Aesthetics Customizing Everything On My First BJD <3

Hello everyone,

I've just quite recently gotten serious about BJDs after years of trying to look the other way lol (financial reasons, time issues, etc), and a few months ago received my first ever BJD, a Luts Honey Delf 31 Uriel, whom I've named Dalbin

I've bought her completely blank because one of the main reasons I got so interested in this hobby was the customizing aspect, however I never imagined it would take so long, and as much as I enjoy working on her, I feel like I need a bit of motivation as well as a place to record all of my progress, hence this project journal.

I decided on making and customizing everything myself, including:

• Faceup DONE 01/30/21
• Body Blushing DONE 02/15/21
• Eyes
• Wig DONE 02/08/21
• Wardrobe
• Props

...And so far have made some progress here and there on different areas, so let me get you up to speed!


WARDROBE/PROPS

So, I had gone ahead and started making some clothes for Dalbin right after I put my order in, using the measurements from the official website as a guide. I had some experience with hand sewing and the very basics of machine sewing, but had never tried to make clothes or tackle on something this complicated before. However, I've always wanted try making my own clothes, and felt making doll-sized outfits would be a very good way to start, so that was great motivation for me to dive in!

As for concepts, I didn't have any personality or characters in mind for her, I just knew that I wanted her aesthetic to be pastel-y and cute. With that in mind, I did a rough sketch on what kind of dress I wanted her very first outfit to be.


I imagined some sort of smock-like, trapeze shaped dress...with bishop sleeves and lots of details like pleats and ruffles. I was a little (ok, very) worried if it was overly complicated for a total beginner like me...But I didn't want to skimp on anything and subject Dalbin to wearing a basic potato sack lol...If there's one thing I'm good at, once I've set my mind to something, I don't give up easily. So I just decided to roll with it and deal with the hard stuff as it comes As for detailed sketches, I've never been good at making intricate plans ahead of time, so I just decided to start somewhere and see where that took me.


I tried doing some research on basic dress patterns and the like, but didn't really find anything that I felt worked for what I had in mind, so I just blindly made some sort of basic...pattern-ish looking thing and went with it, above is the result of my hard work LOL

...Which turned out to be quite the nightmare as I ended up having to re-do parts of the dress many times over haha;; WHICH was made even more torturous because I was hand sewing the whole thing (I didn't have access to my sewing machine bc of quarantine). But! It was definitely a learning experience because as I worked on different areas of the dress (sleeves, armholes, etc), I began to understand a bit better about how everything worked (or should work). I ended up researching a lot throughout the process and ended up using several different patterns from here and there to cobble together the dress I had in mind.



Here are some of the patterns I ended up using in the end! Still very shoddy, but much better than the 'thing' I made in the beginning



Here you can see the bare beginnings of the dress being made. That sleeve ended up being a no-go...as well as the other 3 sleeves I remade after that. They were all either too short, too tight, the shape wasn't right, etc...The 4th sleeve worked, though, so that's something!



Hey, it looks like a dress! After I made those pintucks on the front, I decided, no it's too simple, let's make it even MORE complicated!!! I put in glitter stars into the 'pockets' between each tuck and secured them by sewing them into wave tucks. I think it was at this point that I got the idea that this outfit should be vaguely star/moon themed, and for consistency I decided to also insert glitter stars into the tucks on the skirt.



I was a bit worried about the fit of the dress while I was working on it...I was scared that I would put all this work into the dress and it would not end up not fitting Dalbin. I decided to change the dress to more of an 'overdress', so that it would be open in the back and be secured with ties, kind of like a pinafore. I would make another underdress of some sort for her to wear once she arrived and when I could take better measurements. I also decided to honeycomb smock part of the back of the dress for flexibility, it took me several tries but in the end I think it looks ok!



The overdress with all of the parts pinned! This was the hardest part though, due to my lack of a proper pattern I had no idea how to deal with the arm holes, how to deal with the neckline, all of that stuff. In the end, through multiple trial and errors, research, and patience (though much swearing was involved), I somehow made it work.



