Aesthetics 2008 Dollstown 13 Repairs, upgrades and repaint [FINISHED]

Hello

This thread its about the restoration of my 10 years 60cm Dollstown 13 doll Sofia.

The restoration will be divided in various steps and will take a long time.

1: Repairs DONE
1.1 Custom high heels feet DONE
2: Color Matching and body blushing DONE
3: Face-up DONE
4: Reassembling: DONE
5: Check-up: DONE


1: Repairs

Sofia suffered some chippings in the her pelvis (totally my fault), I previously tried Milliput and Epoxy glue, both cracked and fell off over time. Next I will try a combination of a brass wire armature and Tamiya Smooth Surface Epoxy putty (its the strongest one I ever used) As its is a pretty stressed joint its very difficult to fix it, any advice?

 

Okay, I started the pelvis surgery, updates will come soon!

Meanwhile, here a unique sight. Sofia snatched Lori 's body so BEHOLD! The first and only Dollstown/Night Lolita Hybrid Doll!

 

Let's start with wiping off the paint I used to match the skin color.( NOTE: I can match the skin color much better but I quickly brushed some paint to check if it would crack last time...)


As You can see the damage was much worse before but most of the cracks were taken care of with epoxy glue and milliput. Only those two problematic areas left.



As those areas can't be fixed with simple epoxy its better to add some armature to support the putty, not only will it strenghten the repair but in case the piece will crack it will at least keep it on, I did the same to my pureskin SD10 knees and while the left one breaked again its still solidly attached to the body. There wasn't nearly enough room for the wires so I filed some space leaving flat surfaces that i can drill later, also I made sure to leave slanted borders instead of clear ones to give the putty a better grip.



Some 0.6mm holes to stuck the wires in...



And finally the armature its done, working in such a small confined space was really a real pain in the ass!
I used a 0.6mm brass wire cause its easier to work with making such a small feat, also unlike iron or copper it doesn't rust over time. After dinner I'll apply the putty so it can cure overnight. I will also add some depressions and scratches to help the grip.

 

Its a long time I used the Tamiya epoxy putty, its a lot firmer and harder to work then Milliput but I know for sure it adheres better and its stronger, too bad its green in color.



As I had to open a sealed package of putty I'm also modding a pair of Supia's high heels feet to fit the Dollstown body cause it very hard to find boots that fits her gigantic feet. the Supia ankles and heels are way too smaller so I need to resculpt them to fit in.

 

Okay...

First I smoothed everything with 220 grit sandpaper. If you think its too rough you never sanded the Tamiya epoxy putty, its hard as stone once cured!



Refined with 320 grit sandpaper



And scrubbed everything with 400 grit sandpaper. As I'm going to paint over I need a slighty rough smooth surface, if You ain't going to paint the resin you can buff it with 600 grit sandpaper...



Monday or sooner I'll airbrush the piece to check for imperfections or future cracks, then I'll reassemble Sofia. Meanwhile I'll continue my custom High heel feet.

 

Its a combo of careless damage and moronic repair attempts luckly I now possess the means and skills to emend my mistakes.

Finally painted the pelvis, I started with a coat of white paint to cover up the green putty but it didn't work 100% as you can still see some faint green tone...

Color matching was effortless cause Puravest light ivory was a perfect match made in heaven... I also gave a thick coat of clear sealant and buffed it with a bjd sponge cleaner.



Sofia checking if I'm doing my job properly, she's really severe with me...



I can't praise Puravest paints enough, always perfect results in no time...

As the paint is water-based urethane I'll leave it to cure at least couple of days in a warm spot, differently from laquer based paints like MSC they don't simply dry but chemically change over time, so even if they are perfectly dry to the touch they need time to reach their prime toughness.

Let's hope the repairs will not crack this time!!!

 

Hello!

As I needed the legs to finish the high heels feet resculpt I ended reeassembling the Dollstown body Saturday...


Both Sofia and Lori are back on their own bodies They are an expensive artigianal resin doll and a cheap mass produced vinyl doll sitting next to each other and they both look lovely



Up to this morning there is no evidence of cracks, stress marks or chipping, good sign! I'll wait about a month and then proceed to blushing and sealing the whole body. There is definetely still a greenish tint and some parts need refinement, I didn't want to waste time knowing it could crack but I'll definetly perfection the repairs later.



Custom High heel feet

The High Heel feet are primed and ready to get painted, I'll do it when I paint the body to get a better color match. Its the first time I used the Vallejo water-based polyutherane white primer, excellent product, I just wish it would cover more tough. I'm very proud of how nice they came and I'm going to use them as her standard feets once they are done.








Did I mention that I love Her very much?





