Aesthetics Making my dnd character (and her friend!)

I've been playing in my current dnd game for 3 years now, and I've been slowly working towards making a doll for my character, Vanora, who's a water genasi barbarian, and her best friend Faolán, who she's looking for in game (before anything terrible happens to them ).

I wanted to have them ready to bring to the NYC Dollcon in March, but I don't think that's going to work out It's probably for the best for a myriad of reasons, but I still want to talk about them and my process, so I'm making this to do that!

So far, I have heads for both of them (Dream Valley Vanora for Vanora, and a Switch Muhyul for Faolán), and I custom ordered a couple of bodies from Resinsoul for them that I am feeling very "Packidge?" about lately xD

I have a reference sketches for their basic outfits, too, which has been my goal for the con (they do have formal outfits i want to make, but that can be later).
They're pretty simple outfits in theory, and luckily I have a lot of fabric here that can work if I dye it.

What I need to do:

• get over my fear of the airbrush so i can color match Vanora's head to the body
• faceups for both of them (waiting on bodies so i can fiddle with blushing if needed to better match things)
• figure out a design for Faolán's tattoos (which i keep procrastinating on and forgetting to draw in references xD)
  
• draft patterns for their clothes (waiting for the body for Vanora's to get measurements, and I'm winging it for Faolán's at this point, since he generally wears looser fitting, oversized clothes anyway
• make said clothing (dyeing fabric and figuring out decorative stitches on my sewing machine for decorations)
  
• figure out shoes (where are all the flat doll sized sandals I ask?!)
• make accessories (Vanora's charm bracelet and probably her sword, Faolán's woven belt and a healer's kit)
• dye and style the wig I have for Vanora
• finish making eyes (i may also buy some at the con if I can find ones I like in the right size and colors)

 

Things I've done, or attempted to do:

• Dye Vanora's head ; it did not turn out well at all, hence needing to figure out the airbrush
  
• Make the charm for her bracelet (minus painting it to look like driftwood)
• bought a pair of sandals for her, but they were clearly not made with very good materials, since I just got them and it's already cracked :/ so back to square one for that
• first pattern draft and mockup for a shirt for Faolán; needs revisions and a second mockup

 

Vanora's charm bracelet (really it's just a bracelet with one charm, a carved wooden tern) is going to be made from a charm from these 3d nail stickers, that I'm going to paint to look like wood, and probably braided or woven embroidery thread. I'm really happy they're working how I thought they would! I'm going to go with the larger one, and I trimmed the branch away already. (pencil for scale lol)

I'll probably make a couple other bracelets for her from some seed beads as well, since my DM and i were talking, and Vanora and her dad used to make beads and jewelry things together. She's very sentimental, but I had her outfit drawn before we had that conversation xD Technically she should also have a bracelet that our fighter made for her (they made bracelets together at camp one night during watch), but the bracelet she is wearing was a gift from Faolán, and she never takes it off, so it takes priority.

For eyes, I've got to clean these up and seal what I have so far before doing more detailing. Vanora's are the dark pair at the bottom, and I'm pretty sure they're too small (they're 14mm and I think she should have 16mm, but I forgot that when is tarted painting the bases). They're also too blue, but I have some fun black mica powder I want to try using to see if that will give the depth I want. Faolan's eyes are supposed to be hazel, like the larger iris pair, but getting more colors into the smaller irises is tricky. The brown also stained the sclera some so I need to figure out the best way to clean or cover that too.

 

Thank you! I'm really excited to make them!

Ooh that's exciting--congrats! and thank you!

I can't imagine trying to shell my whole party and our adopted dmnpc's! It'd be fun but I'd definitely get caught up trying to make everyone perfect lol. Good luck with your party's travels in Hell!
The eye bases are resin ones using white uv resin (with additional pigment added since it's a little too translucent on its own) and some molds i got on amazon. I used milliput to make the textured part of the irises, like a lot of people do with polymer clay, but I could never get over that most of the time, they say they don't cure that. And i was working on some modifications anyway, so i used the milliput for it. It worked pretty well and didn't shrink like other air dry clays can. For coloring them, I used a mix of watercolors (both regular and pearlescent ones), pastels, mica powder, and some alcohol markers (which is probably also why the sclera got stained lol). The pupils in the 14mm eyes are black rhinestones, and for the smaller pair, i actually drew that in with a fineliner and sealed it with some duraclear varnish before trying to do more coloring, since it wanted to smudge.

