Modification Creating a Wood Elf - From Game to Doll!

this post is terribly out of date!!!



hello all! welcome to my project thread! today i'll be starting the journey to recreate my character from Oblivion in doll form! i'll be using my supiadoll hayul/dollmore kid hybrid to bring her to life.
this is going to be a pretty ambitious project - i'm going to make her shorter and make her armor, weapons and clothing!

the elf herself:
who is my character from Oblivion you might ask? she's Charlotte, a self-proclaimed "Jack of All Trades", though she fits much better into the class of "Assassin". Charlotte is a Wood Elf, or Bosmer, hailing from Valenwood who ran off to the grand Imperial City of Cyrodiil... just to end up living a life of thievery. Her antics eventually landed her in the Imperial Prison, where she was sent hurtling into what we know as the main quest of Oblivion!
She is a master at the arts of Sneak and Security, a natural Marksman, and an apprentice in the various magics.

Spoiler: refs

newest ref 07/02/2019
the parts of her armour that are normally tied up aren't here so the strings don't get in the way of any details (chest, forearm, shin)


these are two old refs of her, but they'll work well enough until i can draw up some better, more up-to-date ones.

to do list/progress:

Spoiler: mods

• elf ears - done for now
• shorten body - half done
• add mobility joints to arms and legs
• double jointed knees

Spoiler: clothing

default outfit

• "chainmail" armor (shirt + "socks")
• whatever you call the outer armor
• dress
• boots
• gloves

DB outfit

• hood + shawl-cape thing
• shrouded armor
• black boot heels
• blue velvet dress (whodunit)

SI outfit

• basically just sheogorath's duds

Spoiler: misc (weapons, random bits of clothing, etc)

• chillrend (sword)
• glass bow + arrows
• ebony bow + arrows
• blade of woe
• staff of sheogorath
• potion bottles
• gray cowl of nocturnal
• a "pedicure"
• a faceup

i'll make this section better when i have better refs

updates:

Spoiler: latest - 07/02/2019

4/05/2018 - starting the ears
28/07/2018 - starting legs and outfit redesign
16/01/2019 - finishing legs and body issues
07/02/2019 - no post, just adding an updated ref for her main armour

thanks for reading! i hope you all enjoy this journey as much as i will!

 

and immediately after i make the thread i have an update! i wanted to keep my first post more as a point of reference so i opted to put this in a seperate post.

anyway, i started on the elf ears! despite me saying "today" in my post, i actually started these a week ago, but haven't had the chance to make a thread until now! i used milliput for this mod, mainly because i didn't want to pay for apoxie sculpt, but also because i thought the white would be a lot easier to colour match than grey.
here's the progress pics:

Spoiler: ears!

i guess you could call this the before picture lol

a rough left ear! turned out better than i expected honestly, it was a lot easier to get the milliput to 'stick' to the resin than i thought it would be, and getting it into the right shape wasn't particularly hard either!

and the rough right ear! this was before i started to smooth it out with water.

the finished rough ears! looking back, i'm not entirely sure how i convinced myself these ears were even, but at least it's not like i can't sand 'em down and add some more milliput!

the first round of sanding! this was when i realised the ears were actually uneven. i added some more milliput after this to fix the unevenness and add some more detail. i didn't take any pics of that part for some reason though

and here is the finished product! obviously still rough, but i'm at a point where i need finer tools than what i have, so i'm stopping while i'm happy with what i have so far! it's mostly just the inner ear part that needs more detail though, so when i do get the tools i wont have to do much!

a view from the front for anyone who just wants a quick look! i can't tell you how much that off eye annoys me, but i'm not about to wrestle with the giant s-hook in her head to fix it.
honestly i'm quite proud of how they turned out considering this is my first time sculpting anything outside of a computer! nothing to write home about, but still pretty neat!
if you're wondering what she's wearing, it's a cheap dress for barbie-sized dolls that's being held on by a safety pin

