Aesthetics Rue the Demoness (Faceup, wig, horns, etc.)

While I wait on the body, I've started working on the head for my first resin doll! I purchased this head secondhand. It is from the Chinese maker 衔蝉挂印 (Holding a Cicada, Wearing a Seal? Climbing the Ladder to Success? Every translator seems to translate this name differently!) It is the resin version of their elf Blaze head, which also comes in PVC.




I saw some mixed feedback on Rednote about this head but I think the slight poutiness of her cheeks is cute and will go with the curvy body I picked. She is a proportionate 1/4 (so, not a 1/3 scale head that fits 1/4 bodies like many of the ones I've seen used with the body), so I'm really hoping she'll look right on the body.

Faceup

I started on the faceup right away, with some eyes I made but wound up swapping out. Mr. Superclear, SoHo acrylic paints, generic pigment powder, and watercolor pencils.

I only made up my mind on the expression at the end since I was caught between a smiling look and a pouty face.

I know that I want her to have earrings but I haven't yet made up my mind about what kind. I have lots of little jump rings, but also nail charms. I'll just use white glue so they won't be permanent, but I want to keep in mind what color of hardware I might use for accessories.



I've borrowed the gold eyes I made for my Obitsu Petite Hime for now. I still plan to make her her own.

Horns

DAS airdry clay over aluminum foil to make them more lightweight. I didn't get many process pictures of these as I sanded and detailed them. I kind of regret doing a layer of my UV resin over them since it made them look less sharply detailed, but they're still okay. I'll probably make a little headband for them to sit on.



Wig

I've had to stop mid way on the wig because of some wrist pain. I was surprised by the colors of the hair when they showed up, as they looked a lot more muted in the store photos. I bought three shades of purple wefts, and this is the lightest one. I wanted a more muted greyish lilac color, but I can always make more wigs later.

I'm mostly including this despite not being done in order to show off my jank wig apparatus, made of a sprite bottle, some elastic cord, a paper towel, aquarium rocks, and a small wall hook.

 

Wig progress! Man, I want to get good at wigs but it is truly the most frustrating thing each time I try it. My off topic doll in my icon has a fur wig and I was starting to think I had wasted my money buying wefts and would just have to resort to fur again. But a couple of videos saved it.

I have to give this credit to this video for giving me the method for the center part (I used a tiny crochet hook).


And this short for keeping me from throwing away the nearly finished wig because I couldn't stop it from flaring up like an umbrella!

I'm always amused how trying to tame wigs ends up feeling like some sort of medieval torture method.

Fastened down tight.




Boil her!



A big improvement even if it is still pretty big. Choppy bangs where I just trimmed them quickly so I could make sure they didn't fly up.



Smoothed out, trimmed into a simple Hime cut, and a headband made with her horns. Wire on top, elastic on the bottom to loop underneath her head.



I'm very happy with the woven part even if I worried at first that my wefts weren't thick enough for it to look right. I wanted to cover the wire portion with a braid, but I'm jut not precise enough with the tiny wefts to make something that fully hides it. Maybe another time. For now, I have it covered in fabric so it looks less out of place. Maybe I'll make various headband covers that can tie overtop of this one to make it look more intentional?




I'd like to do a short-haired look for her some time, but I'll be leaving this wig alone as it's probably as neat as I'm going to get it! But I've got more wefts in different shades of purple, so that will be a separate project. If I can do a short punky look for her, it will also make it easier to show her ears.

But next step will be a new set of eyes. I've draw a collection of designs in grayscale so I can recolor them in various shades. I'm just flipping around 3D mold eyes to use the flat back for these tiny eyes, but it would be nice to get a mold for making the big flatback anime eyes for future heads as well.