Aesthetics Making Moshang

Since most of my reason for collecting and customizing dolls is to have dolls for my favorite characters, and I have the Hualian dolls, I decided to make my other favorite MXTX ship, Moshang! I'm not exactly basing it off any one specific version, since there's not a lot out there, but It's probably going to end up a mix of influenced by the fanart from when i first read the book (before the official English one was out) and how I pictured them when reading.

I'm starting with Mobei Jun, since he was easier to choose a base for.
Base: Loongsoul Ying Zhou (imported white)
Planned modifications:
-Dyeing (done; details in comments)
-Pointy ear mod

Items on hand:
-Boots
-Basic wig

Need to do:
-Ear mod
-Torso blushing/ restringing
-Make clothing (sketching out ideas)
-Face up
-Style wig
-Make accessories

For Shang Qinghua
Base: Loongsoul Bai Jue (on layaway, should be paid off in April. Also ordered boots and a wig. I didn't set out planning for them to both be LS dolls, but oh well xD)

Need to do:
-Make clothing (x2, since i want to make his peak lord outfit and a pretty, fancy consort's outfit)
-Faceup
-Style wig
-Make some accessories

 

Dyeing adventures, part one!

I initially set out to do test dye, but it takes so much water and time for one bath, i got impatient and just jumped in xD This worked well for getting me over the fear of unstringing him, but did not work out so well for results. Part of the problem was i only looked at the formula on my computer, not my phone and i know my computer doesn't show colors accurately.
So he was much more purple than i wanted.


Pretty!! But not what I wanted. I wasn't sure how I wanted to adjust it, since i wanted something that was just this side of inhuman, but not as much as this, so i put him away for a while (i did this dye in November).

 

Dyeing part two (yesterday xD)!

I decided to be patient and do a proper test run of some ideas, so i wiped the dye above off the all but one of the extra bits to use as test pieces. I tried the minimal tan formula form the rit website and some different times to see what worked on the ones i wiped. They definitely looked more flesh tones, but not in the way i wanted. The other one i simply did a dye bath just using the sandstone dye at 45 seconds, based entirely on the idea that in color theory, you add a color's opposite to neutralise it. This is where things got a little weird!
In theory, dyeing over the purple with the sandstone worked! it neutralised the purple! almost right back to white it seemed, unless directly compared to the headcap, which i didn't dye at all. It seemed to have a tint that leaned more towards a very pale flesh tone like i wanted, but i couldn't get it to photograph at all! And when i pulled out the rest of the dyed doll, I found that was also paler than i remembered and ALSO wouldn't photograph well, despite the pictures i had from above where i knew it showed up correctly. It was so strange that i struggled so much to get pictures to share with friends for their thoughts!

Based on this though, i thought i could make the sandstone dye over work, but also remembered that when mixing paint, you're supposed to add both yellow and a little red/ pink when correctly a too purple skin tone, so I bought some of the superpink dye with a coupon, and decided to try it out. I used 1.5 tsps sandstone and .25 tsp of the superpink for 45 seconds, and i'm pleased with the new color!!


You can see the difference between the first one (on the left) and this one here


Overall I'm pleased! A few pieces are a little darker than the rest, but they probably were to start with from my first dye and i didn't realise it.
Unfortunately, the heat warped some of the joints a little bit, mostly in the legs. The knee joint on one of the legs is a bit difficult to fit back with the thigh, and the thigh joints don’t want to sit flush to the thigh pieces now, which you can kind of see below (the lighting here is terrible but this looks better in person)

I'm not sure how to proceed with the issues with the joints :/ Stringing might help some with the thigh joints, but not with the tricky knee. I imagine i could maybe heat the thigh where the knee joins and make the knee fit then let it cool, but i'm not sure.

So I'm at an impasse until i can figure that out.

 

Hmm, the thigh pieces i stood up to dry after dying. I didn't think that could be a problem, but makes sense that it might be. Do you have any suggestions on how long to heat them for/ how to let them dry without resting on something?

 

Thank you!! The first one was really pretty, which is why i waffled on changing it for a couple months lol. I do really like the new one, so I'm glad I did, but that purple was pretty. Maybe i'll have to get a random fantasy doll to make that color instead!

 

Huh I could've sworn I replied to this before, but thank you, this is helpful! I do have a heat gun, so I'll probably try that, though I don't know if i'd be able to see it going back to shape very well since they're not incredibly out of shape to begin with.

 

It's been a learning process, but it's been fun!

Thanks! I'm really pleased with the second color too!

 

I started on the ear mods the other day. I only got some work done on one of them (and detailing the irises in the eye bases I've made), and it needs some work. I definitely underestimated how much epoxy I'd need for one ear, and how difficult it could be to get it to stick. I want to add a bit more length and make it pointier, which i can do when I sand it and do detailing on the helix I think, but for a first time sculpting something, it's not too bad overall.




The eye bases i think will work out ok. They're not exactly even all around, but neither are most people's eyes in real life anyway. I can always make more bases if they don't work out. There's a few that are for different options to try for Dollbei Jun (a couple white pairs and both black ones), a couple in different sizes for Shang Qinghua, and some for a different off topic doll. I'll be able to tell better once i color them, but i need to decide how exactly I want to do that. I have paints, pastels, and mica powders so I'll probably use a mix of those.

