Aesthetics Shelling Divinity [DV Sylves Dragon Ver.]

Hello everyone! Welcome to my very lofty project that I'm referring as Shelling Divinity -- as the character, Úht-Floga, pronounced as (OO’HT-FLOG-a) that this doll is representing is a demigod. I managed to snag a DV Sylves Dragon Ver. in gray resin in stock from DDE. I am very excited about the character and doll alike, as this is both a very important character in my WIP novel series, and my more realistic grail doll. (the other being Soom's ID72 Gluino – Vampire Alchemist, which I have resigned to just appreciating in passing.)

More about his character is below the spoiler tag below:

Spoiler: Lore!

Úht-Floga (he/they) is a demigod, the child of the god of the Sun and Justice, and the goddess of the Moon and the Dead, who, among other divine realms the gods reign over, are known not by their true names, but as the Father and Mother respectively. Úht-Floga came into existence as a child who was the first creature the gods respectfully made; who both shared some of their parent's powers, but had some unique talents of his own.

Úht-Floga is known for guiding souls to the afterlife, where he is the final judge, jury and executioner. Those who have greatly sinned get their hearts ripped out and devoured by Úht-Floga, and their individuality stripped away to become mindless, faceless servants of the Mother. Those who pass Úht-Floga's trial are permitted to enter the afterlife, where they will exist in peace and prosperity until they have been completely forgotten, to which eventually those souls fade away into nothingness and are recycled into newborn baby creatures on the earth.

Now, I have scribbled over the company promo images to get a design concept in mind:




Very crude artwork, but I'm thinking a sheer toga, lots of tiny, dainty bracelets and such, silk-like arm and leg wrappings, halo crown, gold and silver bands around the horns as well as other jewelry as seen in the first picture. Finally all of that dark purple is going to be lots of vines, thorns and roses, which will be 3D and will wrap and entangle most of his body. Not so much sewing as it is a craft project, which will be in interesting challenge. Most of the colors are up in the air, with only purple, gold, silver, and likely some black being prominent in my mind. The only thing set in stone is for his eyes to be purple and gold with sectoral heterochromia, which I somehow found available, made to my liking on Etsy without having to commission a special set made which is just fantastic.

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TO DO:
(On Arrival)

• Wait for the precious doll to arrive in the mail! (Arrived on 7/21/22!)
  
• Try on the wig I purchased to see if I like it on him, or if I need to find another one elsewhere. (The wig is a little large, but I like it so I'm going to try and get it to fit a bit better if possible.)
  
• Discern if he needs to be restrung, wired and sueded. (Restrung! Just needs to be wired now.)

(Getting ready to craft)
(Carefully) take him to the craft store so I can buy the following:

• Sheer fabric for the toga.
  
• Suitable fabric for the arm and leg drapery.
• Plenty of beads, mostly micro if I were to hazard a guess?
• Wire for the crown.
• Small chains and necklace making materials.

(Misc)

• Figure out how to go about making my bramble and rose entanglement.
  
• Discern and obtain what materials will be appropriate to make it from.
• Commission a face-up, and body blushing. (This is probably the last step, as I need to save up and get in with an artist who I feel will do him justice, and hopefully will be able to paint the lance he comes with in addition to a few other props I plan on buying later on)
  
• Buy his final eyes. Done!

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I will get to posting progress shots when it is relevant. Thank you so much if you've stuck around this far, I hope you'll be as excited as I am to see this project through!

 

Well! My precious boy came in the mail today! I don't have a ton to say right now as my chronic pain is acting up, but just some quick updates:

• Holy COW he's big! I can't get over it!
  
• I began to restring/wire him as he's too tightly strung, but have yet to finish. (I have no idea how to restring his wings though, help)
• I love his wig, although i think it's too big on him. Not the fault of DDE, but operator error. Hopefully it's nothing that can't be fixed with a trusty needle and thread.
  

Now the current to-do list is to finish restringing/wiring, and haul his draconic butt to the craft store! I'm going to start my project on the halo crown, I think. As per Mom's suggestion, I'll try using wire and micro beads to twist together to make the points, possibly using gold/silver/black wires to do so.

Toga will be easy enough, just so long as they have a good sheer fabric that speaks to me.

 

A couple of quick updates on this very early Saturday morning:

I was able to get him restrung, but I ended up not wiring anything as restringing took it out of me. (The joys of chronic pain.) I'm very pleased he's all back together now. I really missed looking at him as a whole.

I was able to order new, hopefully final eyes and a special prop lantern as an early birthday gift (early October, for those curious.) They all should arrive around October if not sooner, (as well as another order of dolly goodies for another doll of mine)

I'm hoping I can manage going to a craft store this weekend, but my chronic pain has been acting out again so we'll see what ends up happening.

I know making the headdress is going to be difficult, but I'm excited about the process and even more excited for the final result, if my mental image is anything to go by. And of course I'm looking forward to making the toga as well, if only because a dragon demigod in a pair of modern boxers is a bit silly.

I look forward to my future updates on this thread, and I hope you are as well. Here's to creativity!

 

Okay! It's been a hot minute since I've updated this; but I'm pretty satisfied with how the toga turned out now, and his lantern finally came in semi-recently after I gave up on it's arrival. I just took two pieces of fabric and tied them on the doll, a welcome reprieve from all my other sewing projects. Here's how he's shaping up: