Aesthetics Early Victorian crew - custom faceups, wigs, and wardrobe

@Rubytinker You made my day, thank you so much!!

 

This past month has been rough and I haven't had much time available to work on my projects, but here's a quick list of what's going on!

1) Leon's outfit is well underway. His shirt, trousers, and waistcoat are all nearly complete, just missing some final details like snaps, buttons, and other hardware. As with August's outfit, I am going to postpone the frock coat until a later date, so once these garments are finished I'll be moving on to Sebastien's outfit. I've already shared this in April's monthly sewing round, so nothing new to see here if you follow those threads!










2) August and Sebastien's jointed hands have arrived!



August received DikaDoll 70 cm hands in normal pink resin. Since DikaDoll is a sister company to 2D Doll, the hands are a close match to August's 2D Doll body, and should be an exact match soon once the hands have had the chance to age/mellow for a few months. The hands look great but don't hold poses very well, so I may end up wiring them.



Sebastien received Doll Legend 70 cm hands in white resin. The color matches Dollzone's white resin pretty well. These hands are incredibly elegant and well-engineered; in my opinion, they are significantly higher quality than the DikaDoll hands. Sebastien is not wearing these lovely new hands yet because his arms are very tightly strung and I managed to injure myself when I tried to switch out the old hands for the new



3) Sebastien is going to get dyed! I've decided to keep him on his default Dollzone body (B70-004, now very recently discontinued), but I'm not enjoying the white resin color. My character concept for him (including his appearance, personality, and backstory) has shifted over the last few months, and his pale monochromatic look no longer suits my mental image of him. I'll be shooting for a realistic peachy skin tone, and re-doing his faceup. I've purchased a stainless steel pot to be used only for dyeing, a candy thermometer, an aquarium net, and Rit Dyemore liquid dye in the color Apricot Orange. Now I just need to find the courage to actually do the dyeing!!

3) Two bodies (DF-H 63 cm girl body in tan; Spiritdoll 70 cm proud body in tan) are incoming for new crew members, neither of whom has a head yet! I ordered one head in March (Impldoll Candice) and I'll be ordering the second head in June (Little Rebel Ethan). If I'm motivated enough, having their bodies on hand means that I could theoretically begin creating wardrobes for them before their heads even arrive, but I don't feel very confident that I'll find that much time or energy anytime soon

For these characters, I'll probably wait to introduce them until I receive their heads, but their names, personalities, and relationships to the other members of the group have already been determined... I hope you'll enjoy meeting them

 

@cthulhu Hahaha, I'll do my best not to keep you waiting for too long on the frock coats!! Thank you so much for the dyeing advice, I'll definitely be sure to do a test dip before doing any larger batches of parts. I've obsessively read all of the dyeing threads multiple times and they're absolute goldmines of information. Frankly, I'm quite a chicken and I wouldn't be willing to try dyeing without those resources!!

@GammaVector I had high hopes for the Doll Legend hands but they blew me away as soon as I opened the box, they're seriously perfect! Fingers crossed that you'll end up enjoying Sebastien's new look once it's complete; I know that aesthetics are always a matter of individual taste but I hope the changes I'm planning will emphasize the beautiful sculpt better and create a more compelling and well-rounded color palette.

@Rubytinker Aren't jointed hands amazing?? These are my first pairs of them, and they're a blast to play with!

@Vindalootoo Oh, you are so kind Being able to share my process with this wonderful community makes all the effort of documentation worthwhile!!

 

@Valdemagra Thank you!! I've been having so much fun designing and sewing menswear, but I'll be excited to transition into making some chemises, petticoats and dresses once the dolls for my female characters arrive That's one of the great things about this hobby, there's no end to the projects you can dream up... at my snail's pace, I think I have enough on my plate to keep me busy for the next few years

 

@Chraurelius Oooh, Maskcatdoll Frances is such a timeless beauty, I'm sure she will look lovely in any style that you choose!! Thank you for the encouragement, I promise to post some updates very soon

 

Whew, real life has been a struggle lately! Thank goodness it's not anything negative, but it's pretty stressful and has reduced my already minimal hobby time to almost zero. At any rate, I do have a couple of updates to share:

1) Sebastien's wardrobe is officially underway! I have completed the patterns for his trousers and waistcoat and achieved successful mock-ups for those garments. I hope to begin construction on his shirt soon, then move on to the trousers and waistcoat in my usual order of operations.

