I was dipping a round with them and I really like them. They're very highly pigmented, and blend well, but stay where I put them. I could even paint them onto Gooliope after she's been Super Surface'd.
They have been hit with the Prop 65 warning, but if you check out that first picture you can see my lovely disposable respirator I got for working with pastels and sanding. Nothing saying I need it for sure (haven't checked the MSDS), but it was $2. As a bonus, the mask means when I breathe out, it's diffused. This means I don't accidentally blow any powder away before I set it.

This little dresser is going to become Ghoulia's (Gooliope's getting the wooden chest). This paint job's been switched around. I'm going to do chalkboard drawers, and take out one of the drawers to make a shelf for books and Dead Fast figurines. I just need to figure out what to draw on the drawers. Obviously Ghoulia doodles and notes, but her friends have to draw every time they come over too. You know you had that friend with the chalkboard paint on her wall that you drew on every time.

I also picked up two paint on varnishes, to see if they'd be useful in terms of modding. They're much safer than sprays, but if they don't work as well, there's no use in them being safer.
Polly V MSC is going strong.

Tomorrow, I promise I'll at least get started on making Ghoulia her poor pants.

Gooliope Progress: Shower Time.

Here she is, with all her curlers in her hair.

Yes, I can curl a Monster High doll's hair in my shower.
Last time I thermapenned it, the water out of my tap was 140 degrees. That ain't code but I'm okay with it.

And here she is, goo drops looking nice, too.  Her eyebrows look awfully light in these pictures.
The satin finish on the sealer spray's definitely the right choice here. I know it's not perfect for all dolls, but it makes her look gooier.

 When I was customizing Maddie, it was weird because I felt awkward having a naked doll floating around. Somehow, I've gotten over it, or it's not as weird having Gooliope naked.


Instead of curing her hair, I did a combination of curls, little braids, and twists. It ended up exactly how I want it, except a little shorter. Somehow, either in my combing or in the factory curling, the ends of a lot of the hair got really frayed and damaged, and I decided to trim that off.
She's still rocking it, though. It still looks like the art, and it looks like the design elements I have in my head.

Started adding some shading onto the shoes, too. Those shoes have so much detail molded in that isn't painted. I'm doing a lot more shading than I am actual painting, but I think these shoes are going to look fabulous when they're done.

And then it'll just be onto that dress.

That and finishing all my other projects. Ghoulia's waiting patiently for some pants.

Registration: Kitty Cheshire, Book Party

The weather was nice, so I decided to take Kitty out into the garden for pictures.

Other Kitty.

This Kitty.

This is Book Party Kitty Cheshire. Book Party's a line of budget dolls, so each doll has somewhere between zero and two accessories, and no stand. The Book Party line contains Kitty Cheshire, Lizzie Hearts, and Ginger Breadhouse.
From a costume design standpoint, it's interesting how they dressed three dolls in what are effectively tube dresses, and used plastic necklaces to give the dresses details, making intricate designs cheaply. I paid $15 for Kitty, which is about $5 less than a signature line doll, and twice the price of the basic line doll. The basic line comes with stands, too. I might pick one up to give Kitty their stand. Also maybe to have another victim friend model experiment doll to work on. The basic line of dolls don't have articulated wrists or elbows, and have molded on shirts. I don't like them so much, but I do need a stand. And maybe a faceup victim.
Then again, Kitty's pretty hard to pose with her single joints, and I think getting good pictures with one of the basic line girls would be more frustrating than fun.

For Kitty, my plans are to take her necklace and remake it into her dress, give her a better skirt, and just make her match the box art more. I'll paint her little book purse (I love her book purse) and make little things to put into it so she's not carrying an empty book around. I'll see if I can add some details to her shoes. I'll definitely be repainting her little ears.

And I think her eyes aren't level? If I decide they aren't, I'm going to redo her face, but faceups are haaarrd.

Hard to say.

Break's over, time to go back to work, but here's a little picture of what Gooliope's doing:

You know. Hanging out.

Gooliope: Progress #1

Without and with flash.

After dipping a round or two with pastels and watercolor pencils, I took it all off and started over, using straight acrylic paint. 