Here is a very bad photo of the overdress, with my spray bottle as a stand-in mannequin It's hard to see but I added ruffles to the cuffs, inserted glitter stars in those as well, and attempted to do some smocking on the cuffs...though I don't think that came out properly, haha. Instead of buttons or snaps, I decided to later attach ribbon ties to allow flexibility for fit. I also did a ruffle-y style for the collar, and finished the ends of both the collar and cuffs with embroidery thread. I also made the pochette and bunny, I'll go more into detail on that in a later post!



...And here is where the dress is at, as of now: after quarantine, I was able to go to my studio and attach the ribbon ties to the cuffs, use my sewing machine to add (badly made) ruffle trims to the skirt, and also sewed in lace trim with some vintage lace I found from my stash. I tried layering it with a pink tulle petticoat I made underneath, but I'm not sure I like how it looks...maybe I should just stick to a white petticoat to keep it a bit more simple? More experimenting is needed, for sure.

I wish I had photos of the back, to show you guys the ribbon ties and stuff! Alas, I forgot to take photos and the dress isn't where I'm at right now I'll definitely take better pictures of the dress and post it here in the near future, though. I also had photos of Dalbin wearing it, but they somehow got corrupted...It fits her very nicely though, so good news!

I think the overdress is nearing completion, but I still have to do all of the other parts of the outfit, which on the top of my mind includes: shoes, undergarments, petticoat, maybe separate underdress..?, tights/socks, and bunny bonnet (at least the theme of the outfit is now clear to me, I'm going for a moon bunny princess-type theme!)

I'll come back with another write-up on my progress in the other categories, this took way too long to write! I do hope you enjoyed reading through my progress so far, I know I have so much fun reading and looking through all the project journals and inspiring creations here, so hopefully this post can contribute to this community in the same way Thank you so much for reading, and I'll see you all soon!

 

@Lillith Thank you very much for your kind words!

@StellaMarigold Thank you so much! I'm actually not too sure what the exact fabric is, but I do know it's not organza, it's less shinier and drapes better than that. I got it from a vintage peignoir, if that helps, my guess is that it's some sort of synthetic nylon..?

So I'm back with an update on Dalbin's faceup! Still not done, but I do think I'm making steady progress.

Initially going into her faceup, I had felt pretty confident about it despite my lack of experience because I felt like I was pretty decent at art-ing. Oh, how foolish I was...Since then I've attempted about 15? or so faceups, none of which got finished due to me not being satisfied with the results. I won't upload all of the botched attempts, but let me show you some of the previous ones for the sake of progress...



So right after I did all the initial MSC spraying, my oh-so-godly spraying skills left little bumps and drips on her poor face. I attempted to get rid of this using a magic eraser, which was a BAD idea because first of all, it wouldn't even get rid of the drip, secondly I rubbed so hard on her face that I actually BUFFED her resin super shiny to the point where spraying more MSC did nothing to matte it, and pastels and colored pencils would refuse to stick to that area. If you look at her right cheek, you can see a huge blotchy lighter area where the shiny resin is. Also, the way I applied the color to her eyes and lips made her seem so....old.....in not a good way. Next!



This one I kind of liked...except the shiny resin was becoming a major problem. I tried to match the color of the area to the rest by dampening my colored pencils and kind of stippling it on, but it just looked bad...Also, her eyebrows looked way too spiky, her eyelashes too dull/clumpy, and part of her lip was chipped



At this point I decided I HAD to do something about that shiny cheek before moving on, so I did some research, got some fine grit sandpaper, and managed to fix it up. This one looks a lot better, but ultimately I also scrapped this because I was having a lot of trouble with her eyelids...No matter what I did, it just didn't look natural. It was after this that I decided maybe I'll not do the blue eyeshadow and just go with a more natural look.



Okay, this one I took just yesterday! It didn't make the cut either...mainly because of the eyelids (too grainy because the layers of MSC there got messed up due to me editing the area too much) and bottom eyelashes on the left (got too dark to the point of no return). But I really like how this one turned out, and it's very close to how I envision her final faceup!

I think I'll get some new pastels because the set I'm using is way too limited in colors, and some more MSC as well, and once I get my supplies I'll try again on hopefully what will be the final faceup!

 

@StellaMarigold Thank you so much! I just feel like if I settle for a faceup I don't like, I won't enjoy looking and working with her as much, plus the thought of needing to redo her faceup would keep nagging me

@MaryLiNy Thank you for your encouragement! I definitely plan to see this project through!