 

I finally had an opportunity to work more on the ear mods and got the basic shape blocked in for the second ear, and got the first one above to a length i'm happy with. I need to refine them and sand them still, but I've been afraid of messing it up so have been procrastinating a bit. I definitely did a much cleaner job on the second ear, so i'm learning at least

 

And in the meantime while I've been too afraid to try carving the ear mods down and sanding them, Bai Jue arrived! And I love him!! He's so cute and I really think he'll make a great Shang Qinghua. I wasn't sure i'd like the LS 62cm body from pictures, but in person I actually quite like it, and it poses really nicely, including standing sturdily on his own.
The teeth are so cute!


I wanted to see just how tall he was, since I'm bad at visualising that, so I stood him net to my Xie Lian, and I'm really glad i didn't go with a 65cm doll--he would've been too tall! Also, the Loongsoul yellow is apparently a good match for Ringdoll normal. (You can see the pieces for dollbei jun, since i still haven't sorted out the issue with the leg joints yet, or done the torso blushing xD)

And I had to see how their heads would look together, so here's a picture of both heads. I think they'll look really nice together once i stop being so nervous and just go for it with the mods!

Since he doesn't need to be unstrung, I'm probably going to try making some clothes for dollhua first, at least some underlayers lol

 

I'm still working on refining the ear mods. It's a lot more tedious than I thought it would be to shape things back down! But I did manage to complete the torso and hand blushing for dollbei jun and get him restrung! Restringing him was a challenge because the elastic is so thick but I managed it and only needed help at the very end. I do have blisters on my fingers from pulling on the ribbon i used to thread the elastic so hard though :/

Since the weather is so humid and rainy here lately with no sign of it giving way, I'm going to start on their clothes next, and save the faceups and hand/ torso blushing for dollhua until fall when it's usually a little better. I'm going to paint and gloss dollbei jun's nails still, but i won't need to use msc for that

The thigh joints clearly didn't absorb as much dye as the rest, but he'll be wearing pants anyway and overall, it looks fairly even, especially for my first time doing any of this! And I did use my heatgun to try to fix the thigh sockets some, and that plus the tension from being strung seems to have fixed the issue, so thank you everyone who suggested trying heat to fix them!

 

Well It was a busy few months and I wasn't able to work on the boys at all until today
I'm still trying to work on the ear mods, but i'm not really happy with them, and I can't pin point exactly why, or how I need to fix it. I know they're not perfectly even. Some of that obviously is from me sculpting them on different days, but it's more that I'm really struggling to get the shape of the details right for the helix and whatever the lower part of the outer ear is called.
I kind of feel like part of the issue is probably because I've been looking at them the way I would draw pointed ears, but I don't really understand how to make that work in 3d :/ And searching the forum, there's not really any tutorials or walk throughs about elf/ pointed ears mods, just lots of posts affirming they can be done. The only tutorials I've really seen have been from Lomi's playround on youtube, and I've watched them multiple times each. Clearly, something's not quite sticking, or I'm just not seeing it right, and the little I've managed to do has taken me hours so far. Overall, it's just really frustrating right now
I worked on them for hours today and it just doesn't really look or feel like I've made much progress from the last time I worked on them



Some of the blushing also chips off MBJ's fingers even though I haven't done anything with him and he's just been sitting in the cabinet. That's probably my fault for working on him over summer when it was humid, but tbh, it's been humid now in fall too. I have some of the liquitex matte medium so i'll probably reseal his hands with that completely and try to touch it up when i paint his nails.

 

I don't personally own any elf eared sculpts at the moment, and I do have some saved on mood boards that i like, but they're still just 2d images, which tbh is also an issue i have trying to use pictures as drawing references. Like i can't picture how things work from 2d into 3d at all :/

 

Long time no post! I really did get super frustrated with those ear mods after my last one, so poked at them on and off for a little bit until February when i had an idea to try to fix what was bothering me about the shape, and then poked at them on and off some more after that, still being frustrated and having low motivation to do anything with them.
But! I've finally gotten them to a point where if I don't say good enough, I know they're never going to be finished and I'm going to continue to feel frustrated and guilty for not having them done. They're by no means perfect--there's still a lot of spots that I can't seem to sand smooth and they're not very even. But they're a lot better than they were, especially when i look at the older pictures.


Now I just need to figure out how to use my airbrush to color match them (and for sealant) and then I can start on both his and Shang Qinghua's faceups.

I also started working on his outfit, but finding time I can use my sewing machine without the dog getting barky about it because all machines are his mortal enemies has been hard. I'm basically following this tutorial from Lomi's playground (altering my own pattern I drafted for basic pants for him using directions from a hanfu making book I bought). I'm using the grey fabric below for his, and I'll probably use the blue for SQH's, though his will just be from a basic pattern.

I still need to draft patterns for their inner shirts and robe layers in terms of making their outfits, but one step at a time i guess.

 

Thanks! Having the comparison pictures is definitely helping me feel a lot better about how the ears came out.

I went overboard getting fabrics for them so they'll both have a lot of silks The blue one is flagstone dupioni from silk baron (several of the fabics I got for them are from silk baron, since I bought them during one of their scrap sales). I also have a really pretty pale blue habotai that I'm going to make SQH's inner shirt from, once I can figure out how I want to pattern it.

 

Thank you!! SVSSS definitely doesn't get as much love as the others, sadly.