Gooliope's body painting has been tricky for me. I started out messing around with the watercolor pencils and pastels that are sort of the standard everyone's using on their blogs, and it just wasn't doing it for me. Maybe I don't have the hang of pastels, maybe my pastels are too cheap, maybe my sealant's are off, blah blah.

So I got to thinking.

Why is the standard in the Monster High mod community the same pastel, pencil, and MSC cocktail that we use for BJD's?
There's a lot of reasons I can think of. Those materials are easy to make changes on. They're soft and blendable and they're flexible and they layer well. They don't contain oil, which can eat into the plastic and make it unstable.
But I think a lot of it is that those are the materials you need for BJD faceups.

And ball jointed dolls are just inherently very different from Monster High girls. One is resin. One is vinyl and hard plastic.
And more importantly, one is $30 and one is $700.

Pastels and watercolor pencils and layer upon layer of Mr Super Clear are completely removable. You can take a doll that's been faceup'd and wipe it down to nothing.
This is very important if you want to sell the doll again, or if you change your mind about the character you built, or you really messed up.
If I really mess up on Gooliope, and I can't change it or fix it, I'm going to go buy a new Gooliope. Sorry, girl.

So all that shading (which looks better in person) is just one color of 97 cent acrylic paint and a 18/0 round brush, and a bit of shading with a #2 shader.

I'm definitely a fan of sealing the body and sealing it again whenever you're really happy with what you're working on. Working in layers is really helpful.

But again, with my sealer problems. See, the fact is, both BJD and Monster High customs have this love of this sealer called Mr Super Clear. You have to buy it from Japan and have it shipped. It has no equal. It is amazing.

And carcinogenic.

See, I think I mentioned earlier that two of my family members were diagnosed with cancer this year (and it's only February! Plenty more family members to go~! *sigh*). One of them has lung cancer, and since he lives where I live, I'm going to get to watch him fight it. He got lung cancer from smoking pretty much his whole life.

Now, I hadn't really thought about cancer, and I had always figured since I've never smoked, don't smoke, and never will smoke, I didn't have a lot to worry about. And then I thought about the times I've done things like spray paint in a dorm room that only had a tiny window that only opened part way. Or use my hand as a pallette for paint without checking the contents of the paint. I was constantly putting my hands in messes and cleaning chemicals that I didn't know what was in, for the past three years at my job. I've always And I started thinking, maybe I should check out what's in the things I'm using.

And, while I was reading up on if the sprays I had bought at Michael's needed respirators to use them, or something, I found out something interesting.

If something is confirmed to be carcinogenic, there are serious labeling laws that fall into effect. Where it can be sold, to whom it can be sold, all that. But if it's a "suspected carcinogen," all it needs is a footnote in it's MSDS.

I'm rambling now.

Now, I live in California, and the one thing you get very good at, living in California, is ignoring Prop 65 Warnings. Some point, a long time ago, a law was passed in California that anything or any place with "chemicals know to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm," had to be labeled. However, the amount that requires that warning is so small that it's on things like coffee, listed in every gas station, and just in general everywhere that you need to go to get by with your daily life. The threshold for what requires the label is so low that it's impossible to tell the difference between anything really dangerous and coffee. The end result is that I'm always skeptical of anything or anyone who says, "This causes cancer."

However, if I'm going to be using something more than once, and I have options that might be carcinogenic and options that definitely aren't carcinogenic, that's now a factor in my choosing. After all, MSDSs are available online and spell out pretty easily if you need a respirator and all the other bad things that can happen with this stuff.

I'm also interested in finding an alternative to Mr Super Clear that I don't need to buy online. I've now spent about twice as much on sealer than just buying a can of MSC, but god damn it I'm a girl on a mission now. So, I tested Krylon's Matte Finish UV-Resistant Acrylic Coating against Krylon's Matte Sealer from their Chalky Finish line. They performed identically, except for drying time. Really, they were identical. Scratch resistance, pencil and paint adhesion, dust collection, identical. The UV-Resistant blocks UV, the Chalky doesn't. The Chalky dries faster. The difference that mattered to me is that on the MSDS, the UV Resistant said it was suspected to cause cancer, and the Chalky didn't say that. Both of them have a Prop 65 warning on the can. As a side note, Design Master's Super Surface Spray doesn't need a Prop 65 warning, which I find interesting. A look at their matte clear finish says it doesn't need respiratory protection, which means I'm going to seek that out to test.