I'm back with another update on Dalbin's faceup! I'm really really happy with the way it's going, and I know for sure this is going to be THE one

I'd say I'm maybe about 80% done with it? I still need to work more on some areas, but I'm beginning to see the finish line!

Since I'm happy with the way this one came out, I thought I'd share a more in-depth process of how I went about it, hopefully it will help some people when they also attempt their own faceups

Here's a list of the materials that I used (very standard stuff!):
-Mungyo Pastels (64 color set)
-Faber Castell Watercolor Pencils (36 color set)
-Magic Eraser (I cut these into small wedges for detailed work)
-a regular eraser I found rolling around my house (also cut this up using a razor for details)
-very fine tip brushes used for nail art
-a bunch of makeup brushes

So for a few of the other faceup attempts I did, I actually didn't use much pastel, and went straight in with watercolor pencil. I found out that watercolor pencils blend quite easily with a brush, gave a much stronger color in less layers, and felt I was lousy with pastels to use them extensively. HOWEVER! I decided not to use that method anymore, as you will see in this final faceup I decided to go back to layering pastels, and using watercolor pencils only for specific areas like the eyeliner, brows, and eyelashes. My reason being, pastels give a much more translucent and subtle gradient to the skin than watercolor pencils, and is definitely worth the time and effort!

For the first step, I blushed blue, red, yellow, and a bit of brown over her face, with the blue mainly around her eyes and temples. I wanted her to have more of a realistic look, thus the blue for where the skin is thinner on the face. I also went and penciled in her eyeliner in brown. It really didn't do much, as you can see in the photo, haha:



For the next few layers, I pretty much did the same thing, blushing colors and trying to create a base undertone for the skin. I also made the eyeliner and eyebrows darker:



More blushing with pastel, and I also started using a thinly sharpened watercolor pencil in both brown and black to lightly draw the details of the eyebrows and bottom eyelashes:



Even more blushing, and darkening of eyebrows, eyelashes, and eyeliner:



If you look closely at this photo you can make out some uneven-ness of the pastel shading on her right cheek and areas above her eyes. I think this is probably either because one of the MSC layers didn't spray as evenly, or some of the layers got messed up due to my using the magic eraser. It actually doesn't bother me that much, as I think it kinda adds to a more realistic skin texture, but I do wonder how folks are able to create such smooth shading! (because I sure can't):



...And this is where I'm at, as of today! I mainly worked on evening out her nose shading, adding a bit more varied color to her cheeks, drawing in her eyelid creases, and darkening her eyebrows and lips. She still needs some more work overall, but I'm over the moon at how she's turning out:


I'll be back with hopefully a finished faceup soon!

 

@Tytonidae Oh my gosh, your comment is so so sweet and encouraging...thank you so much It's sometimes really disheartening to redo stuff especially when you've put in so much time and effort into it...but we all know the end results will eventually pay off, which is why we keep trying, right? I wish you the best of luck on your projects as well!!

Hello everyone! I have another update on this project, and a big one at that! Without further ado, here's how the progress has been going so far:

I finally finished Dalbin's faceup! After my last update, I had to actually redo her face one more time, because I messed up on the final details, ugh But! The final attempt finally came out the way I wanted, and I'm excited to show you the results:

I felt like with the last faceup the colors were maybe a tad too strong and warmer than what I wanted, so I went easy on the shading this time and stuck to cooler reds. I still feel like maybe the lips still came out a liiiiittle brighter than what I was aiming for, but I'm satisfied with it for now!



For the finishing touch I lightly dusted shimmery mica powder all over, and then added some more to the highlights of her face (nose tip, bridge, browbones, cheekbones, cupid's bow, chin). These two photos were taken in natural daylight, and you can see that it's not very visible, however, if you look at the other two photos further down that were taken in artificial lighting, you can definitely make out the glitter, which was exactly what I was going for: a subtle, shimmery look! For gloss, I kept it very minimal since she already had a lot of shine, so just a bit on her tear ducts and bottom lash line.



