Whether you want event? A prize – my doll.

Trying to find and compete myself I’ve come to the genre called miniature.

Everything started quite spontaneously despite I’ve been thinking about this for quite a long time. At first I was hesitating if I’ll be able to shape and polish details some of which are smaller than the nail of my little finger. But then hesitation grew into ardour and so..

Here are Mouse’s hands in comparison with my ordinary 12,5-inch-girl’s hands.

And she herself looks like this and is 6.5 inches from head to toes. (yes, toes were a challenge!)
She’s soon going to her new home – almost her godmother – who shared her love to petit creautures with me and it became my trigger.
This genre is both captivating and complicated, it needs much more concentration and attention and precision than any other but in the end it’s all worth it.

I’m now making one more miniature doll that will become a prize in the upcoming competition.
And I’d lite you to give me a little help in testing vote – I want to be sure no problems affecting the results of the voting will appear I’ll give you all the details.

8-(

My husband joked yesterday – «Soon from the depth of the ocean a letter will come, something like: could you please make a Mermaid for us and give us a doll making course?»

And thou it was only a joke I’ve felt with a little bit of terror that I’ve already got over ten reservations on my list, from all corners of the Earth.
And it means I have a lot to do. Really a lot.

I’m deeply, sincerely sorry – but I can take no more orders now. I wish I had a magic wand that would allow me to make my dolls faster – but each one takes above three weeks. They are all like children – need time, patience and love. The whole process is much like bearing a baby – the only difference is that you’re doing it not with your belly, but with your hands.

I want to give each and every one unique features – there are no two similar people on the Earth, so then why dolls should be?

And I’ll be also working on a couple of ideas when taking some rest of reservations – it feels like a thousands of thoughts in my head are twisting, tumbling, dancing inside, waiting to be born.

Mice. Tiny copie of my first doll. 1/10

It will be 9 or 10 centimeters from a nape to heels.

Plaster molds from Mouse.

Many people asked to show, how I do plaster molds. It happens not so often because of my way of giving of individuality to dolls. Sometimes there is no near at hand a camera. Sometimes simply I forget to photograph process. And always it occurs at bad illumination because I prefer to work at night (excuse for quality of a photo, in the winter at us night almost round the clock). But here circumstances have developed so that I could make it. Accompany their very detailed comments I can not – my level of English insufficiently for technical terms. I hope that pictures will show main principles.
Though the White Mouse – my the first BJD – it enjoys wide popularity. I won’t sell it never for any money. But for a long time already wanted to make small circulation, about 10 copies. Now I have some orders for it – time has come.

She has a little become puzzled.

I do it with her eyes subsequently to have open space for individuality giving to each person of the doll.

When I did it is long couldn’t choose between human and mouse ears. Now I can try all variants.

White and green – plasticine JOVI
Yellow and black – plasticine for sculptural works.

All is ready for pouring of first half of parts from plaster.

Remove JOVI – is was for creation of the necessary relief of first half of form.

Now I should grease the top surface of plaster that second half wasn’t pasted. If it not to make – forms can be divided only a saw, the master-model hasn’t enough chances to survive in this case.

I use for this purpose a cheap cream for hands with silicone. You can experiment with different creams. He should create border for plaster, but then watch off, that forms weren’t fat.

After that it is possible to set up a fence from black plasticine back and to fill in second half of form with plaster.

The most difficult is passed. It is necessary to wash only parts from plasticine.

Here it again. Now I don’t have glue for a tail, but tomorrow she completely will recover from this shock.

I know that these forms not so beautiful – curves. But it seems to me that it not the main thing. I prefer to spend the creative energy on dolls, instead of for an esthetics of process of manufacturing.

White on the White.

This is how the cleanest and the most lucid porcelain in the world looks like when being made into a doll. I’m really charmed with its irreproachable structure. Me and Alena have photographed this state as an independent one. But this doll is a custom design and so I have to keep on working at her.
However after this shoot I arrived at an idea that seems quite interesting for me. I know that there are many amazingly talented make-up artists who paint their resin dolls with dedication and fantasy hardly achievable for me – I love sculpting material and giving it shape much more than painting.

And so the idea is to make several blank dolls which can be painted as resin ones but with one great difference – porcelain can not be damaged by any kind of vehicles and the paint will never eat into it and spoil the doll.

I’m quite sure that this opportunity will attract many talented people and furthermore will allow them to get round some difficulties they have to face when working with resin.