If I say I don't use Mr Super Clear for danger reasons, I feel like I need to seek out the safest spray for the sake of not being hypocritical.

That being said, I'm not selling my dolls. I'm painting and prettying them up so I can take pictures of them, and for the fun of prettying them and making something. I'm not trying to be the best out there. All I want is to have materials that are good enough that I don't want to stab them while I'm working, and that do what I want them to do well enough that I have fun and not frustration. I want a collection that I'm proud of, not a collection that blows everyone's minds. This isn't a hobby I feel like I should put myself at unnecessary risk for. If I can find two products that perform comparably, I'm willing to choose the safer one over one that performs marginally better.

Now, as I get more into this, I might change that view, but right now that's where I stand.

So, tomorrow I finish painting her legs, give her a coat of chalky finish*, do some highlighting with watercolor pencil, and go in for the finer body blushing with loose pastel powder**. Then a coat of Super Surface, which is a great final seal, and call the body good. Then the hair, another coat of eye gloss, and painting all her accessories.

I might stop there for a while, while I design and plan out how I'm going to make that monster of a dress.


And somewhere in that process I'll make Ghoulia some pants.

____
*Super Surface is safer than Chalky Finish. Requires no respiratory protection, has safer ingredients. However, it really doesn't perform like the other two sealers I've tried. The pencils can't get a grip, and the doll gets shiny look after a while. I can't use it as my main sealer in the same way I can't use a tampon to put on eyeliner. It's a different product.
**I also need to get a disposable respirator for pastel work, I know. I'll pick one up the next time I go out.

Important Notes to Self

RE: Glossing Eyes:
Do it last
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO IT LAST

Glossing is my favorite part. It gives the doll life.


For the mother of god, why did I want to have the doll have life while she's head down naked in a Big Gulp cup while I'm painting her panties?


New Rule RE: Matte Sprays
The white cotton gloves are to be worn at all times when handling a doll who has been sprayed with a Krylon matte (Chalky, UV, or Standard) and not been sealed with Super Surface. Dust attraction like mad. Working outside limited to days without wind.
All dolls sprayed with Krylon Matte need to be finished with Super Surface, for dust attracting and durability reasons.

RE: Brush Cleaners
Coffee cups are no longer to be used as brush water containers. Too much coffee contaminated with paint. Too many paintbrushes contaminated with coffee. Too many close calls with drinking paint water. All drink cups now need a straw and a lid.

Registration: Gooliope Jellington

Look at this lovely girl. She's so pretty, I just had to get some pictures before I messed her up.

There's no way I'm touching this faceup. It's so detailed and so pretty, and absolutely centered onto her eye bulges. The little radioactive hilights kill me. All this is going to be getting is a coat of Super Surface to protect it, and Sculpey Gloss on her eyes and lids.

I'm going to detangle and recurl her hair, because that's easy and makes it so much better.

Her body has these adorable goo drops molded in that I'm going to blush to give them a bit more contrast and a bit more jelly of a look.

With the exception of the horses on her shoes (I'm not saying I bought her for the shoes, but saying that I didn't buy her for the shoes is definitely not a completely correct statement), none of her accessories are painted, but they are all molded with a lot of detail. I think I'm going to go in there with a tiny paint brush and some wet paper towels to add contrast. If it works really well, I'll post a tutorial.
My default to things like this is to do the shoe polish trick, but the plastic they use for the accessories won't hold the polish, as I found out on Maddie.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with her dress just yet. I definitely like the idea and wish it had more texture, but damn is that going to be a tricky pattern to replicate. I might have to take a couple liberties with it.