 

thanks you guys! it's good to know that the ears are actually going pretty good and i'm not just seeing them through my own rose-tinted glasses lol.
i won't be able to do a whole lot much on her until the elastic and s-hooks i ordered from AC get here though. her head is almost impossible to get off thanks to the huge s-hook the body came with and her being strung too tight isn't helping that situation. i might try making her a yarn wig though. her current one is like, really long? at first i thought it was because it was too big for her, but the wig won't even fit on a bigger head
classic $10 ebay wig i guess
and @Harmony909: i'll be making her chainmail out of this weird stretchy netting i found! when i double it over it looks pretty close to chainmail + the stretchy-ness won't limit her mobility so i thought it would be a better alternative to making 1/4 scale chainmail, as cool as that would be

 

hey guys! sorry it's been so long, i haven't really felt like working on her, and the weather has been pretty bad over here in australia so even if i did, i probably wouldn't be able to do much anyway.
i have made some progress though! i went ahead and measured out how much of her legs i was going to cut off... and i did it! i've only done her thighs so far, though they're nowhere near finished! i'm hoping by the time i'm done sawing her apart, she'll measure about 38cm? she's currently only slightly taller than a RS Mei (who actually measures 41cm, at least according to my measuring tape, not 42 like their website says) so it's looking like she'll hit that target! i'll post progress pics when i'm done with the whole mod of course!

while i haven't been working on her doll form, i decided to go back and redesign her main outfit - it was too complicated and impractical, and i found myself not being able to believe that that outfit look at home in oblivion.
for her new design i scrapped a lot of the engravings on her armour and completely redesign her cuirass and dress! her dress is now much more simpler (and easier to make lol). i separated it into two pieces - the actual dress and her scapular! i didn't mean for her end up with the scapular, but i was really liking the nun imagery so i kept it!
anyway, i'm rambling so i put the first few designs i spat out and the sketch of her final redesign in the refs section! thanks for the support you guys!

 

i can't believe i haven't updated since july.... i'm absolutely terrible at this sort of thing aren't i? (lotsa doll nudity in this post)
i have been busy though! i did finish redesigning her outfit; i wouldn't call it final, i might still adjust the colours and change some minor details but for the most part i'm happy with it

Spoiler: the design

i'm still unsure about her weapon designs, hence why she only has her sword
i'm a lot happier with this design! i'm not sure about what to do with her legs, but i'll figure it out eventually i guess. maybe i'll give her back her knee plate?
i switched to leather armour mainly because i couldn't quite figure out how she would source enough money to get custom metal armor made. the scapular i talked about in my last post ended up becoming the white wrap loincloth thing. i wanted to keep the nun imagery but i also wanted a little eastern influence in her outfit seeing as this is what she wears during her time as a blade.

aside from the outfit, i also finished her leg mods! there's still a few areas on them that need filling in and smoothing out, but i might slim her legs down a little, so i'm leaving them as is for now.

Spoiler: leg mods

as it turns out... i completely forgot to take progress pics...
though honestly it wouldn't have been that interesting, i marked off how much of her legs i wanted to cut off, i sawed that section off, stuck her legs back together with milliput, and sanded and added more milliput as needed. it was a lot simpler to do than i thought is would be honestly.
you also might have noticed that her torso is different! it's from the original body i ordered for her, myoudoll's 44cm body. i'm not sure why i also ordered the dollmore kid body at this point, but i'm sure glad i did! when i put the myou torso with the dollmore arms and legs i'd really felt i'd "found" her body. myoudoll's normal resin is also a very close for (what i think) is supia's normal resin, so theres less work on me when i eventually finish all her mods and colour match her body.
while i'm here i will say that i love the elbow joints on the dollmore kid. they pose so effortlessly, especially compared to the ones on the myoudoll body.

after i finished the legs, i also did my first faceup! its not the best and i had a few issues with the sealant chipping off while i was working on it, but i'm still quite proud of if

Spoiler: faceup!