 

Thank you! I need to paint the charm still to look like carved wood, and I'm excited to see how that works out with the stickers!

Oh that sounds like a fun group!! Pending how things go, I might eventually make Vanora's in party bestie, if her player is ok with it. We keep joking that Vanora has a Type given similarities between this character and Faolan that we absolutely did not plan on but would definitely seem that way to anyone listening to our game But then I'd want to make everyone else too, and our main adopted dmnpc, because it's such a fun group!

For black resin, what kind do you have? I've made some black eye bases as well (but I haven't done any detailing or painting for them) but I'm not sure if the pigment I have is widely available, but it worked really well. It's from the brand park lane, which I think I got at either Joann's, if you're in the US. I think their Hildie and Jo brand has some too, but I haven't tried it.
I honestly have a terrible time with acrylic paints on most anything, so using watercolor was more of a it's what I have than a solid plan lol. The pastels i will say don't stick the greatest without some other medium down first. I initially tried just using those but it didn't do very well until i had some base color already added. I was also struggling to get the watercolors to stick with the darker rim around the irises on all 3 pairs too, which is why i tried my copics. The watercolor seems to like the more textured surface inside the iris than the flatter one there. But the copics worked pretty well on the milliput. These are the first eyes I've made, so I've kind of just been winging things to see how they work in all honesty. I'm surprised it worked as well as it did for what I wanted!

 

I think Michael's has uv resin pigments that you can add to make it darker! That's what I have to do with the white UV resin I have and it seems to work pretty well! But sculpey might be easier lol

 

Their bodies came (technically they came last Thursday but i keep forgetting to update this thread. I did post a box opening though! I'm really pleased with Vanora's! In some angles, her head looks a little small, but I am not mod-savvy enough to even attempt trying to make her jawline less rounded! It doesn't bother me too much at this point. The "but the name is the same!" is still influencing me probably xD The wig I got for her also fits, though it's a bit long and I need to dye it. This is probably a better picture of the musculature than some of the box opening ones i got too

Faolán's unfortunately is too dark for the head, and I haven't decided how i want to approach that. It's not too bad in this picture, but is definitely more noticeable when the head is on the body.


I'm waiting until after NYC dollcon to decide. Maybe I'll end up getting lucky and find something there, who knows. The head is a little too big, which i figured. No one gives head height in their measurements, just diameters, so I’ve been a little :/ about it since his head arrived, given the diameter is about the same as Vanora’s, but his head is definitely larger. (tbh i'm bad at spatial reasoning anyway, so even if they had given the height measurement, it wouldn't have helped xD). I ordered some kips, and i think with those and a neck protector or riser of some kind, plus careful tailoring of the cut of his shirts to make the shoulders seem wider, it should balance out ok. Which might all be a moot point if i decide to order a new body and send a better swatch to have matched, or order one from one of the companies known to match milktea rose (though those bodies are all super muscular and that does not suit him at all! Which feels silly to be stubborn about since he'll be wearing clothes all the time, but still. I'll know!) I put his wig on him too, and it didn't help. MTR is a lovely color, but an odd one. On it's own it looks like a "normal" resin tone, but when next to one of my normal toned dolls, it is definitely darker. I almost feel like with the wig though, it looks too light for someone who lives on a tropical island like they both do, even though he's not originally from there. This is also why I'm waiting until after the con to decide anything xD I am being indecisive!