8-)

Interview at bjdmagazine.com

Eyes.

The White Mouse Needed eyes. I don’t like painted eyes at all – no use to ask why, I just don’t.
At first I wanted to give her a pair of eyes for, you know, teddy bears. But I didn’t like anything of what I’ve seen in shops. Yes, there’s a wide choice of goods on sites selling accessories for ball-joined dolls, but I don’t feel comfortable when I have to buy something without even holding it in my hands.
The White Mouse’s face also can’t be regarded as standard, so she needed an unusual eyes of some weird color – at that moment I didn’t yet realize of which exactly.

I needed at least several pairs of eyes to try them, to see if they fit and to finally find the ones which would make a perfect match.
And so I began to serf on the internet the technology of eye making. Trying a couple of them didn’t give me a satisfying result, so I kept on searching.
I’ve learned the structure of the human eye and only then after a dozen of fails I’ve finally achieved this result:

By the way it all was happening when I was expecting my second son. )

And so The Mouse got eyes made specially for her. Unfortunately epoxy went dull after a while – but it was my mistake, I’ve taken epoxy not very appropriate for decorative work. (Later I’ve happily met the one that stayed perfectly clear and gave my dolls the bright live look I’ve always wanted them to have.)

However perfection knows no bounds and, when I’ve started to make porcelain dolls I’ve faced a good old «eye problem» again – I didn’t want dolls of longeval material would have eyes that would stay bright for 50 years at the most just because of their chemical structure.
And so I had to invent my own technology, far more complicated than the previous one, and started to make eyes of glass and porcelain.
But before the happy moment when I’ve finally took clear beautiful eyes out of my oven I had to try about 10 sorts of glass and 50 sequences of painting, glazing temperature and so on, I was leaving the oven working for all night to find cracked and split and dull eyes in the morning.
God you must know that feeling of helpless overfilling me for 6 months that it took to find out how to make things right.
And not so long ago I’ve finally made it

All eyes were perfectly clear!
I know that this result is nothing outstanding for companies specialized on making doll eyes, but! It was my great victory that filled me with pure joy.
Me dolls faces are not quite human and sometimes it takes a couple of try outs to find eyes for them.
Now my little girls look like this:

But I’ve already nipped on ahead – it’s a story about my first doll after all.
She yet has eyes but is still bald and of course needs hair to fix it.

My first doll.

In my childhood loved to make little funny creatures out of fur, clothes, pieces of fur, strings – of everything I could find.
It was important for me to make my doll creatures movable – they all had a wire structure inside – and give them bright, live eyes.

It’s a pity I don’t have any photos of those dolls now – 25 years passed since the moment I’ve made them. For then I couldn’t make eyes as beautiful as I wanted – the glue which I used to make a lens was silicate and so it gone wrinkled and dull.

I plunged into reading about animals, fiction, medical and biological encyclopedias, scientific magazines adopted for children and serious reference books.
The only things that bored me to death were history and geography.
When reading I was always dreaming about embodying my favorite characters as a dolls. However I didn’t have any materials to make what I wanted – little, but movable and alive creatures.

Time was passing by and brought me youth, love, marriage and job.

With my job I can say I had all the luck – I turned out to be gifted in 3D modeling and for quite a long time I was creating sketches for souvenirs – you probably know, pieces of glass with openwork image inside.

At first this job ecstasized me: I had a great boss who appreciated my talent and gave me valuable advises how to improve sculpture and composition.

But then I gave a birth to my first son – I was filled up with happiness and absorbed with maternity. By the time I had to come back to work I’ve understood that no longer see any interest in 3D modeling. Yes, virtual sculpture is beautiful, yet it can’t be touched and played with.
And so I’ve decided to return to my childhood dream – little movable creature.
At first I tried to make dolls with wire structures, but didn’t even finish any of them as they were not what I wanted – soft, ugly body. Static dolls were not for me as well – yes, they can be beautifully made. And be put on the shelf.
But I continued searching for different options that would let me to embody my dream and accidentally came against ball joined dolls.
Firstly joints freaked me out a bit – I really didn’t like them.
When making my first doll I was thinking – ok, I’ll sew her a pretty dress closing all the joints and she. Will. Be. Just. Movable. No joints. For god’s sake.

Surprisingly while making this doll – The White Mouse, step by step I got used to all her joints.
I’ve made some changes here and there in common aesthetics, studied human anatomy in details to make joints look natural and harmonious in the wholly body silhouette.