If you have questions feel free to ask, I can also provide some tips and advices for repairs and moddings

 

After a week the pelvis its still in perfect conditions

 

Thank you. I would love to help you unfortunately shipping from USA to Italy would be really expensive You can PM me the details of the damages, maybe I can help you fix him/her yourself.

BTW Sofia is doing great! I'll start fully repainting her body after Easter. I'm thinking about adding some really light freckles mainly on chest, shoulders and face, what do you think? Maybe some little mole too.

 

LOL I was sleepy and I misreaded your msg!

 

Hello!

I just disassembled Sofia today,OMG, just look at that piece! Its been used for over a month, moved daily and it looks like it was painted yesterday, when I'm finished I'm going to paint over entirely one of my vinyl doll with Puravest's paints to see how it holds.



Here a little before pic for reference, I'll start working on the torso and lower legs/feets cause I have to paint them and cleaning carefully every single piece before blushing. I'm so happy!



Stay tuned!

 

Thank you, I'm super happy cause its exactly what it feels like in my hands, there are some little aestethic things to fix but I'l take care of it easily.

This week I need to prepare these parts to be painted. I'm sanding them with 400/600 grit sandpaper and I took care of some deep scratch on her belly with some CA glue.



Time ago I reduced the breasts and moved the nipples lower but they didn't look too good after 2 years, it was a badly done job and there was some little chipping. Yesterday i slighty sanded them and applied some water-based polyutherane white primer. I'll smooth them and paint over the skin tone before repainting.

I hope to paint the skin tone next monday.

 

After sanding the nipples with an abrasive sponge you can see that the primer filled all the depressions left from the chipped material. I will now repeat the process with cyanoacrylic glue to achive a perfectly smooth surface.

 

Ok.. This is ufficially "nipples week"



The old composite material nipples made out of CA glue and acrylics paint turned out to be junk and keep cracking no matter what I used to smooth them. So I bited the bullet and sanded them down entirely. I took the occasion to further downsize the breast much to Sofia desperation, as she would like to have big breasts but I insist she looks much precious and special with petite ones, don't you agree? I'll sculpt new puffy and cute nipples using milliput as soon as I can, doing this will spare me to spraypaint the breast too, much better!



I also gave the torso a good scrub to remove some shiny yellowed resin, this will help me match better the paint on the repaired pelvis.

 

Presto done! Her new (very realistic) nipples are primed and ready to be painted I want to try something different, I'll brush paint the basic colors this week-end and I'll give a light coat of semi-clear skintone on monday to integrate them better with the breasts.

 

Today i spent a lot of hours spraypainting the repaired parts and new feet, first I gave a coat of white, then the skintone and last the protective clear.

 

Buongiorno!

This morning I took more pics with better light, this is how much I did until now, all the parts were sanded, cleaned and repainted if necessary. I'm satisfied with the color matching, I think it will look nearly perfect once I blush and seal everything. I could have got a 100% matching by spraying the belly too but I didn't have the guts as its a pretty problematic piece, altough I believe Puravest paints could handle it I wanted to play it safe and keep the paint as minimum.



Take a good look at the pelvis. If someone would tell you its a repaired and painted piece, would you believe it?


The high heels feet looks very good, the primer left a bit of grainy texture, a bit of magic eraser and the final seal coats should pretty much fix this.



This is the original design compared to my modded one, mine has a curved waist joint and smaller breasts with lower and larger nipples, wich one do you prefer?



Before doing the blushing I want to add some light freckles on breast, shoulders and butt, this is mine inspirational art, I want to try to hand-brush them with a slightly darker skintone using very thinned paint.

 

Some minor blushing and freckles done with markers and then rubbed with the magic eraser. (I choose this method over the paint cause IMO the freckles will look much better, I used paint on another doll and didn't like the result much, it looks kinda dirty.)

 

I was worried about doing the same trick on the paint but it worked as well

Look at that cute ass!



Now that I'm done with the freckles I can blush and seal every single piece.

 

Working NO-STOP

First light blushing and dull coat on torso and arms. I'll do a second blushing before the final seal coat. Tomorrow I'll start blushing the legs.



Uncensored Picture

An Yes, I blushed the joints, especially the shoulders cause I'm positive it will not rub-off.

PS
Seriously, can you tell the pelvis apart from the unpainted resin?

 

Uff, I was really busy so I couldn't do very much, tomorrow I'll continue to blush the legs...

I decided to buff the HH feet with the magic eraser to get rid of that excessive grainy texture, I did it now cause if i did after the blushing I could have damaged it. Also I want to give another layer of paint to cover some lighter areas before the blushing.