I'm particularly happy with how her eyelashes came out, and I thought it might be helpful if I showed you the lashes I used. I used these Japanese brand lashes that I had in my makeup drawer from ages ago, I've definitely seen similar looking lashes in Asian stores and on Amazon, so they shouldn't be too hard to find. I cut each end off, combined it to make one smaller, shorter lash, and glued them about halfway up her eye well to create a natural look.



Here's some photos taken under artificial lighting (aka my bathroom lol), here you can clearly see the mica powder!



She's wearing a pair of default 12mm eyes that came with her, but I'm definitely planning to make her a pair of new ones, the iris diameter on these are waaay too big, I measured them and I think they're about 8mm, but I think she would look better with 6mm ones. I'm also thinking she might look cuter with lighter colored eyes, maybe some sort of lavender gradient to keep with the pastel look?! Oh, the possibilities...something that's a bit further down on my to-do list!



While I was working on her faceup, I also worked on her body blushing! But first, here's a photo showing my epic fail of an attempt when I first tried body blushing months ago without sanding her seam lines lol:


Not very cute...the pastel got stuck in all of the seam lines and looked horrendous. I'll spare you a photo of her hands back then, it looked worse because it looked webbed AND dirty Anyhow, I learned my lesson and sanded off all of her seam lines and separated her fingers and toes this time before blushing her.

My plan for the body blushing was very simple: anywhere that isn't highly visible will just get a protective MSC coating and a dusting of mica powder to keep consistent with the shimmery skin. The neck and chest, knees, shins, and hands will get minimal blushing so it doesn't look totally bare, with the hands having the most detailed blushing along with a manicure. I had read a lot of stories about body blushing chipping very quickly, and wanted a look that didn't require high upkeep

So far I'm done with everything except for one thigh, the shins, feet, and hands. More than halfway done! Here's some photos of the torso piece to show you how it looks like:



Like I said....VERY minimal blushing LOOOOOL



The blushing is a bit more visible under artificial lighting, as is the shimmer:



Ok, last part of the this update: the wig! So while I had all of that going on, I also worked on the wig Talk about multi-tasking! Here's another fail story before I start going into the current attempt: while researching wig tutorials, I read that if you cut part of the wig cap and glue the hair underneath for the hair part it would look super natural, so I did that for my first wig attempt, and while it definitely looked nice, I couldn't get the cut cap to close together LOL...so that was scrapped.

Anyways, I just decided to glue the hair in a straightforward fashion and pray it looked good lol. For the hair, I had some heat resistant synthetic hair left over from a previous project, so I chose all of the pastel colors from my stash and blended them together to create pastel rainbow wefts. Sadly, there wasn't a whole lot so I had to make the wig shorter than I envisioned, but I think it'll be okay as long as I style it nicely.



When I got to gluing the topmost wefts on the cap, I ran out of the pastel strands I had been using, and had to resort to using slightly stronger colors for the top (baby blue, lilac, blonde). I was a little worried that they would cancel out all of the pastel, but it actually looks really cute! They kind of blend nicely with the lighter colors underneath, and it looks like it's intentional? I'm going to try to think of a hairstyle that could possibly showcase the lighter colors underneath, if anyone has any ideas, please feel free to share!

Here you can clearly see the color difference on the bottom and top layers:



As of this moment, I'm still working on cleaning up her part, but as soon as that's done, I can get to the fun stuff, which is cutting and styling the wig! I suspect I'll also be working on the rest of the body blushing while that's going on, so that her base will hopefully be finished simultaneously

I couldn't resist testing out the wig while working on it, she looks so cute


As always, thank you for reading, and I'll see you all on my next update!

 

Update on the wig!

Remember how I said I decided to not to do any more split wig cap business? Well, trying to glue in the hair part without it was really hard, so I read up some more tips and went with a method that required a cut in the middle, but not all the way to either end. It worked out much, MUCH better!

Here's the part by the time I was finished:

It's not perfect, and you can still see some glue in areas, but once the glue dried I tried my best to carefully pick them out, and it's not that noticeable anymore.

So then I moved on to the styling!

Here's some of the tools I used: a comb with a thin metal thingy at the end, a mini iron, some scissors, and it's not in the picture but I also used a hair straightener and a spray bottle with water.



First I set out to trimming her hair to get rid of the uneven ends. I was also debating whether I wanted to give her bangs, so I experimented a bit with her front hair.