Quick reminder of the fabrics I'm using for his outfit, waistcoat-trousers-frock coat from left to right (dupioni silk in iridescent green color/green shot with purple; lightweight wool suiting in micro houndstooth pattern; lightweight wool suiting in sand color):



Pattern drafting in progress:



2) I have a new arrival, Iplehouse BID Ellia in special real skin resin! She's my first tiny doll, and is meant to be Sebastien's toddler-age daughter from a later stage of his story (AKA the happily-ever-after phase, after all the drama is resolved ). I had already named her character, but I second-guessed myself once she arrived, so I'm still working on making the final decision.

For her wig, I tried some new things. Her hair needed to be curlier than any of my other dolls so far, so after following my regular alpaca fiber processing and cleaning process, I wet-set the fiber into tiny curls using hair curl styling cream, stirring straws, and bobby pins. It worked great! I wanted the wig to be waterproof so that it could be washed and re-styled as needed, so I used E6000 glue to create the wig cap and attach the fiber, and wore a respirator for safety due to the fumes. I did not create wefts for this wig, I employed direct fiber application, and then I rooted the crown of the wig using my usual method.

Curling the alpaca fiber:



Wig in progress:



For her faceup, I wanted a sweet natural look and a dewy finish. Since I was working on a deeper resin tone, I used ZM Finishing Spray instead of MSC to avoid the layers of sealant creating a white cast on the face. I finished the faceup with a sponged-on application of Liquitex Matte Medium to create 3D skin texture and give her a nice glow.



And here she is! For now, she's wearing temporary glass eyes and some clothing from Dollmore. I absolutely love her





And here's a little sneak peek of things to come, this DF-H 63 cm body will ultimately belong to this character's mother once the proper head sculpt arrives (Impldoll Candice):

 

@Valdemagra Thank you I'm excited to see the fabrics come together in the finished outfit too, I'm never totally sure whether I've made good judgment calls on my fabric coordination until the actual garments begin taking shape!! Some of my pairings are probably a little unconventional, but I have more fun by taking those risks

 

Here's the current state of my various projects, lots of changes incoming!

1) No substantial progress on anyone's wardrobe

2) Sebastien is getting re-shelled to be more aesthetically cohesive with the rest of the group and to better fit my constantly-shifting vision of his character. I'm going to try out a Dollshe Aramis head on an Akagidoll 72 cm body (body ordered, not yet shipped). This means starting over with drafting patterns for his garments...

3) Sebastien's daughter, the little Iplehouse BID Ellia I shared a couple posts ago, has a name now: Emmy. Leon is kindly babysitting her while she waits for her parents



4) The love of Sebastien's life, his eventual bride, and Emmy's mother, is getting re-shelled. Impldoll Candice arrived and I was immediately disappointed with the sculpt, so Iplehouse EID Lahela (ordered, not yet shipped) will now be taking the role instead! The character's name is Corinna and I'm so excited for her

5) Leon's little sister, a Maskcatdoll Yael, arrived safe and sound more than a month ago... I've finally completed her faceup so I'm ready to share her! She's gorgeously sculpted and is an excellent poser. She doesn't have her final wig yet, I'll be making her one out of black alpaca fiber to match Leon's, but for now she looks very sweet in the randomized wig that Maskcatdoll sent with her. Eyes are custom shade of moss green, commissioned from AshuraDark (she is incredibly talented, all my dolls' eyes are from her). Please welcome Genevieve, she prefers to go by Evie:













6) Corinna's younger brother, Little Rebel Ethan in caramel resin color, arrived safely! I had purchased his body months ago, a second-hand Spiritdoll proud body v2 in custom dark tan, so I was just waiting patiently for his head. The resin match and proportions of the hybrid are fantastic (what a relief!) and the head sculpt is outrageously beautiful. I haven't painted him or made his wig yet, but I did manage to sew a shirt for him and steal Sebastien's old trousers. Eyes are custom olive hazel from AshuraDark. The character doesn't have a name yet; I have a list of ideas but haven't settled on anything. Suggestions are welcome!!