 

Legs, I did a sort of realistic blushing this time, next time I'll blush hands and feet

 

What can I say? I'm in love with her since day 1, both body and head sculpt are just beautiful and even if the joints are basic she poses like a dream. What you wouldn't except, its that despite the petite look she's actually a pretty big girl! way bigger then most 1/3 BJD, even some 65cm ones. Most of the time I have to buy custom sized clothes...

I just finished to seal the first layer of blushing on the hands and feet, this time I went for an artistic kind of blushing, later I'm going to put everything together, see how it looks and planning the next steps

 

Full body in natural light... looks good!



Nude Pic

I'm halfway done at this point, what's left are:

1: Second layer of blushing
2: Final thick protective clear coat
3: Nails and others touch ups

Tomorrow I'll return to work on the torso

 

Ok, no updateds for a while cause I have so few time and I was behind shedule, I had to stay up late and wake up early to work on this project but now I'm back on shedule

It's mostly done now, I did the second layer of blushing and sealed it. For the final sealing I mixed a 10% of skintone with the clear to help everything blend in. Now there isn't virtually any differences in the skintone of the painted and not painted parts, also the custom nipples now look to be part of the original design. Sorry for the bad pics but its cloudy today...



[Uncensored pic] [Uncensored pic] [Uncensored pic]

Unfortunately the brown water-color marker I used for the butt freckles changed shade of color and become a yellowish green (YUK!) so I had to redo both freckles and blushing but I like the result! Thats why I do everything in layers, if something goes wrong I can erase a layer using the magic eraser sponge without harming whats beneath!



Now I'll smooth out the skin and paint the nails then I just have to give the final clear coat, if nothing goes wrong I should be finished by next week-end.

BTW

I had the oppurtunity to chat with Lorenzo Toffano, the creator of Puravest varnishes, I told him about the doll hobby and how much I'm satisfied with his products. He was happy to know his creation work great on dolls too and he would like to make a line of colors dedicated to dolls in the future, what a great guy! He also kindly provided me with detailed informations about the curing phases and time required, I'll make treasure of it!

 

Ok, this sucks... Last evening I washed and smoothed the skin as I have to give the final clear coat... this morning I found out the front pelvis area has developed a lot of little bumps, dunno why, just that area in all the body. Probably as the paint its the thickest there and wasn't completely dry. I need to be more careful!

No biggie... I just sponge sanded the area and already repainted the skintone, I'll have to redo the blushing, thats a bummer



Meanwhile I'll clear coat the other parts, time to bring out the artillery!

 

Thank you very much! The best has yet to come! Next week I'll explain what Mr. Toffano told me...

Little update:

The pelvis got re-blushed and sealed. In the end I'm glad I re-do it cause it looks much better now, part of my doll-making philosofy its to turn bad things into oppurtunity. I'll give it the final clear coat friday.

I'm currently working on the nails, I'll post pics once they are done. I plan to paint natural looking nails before the final coat and then apply the nail polish to have a more realistic result.

PS
I found my digital camera that I misplaced when I moved, I hope to be able to take better pics now!

 

Nails done, I started by painting them white and then I brushed them with acrylic colors to obtain a gradient color. I think I'll go for a golden-pink as nail polish color to match her hairs....



This week-end I'll clear coat hands, feet and pelvis and I'm done with the body.

 

OK, I'm an Idiot, I could have finished this morning but I did everything hastily and I screwed up the final coat, so now I have to clean the mess and give the final coat tomorrow. This piss me off cause I wanted to start on the face-up

 

Thanks. I'm basically a perfectionist... sometime I have to stop myself and say, "you can't do it better" or it will become very frustating.

The body its finally done! I'm just wainting for the skin to cure so I can finish it with abrasive sponges.

So... I asked mr. Toffano about the curing time of the puravest paints (water-base urethane), as I supposed the medium its kinda like resin and differently from MSC it needs time to cure, he explained there are actually 4 phases:

(At average room temperature)

1: 10/30 minutes: the paint dry
2: 24/48hr: consolidation
3: 2-3 weeks: Almost definitive curing
4: 1-2 years: Last remaints of volatile components trapped in the film slowly leave and it becomes slighty harder.

The results are strongly influenced by temperatures

12 hours at 80°-100°C or 3-4days at 40°C will achieve almost definitive results.

Now, I have an artigianal levitation cell that I made years ago to produce sourdough, it was designed to stay at 30°C but its possible to set it up to 40°C so I crammed all the body pieces in it to speed up the curing process so with the exception of pelvis and hands/feet everything else has already pretty much cured

 

Phew! I can't keep up with the updates cause I'm pratically reserving all of my free time to work on Sofia!