I do like how they look next to each other. As one of my friends in this dnd group called them once-- Vanora and her twink xD

(bonus with the puppy inspector photobombing for anyone reading my babble this far xD)

 

I also got hit with enough hyperfocus productivity over the last few days to draft patterns for Vanora's outfit, and to make a couple different versions of her pants. The teal fabric is a very lightweight poly/cotton broadcloth, and i decided it'd be nice to finally play around with the decorative stitches embroidery aspect of my machine, so I'm waiting for some variegated thread o come in to do that before i add the waistbands and ties. link1 link 2

I made a complete pair from an old tshirt with the same pattern though, and i'm pretty happy with them. I do think i might add snaps at the side back, instead of tying them, or maybe a ribbon instead of the ties being from the same material as the base. It adds a lot of bulk, and while this style of pants can be worn many ways, the chances of me actually dressing her like any of them are low. link

(Yes, the sticker on my laptop is an emote of her xD I commissioned some for our entire party and turned them into stickers)
I also painted the charm for her bracelet, though I might add more dry brushing to make it look more like driftwood. Since her body is here now, I can actually make the bracelet part now too! So i might try to finish that by the end of the week, along with the mockup for her top


Still to do:

• get over my fear of the airbrush so i can color match Vanora's head to the body
• faceups for both of them
  
• figure out a design for Faolán's tattoos (which i keep procrastinating on and forgetting to draw in references xD)
  
• draft patterns for their clothes (need to draft pants for Faolan and tweak his shirt pattern still, but Vanora's are drafted. Her top needs to be tested though- it's cut out but i got distracted sewing an itabag i started several years ago instead for some reason)
• make said clothing (dyeing fabric and figuring out decorative stitches on my sewing machine for decorations; I'm going to just dye the individual garments that need it after they're made to save on time/ energy. All of Faolan's outfit will need to be dyed, but just Vanora's top.)
  
• figure out shoes (where are all the flat doll sized sandals I ask?! I'll probably use the ones I bought for Vanora for now, until i can get something else figured out, maybe at the con.)
• make accessories (Vanora's charm bracelet and probably her sword, Faolán's woven belt and a healer's kit: her bracelet will probably be done in a few days)
• dye and style the wig I have for Vanora
• finish making eyes (i may also buy some at the con if I can find ones I like in the right size and colors)

 

I'm back, several weeks after NYC Doll con xD I found some cute anachronistic things and a different wig for Vanora, and did find some nice sandals for both of them, but didn't find a solution for what to do for Faolán, or eyes that would work for either of them, so I'm back to working on the ones I've been making for them (waiting for sunny days so i can work with the UV resin :/).
I've been working more on Vanora's basic outfit, and posted about it in one of the sewing threads. The initial top I was working on in the last post didn't work out, so I drafted a new one that works, mostly! There are some things I'm not too happy with for it, so I'm going to try making it again in different fabric. And the hem of the one I already made needs some shell stitch embroidery at the hem. Overall, I'm happy with her outfit! I also mostly finished her bracelet, too! The charm needs to be sealed, and i need to decide on a neater way to finish the bracelet off other than one big knot, but it's more or less settled! Obviously I need to trim the tails too once i decide on how to finish it off lol.



Faolán's outfit is my project for this month. I just got a mini rigid heddle to weave his belt, so I'm going to be setting that up and working on that this week. With everything going on in the US with tarriffs and customs and...everything, I'm just going to make the Cen body work, at least for the foreseeable future. One thing I did get at the con, was a certificate for a faceup from Angel Toast, so he's going to be getting that! (I'm so stupidly excited about it! The universe went "happy birthday to you, Quill" with those raffles lol). So, figuring out the body color is going to wait until later this summer when he's back from that, partly so I can make sure to match it with the head after blushing, and partly because I'm ....*sigh* going to attempt mods. I think I'm going to try to mod the neck a little thicker and longer, and the shoulders a little wider too, and if I'm doing that, I'll need to paint it anyway, and in doing that, I can match it to the head. I'll just airbrush the chest piece, arms and basic hands, calves, and feet though. the abdomen piece and upper legs won't be seen ever, so I'll leave them alone and save myself a little bit of sanity xD The jointed hands will be tricky, but those will probably only be for special pictures anyway, and I could probably just edit them to match in csp.
I'm not looking forward to modding though. Milliput and I aren't exactly friends, but hopefully this will go better than my try at ear mods did. I've also thought of trying to 3d sculpt an upper chest piece to use, but I have even less of an idea how to do that if I'm being honest with myself. Maybe that can be a more looong term goal (3d sculpting, printing, casting a body, or most of one)