To everyone who's followed along or commented, thank you so much for your patience and support, I'm so grateful for it! Life has continued to be super stressful and exhausting during the last few months, but maybe I will have some happy personal news to share soon

 

So, @Vindalootoo and @cthulhu have already provided wonderful advice on this topic, but I'll share my thoughts as well!

So, I have practiced sewing almost exclusively by working on dolls, and have almost no experience sewing human-scale clothing. I have been interested in historical costuming for the last few years, and I enjoyed learning whatever I could without really expecting that I would ever put that information to use. When I began this hobby last year, I realized that I could make my historical costuming dreams come true with my dolls, so I dove in and started experimenting!

I would suggest starting with whatever you feel more motivated to do, whether that is doll clothing or human clothing. There are advantages and disadvantages to both and so I would say that ultimately, whatever you are more inspired to work on will result in more and better practice for you!

For me, I was much more motivated to create doll clothing because I have nowhere to wear the type of historically-inspired garments I would want to create, and because the fabric budget for making those clothes at human scale would be much steeper than creating it for dolls. I also enjoy hand-sewing, which is nicely suited to making doll clothes. For a beginner, accuracy is easier to control by hand than by machine. Also, human scale garments can take an awfully long time to sew by hand! It's nice to be able to complete a doll garment by hand in a more reasonable amount of time.

Good luck, and I hope you'll share your sewing journey with us!!

@Valdemagra Congratulations on the arrival of your first large doll, how exciting!! I'm sure you will have lots of fun dressing her And these discussions are always welcome in this thread, I'm happy to see it!!

 

So I am finally sharing my happy news (totally non-doll-related), my partner and I bought our first house!! We moved at the end of September and even now, almost three months later, I wake up in disbelief every morning that we are really living in our dream home. House projects seem to take up most of our free time these days, but we are pretty settled in at this point and I can finally find a little time to breathe and work on dolls again.

So here are some updates!!

1) Leon's waistcoat and stock/necktie are officially finished This is one of the last things I managed to do before the move so you can still see the old trusty fireplace in the background



2) Corinna (Iplehouse EID Lahela) arrived and I completed her wig and faceup. This sculpt is glorious and absolutely perfect for the character, I couldn't be happier. The wig is made with Tibetan mohair. The natural texture of this particular batch of fiber is incredible and exactly what I was looking for to suit this character! Gorgeous urethane eyes by Ashuradark.









3) Corinna's brother, my Little Rebel Ethan hybrid, has taken the name Thomas. I completed his wig, made with the same Tibetan mohair as Corinna's wig. (Can you tell that I enjoy creating matchy-matchy sibling pairs? ) Short hairstyles are so much fun to create and I love how it turned out, this might be my favorite wig yet!







4) Still working on shelling/reshelling Sebastien, the endless search continues! Iplehouse EID Lawrence has been ordered

***

Upcoming projects:

Faceup for Thomas
Chemise and petticoats for Corinna
Gown and jewelry for Corinna
Wig for Evie
Waistcoat and trousers for Thomas
Chemise and petticoats for Evie
Gown and jewelry for Evie
(and plenty plenty more, all in due time...)

Just going to keep this short and sweet for now, hopefully I'll have another update soon. Happy holidays everyone, wishing you health and joy in the New Year!!

 

Thank you so much @cthulhu!! Yes I seem to be falling down the Iplehouse rabbit-hole I had such a wonderful time painting Corinna and trying out some new things, can't wait to apply these new tricks on upcoming faceups! Starting tomorrow I have a little time off from work, so with some luck I will find time to work on my projects and have another update very soon. Thank you for the well-wishes and have a lovely holiday season

 

Awww thanks @moss-socks!! Always happy to hear that someone else has a soft spot for this period of fashion. Making petticoats and patterning a morning/day dress for Corinna are my top priorities right now, I hope you will enjoy those projects!!

 

Quick update! Finished Thomas' faceup, it was very fun working on Little Rebel's stunning artist-cast caramel resin. I'm not sure that I'm happy with my work so I will re-do it when I have a chance, but it's a low priority as he is already very handsome as-is At the very least I'll be switching out his eyelashes but I was too lazy to get that done before taking photos!