Here the current situation:

I was going to reuse the older face-up but after cleaning and examing it I decided to make a completely new one to be more coherent to the new aestethics and the bullet-proof painting philosofy of the whole project.



So I started by wiping the head clean



One thing that always bothered me is that this head allow the eyes to sit propely in the eye sockets only if you place them dead-center. This results in a sort of "shocked" looking expression I always disliked. Most of the time I placed the eyes tilted upward to achieve a sort of "don't care" expression but it resulted in a big gap because the eye domes touched the upper eyelids, so I decided to file them down to create a space for the domes in order to have the eyes fit right.



After the mod was done I painted the freckles with a marker and lightned them with a magic eraser like the body. Then I applied a thick coat of semi-gloss clear to create a nice paintable surface to work unto.



I'm going to let it cure 3 days at 40°C and I'll start painting it Monday. Meanwhile I'll finish the hands and feet by applyng the nail polish. I would like Sofia to have:

Shorter an thicker eyebrows
Real eyelashes
Violet eyeshadow
Lot of face blushing

 

I finally applied the nail polish, nothing flashy... I just mixed clear, pink and gold. Looks like real nail polish IMO!



I also blushed the face and painted the eyebrows. As you can see I went for a totally different style I never used before, I pretty much copied them from an illustration cause I believe they fit perfectly with the her new aestetichs.



I like the lips color, I'll just add more details like the previous faceup.

Still have to decide wha to do with the eyeshadow, any suggestion?

 

Second layer done:

Refined the eyebrows.
Prepared the underlayer for eyeshadows and lip gloss.
Added more blushing.

Next layer will be the last one, then I'll give an extra protective layer and add the eyelashes.

 

Third layer

Colorized lips, eyeshadows and eyebrows with transparent acrylic paint.


[DOESN'T WORK, DON'T DO IT!]I also brushed some clear paint inside the ball joint sockets, my intuition its that this way the painted joints will rub against the same hardness material instead of the harder resin, preventing some wear. [DOESN'T WORK, DON'T DO IT!]

 

Final Coat

Applied the final flat coat
Airbrushed some semi-gloss clear on the lips and around the eyes
Brushed some gloss clear inside the mouth and in the inner part of the eyelids



Test fit



I putted all the piece together to get a whole picture and she look gorgeous, in the picture you can see all the possible wigs she could wear, my favorite its the long light purple one but long hairs are messy, the short pink one also its adorable I just wish it was a little longer, also match the eyebrows pretty well.

All its left to do its to glue the eyelashes on, I'll do it on monday, almost finished, what a quest!

 

Thanks but I'm a dude Fixing Sofia's body wasn't simple but eventually every problem was solved, it takes perseverance.

Actually she looks way better then new. Back in 2008 Dollstown's casting quality was really amateurish so their dolls had big parting lines and the skin was glossy and yellowish. Also the new waistline its more delicate and the breasts look more realistic.


LASHES

Painted lashes are cool, eyelashes strips are cool, real eyelashes are just crazy.



I Spent all day to glue them one by one, you wouldn't ever guess what I used as glue.


I cannot believe she's finally done, I'll leave the custom lashes to cure at 40°C for three days together with all the other parts then I'll reassemble my love!

 

No problem!

Some finishing while waiting...

Years ago I added this eye bolt to the headcap, its for the S-hook to clip onto. The advantage to have the S-hook connect to the headcap instead the head base its that totally increase the head posability, as you move the pression away from the neck. The disadvantage its that you have to string the doll head first but IMO that extra poseability its worth the trouble.



To keep the wig on, instead of velcro I like to use some anti-slip tape cause has a stronger adhesion than velcro and it doesn't stick to the hairs.



As eye-putty I followed the advice to use some Fimo, works pretty well! [Uncured fimo may harm resin and plastic, use at your risk! ]

The eye sockets mod worked pretty well... as you can see the eyes can now fit under the upper eyelid just fine.



Wig fitting

Here what I can choose from...



I'm having a bad time deciding between the short pink one and the long silver/pink one, the long one look great and the fibers are really soft but the short one its much more easy to take care of....

 

Best Waifu ever.



In the end I discarded the worn out skirt and choose this black and fucsia corset with an uneven semi-transparent skirt. The result its this cool sorta of steam-punk outfit.

PS
New smartphone with much much better camera.

 

Dang, it works so well! The eyes are resin so I'll switch to poster tack tomorrow. Thanks!

 

I checked the joints today, brushing sono paint inside the sockets was a dumb Idea as the paint wont stick and will make the joints messy .

Some paint rubbed off the shoulder, elbows and hips joints. Nothing serious, the wrost are the shoulders, probably it didn't stick as well as I thought I will recoat them better in the future.

The other joints including the repainted hips and feet look fine.