don't mind that the left side of her face is a lot darker than the right. not quite sure what happened there....
i actually really like how the right side off her face turned out! i would probably blush her cheeks a little lighter (it doesn't look very heavy on camera, but in person she looked very red) looking back now, but i'm still very happy with the eye area! this faceup was really affected by the sealant chipping off, anytime i tried to use a pencil it would just scrape off unless i was ridiculously light with it. her eyes were better than the rest of her face with this, but i still had to be very careful.

a few weeks ago now, i came into my room to find charlotte had fallen (or as i would like to believe, knocked off by my cat) and her left ear had broke off! so of course i had to wipe her faceup and sculpt her a new ear, and then a new faceup. for my second faceup i tried a different technique with the pastel, i used the brush to pick up pigment directly off the pastel rather than scrape some pastel off and pick up the scrapings with a brush. this technique allowed me much more control of pastel as there was less of it on her face, and it allowed me to work in layers!

i'm not as happy with her eyes this time around, you can see that the eyeliner turned out very rough this time unfortunately. i am however, very happy with her lips! the sealant didn't chip this time so i was able to give her lines and little details like that! i was a little heavy handed with the brown this time around so she looks a little dirty, but it's not inaccurate i guess.
i will say that colour matching the milliput is a little annoying. the paint i'm using is perfect on the milliput, but too dark on the resin... it might be fine with more coats but i'm just lazy lol

if you thought that this would be the end of this update, you'd be wrong!
honestly i'd been a little uninspired by her for a while and i hadn't really touched her since i finished her legs (not long after my last update). a week ago i'd finally admitted to myself that it was her body that was bothering me and i set out to see if there were anymore bodies that would fit what i want for her, and i looked at the bodies i was considering before.

Spoiler: the bodies

1. chibi unoa
   this would probably be her "ideal" body, it's nice and thick, the right shape, the right height... i love everything except the price. the full doll is just way too out of my budget unfortunately, and i don't want to be waiting to find a body second hand in the right colour.
2. bunny bunny
   i originally went against this body because i assumed it wasn't available anymore due to the fact that it wasn't on nine9style's website, completely unaware that they were now being sold under bunny bunny. i decided against it this time because i realised that the hayul head would look rather bobbleheaded on the body (this is also something i was concerned about with the chibi unoa body).
3. dollmore narsha
   same bobblehead issue, but the narsha body is also too thin and too immature. i can only assume this is why i bought the dollmore kid body
4. minifee moe line
   very similar to the chibi unoa in that it has a lot of the right qualities but was just too out of budget. this was the body i was originally going to buy, but the price made me chicken out. good thing i did though! i would've ended up very unhappy with the way the body looks, the fact that the moe line body cant sit properly, and of course the giant boobs and tiny feet.
5. harucasting's e-minor
   this was the only new body i could find. had've this doll existed a year ago, i would've ended up finding a way to get this body. it's a little taller than i want, but everything else is perfect. if in the future i ever feel dissatisfied with charlotte's body again, i know what body i'll be seeking.

there are a few more bodies i looked into, but these are the ones i considered buying at some point.

before i made the decision to seek out a new body for charlotte i decided to take one last look at her old body. after a while of fiddling i realised that the thing that felt off was the length of her torso. i probably didn't realise it before as i usually have her sitting down so you can't really tell that she's out of proportion. i immediately marked off how much i wanted gone and cut it off. i restrung her once the milliput had cured enough and my god it felt exactly the same as when i originally put the torso and limbs together.

here she is now! her arms are now very long but i am just in love with how she's looking! i still need to sand the milliput and i want to slim down the upper half of her torso but now i can very clearly visualise how i want her to look! she's also now her perfect height of 38cm! i thought this mod might've affected her posing, but losing 1.5cm of resin didn't seem to bother her at all! i was very lucky here.

i want to shorten her arms now, but i'm going to wait until the dikadoll jointed hands i ordered today arrive so i know i'm cutting off the right amount. my next update will probably be when i've finished her torso and arms.

thanks for the support you guys! i hope you'll enjoy this giant update!

