Wigs Making a Ventilated Wig

I'd suggest tying the cap in place with a thread going from ear to ear under the chin as with the movement of knotting the hair to the wig, you can end up shifting the wig around or having it pop straight off. I also found it helpful to put painter's tape on the head under the wig and then draw on the tape the direction of the hair I wanted to have as a guideline sort of thing.

I've only made 1 ventilated wig and it was very, very small (for my Granado 15Lucent, so less than a 2" head circumference). As a first timer (but someone with a good bit of latch hooking experience), it took longer than I thought it would to make a wig so small (maybe 28-30 hours?). I also found that I could only work on it for about 2 hours at a go before my eyes and hands needed a rest (ymmv).

 

Undoubtedly I'll get faster as I get more experience doing it. I have 2 more vented wigs I want to make, also for very small heads. I have 2 Batchix Clever Littles (artist casts) and they have a circumference of ever so slightly under 3" (I think it's like 2 7/8"). I have one all set up and ready to go (and he's been that way for literally weeks) but haven't started yet as other projects have stolen my time.

I'd also suggest using only 3-4 strands max of hair per hole as it seems to make the knot not so firm/tight if you use more. It doesn't seem like a lot per hole but you will get good coverage as a whole.

If you wanted to see the tiny wig, I have a pic posted on my Insta (https://www.instagram.com/id_locke/) and I was a bit off on the time as I stated 25 hours on there. Oops! Still, that's a good chunk of time for something so very small. I also have a little dab of poster tack on his head in order to keep the wig on his head as I wasn't able to use elastic reasonably because his head is just so darn small.

 

Absolutely. I'd purchased some Monique 3/4 wigs for my Clever Littles but they were too large for them and there was a lot of bulk from the sewn wefts. I made them some hard cap wigs with loose mohair as the hair and oddly, 1 fits well and the other falls off if you so much as think about looking at it sideways despite both wigs being made on the heads of the one that was going to wear the wig. I have no explanation for that.

 

I made both wigs at the same time with the same materials so why one fits and one doesn't is a total mystery to me.

I recently made a sewn weft wig and it turned out rather well despite my not knowing how to finish the center part without the weft showing. I sewed beads down the center to hide the wefts and it turned out much better than I thought it would. The doll I made it for, Braithwyn, may not end up wearing it as his default but whatever. I got the wefts for free from a friend who was given them from a friend of hers so it's all good and having them used as intended is better than languishing unused in a bag somewhere.

 

I hate being able to see the wefts (or cap!) of a finished wig. I went a little ham with the amount of wefts I used but you can't see them so I'm happy about that. If you're curious about that wig, there's pics of it on my Insta.

That's one of the nice things about a vented wig; there are no wefts to be visible. It is a bit difficult to add in hair if you decide later to add more (it's hard not to catch hairs you've already knotted in place) but it's not impossible to do that.

 

Lol, yes, when you initially start it seems to take forever and a day before you see any kind of real progress which can be frustrating. It looks like you're getting a good start though.

One of the benefits of using the painter's tape (not masking or scotch tape as those will leave glue residue where the painter's tape won't) is that it also helps to protect the resin from possible scratches of your venting tool. It also helps to give some colour contrast between the resin/lace (painter's tape is typically bright green) so you're not straining your eyes too much. I also worked with a fairly small amount of loose hair in my non-knotting hand since I found that easier to work with than the larger amounts of hair I'd seen others on YouTube use.

I don't know if it applies to you but I wear glasses (old eyes are old) and I bought the highest magnification glasses from the Dollar Store (3.5 I think) and used those exclusively for venting the wig. It helped me a lot to see the tiny little holes in the lace. I also worked only in full, natural light, which helped as well (the hair I was using was very light). As weird as it sounds, I also tied my doll to my thigh with a scarf as I worked because he is so tiny (and light) and it helped to stabilize him as I worked. I rested my foot on the couch cushion with my leg bent so he was only about 6" away from my face while I worked.

Be advised that it seems to matter which direction you knot the hairs with regards to having them lay nicely once done. Or at least that's been my experience so far. If you're switching directions of knotting it seems to show. I'm probably not explaining that well.

 

Yes. You probably still could but after you're done knotting the hair you'll need to boiling water set the hair into the shape/style you want and it'll resist going into a new style easily I think.

