I’m always inspired by my good friend Nat over at Milkshake Melody.     We’ve had  joint photostories & characters whose pasts & futures & families are intertwined and related in some way. We were talking a few weeks back about how one of her characters, Inessa, only has her somewhat stuffy & more conservative sister Yseult to visit when she comes to Quinlan (and for photostories). I’d give you a link to Inessa’s profile w/ an updated pic but Nat is updating them so she isn’t up w/ a new pic yet.

With that in mind she’s encouraged me to make a Mistress for my cast of characters.  I have yet to determine what if anything she does for a job– might make her a lawyer since Inessa is one and that could be one more way that they’re contemporaries. Maybe.  :wink:   Anyway, here’s the mistress. You can’t tell from the photos but her eyes are actually blue with aqua/ cerulean

Click the x to see the enlarged version at full size for detail.

Her pet?

A bit more info about her: (she needs a name)

• Volks Neo head
• She is on a volks excellent E type body
• I rooted her with a mix of NDR hair that I had (some dishwater blonde, Wheat,  and maybe off white?) that I bought years ago.  Nat suggested going the blonde route since she has a previous Mistress doll I made (back when I pretty much only did barbies) and wanted to see a version of her made.

So gave it  a try, though it’s a long time later and the details are kind of hazy to me. I recall she had long, blond hair that had curls/waves, a big chest (I’d experimented–I forget it it was paper clay or milliput I’d used) and a little black plether outfit. LOL That’s about all I remember.

Ok, and you remember that yesterday I tried painting Portia? And how I’d misplaced where her eyes were and in general she had personality but looked a bit “off”. I wiped her & Raven’s faces last night & I gave another shot at painting Portia.  Not a radical difference, but…?

Any better?

As always, comments welcome!

You remember Devin right? The he-she-not-quite-sure-gender-ambiguous doll from last week?

Well as I stated at the time I wasn’t that happy with the way Devin’s eyes had turned out. They’re gloppy & sloppy & just not that good. And one of the eyes seems to be going off on its own……

DEVIN [Before]

Repainting Devin is a tough call because sometimes it’s that impressionistic painting that gives some of my dolls their personalities….but I feel it’s also me being lazy. Since I don’t want to get into that habit (the same phenomena exists on Jillian’s eyes) I felt I needed to repaint Devin. And hope that I can keep that quirky vibe.

So….

This is the result of the attempted repaint. I don’t feel I caught the spark, but I am happier that the painting is cleaner (though you probably can’t tell from these photos).

What do you think?

Ok there’s some stuff going on behind  the scenes and depending on how it turns out I’ll share it (vent it) here or not.   :angry:   It’s related to that steampunk custom I did a while back.   Anyway, I’m going to try to ignore the current anger I feel & share some photos of my 2 most recent customs.

It’s been a long while now since I did any repainting so these aren’t as cleanly done as I’d like. Forgive their clothes too… I tried to find stuff that would sort of fit their personalities but didn’t have much on hand that did.  Both were done using Volks Neo heads rooted with old hair from NDR (Noix de Rome).

OSCAR

Out of the two I’m happier with Oscar’s facial painting. It’s cleaner & neater.  I enjoyed making his porcupine hair but although I wanted to cut it shorter than it is Mark vetoed that idea.

DEVIN

I liked a certain something in Devin’s face so I did not end up wiping it.  That said, I probably will repaint him/her soon since looking at it int he photos it just looks clumpy & not too good.

Here’s a better pic to show the crappy painting: Wonky eyes, clumpy brush work. etc.

Devin originally started out as a male character and then morphed into a semi androgynous figure–probably a girl, but currently shown on a Volks Excellent  N body type. I’m not sure what body type will ultimately be assigned.

But at least I worked on something. Plus the room you see (vaguely) in the background is the dorm room in process.