 

hello everyone! the hands arrived today, so i thought i'd give a little update.
the hands themselves are gorgeous. they pose nicely and effortlessly, the sculpting is very nice, and most importantly, they fit in the wrist socket and the resin match is fairly close! the dikadoll normal yellow matches the best with the the supia normal resin and is what i would consider "not noticeably different with blushing" with the myou doll normal resin. i'll probably do a proper comparison eventually.

as you can tell i haven't bothered to sand poor charlotte's waist yet... i'll be doing it alongside the arms mods. speaking of which, with these hands i've decided that i only need to take 1cm off her arms. that should have her fingertips land at the end of her thigh mod, which feels like a natural point for them to be.
i also realised that i didn't give her an actual height comparison last post so:

here's charlotte (38cm) vs her body hybrid opposite obsidian (44cm)
really puts it in perspective how short she is huh? i also like how stocky she looks in comparison! i definitely feel like she gives off some athlete vibes.
once i'm done with all these body shortening mods i'll finally be able to work on her clothing and armour. i'm not sure if i ever mentioned what material i was going to make her armour out of, but since i've changed it to be leather, i'll be using actual leather instead of worbla to make it. the leather will be a lot easier to make look weathered and worn, and it'll also be pretty easy to mold it to the shape i want too. i got a bit bored in the 2 months of waiting for the hands, so i tried to help myself visualise what her armour would look like in 3d.

textures obviously aren't done, but i certainly think it's going to be helpful in making it.
...we wont speak about how this armour currently looks in oblivion.

anyway, i hope to be back with some completed mods in a week or two!

 

it's been a quite while since my last update, and unfortunately i don't have anything new to show, i just wanted to let anyone who might be wondering know that i'm putting this project on hold for the foreseeable future.

scale woes...

 

hello everyone! it's been a while! it's official - i'm taking this project back off hold! i'm also changing the scope of the project and adding more characters that i'd love to have in doll form as well. i'm definitely going to have my nerevarine and dragonborn, and of course martin septim, but i also have plans for other characters like the tribunal, haskill, and maybe miraak (i'd like to see myself make his armour lol)? i'll likely make another thread when i begin to make these guys and leave this one just for Charlotte.

i actually ordered a 1/3 head (dollmore's hayarn cho) and body (dollstown 13yr girl) earlier this year, even though i was still unsure about whether i want to go up in scale or stay at 1/4, and over the past few months with this head i've really come to appreciate the larger size. i also became increasing unsure about my choice of sculpt, but as always, a bit of milliput fixed that up.

i knew i was going to mod the jaw and possibly the nose when i bought the sculpt, but even with those mods i wasn't sure if the hayarn sculpt really said Charlotte. i've been looking at different sculpts lately, and had found i few i liked, but before i committed to anything i thought that i would mod the eyes, since it's the only feature that i hadn't touched yet. i don't know what i did specifically to make this sculpt go from meh to YES in my eyes, but after modding the eyes to be a little smaller it absolutely screams Charlotte to me. i still need to do some sanding and shape the little inner eye corner bit, but i'm pretty happy with what i've done.
here's hayarn compared to hayul, including her old wig (because somehow this new head is small enough to fit it) and eyes:

i don't know how i can look at these two completely different sculpts and say "that's Charlotte!" but i can. i feel like maybe hayul leans more towards the angular faces i imagine bretons to have, whereas hayarn has the rounder features i see bosmer with and they both work because she's mixed?? i don't believe i actually said this before, but if you've ever wondered why her name is Charlotte and not something more elven, now you know!
i'm currently working on her ears, i've already started shaping them, though they're hidden behind her hair in the pic. thanks to the dremel i finally got this year i'm able to refine the shape a lot better, and they're already a lot more realistic than the mod i did to hayul. i probably would've done the ears sooner, but after doing the nose and jaw i really needed new filters and i was only able to get some just last week! i've been desperate to mod for 4 months....

this update is honestly kind of a mess, but i'm excited about this project again and i wanted to share! i noticed a lot of broken pics in this thread, so i'll try to fix them over the next few days.
look for the next update in like a week? i want to be extra particular with the ears this time around!