So, I took off all her clothes and accessories and sprayed her down with Krylon Chalky Finish Matte Spray.
I've got a review of some MSC alternatives coming up (not that MSC doesn't work really well, but, well, you need a half-face respirator when you're using it, and I left mine in my other pants. I've been looking like mad for an alternative that isn't as bad for you). In that review, I discovered that Krylon Chalky Finish and Krylon UV Resist Matte perform pretty closely, but the Chalky Finish has a shorter trying time and isn't carcinogenic in large exposures. The UV Resist is suspected to be carcinogenic in long exposures, but it does resist UV, which Chalky Finish doesn't. Super Surface is an excellent, no respirator needed, satin finish that is very resistant to scratches, so I like it as a top coat. It was the only spray I used on Goulia's faceup, but the Krylon does grab pencils and pastel better.



Turns out if you wrap the head in plastic bags and shove it in a Big Gulp cup from 7-11, you can spray the whole body at once without waiting for a side to dry.

And there goes my timer, drying time is up, time to get to blushing

She's just telling a story

It's always weird to me to leave the dolls sitting around without posing them to look like they're doing something.
I guess it could be weird that I want them to look alive, but to me it's worse to have their faces just staring out there, unseeing.

So here's Maddie telling some interesting story about Wonderland to Gooliope and Ghoulia, who have never even been to the Ever After, and to Kitty who knows the end all too well and is waiting to jump in with that embarrassing fact Maddie was going to leave out.

And yes, Kitty and Goo are in the exact same pose as they were in that webcam shot. I don't always set them up to pose in a story, I just move their heads so they're looking and their hands so they're resting or doing something, instead of sitting stiffly.

But somehow, in my little world of the silly dolls, Kitty and Gooliope have become friends. I think it's because Gooliope is used to being twice the size of everyone, and here she's normal height and Kitty's the little odd cat out, that Gooliope wants to take care of her just a bit.
And the circus is a totally different kind of weird than Wonderland is.

So there's my silly writing.
In reality, my collection goals: 1) Own all the 17" dolls, 2) Own a 17" doll modded into all the main MH and maybe the main EAH girls and 3) Make everyone's clothes.

The other goal I'm not addressing is maybe buying another BJD. I, in theory, have one on the way, but the seller has notoriously bad communication so I have no clue when. And I definitely don't need a second before my first gets here...do I?

I made a hair wefting tutorial for Den Of Angels, which I might crosspost here. Ghoulia's shirt is on crooked, but making progress. I've missed drafting patterns and Ghoulia's red shirt was so much fun to pattern out. She's coming along really well, and I don't even mind that her hair doesn't match the texture of the other dolls'.

There's my updates. I'm not going to lie, it's been a while since I've gone out and tackled a project like Ghoulia, where I jumped in without thinking and without knowing what I was doing. It's a lot of fun.

Maybe I'll take some pictures of them outside in the good light tomorrow during my morning break. The perks of living in your job's basement.

Two new additions

A crappy webcam picture of my two newest additions:

That would be Miss Cheshire and Miss Jellington.

I was only going to collect the big dolls, but Book Party Kitty has so much potential, and she's a budget doll so I grabbed her.

And Gooliope is just so beautiful that I had to get her. Those shoes. That faceup. I'll probably paint her accessories and remake the dress.

Found some Monster High accessory packs at the Dollar Tree of all places. So, full collection pictures coming tomorrow.

A couple more Ghoulia pictures

Ghoulia's coming along.

Hair: Katsilk premium nylon saran, sewn into wefts and being glued directly to her head. Had tot ake them off and put them on again once already.
Face: Frankie's face removed with acetone. Painted on a new one with cheap acrylics, cheap pastels, and the worst watercolor pencils ever. Definitely planning on doing more paint faceups, less pastels. Sculpey gloss glaze is great for shine.
Gloves: As much as I love costume pieces you can take apart, these gloves aren't those. They're sewn onto her wrists by hand. The edge was done in the serger.
Stripe Shirt: Closes in the back with a snap. It's just three tubes. Instead of being part of the shirt, the sleeves are just held on with French Tacks.
Glasses: Not her final ones. They're just placeholders.

A Clean Workspace

I see all these blogs where people have their own sewing rooms, and everything's perfect.

Well. Here's my workspace:

And here it is with some numbers on it.

