50–65cm Dolls Mia the Anime-Styled SD Head (and now body!) [Updated 7/30/14]

Hello everyone! A while back I started working on an SD sized head for my (then) headless Volks suwarikko body. She was going well till I became frustrated with her progress, so I put her away for a few months to stew. About a month ago I decided to pick her back up since I wanted something to do, so now I want to show you guys my progress since I don't see too many anime-styled heads on this forum. I'm really excited about her because she is looking awesome and eventually I hope to cast her in resin and possibly sell her in batches if interest is great enough!

Anywho, enough with the chit-chat, on to the pics! (Btw, sorry this is so image heavy, I promise the next updates won't be so ridiculous!)


Here she is right after I started reworking her. I sanded all of her (awful) previous features and started drawing!

An early comparison of Mia and Aiona (Volks SD10 Mimi)



Ha, I won't tell you how long and how many tries those lips took.


Starting to look like a cutie!


Ok, so here I added some crappy ears just because the head looked off without them. You'll see in later pics that I ended up scrapping them instead of cleaning them up.



First eye test! Those eyes are way too small, and the eyewells are not very well defined at this point.




To be continued!

 

Continued pics!


In this pic, you can see I have removed the old ears and drew on a quick face up to see how progress was going (see also: I was bored XD)


I then haphazardly threw some paint on poor Mia's face because I was still bored and didn't feel like sanding anything.

After screwing around I made the forehead taller (which I had actually wanted to do since the beginning) and started sculpting some cute little ears. Not half bad for my first time (well, besides the crap ones before >>)! I wanted them to be fairly simple/cartoonish so that they went with the rest of Mia's stylized look.





A quick pic of the inside of Mia's head. As you can see I haven't done to much with that or the head plate yet.

Annnnnd here's why we made Mia's forehead taller! So she can wear allll the cute wigs! Here she's borrowing one of Aiona's 9-10in Leekeworld wigs and it fits awesomely. She's about x20 times cuter in real life and it was about here that I became really excited and was able to see what she might look like when I end up casting her!

 

I was going to use this post for future updates, but decided against it! Please continue to browse through the other pages of this post for updates!

 

Thanks a lot! It's actually pretty funny because I think the symmetry with this head is quite a bit easier than a real head just because the shapes are so much more simple! If you haven't posted you head, you definitely should! I would love to see it!

 

Thanks a lot!

 

Thanks! The bigger forehead just adds to her cuteness, I think :P And yah, definitely steal that idea! It made my life sooo much more easier.

 

Thanks so much! Funny thing, the dark gray is actually just acrylic paint cause I wasn't able to find my gesso at the time X3 She is made out of LaDoll and I first added the grey paint when I wanted to start spotting the major problems I had to work on. Now I just add it whenever the white and grey becomes too much and I just need everything to be one solid color so that it doesn't drive me crazy XD I would go back to using gesso, but I find the acrylic paint easier to sand and less noxious, so I'll keep using that till I'm all done, then I'll end up priming her right before I go to cast.

 

Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't posted in so long, my husband and I moved into a new apt a couple of months ago and my schedule has been crazy ever since. However! I just set up a work space for myself in our new place so I can finally start working on Mia again! At the moment I am working on evening out her face, building up her head cap, and refining the inside of the head, especially the eye wells. Later tonight when I'm home from work, or possibly tomorrow, I'll steal my husband's phone and take some pictures! Thanks for sticking with me and look forward to more updates!

 

Thanks! I'm glad you like her and hopefully I will be able to cast her and sell her if interest is great enough :3 Even if it isn't I'll still make a few for myself!

 

Thank's a lot! It makes my heart soar to hear that she looks good from someone else's perspective (after a while I can't tell what she looks like after staring at her for so long XD). Ohh and I know, it's going to be so fun doing face ups, I definitely can't wait for that! Versatility is one of the big advantages to such simple features. ^^

 

Ohai-lucky! I finally got around to stealing my husband's phone to take pics today! Right now I'm working on evening out Mia's face, so please excuse her slightly creepy, Phantom-esque appearance ^^U.

Alrighty, here's a pic of my new work space all set up in my new apt. As you can see I have quite an audience. I have also quickly got down to doing what it is that I do best; making a mess X3

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I just put this clay on about an hour ago so I haven't had time to sand it, but you get the gist. You can see that I've been working on building up the edge of her head where the head cap meets so that there isn't a gap.

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While that stuff dried, I worked on carving out the inside of Mia's head making everything easier to access.

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My husband told me the other night that he thought Mia's nose was too pointy, so I rounded it out as part of the face-evening and now it's like a little button! So cute! Love her profile :3

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As an added bonus/sorry for not updating, here's a couple of quick scribbles of what Mia might look like as a mascot for when I start to sell things, as well as the design of her outfit.

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purple white star outfit

 

It actually is smaller in the pic, so good call! I kinda did a re-haul on that side of the face over the past couple of days and tried to even it out as best as I could, so hopefully I can get those pics up in the next couple of days.

And thanks a lot, I'm glad you like her! I have more surprises in-store so stay tuned! ^^

 

Hey everyone! Real quick update before I jet off to work in 20 mins. I reworked her right (our left) eye so that I was on the same plane as her left, smoothed out her ears so that they're pretty much done, started to refine the head cap a bit more and added a lip that will hold it in place, added a rough spot for a magnet to sit in the head to hold on the head cap, and started on a cute pair of kitty ears!


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Thanks! Cat ears are so great for a quick, easy project :3

 

Hey everyone! I'm here again! Still working on Mia and took a couple of pics tonight. I finally figured out what was throwing off her face, it was her (ridiculously off center) nose so I took that completely off and used that opportunity to even out the face a bit more. Thankfully, I don't think she'll need any more major adjustments to her face, so that's a plus. On the downside can we talk about how the ears I made here are TOO SMALL. I was so upset (which is kinda why I haven't worked on her for a while), but they were good practice and I just *coughprocrastinatedcough* worked on the kitty ears in the mean time. Also, while I was on hiatus, her eyes came in! I got them when Volks had their sale for the closing of their LA showroom (couldn't pass up $8). The eyes are 22cm Anzu (gold) K-style animetics.

Anywho, enough blabbering, on to the pics!

 

@dollsbestfriend

Thanks a lot!

 

I'm allliiiivvveeeee!! Hahaa. Anywho, for a while there I was out of clay, which really slowed down progress, but I'm back and ready to go! So big news this update, yesterday I made the executive decision to start on Mia's body! It's going to be a simpler, more stylized body than say, a Dollfie Dream or SQ Lab body, think more Pure Neemo, but huge. So I drew up some quick plans based of a previously planned project named Yui and quickly got started laying down a base. Once I get some thick straws from McD's or somewhere similar, I'll go ahead and start on Mia's limbs. I've also included a rad picture of my workspace cause it's a little ridiculous at the moment, lol.

On to the pics!

Where we left of last time...




...And tada! Here's what's going on now.


Poor Aiona (VS SD10 Mimi) just strewn about.