Aesthetics Crafty like a (turbo)fox - Batchix Mini Machina refresh

Ever have one of those instances where, despite trying to temper yourself and weigh your options for a doll purchase, you get struck hard with inspiration? 'This doll immediately has a name in my head' inspiration? That's what happened here. After kind of doubting if I'd ever get my hands on one-and then waffling when I did find one, trying to decide if I could do enough sewing for her to justify adding her, rather than admiring owner pics-I got a secondhand Batchix Mini Machina Blip. Blip was one of the faces I liked and she also came with the bonus cat ears and she was one of my preferred colors, so. A very fortunate find overall. But I knew I wanted to modify her look, which brings us to day one of the refresh.

Meet Frisk. Frisk's ears immediately made me start thinking not about cat-themed designs but fox ones. A turbofox, if you will. (Where my Transformers fans at?)

minimachina by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr

She looks concerned because she knows what's coming.

She only has one ear in the above shot because I was trying to make sure her loose magnet was settled back into place before I went sticking the other one on it.

mmback by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr

To get a fresh start for her body, I decided I wanted to remove all the existing paint. This turned out to be productive than I expected, with most of her paint coming off after two sessions:

day1 by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr

day1-2 by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr

Seamlines are a bit of a bane when cleaning this sculpt up, but so much nice detail!

The only hiccup I ran into was that during this process, her repaired finger came loose and fell off. Fortunately, I spotted it on the towel, so it's now in a bag with her faceplate and stripped ears to await the end of the scrubbing.

Before I started scrubbing, I also stuck an old sock over her head, just to see the fabric took stretching over her head, as I'm thinking I'm going to use it to make a wig cap. The result was cuter than expected:

sillyhat by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr

She's iffy about cosplaying one of the seven dwarves.

Later this week: hopefully getting the rest of the paint off, including the glittery residue that's left in some spots after the main purple color was removed.

 

My friend definitely agrees with you about her need for beanies. I'm going to need to look for cute patterned socks to sacrifice. Might be a good way to use old ones that I've worn out the sole on that still have good upper parts.

I finished stripping off as much old paint as I could yesterday, tried to reglue on her busted finger, and sealed her today. The problem? After I went back outside after letting the first coat dry, I found she had tipped over. And busted off that broken finger again. And being outside, with thick grass...yeah. I'm never seeing that thing again, and I've made peace with that.

busted by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr
Dangit.

On the plus side, her new eyes arrived and they look fantastic:

friskeyes by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr

Next up, now that she had two coats of sealant on, was to start masking and painting. This...kind of worked. Between this and another unrelated project, I can't say I'm impressed with blue painter's tape as a seal against paint leaks.

masking by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr
an attempt was made

Fortunately, using acrylic craft paint (because metallics) meant that cleaning up the flooding was pretty easy with a wet q-tip. However, my initial plan for replacing her initial forehead dot failed; the diamond shape flooded out bad and I felt like she needed something there, as the disruption to her original sealant was obvious where I'd removed it. So...back to forehead dot it was, using the metallic purple I'd picked up. I also tried to add marks like you'd see on a fox's muzzle, but I think it may turned out too cheetah and I'm not sure how I feel about them yet.

front by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr

back by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr

 

Progress: I ended up removing the paint I'd done on her back heart, as I realized I wanted to do her pelvis in dark purple, and keeping the heart that color would make it blend in. I also wiped the initial face markings and did silver holo triangles instead. They didn't end up quite even but I think she's still turning out cute:

progressfront by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr
progressback by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr

(No idea why the first is so yellow and the second isn't.)

I had started on my initial plan for using yarn and a sock to create a wig cap, and it was coming along...and then I decided to try that mint green wig on her and fell in love. As is, it's too big, but I've stitched the back a bit to try to size it down. This results in a sort of handle behind her neck and the wig still won't stay on if her ears aren't atop it, so I'm still debating continuing to use this versus ordering a duplicate a size down.

I've also ordered some mint green luxury shag fur, with the intention of making it into a tail for her. But that will require an armature and magnet mount first.

 

Over the past couple days, I've filled in more paint, tried to do some color blocking with tape (a mixed bag; in some ways in worked, but I had a lot of leakage, even with frog tape), and as of today, I finally felt brave enough to give panel lining a try. She's starting to look more and more complete:

linesfront by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr
linesback by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr
linesright by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr
linesleft by Cryptic Cryptid, on Flickr

There's still a good amount of cleanup to do, and for that I ordered one of those 800 packs of hard, pointed cotton swabs. Is it a huge amount? Yes, but it's the cheapest way to get them and now I probably have a supply for the next ten years. And I feel like the pointed ends will make cleanup much easier on me.

I'm not 100% sold on her leg stripes and I'm considering wiping them to instead do the thighs in silver from below the joint to the knee. I'm also debating if I should paint her shoulders, or leave them as is, with just the panel lining.