1. The doll, and the doll's head
2. plastic watercolor pallet, used for pastels. This is the lid, The main body's on the left, currently still for watercolors
3. 100% acetone, in the pump bottle, which I find saves a lot of acetone and a lot of stress
4. Magic Eraser. There's another one cut into tiny bits somewhere around there
5. Compression glove with wrist support, because RSI isn't fun
6. Q-tips. Sometimes dipped in acetone. Sometimes dipped in water. Usually just sucked on for a second and then used to wipe something off.
7. Yes, that's a pantyliner. They come in boxes of 96, they're lint free, they don't overabsorb acetone like cotton balls, you can cut one into 5 cotton-ball sized pieces, and they've got a sticky back so they never go missing. Why more people don't use them as craft tools, I'll never know. I used to wreck paint pants by drying and wiping my brush on y thigh. Now I can stick one to my thigh and wipe on that. 
8. My computer. This poor thing. At the moment it's a tablet with a disabled and broken touchscreen, a stand that looks like a keyboard but no longer acts as a keyboard, a microusb to femaleUSB adapter, a splitter, a fullsize keyboard, and a fullsize mouse. 
9. Chalk pastels. Artist Loft brand from Michaels, $4.99, 10/10 would recommend
10. Marla.
11. Peanut butter jar full of water. Lid's important because that rug is nice.
12. Towel. Got to know where your towel is
13. Design Master Super Surface Sealer. I've never used MSC but I've got a lot of experience with Super Surface. If you let too many layers build up, it'll start to look shiny, but just one or two is good, and if the doll gets shiny then the face matches the body, which I like. It's a design call.
14. Bags of stuff from yesterday's shopping trip. Mostly paint
15. My grandma's sewing machine. Absolutely fabulous sewing machine. Singer Featherweight Centennial
16.  This clear plastic from the front of the front of the doll box is now my trash can. It's got Frankie's hair in it, among other things. Monster High dolls have an impressive amount of hair, props to them. 
17. My acrylic paint pallet, which is a 1-subject notebook that I've just been putting paint on.
18. Artist Loft brand watercolor pencils, $4.99, you get what you pay for, chunky, do not recommend. Also my three paint brushes: Simply Simmons 6 Filbert, Artist Loft 18/0 round, 3 round cheap noname brush for gloss

 Hidden in the same box as the doll head and the pallet is Sculpey brand gloss glaze, which I quite like.

And that's all I've got for the things I use. You can see the empty space on the left where I sit, L-like, as I work.

Sometimes Spackle, my large, white, hairy, meowing roommate, tries to help too.

Registration: Ghoulia Yelps 17"

When you think about it, it's a shame they didn't make a 17" Ghoulia.
So let's make one.
The steps so far (Doll nudity warning):

The process:

Strip doll down to blank
Re-face
Re-hair
Make the clothes
Make the shoes
Make the other accessories.

As I finish each step, I'll link to them here.

Complete: Madeline Hatter

17" Madeline Hatter
Ever After High
Clothing Remake.

Remade the dress skirt, reused the bodice. Remade the lace glove cuffs. Painted the necklace, teacup hat, and shoes. Hot-water curled her hair.

Before and After:

This doll's strange because all of her accessories have molded details, but none of them are painted.

Remade the skirt to give it more volume. Replaces her glove's plastic lace cuffs with actual lace.

The gold border on her skirt is the inside of the brocade, turned to the outside. It's held in place with bullion tacks, which give it the look of the little patterned edge, but in texture instead of print. Bottom is the pattern on the original skirt, which I think looks quite a bit like this brocade.

And here's the whole ensemble. Except the wrist cuffs, none of it's sewn on. All removable. The petticoat has an elastic waist, and the black glitter tulle edging is trimmed with a green and a purple ribbon. The dress has the striped ruffle attached. and closes with four snaps in the back.
All the paint that I added to the accessories was done in the form of a paint pen and a bottle of nail polish. And I made her a quick little cover-up top, because sewing while she was there topless was a bit weird. That's made out of bleached muslin that I had hanging around, with ribbon straps and some fabric marker edging. She doesn't wear it under the dress.

While I was taking these pictures, I was thinking I should probably make her some bloomers. Oh well. Tomorrow is another day.