 

It might be because I was working on such a small size that I needed to do the boiling water thing to get the hair to lay flat. I don't know for sure as I've only done the one wig so I don't have anything else to compare it to.

But even when I did the sewn weft wig recently, I needed to boiling water it to get the hairs to lay flat and calm down. So perhaps it's just a finishing sort of thing with synthetic fibres?

 

Maybe? I'm lightly toying with the idea of spreading a very thin layer of silicone caulking on the inside of the wig to help it stay on his head as well as further lock the hair into place. However, I need to do some test swatches to make sure the silicone doesn't... "leak" through to the finished wig. Haven't gotten around to doing that yet though (too many other projects on the go, lol).

 

Oh gods, the projects!

I have eyes to re-make for a friend. 2 ventilated wigs to make. A doll bag to make for one of my boys. Tattoo-like markings to re-do on one of my guys. More clothing than you could shake a stick at that I want to make (I have some gorgeous fabric begging to be fancy doll clothes). I need to re-string probably 6 of my dolls at the very least (that is totally dependant on how my hands feel on any given day due to arthritis and CPSP). I have several guys that need to be sent off for face-ups. I want to get a whole group shot but I don't even know where I'd put all of them to be able to do that (I currently have 78 dolls) and that would be something of an epic undertaking time-wise.

And that's just for the dolls as objects. I have an embarrassingly long backlog of stories that need to be written regards the characters that are my dolls. I've got several stories in multiple states of completion (barely started to nearly done) but since I'm an epic sized writer when left to my own devices, the stories are frequently massive. One I'm pecking away at right now is just a touch below 288K and I've probably got another 40-50K of story to do before it's finished. A typical 250 page paperback novel is 70K and yeah, that story is all one novel. It's currently 501 pages in Word.

 

I don't have display space so unless I'm doing something with them, they all reside in their boxes. It took me 16 years to reach that many but yeah, there's some days that I'm surprised at how many I have, too, lol.

Yes, all my dolls are characters from the stories I write. Fortunately not everybody demands to be shelled but I still ended up with that many dolls so.... I have multiple worlds I write in with my current favourite being Divine Worship which is set in the very, very ancient past when gods freely walked the world and mingled with the mortals. Illarion (the Granado 15Lucent that I ventilated a wig for) and Braithwyn (the sewn weft wig) are both from that world.

Funny enough, Illarion and Braithwyn are sort of 1/2 brothers in that Ondraeden (Soom ID51 London The Moor) is their father (sort of). Ondraeden is the the Elder God of Fear & Nightmares and he did have a child, Braithwyn (Soom Chrom head on FL65 body), with an Elder Goddess not long after the Elder Gods created the universes. Braithwyn is the God of Wild & Forgotten Places while Illarion is a Fearling (a special Servant of Ondraeden). Valerian (Iple FID Claude Vampire) is Illarion's other parental half (it's complicated and an Elder God thing). Illarion is the fraternal twin to Dakarai (Akhmel Nathan), who is also a Fearling.

 

Yea! Good for you. It does take a while but the finished wig is worth it in my opinion. I had my doubts when I was starting it that doing so few hairs per hole would be enough but it worked out. And you can go back and add more if you need to. It's just a pain to do so.

 

Yep. it's relieving/nice to see it actually starting to look like it has some thickness to it when, as you're first doing it, it doesn't seem like that's going to happen. Once you get a good rhythm going, it starts to fill in surprisingly fast.

 

Curious how this turned out for you!! I’m interested in making a ventilated wig but I’ve seen a few people having fit issues after they’ve finished the wig, as if the lace/tulle has stretched out- some people recommend doing a layer of glue to keep the fit, and ventilating through that, but that sounds like a huge pain and I’m hoping to avoid it LOL. Did you do the ventilation process on the doll head? I feel like that would ensure the fit a lot better.
Your pictures won’t show up for me- I’d love if you could message me some if you ended up finishing this project!

 

Oh wow that looks great!! And that’s exactly what I was hoping to hear! The pinning to foam is a great idea, I’ll definitely give that a try. I’m not looking forward to how tedious the process is but I do think the results are well worth it!
Thanks so much for fixing the pics so I could see them!!