Modification Re-Making a Muse (updates on pg.4. | Caution: lamprey face)

Well I said she was basically done but I lied.
There's a lot of text ahead... fair warning.

Hi again! Welcome to Nibbles project 2.0, haha. Thanks everyone for all your kind words and compliments! ^^

However, It only took a few months for the artist blindness to wear off and now I'm like painfully aware of all my wrong doings. SO! Let's do it all over again. But from scratch. I said I should have done her head from scratch to begin with and I feel like I gained enough experience from her first version to do it much better. I'm already basically at the final stretch, I just wanted to take it slow and be sure she actually got done right before updating everyone on my progress and maybe give you guys a few pointers if you wanted to attempt something like this on your own, too!


My reasons for re-doing her head are as follows:
- It was way too big. I'm not a fan of big heads that are out of proportion. Slightly out of proportion is okay but hers was just.. too much.
- Her teeth and gums are messy as hell. And gappy. Not close to my vision of her, at all.
- Her forehead was too long/big and she looked like she had a long head. I constantly had to take photos at a certain angle and get her hair just right to hide it.

Alright, so onto the good stuff. I decided I would do her head entirely out of Milliput because I am insane wanted to be sure her head was good and sturdy. I'm also getting quite familiar with the pro and cons and tricks of the stuff and am comfortable using it.


I started out with a drawing that was in scale. I kinda eye-balled this part a little and just held the cut-out of her head on her neck and all looked swell so I moved on. Next, I took tin foil and scrunched it all together to make a general head shape to build the Milliput off of, using my drawing for reference. This was much smaller than the head I wanted so that I could have the Milliput nice and thick. I did a half sphere of tin foil and laid it on top of the drawing to serve as her face area, and then did the other half for the back and combined the two. I used tape to hold it all together and also to serve as a guide to keep everything centered. I stuck a toothpick in the foil to have something to hold onto when applying the Milliput.


I'm showing the head at 1/3 angle. The tape crosses over in the front of her face and on her ear area.


After that was done I needed massive amounts of Milliput in the correct color that so I could constantly use more in case of errors. If you didn't know, Milliput comes in two parts that you mix together and then it hardens after a few hours. You don't want to have to constantly re-mix and re-match the Milliput so I suggest making a massive amount so that it's always the correct color. I took a big chunk of the one part and color-matched it with shaved pastels, and then took the other half and color-matched it as close as I could (One half was too red and the other too yellow so once mixed together it was perfect-ish and I could tell them apart and make sure they mixed evenly). After that, I suggest taking a small amount from one half and roll in into a ball. Then take some from the other half and roll it into an equal sized ball. Mix these two little balls together for a good long while (like at least 2 minutes) and then let the tiny ball dry. Sometimes the color is a bit different once dry, and then you can tell if you need to add more pastel or not. I didn't get the color exact but holy hell this part is tedious and I'll just blush her to match later.


Egghead. This pic is after sanding the first layer.

I rolled out a layer of Milliput and wrapped it around the foil head, trying to shape it into a sorta head shape. She didn't have much definition at this point because I just needed a base to work off of. I did a lot more detailing later with an exacto knife and sandpaper because milliput is just too soft to sculpt without losing your mind. I left her head back open to sculpt a headcap onto after.


layer two of milliput skin o.o (this is before sanding)

Then I did another layer of milliput to get definition for the lips, jaw, and chin. You can see how it's bumpy but varying grits of wet sanding smooth that out (I go from 400, to 800, to 1000). Sanding also brought to the surface a lot of tiny bubbles (dammit), but moving on!

before removing the tin foil skull, I wrapped the head in plastic sheet and sculpted a headcap onto it. It's made of white Milliput because I actually didn't make enough of the right color (learn from my mistakes D: ), but this will be hidden under a wig so I don't mind. I kept the Milliput on the head while it dried because I didn't want it to warp while drying. After that, I removed the foil in her head with scissors and an exacto knife.


Spookkyy no-face

Here she is after I've carved and sanded her a little and also made a black mouthpiece to put the gums and teeth onto (this time I also bought black Milliput, yay). At first I thought to make her teeth/mouthpiece removable in case I messed up and wanted to change it later but decided not to once I got to the final gum layer. However, i did wrap her head in plastic wrap and made the black mouthpiece removable so that when I was working on her teeth, it would be a lot easier. Doing it inside her mouth seemed like a difficult task.

So I sculpted out all her little teeth again and made them too big again and had to sand them (again).


Yes, yes I know. I don't wear gloves while working with Milliput. Shhhh...