When I’ve finally finished her she began to seem nice to me. I wasn’t very confident of my taste but I’ve submitted her on BJDCLUB.RU – source dedicated to.. Well, it’s easy to guess.
I was afraid of blame and disapproval – people on Russian forums are sometimes being too tough while telling their opinion.
However I was surprised when The White Mouse got many positive responses.
She didn’t have either eyes or hair then and looked like this:

But yet she fascinated many people and they asked to finish her and even interested about my plans on her edition.
It was 2.5 years ago.
And she still needed to be worked on – I still did not make shiny live eyes I dreamed about when I was a child.

Baobhan-Sith

Baobhan Sith, also known as Baobhan Sidhe, Bavanshee, Baavan Shee or The White Woman of the Scottish Highlands, is a fairy Vampire who appears to men taking a the form of a beautiful woman in order to seduce them and drink their blood.

* Scottish version of female Vampires and Succubi (as they lure men through sexual attraction), Baobhan Sith are very dangerous and evil and they act preying on human being, mostly hunters but unwary travellers passing by the Highlands as well.

According to legend, Baobhan Sith are mostly attracted to hunters (as their clothes might smell of blood) and to young men out after dark.

The words baobhan sith (pronounced baa’-van shee) stand for fairy woman in Scottish Gaelic.

Baobhan Sith are even more withdrawn from society than are their common counterparts. They don’t care about power, they just want to feed and prey upon their victims, youth staying out until after dark. The fairies approach their victims by inviting them to dance with them, until they are exhausted because while dancing the sidhe, feed upon them, sucking their blood until death.

They usually settle in forests or mountains, always in natural environment. Anyway Baobhan Sith will have a secured coffin somewhere underground so they can return to rest there during the day.
A lesser popular version tells they have hooves instead of feet, though they keep it hidden under their clothes. They may be of Human or Half-Elven stock, but they always appear as beautiful women and enchantresses, sometimes attacking in small groups with others of their kin. Baobhan Sith are supposed to be able to shift, but not into bats: their animal of choice is the wolf. |Shapeshifting will lessen their power as they won’t be able to use their glamour in animal form.

* They can speak any language their victim knows due to a form of telepathy, but they will sound as if they have a strange accent.

* Baobhan Sith don’t use fangs as most vampires do to draw blood, but their long and sharp finger nails. They look very ordinary until the vampire attacks, then turn into talons to win their victim.

* The so-called dancing vampires are capable of glamour and they use it to charm their victims through spells so they drain blood without the victim noticing. No male victim of theirs will turn into Baobhan Sith, as they are only women, but if they attack and kill a woman she will return as one of their kin. Most of them where previously enchanters or witches who keep on using their skills in death.

Baobhan Sith are fairy creatures so they might be harmed and killed by iron. But their awesome beauty is hard to resist even for those who understand how dangerous they are. Also, if horse-riding hunters are surrounded by baobhan sith they can usually ward them off by staying on the horse, if they manage to resist the creatures’ beauty.

The most common tale tells of four young friends who after hunting decided to spend their night in an abandoned cottage. As darkness fell they set a fire in the hearth and they started singing and dancing. As one of them expressed his wish to have female companions with them, four women knocked at their door and started dancing with the youths. As the baobhan sith started to attack their prey, one of the young men who was singing ran to the door, taking shelter between the horses. The creature that was running after him waited for him to get out of the safe circle formed by the animals but the man stayed within until dawn broke, and the woman disappeared shortly before the sun rose. The man returned to the cottage to find his friends dead and drained of blood. He was saved only because faery creatures are traditionally afraid of iron for it can harm and kill them, and the horses were shod with iron shoes.
(с)

http://www.monstropedia.org/

Photos by Alena Belyakova

perhydrol.deviantart.com

Another grade of porcelain for my dolls.

I did it! Yet I do not know that, but did Several months ago I have bought any grade of porcelain. It is good, as it looks ready – very white, a warm shade, sonorous as the hand bell and very transparent – seems that it is shone from within. Here is how it looks on a piece for the test:
At the left – new porcelain, on the right – what used earlier:
But when I bought – seller warned – it isn’t intended for molding in forms. Even if it is possible – that very difficult. But… The First casting!
Don’t worry, all my dolls after casting look like this
And here already starts something to appear: