Aesthetics Volks Emma Makeover

Part 1 - Assembling the Wig

Hi guys! It's my first time making a project journal so I have no idea what I'm doing, but I wanted to try to document the makeover I gave my Volks Emma, Seungho! For those of you who haven't seen his doll profile or the gallery I posted, I'll give a little backstory on this guy. Back in 2018, my sister did a secret trade and totally surprised me with him as a gift. At the time I was really into the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and styled him as a pirate, but in recent years I've moved on and felt like giving him a refresh. I decided to go with my current inspiration, Korean fashion, and brought him into the modern era with a completely new look including new eyes, his first ever wig, and different clothes. (For now he's borrowing some clothes from my sister's collection, but soon I'll be designing ones made just for him.)

So the first order of business was removing his eyelashes and switching out his eyes to a smaller pair. I think both of these simple changes made him look older as well as more masculine, which is precisely what I wanted!

Before and after his eyelashes were removed and his eyes were changed​

Now, on to the wig. I followed this tutorial for a lot of the process, but I had to improvise for the part section, since I was going for a completely different hairstyle. Please excuse the clutter in the background, my wig-making supplies were strewn all over the room during this process.

Making the wig cap & wefts​

I used some cheap black acrylic yarn for the wefts, tying strands of it to sticks and brushing out the fiber with a carding brush. Unlike the tutorial, I use fabric glue for every step (making the cap, wefts, as well as attaching the wefts to the cap). I like this glue because it's nontoxic, it doesn't smell strongly, and it doesn't dry instantly, so it's bit more forgiving if you need to correct a mistake. It's also not water soluble, which could be a plus or a minus depending on what you want. At least I'm not worried about it falling apart if it were to get wet.

(I apologize that a lot of the images are so small, I was trying to make this post a little shorter and I haven't figured out how to resize images on DoA, lol)

Trimming the wig cap & adding the first wefts​

As per the tutorial, I stacked every weft right on top of the one before it. I didn't want any bald spots showing once I cut the hair short. I also made the wefts very thin, so that the wig hopefully wouldn't turn out way too voluminous.

Piling on more wefts & sketching out the part placement
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It might be worth noting that I trimmed down the glue part of the wefts to be as small as possible. This made the whole thing less bulky and allowed the hair to be even thicker.

Depressed emo boy vibes + unconventional drying methods
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Between steps, I used this portable fan to dry the glue faster, and it allowed me to get all the wefts put on in one day.

Creating both sides of the part (the scariest part – no pun intended)​

There were a few bare spots between the part wefts (as always) so I used a toothpick to stuff glue into them and pressed the hair down so it would stick to the cap and fill the gaps.

Probably the neatest part I've ever managed to create!​

Aaaand assembly is complete. Now it's ready to be styled, which was way more intimidating to me than putting it together. I've made plenty of wigs, but not only have I never been great at styling any of them, I've also never attempted this style. Or any male hairstyle, for that matter.

I'm interpreting this expression as "please save me from this crazy woman, she has scissors"​

Thanks for reading! I'll try to get part 2 up soon so y'all can see the styling process!

Click here for part 2
Click here for a before and after

 

Part 2 - Styling

All told, I'm pretty sure the construction process was at least twice as fast as the styling stage. First I had to wait for the razor comb I ordered to arrive in the mail (took forever, lol) and then I had to learn how to use it properly. I had been getting by with some old (rather blunt) steeking scissors to get that feathered edge I needed, pinching tiny portions of hair and moving the scissors back and forth quickly against the strands to cut it. It worked, but once I learned to use the comb in exactly the same way, I could cut much larger portions of hair which made everything go much quicker.

The first step was indiscriminately chopping off chunks of hair to make everything seem more manageable. I focused most on the back and sides, leaving the top for last, since I knew the top would be the longest layer.

Initial trimming


Starting to feather the back​

Part of the reason this took so long is because I was determined to trim little by little and avoid cutting something too short and ruining the whole wig.

After more trimming and feathering​

He was definitely starting to look less like depressed emo boy at this point!

Trimming, trimming, trimming...​

This is the point I reached after the first evening of cutting and styling:

End of styling day 1​

The next day I worked on shaping the sideburns. Did I say the part was the scariest part of this wig? Because it was actually the sideburns.

Whittling down the right sideburn​

I keep trying to think of some intelligent way to describe this process, but all I did was trim. That's literally it. And pray I didn't chop off something I didn't want to chop off.

Left sideburn​

The last step was to trim the back, since it was still waaay too long even after all that trimming.

Before and after final trimming in the back​

After that, the wig was pretty much complete. I was expecting to need heat or water to finish styling it, but I ended up just manipulating the fiber with my fingers. Yarn fiber is so flexible and it sticks to itself, so it worked pretty well. (I had also brushed it using a toothbrush). This was the result...

The iconic Korean hair shape​

The staple length of the yarn I used was the perfect length, so I ended up not trimming the topmost layer at all.

Doesn't he look handsome? ^^​

After this, I covered him completely with plastic bags, put the wig back on him, and sprayed it down with hairspray. You can't tell it has any product in it when you look at it, but this way the style is much more stable and shouldn't come undone with a small gust of wind, lol.

Bonus DSLR photo, of the finished finished product:

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I've temporarily changed his name to Seungho (after actor Yoo Seung Ho) but I might change it again in the future. One thing I'm certain I'm changing is his eyes! These eyes are beautiful and the size is beyond perfect, but I really want some brown eyes for him. The main hurdle is that I'm not certain what brand or size these are. I can't even remember where I got them. If I knew where they came from, I'd go order an identical pair in brown right now. So until I can figure all that out and get him his own clothes, he's not 100% complete, but he does feel brand new and I'm in love with his new look!

Thanks for reading and if anyone has any questions about the wig-making process, I'd be happy to try and answer them!

Click here for a before and after

 

Okay, this makes me feel much better about the small photos, thank you!
And thank you for the kind words! Wigs have definitely gotten more doable for me over the years. Practice might not make perfect, but it does make easier, lol! The key ended up being telling myself over and over, "it doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to be perfect," haha.

 

Thank you so much! It's always great to hear that the hard work was worth it! It wasn't as terrifying as I initially expected, but I think I owe this purely to following the tutorial, haha. The razor comb is great! Once I realized that combing the hair wasn't going to work and used the same method I was using with the steeking scissors, it was a breeze. Saved me from having all those jagged edges/blunt ends that ruin short hairstyles.

 

Ahhh thank you so much! I would have never guessed Emma could make a handsome boy, but thanks to the faceup artist, I think he looks really good! (Also, would it sound like bragging if I said that last portrait is my favorite too? )

 

PS. A Proper Before and After

There is one last thing I forgot to add, and that's a proper side by side of Seungho's old and new look.

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Today I just got on and noticed all these broken image links Not sure why this happened or how to fix it... I put so much time into this project journal and now it's a total wreck lol.

 

Ohh, this must be the problem! I tried quoting it like you suggested and the image did show in the reply box! I'm such a newbie, I didn't even realize there was this kind of bug, haha. I'm glad if others can at least still see the images though...