From here on I followed the same method I used before, but it was much easier because the mouthpiece was removable. This time all her teeth are even and far less gappy and I am muchhh happier with them. To get the correct color for her gums, I had to use so much red pastel, it was nuts. If you want a stark bright color in your milliput, just treat the milliput like it's white pastel. You're gonna need the same amount of pastel dust, or even more, than the amount of milliput you have. Once I got to the final level of teeth I kinda gave up on the the mouthpiece being removable because that was far too cumbersome. So I just made it permanent.


Before and after.


Damn those little air bubbles... It's just acne scars, yeah, acne scars.

Halfway through I ditched the magnetic ear method and made her entirely new ears that I want to be jointed instead. Still unsure how I'm going about that.. but I much prefer it. Her ears started out a very loose cone type of shape that I carved and sanded later because holy hell I just could not. I've still got some fine detailing to do and hopefully I can figure out how to fill in all those little bubbles. I'll show you the inside of her head later once I've completed the method I'm using to keep it on. I had this spare metal sheet that I'm using for where the S-hook rests inside her head for some added stability and so that the milliput doesn't eventually flake away. I'll show you this in the next update, too.



Oh and here's a bunch of soybean fibre I'm gonna make her a new wig out of (since her old one is too big now). I certainly have a lot of extra just in case, haha. It's so sofffttttt ugghhh...

Sorry if everything is a little scrambled! It's a lot to update with at once.

I'll end off with a few tips I have for working with Milliput:

- Work in parts, letting pieces fully dry before adding on. Don't plan to do everything in one sitting because Milliput is a very soft material before it dries. It's not as easy to work with as regular clay. You can always do some sanding and carving with an xacto knife later. It's a lot easier to control the outcome this way.
- Try to hold off on adding too much water. yes, it will make it easier to mix but it also makes it really floppy. It you're adding new Milliput to a dried out piece, don't put any water between the pieces or it'll slip right off. You want the Milliput as sticky as possible.
- When trying to mix highly pigmented Milliput, I find it a lot easier to avoid using water. At first I thought the more water the better, but it actually slows me down. If the Milliput starts to get sticky or hard to work with, just add more pastel. Mix. More pastel. Mix. More pastel. Until you get the correct color. Then maybe add a little water.
- If you're adding color to Milliput, add the color to one part, and then the other, and THEN mix the two together. This gives you more time to work with it without having to rush the color matching part.

Well, hope this has been informative and interesting. See you in the next post! :P

 

And we're back with good news and bad news!

So let's start with good news first; the weather was decent enough that I could get a face-up on her. After the face-up, I of course noticed I messed up on some of her mouth proportions (she looks more smiley than usual - Also don't ask how I can view a giant circular mouth as being smiley. I have no idea) but that's okay. And her ears work as intended! I've sueded the area around her ear holes because they wouldn't stay put after positioning, but after that, they work amazingly well. The front half of the slit for the cord juts out more than the back half. This is so that it basically creates a ledge and I can angle her ears back to look more natural. Also now I don't run the risk of ever losing an ear!


Happy Nibbles, Sad Nibbles


showcasing how the ear ledge works

The ear used to have two slits in the joint (like a + ), but I filled the the one slit with milliput and then a cut-up piece of a sewing needle for the cord to wrap around. The cord then goes through the head to the other ear and is tied in the middle. I'm really sorry I took basically no work in progress shots. Like I said much earlier, this is common with me. xD

And like promised, here's the inside of her head, in all its messy glory:


yeesh, sloppy. Least it's not as bad as the inside of her original. But you'll never see that. :>

You can see the metal sheets with indentations for the S-hook to sit on, for good measure. It's probably not really needed but I'm cautious. Surprisingly, the one magnet is strong enough to hold the cap on along with the ledges to keep it centered.


And now the bad(ish) news (kinda); I spent basically an entire day making her wig and I'm not sure I like the outcome. The color was exactly what I wanted, I got the style the way I wanted, but I just don't know if I like the fibers. There's no way I can reasonably take her out on even a slightly windy day because the hairs are just are so light. Even blowing on her lightly completely messed up my careful styling. It holds styling extremely well (in a sort of anti-gravity way) until a slight breeze and then BAM it's fucked. I might use it for indoor photoshoots and when she's sitting around inside, but I think I'll just give in and buy another Monique Gold wig for travel/outdoors. Unless there's some product I can use to make the hairs less... floofy.

On the plus side, I loved working with the stuff (minus the flyaways and general stick-to-you-hands-forever nature of it). Doing the bangs/part of the hair came out super clean because it folds over nicely.

Also, I couldn't stop petting it while making it. >.>


mummified her entire body in plastic wrap and stayed in the middle of a big room that I could easily vacuum after. This stuff gets everywhere, regardless. o.o


messy bun-bun. Sorry for poor lighting.





I think that's... basically it. Again. No promises! But I will showcase her in the wig I buy as well. ^^