Still to do:

• get over my fear of the airbrush so i can color match Vanora's head to the body
• faceup for Vanora (Faolán's will be from Angel Toast, so I need to mail his head out next month. But first I need to finish the detailed form for that)
• figure out a design for Faolán's tattoos (which i keep procrastinating on and forgetting to draw in references xD)
  
• draft patterns for Faolán's clothes (started a shirt but it needs to be tweaked, pant need to be drafted completely)
• make said clothing (dyeing fabric and figuring out decorative stitches; I'm going to just dye the individual garments that need it after they're made to save on time/ energy. All of Faolan's outfit will need to be dyed, but just Vanora's top if the newest version works out once I sew it.)
  
• make accessories (Vanora's sword, finishing touches on Vanora's bracelet, plus some simple bead bracelets for her other wrist; Faolán's woven belt and a healer's kit.)
• dye and style the wig I have for Vanora. The new one needs to be dyed to be more teal than royal blue and to amp up the turquoise some. It also needs to be styled, since it's way too long and not in a ponytail. I think I'm going to need to take it apart and try to shorten the wefts at the stitching though, since I don't want to cut off the white ends. The other wig, I think I'm mostly going to dye, and might style so it can be worn down, depending on how my experiments with the new one go.
• finish making eyes (need a first layer of clear resin, and i want to add some glitter or more details on top of that before doming, but first I need a warm sunny day)
• decide on the best approach to modding Faolán's neck and shoulders
• not necessary for the current plan, but finish designing Faolán's formal outfit. Vanora's is already designed and I do have fabric for them both (or most of them). I need to work with my DM on this one, but I need to finish my sketches first so I can run them by her!

 

Well, I didn't get Faolán's outfit done, or the decorative stitching on Vanora's pink top. The last couple of months have been stressful with the tarriff situation and other policy changes that may/ may end up affecting both my and my husband's jobs, since we work in higher ed. It's been kind of hard to push passed the stress of it all to still work on things for fun, but I've been trying to anyway.

I did finish Faolán's belt though! It actually went much faster than I expected it to, and was pretty fun, too! i hadn't woven in the tails of the weft threads in the picture, but have now. I ran into a snag on one of them but managed to get it mostly fixed, and if I'm careful with how I wrap and tie it, it should be hidden. For my first time weaving anything, I'm pretty happy with it!

I finished off Vanora's bracelet by undoing some of the braiding and making one knot, then wrapping the tails of that in some thread to look like stoppers. Everything else I tried just looked too bulky. I also ordered some seed beads to make her other bracelets and to put in her hair, since she should have at least one bracelet of pink beads, from our party's fighter (they made bracelets during watch one night early on), and also some from home, since she used to make beads and things with her dad, and she's terribly sentimental so she still wears some (the ones that survived her escapades growing up lol). I had a hard time finding a good array of colors of beads in stores here, but those should be here on Monday, and I already have the beading elastic for them.

I finished their eyes, but they don't photograph well and I had some problems with bubbles :/ I still like the larger iris ones for Faolán better in terms of colors and details, but they looked too big word, but annoyingly, the smaller iris ones look too small :/ He'll have to wear them until i figure out making another pair with a different mold that has an iris size in between, since I sent him off with the smaller ones for his faceup.


Vanora's are dark enough, though maybe a little too blue still, and the edges are pretty uneven, which makes putting them in in a way that looks nice tricky. I'll probably try to make some other ones for her too, now that I have an idea of how to do it, and I need to make some all black ones for her too, for how her eyes change when she's raging And I finished the other top, though it needs to be dyed pink still. I think the other one might look nicer worn though, even though this one is stretchy. I'll decide after it's dyed which one will be her permanent one.