Once her hair was all even, I set out to give waves to her hair. I wanted a natural, wavy look, so I first tried braiding her hair and setting the curls that way.....It didn't quite give the effect I was hoping for, LOL. At this point, I also decided on short, choppy bangs and cut it roughly to the length I wanted.



since the braiding didn't work well, I tried twisting sections of her hair together and setting the curls that way. It worked really nicely, and the waves looked really natural!!



Then it was time to try and tame all the poofiness, so I lightly misted her hair and wrapped it tightly with some cling wrap, and let it sit for a day or so.



I had to go back in and recurl some sections because it got messy, as well as trim some ends here and there so the shape would look nicer. Also went in and made the bangs look nice, and curled all the ends with the mini iron and the metal part of the comb! I'm still not 100% sure on the poofiness of her hair, I don't want it to look too deflated but at the same time I feel like maybe it's still too poofy...? But I think I'll have to first see her head on her body to make any final decisions. So for now I'm calling the wig done! I think she looks so cute in this style!!!



From a 3/4 view...



...And the back!


With the body blushing, if you can even call it that LOL, I only have one hand left to blush, then I'll do the manicures, and string her back together. I can't wait to see her all put together!

 

An update!

I finally put her back together!



It took me a while because I had to go back and edit her wig, when I was cutting her bangs I had placed the wig cap way too forward on her head, and when I moved it back to it's proper position her bangs ended up being too short...But it's all fixed now!

After seeing her in her entirety, I definitely will need to go back and style the wig some more, as I think it's still too poofy for my taste. The ends also look a bit scruffy, so I'll need to go back and clean those up as well. I might try to make some hair style extensions for her later, so that she can also have a half-up twin bun style!

I went ahead and dressed her up in the over-dress I made after ironing it out. Looking at it again, I think the fit is good overall, but I'm not sure how I feel about the length...I kind of feel like it's too long. Anyways, here's the back so you can see how it ties up:


Like I mentioned in my previous updates, the body blushing is barely noticeable except for the glitter, which is fine by me! In this photo you can see the slight shimmer of the mica powder on her hands. I did her manicure in pastel colors and put gloss and glitter on top, and did her pedicure in a natural, soft pink and finished it with gloss.





Here's some detail shots of the over-dress that I wasn't able to show before! I embroidered the ties with metallic threads of pastel blue, yellow, and lavender for a bit more structure and textural interest. Here you can also see the smocking in the back:



The skirt area, which has ruffles, pintucks with star and moon glitter, vintage lace (still debating on whether I should add this or not):



The sleeves, which I tried making out of a bishop sleeve pattern! The cuffs close with satin ribbon, and has the same embroidered details as the back ties. There's also stars inside the ruffles of her cuffs:



A closer look at the collar and wave tucks! I tried to also do a little smocking on the collar but it kinda failed LOL



I felt like the dress needed a bit more structure so I tried making a petticoat for it. After trying it on, my consensus is: yes to the petticoat, but not this one because I made it a bit too wide.



As you can see, it gives much needed poof to the shape of the dress, making it look more balanced!



Here's a closer look at the accessories she's wearing in the previous picture. I made a star shaped pochette for her using needle felted yarn and metallic embroidery thread. I want to cast some sort of round resin dome and glue it over the hole, and put glitter and stuff inside so it almost acts like a shaker! I also think it looks a bit bare, so I want to embellish it and give it more detail. I'm thinking tassels and maybe some sort of charm hanging from the strap...



And her needle felted bunny! I made the joints movable, so it's able to do different poses! I want to refine it a bit more overall, and add something that will make it a bit more connected to the 'moon bunny' theme. Maybe a moon or a star on it's forehead? I also want it to wear a cute ribbon around it's neck!


Things that are next on my to-do list would be to decide on designs and fabrics for her underdress, her petticoat, bloomers, and socks. For this outfit I also want to make a bunny bonnet for her, I already sourced a free pattern for that so it's just a matter of picking out the materials, testing the pattern, and sewing it! I also need to make her shoes, since I'm not confident with leather I decided to do some sort of slipper-like design, but hopefully make the sole a platform with either foam or clay. My next post will most likely be about sewing the rest of her outfit, so stay tuned! Thank you for reading

 

So I was going to write about fabric choices and patterns, but somehow I just ended up finishing Dalbin's bonnet hahaha...