Thomas may have become the new favorite in the household...








I think I have finally settled on a design for Corinna's first gown (which will be a "casual" daytime dress) so I'll start the patterning process this weekend. When it comes to fabric, I have amassed a decent stash of small-scale patterned cotton lawn so it will be very tough to choose! I'll probably go with one of the lighter, brighter colorways because although it's only February right now, it'll probably be Spring by the time I finish the dress

 

Thank you @Cloudedmind! I was doing a lot of experimenting on the lips so I ended up re-doing them 3 or 4 times, but it was worth it if they turned out nicely!

Thanks so much @Vindalootoo

 

Corinna's petticoats and day dress are finished!

The patterning process started with the bodice. I used my usual method of masking tape to create an initial fitted pattern. I referenced images of existing dresses from the period (1840s, early Victorian) to come up with the design. However, what I chose for this dress bodice is not one of the more typical styles for the period. In the future, I would like to create some fan-front styles and pleated designs, but I didn't feel like doing it for this one.



I created a mockup using lightweight cotton lawn, made some slight adjustments, and transferred the adjustments to create the final pattern for the outer layer of the bodice. I used the mockup as the lining for the finished garment. The armscye is cut low on the shoulder, which was the style of the period. Sleeves were drafted using simple measurements and very easy freehand method. Sleeves are cut on the bias (how it was done in the period) which is very forgiving for fit and movement. I apparently didn't take any photos of that part For this dress, I chose to leave the sleeves unlined.



I ended up making two layers of petticoats to support the dress' skirts. The petticoats are cartridge pleated for plenty of fullness. The fabric is gathered with 1/8" running stitch then cartridge pleated (stitched pleat by pleat) onto twill tape for waistbands. The process is getting super fast now that I've done a few of them! The petticoats have an intentionally deep hem for some extra support at the bottom of the dress. I would like to create some pin-tucked or corded petticoats in the future but I kept it simple this time, and on doll scale, these plain petticoats are sufficient to support the dress nicely. The dress skirts are cartridge pleated onto the bottom edge of the finished lined bodice, using the same method and same size of gathering stitch.

All sewing for the dress was done by hand (which is the case for all the garments I make) and for any unlined portions, all seam allowances were felled for a clean finish on the interior. To finish the dress I added a crochet lace collar and attached hook and eye closures at the back of the bodice. Here's the finished result:





Looking at these photos I realized I forgot to wash out the white pen marks on the bodice They'll come out easily, though!!

To finish the look appropriately, I need to create an alternate wig for her with a middle-parted updo hairstyle. She also needs a cap for indoors and/or a bonnet for outdoors. Hopefully I'll be able to get started on those accessories sooner than later, but for now I'm working on some petticoats for Evie so that I can get her dressed in period style as well.

Hope you enjoyed it, I'll check back in soon!

 

Thanks @Cloudedmind, I appreciate it

Thank you @moonlightnocturne, I've been really motivated lately so I should have new progress to share very soon!!

@Idoru I'm so glad you like the dress, the alternate wig and cap will be lots of fun to make and I'll likely get started on them within the next week or two

@_goblincat Aww you're more than welcome!! I've been trying to keep these writeups brief, but if you ever have questions about anything that I glossed over or skipped, please feel free to ask and I'll be glad to answer!

 

@cthulhu Thanks so much! Ooh, mini plaid taffeta will be gorgeous for 1830s or 1840s dresses, I'll be very excited to see what you come up with once you have a chance to work on that project! I have a couple colorways of plaid dupioni waiting for Evie and Corinna once I'm more confident in my dressmaking

Let me know if I misunderstood your question, but yes the bodice was fully finished and then I cartridge pleated the skirt directly onto the bottom edge of the bodice. The skirt is not on a separate waistband, so it is a permanent dress and can't be used with interchangeable bodice options.

Hmm, sounds like I may need to enlist your help and expertise when I attempt corded petticoats

Thanks @saraquill! The transitional period of late 1830s to early 1840s has so much fabulous fashion, I would love to see the dress that you made