I also ordered a new head for her. I ordered the Whoosh doll Dream head, since she has a similar, but more cheerful expression, but her features also seem like they might be a little more stylistically in scale with the Muhyul head for Faolán than the Vanora sculpt does. She won't ship until mid-June at the earliest though, so I'll have to wait and see to decide. I do think the Vanora sculpt is cute, but I was a little aware when I ordered her that she didn't quite fit for my girl. The downsides of impulsive purchasing

Still to do:

• get over my fear of the airbrush so i can color match Vanora's head to the body
• faceup for Vanora (Faolán's will be from Angel Toast, and he's already arrived there ); on pause until the new head arrives and I decide which to use
• figure out a design for Faolán's tattoos (which i keep procrastinating on and forgetting to draw in references xD)
  
• Faolán's clothes (pants are sorted and a couple pairs made that need to be dyed; shirt pattern still needs to be tested)
• make accessories (Vanora's sword, plus some simple bead bracelets for her other wrist; Faolán's healer's kit.)
• dye and style the wig I have for Vanora. The new one needs to be dyed to be more teal than royal blue and to amp up the turquoise some. It also needs to be styled, since it's way too long and not in a ponytail. I think I'm going to need to take it apart and try to shorten the wefts at the stitching though, since I don't want to cut off the white ends. The other wig, I think I'm mostly going to dye, and might style so it can be worn down, depending on how my experiments with the new one go.
• decide on the best approach to modding Faolán's neck and shoulders
• not necessary for the current plan, but finish designing Faolán's formal outfit. Vanora's is already designed and I do have fabric for them both (or most of them). I need to work with my DM on this one, but I need to finish my sketches first so I can run them by her!

 

Oof I didn't realise i last updated this in May! Where did summer go ><
Anyway! Big update for here i guess xD I finished both of their basic outfits back in June, though i may add a bit more decoration to Faolán's still. I posted about it in the sewing project thread then. I've also made a couple additional beaded bracelets for Vanora (need at least one more for the bracelet the party's fighter made for her early on in the game, especially since it's in shades of pink, her favorite color).
I also took apart the sandals i had for her, since the pleather was already peeling when they arrived, traced the pieces and cut some new ones from some leather i had here. I need to get some leather skivers to thin it down though because it's currently too thick to work well, and my carving tools and exacto knife didn't really do much. I also decided I need to figure out something better for Faolán's shoes too, since a) I don't like the white soles and b) he's a physician, so I feel like he should have somewhat more closed toe shoes xD. I need to sort out a pattern for the uppers for that, but I have some other leather bits I could use, and i have some cork coasters I can cut to be soles for both pairs. I just need to set aside the time to do it.

The new head for Vanora arrived last weekend, but I'm conflicted about it. The neck is definitely too big for the body and has some major gaping issues, but I think the head overall might be too large. I think it's more noticeable in pics than in person, but still. Since Vanora's style is mostly sleeveless things, I don't think adding kips would really be an option, and that doesn't solve the gaping neck issue

Compared to the Vanora head, which fits perfectly (which makes sense because I requested the neck to be made to fit this head).

The neck also looks weirdly long in a front view with the new head. Like the neck is too large around, but also seems shallower somehow. It's also got the shallowest eyewells I've ever encountered in a bjd beore (pics on tumblr because even though i shrink them i think they're still too big and that's why there's some dead pics up thread ><)
Unfortunately, I do like the new head's expression better, so I'm conflicted. Her features do also seem more mature/ less baby faced than I feel the Vanora head sometimes looks, and while I'm sure some people could probably figure out how to mod the head to have a more mature jawline/ cheek fullness (I think those are the aspects that bug me, along with the proportions of her facial features being closer together), i am not one of those people >< At best I might be able to mod the expression of her mouth to be more cheerful and slightly more closed I think.