Anyways! For her bonnet, I knew I wanted a soft, floppy one, if that makes sense, sort of like this one:



I was able to find a free pattern floating around the internet, I wish I could find who originally made this, but there was no source on the Pinterest board: link here

The directions were in Spanish but the pictures were pretty straightforward, so I was able to follow it without too much difficulty!

Originally I was going to machine sew this, but out of impatience I just ended up sewing it all by hand

Here's what it looks like from the front:



The fabric is the same synthetic sheer material as her overdress, as is the vintage lace trim!

A view from the side...



I tried to make it look more 'detailed' by adding two pin tucks on either side of the bonnet. I don't think it ended up doing much though, you can barely see it...

A close up of the glitter stars I put inside her bonnet, this time I used a different kind from the dress, these are more holographic and subtle:




...And one final photo, because she just looks so darn cute! I find that the bonnet photographs best from a 3/4th view:


I'm really proud of this bonnet, because this is the first time I've ever used an actual pattern. Another thing I'm proud of is the fact that this bonnet is totally lined!

I'm still contemplating on whether I should add more decorative elements or leave it as is. On one hand, I really do like the clean simplicity of it, but on the other, I wonder if it'll look better with more details....Another thing I'm on the fence about is adding bunny ears to the bonnet, for the same reasons. If I don't end up attaching ears to the bonnet, I'm going to make her a felted ear headband or something to fulfill my moon bunny dreams lol

I also worked a bit more on the star pochette, I added a decorative tassel and added some pearls to the strap because it looked too plain. Now I just need to get my lazy butt started on the resin dome..



Next, I'm going to start working on her underdress and her socks. For the dress, I'm having a hard time deciding if it will be a dress specifically for this outfit, or if I should just make a very simple dress for her to wear as a basic undergarment. I guess I'll decide once I see what kind of fabrics I have in my stash. For the pattern I'm thinking of using a variation of this, without sleeves:




For the socks, I'm thinking sheer tulle loose socks with stars, much like these Lirika Matoshi stardust tulle socks (I actually have two pairs of these for myself!):



Thanks for reading, and see you again soon!

 

@saraquill Thank you, that's really encouraging to hear!

@tinyseams Thank you so much! I've seen some of your wonderful creations elsewhere on this forum, so it means a lot to hear that from an amazing seamstress like yourself

Alright, so an update on the dress:

After much deliberation, I decided to just go full steam with a dress highly specific to her whole outfit. Since the dress pattern I plan to use is fairly simple, I decided to incorporate some embroidery to add detail. I was highly inspired by these beautiful tarot card dresses from Dior's S/S 2017:




For the color palette I turned to everyone's favorite moon princess, Sailor Moon's cityscape animation still....



...And drew a design that I thought could work nicely:



I tried to keep most of the specific imagery towards the bottom of the dress, since it will be gathered at the top. The back is pretty much the same, just without the moon and cherubs. The cherubs are not my design, I got them from a photo of a vintage nightgown listed on Etsy (that has since been sold, to my dismay). I just added horns so they could look like...unicorn-angel babies LOL




I decided to go with a simple, white cotton fabric that was originally part of a vintage baby dress. It would provide a nice canvas for the embroidery, and the sweet baby blue scalloping detail would match well with the overall theme.


This is where I'm at with the embroidery, as you can see I was unable to find exact matching color thread, and had to make do with (hopefully) similar substitutes. Overall I think it's looking nice so far, however I'm going to redo the cherub because it looks too clunky. I think my mistake was using two strands of floss, so I'll try redoing it with just one. I think I only want the crescent moon part to be colored in, everything else will either just be an outline or have minimal shading, like the sketch. You will see that some of the imagery from the sketch is missing in the photo below (two cherubs, clouds), that's because I'm thinking about adding a sheer layer on top, and embroidering those elements on it for a layered look! I'll have to do some testing to see if how visible it would all be over Dalbin's overdress, though. To finish it off I'm thinking of adding lots of french knots, sequins, and pearls to make it look more embellished!


Good thing with embroidering doll clothes is, there's not THAT much space to cover! Thank god