BUT! In very exciting events for me, Faolán came back from his faceup this weekend!! He's gorgeous and I'm so happy!! I restrung him with mixed rates of success--I added kips to the arms, which i think adds just enough width to the shoulders that I won't need to mod them (yay!) but I'll still need to add a bit more to the neck I think. I tried adding some kips at the hips joints, but they didn't want to stay in place, so i restrung him again without them, and now he wants to tilt backwards >< So i'll need to do some suedeing of some kind there. Of course, all of this is a little moot, as I still need to color match the body to his head and add his tattoo, but I wanted to see him all put together so that wins for now. It's very fitting for them I think, that he's left waiting patiently for Vanora to get her self together lol

I took some pics of all three heads lined up, and edited the color in csp, and that is not helping me decide what to do about Vanora, if I'm honest. I ordered the new one because with his head blank, the stylization of the Vanora sculpt seemed too different, but with his faceup, which softens the sculpt's features, it doesn't bother me so much. The new head also has smaller eyes, which is less fitting for the character, but I know somewhere in my brain they could be modded larger, but subtractive mods feel scary!

My husband got a new airbrush and compressor for working on some Warhammer terrain, so the airbrush has been tested, but not by me xD Obviously, I can't really try it out until I decide what head to go with, but at least I know it works!
But that's where I am with them for now. I'm back to working in person this week, so my time to work on Vanora and figure things out is pretty limited now :/

 

Not much progress, since I’ve been sick for like the last month and half off an on, and waffling some on what to do for bjd!Vanora, since I was a silly goose and bought multiple heads. BUT i think I’ve decided to go ahead with the original one (hindsight my nemesis) with some modifications to alter the expression of the mouth and maybe the shape of the jaw.

I got an Impldoll Imara for a good price, and I think I'm going to practice on that, or sort of work on it simultaneously as a test for modding, since I had also considered the sculpt at one point, but her default expression looks so concerned I'd ruled it out, but still like the sculpt. It has a nice jaw shape though, so I'm using that as a reference. For now, I'm starting with changing the mouth shape/ expression, so I sketched in where the lip line should be for a more cheerful expression, so now i just need to figure out the best way to actually change it on the sculpt without a dremel. I have needle files and one of those little electric nail file things that are kind of like a dremel, but I haven’t tried it and i don’t think any of the bits would be small enough to change the line. I’ll fill in the current one with milliput, and close the mouth a little too. I probably could just fudge this in the faceup, but the mouth is still a little too open for what I'd really want, so if I'm going to be doing work with milliput anyway, I may as well figure out how to sculpt the expression in, especially so it looks right from multiple angles. (picture link)

Also marked out where the jawlines are so I can more easily figure out how to mod the Vanora head's jaw shape (link)

I started working out how to make Faolan's tattoo, and bought some water slide decal paper for it. I need to sketch it still though. I'll probably use the decal paper for the scar from Vanora's dredge line, one of her subclass features. I've had a hard time figure out what it should look like, but finally got something I liked! I printed out a scan of this art piece to initially try to figure out her hairstyle because it wasn't cooperating either, and just reused it to sketch a couple ideas for her dredge line So I'll need to scan this and try to scale it for the doll's back. Since it's supposed to look a little wet anyway, any shininess from the decal paper won't be a problem, though I'll have to seal it anyway, so I'll just add gloss details back in. (image link)

My goal is now to have the two of them completely finished (minus any additional outfits or accessories) by the end of the year, so I've got lots to do!
Still to do:

• modify DV Vanora head (in progress)
• get over my fear of the airbrush so i can color match Vanora's head to the body
• faceup for Vanora
• figure out a design for Faolán's tattoos; found some references i liked so I just need to sketch it and then run print tests to make sure it scales
• dye and style the wig I have for Vanora to be more teal than royal blue and to amp up the turquoise some. It also needs to be styled, since it's way too long and not in a ponytail. I think I'm going to need to take it apart and try to shorten the wefts at the stitching though, since I don't want to cut off the white ends. The other wig, I think I'm mostly going to dye, and might style so it can be worn down, depending on how my experiments with the new one go.
• decide on the best approach to modding Faolán's neck and shoulders; shoulders may be ok with just kips
• possibly alter their sandals, especially Faolán's

Bonus things to think about, but not for the current goal:

• make accessories (Vanora's sword, Faolán's healer's kit.)
  
• not necessary for the current plan, but finish designing Faolán's formal outfit. Vanora's is already designed and I do have fabric for them both (or most of them). I sketched out a few ideas that I want to run by my DM for her input since she's the one who would best know what his looks like