Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Paper BJDs?

I have been massively busy since Thursday.

First, Thursday, Ghost finally showed up!!

carter2 

Ghost is the Dollzone Carter my best friend ordered in February for my Birthday in April. Lol. Happy Birthday to meeeee! Late! But still awesome!

I love him. He's adorable and weird, which is how I like my dolls. He's keeping the grey hair, and will wear mostly black, white, grey and natural colors (cause he's a ghost). I want to order him a couple more wigs - and then for now that's it. I have 4 dolls that I need to faceup at the same time, him, the two Boo's and my DZ Star. None of that will happen until after Dollism.


carter1 

 Speaking of Star, I bought the 5Star Tong Tong from DDE. It came Monday and now my little "dragon" has a body again! Only this time he's a demon. The horns that came with Tong Tong are perfect for him. I'm going to glue them to his head. I'm not kidding.
He looks fantastic right now. All the clothes that are too big for Chibs are going to him.

I worked on Alex III like a fiend all weekend, but he's not close to finished and the weather has been HORRIBLE. Hot and so humid you can't breath. I'm not taking the chance....he can wait. Not for long, but at least until this weekend. I have to finish him, he can't go out in the public half-done!!

I also cleaned my room. This doesn't sound impressive, but if you'd seen it, you'd know....I can walk in there now. I'm doing another wardrobe purge, along with some hats, shoes and other crap I don't need. Then a rearrange of everything so hopefully everything will actually have a place for a change.

Now for the fun part.

I woke up Friday morning to this. I'm not really sure why, but I became obsessed. I must have looked at all those examples for hours, no joke. I decided I wanted to enter, if only to make one, not really to win (though I'd take the prizes lol)...I was thinking of how I'd do Alex when I remembered I couldn't mess with him - III is apart, I is modeling, and the others aren't in a state to even look at atm.

Then it hit me. Skullface!!! I dragged him to work and took a million pictures of him Friday. Of the shots, these are the ones that turned out.

skullface-portrait 
and
 skullface-torso 

Which I thought were decent photos, but don't help when trying to make paper dolls :\

Because I was busy with a million other things over the weekend I didn't touch it again until yesterday (I was also busy Monday) when I took a million more photos.

Then it got hard. I went through all my pictures and pulled out the best ones of each part. For real, most all his parts are from separate pictures. I cut out the parts, sized and resized, and placed them all together in Photoshop. Some parts, like his head and bottom torso, are made of several photos.

This is the shot I used of his head

skullface portrait2 

Part of his hair, and the hat are cropped out. I took both of them from another photo and merged. I also had to do that with his pants a lot. He's pieced together like a patchwork doll lol more than a paper one.

This is what I ended up with
 paperskullface stage1 

 Each part is in it's own PS layer. This file is massive. You can tell he's made up of all different photos because each part is a different color XDDDD *fail*

Then I had to take him apart for the "layout"


paperskullface stage2

Not too bad. But again, massive. I had this one merged to two layers, which was a good thing, because I couldn't print this on a regular printer. My intention was to split it onto two 11x17 sheets, but it was too big for that, and laid out wrong. SO I had to make yet another layout, or, 3 layouts, all 11x17 so I could place and print.

tada!!
 paperskullface
 I think it worked!!

Here he is, all assembled, and giantly huge! PaperSkullface!

paperskullface3 

normalish, 

and not...so...

 paperskullface2 

 lol

I almost wish I had done crazier poses to show how jointy he is. I used 19 brad-things to fasten him, and he's so tall the hat goes nearly to my hip when I hold him up. He's like, twice the size of the real Skullface. He's taped to the wall (you can see the tape on his foot. I'm pissed. I wish I'd seen it before I took the pictures). I put packing tape on him on the backside so I could stick masking tape to him and not damage him. I printed 4 out total, one on regular paper by accident, then three on card-stock. This one is just the card-stock version. The other two I laminated! When I get home tonight I'll start cutting and assembling. I didn't want to laminate the one I entered because I thought he'd be too shiny to photograph.

It's kind of dumb how much fun this thing is. I want to make more. I want to make even better ones! I have a list of things I'd have done better:

Make the black outline better, more consistent and on everything.
Make sure I know how all the joints will work, not just the last half (I got better as I went)
Add dots where the brads will go.
Cleaner pieces.
Better hair. And jointed.
Removable and jointed hat.
Better photos to start with.

It was always my intention to joint the hair, but my photos didn't match up in color or resolution, so I gave up. I think he's fine without. If he was even bigger I could joint the fingers and toes!! *dies*

I am really happy with how he turned out, regardless of what I'd do better. I'd love to make some of my drawings that I could sell at craftshows and stuff. That would be really awesome (guessing it wouldn't be quite legal to sell the ones of the dolls? Since I didn't make the dolls..?).

Anyway, I will call my first paper doll a wild success, whether I win anything or not, I'm thrilled.
Which is one of the reasons I used Skullface, since he was "born" for a DOA contest last year...and even though I didn't win he's been so awesome I'm thrilled. I never would have done that if not for the contest, and I love him! He still needs his one hand finished >.< but I think he looks good <3

Last one

paperskullface4 

Hee hee

Well now that that's done, I may have some time to sued and glue tonight, and maybe I'll get some pics of Star on his new body tomorrow. Or more of Ghost. He pretty cutes right now. I've got faceups and tatts to be doing...and can't do any of it due to weather....so might as well work on non-weather dependent things.

Have a great week!!

6 comments:

  1. Holy beans - that has to be the most amazing thing, massive too! Want!! D: Totally worth the many layer and time spent on it, I'd say!

    Also I love Ghosts face, with his little lazy eye <3 I can't wait to see him painted! :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I should send you one!! Unassembled, you'd have to cut him out and knot or put brads in...but still, if you want one...
      But he was totally worth it. He's hanging in my office right now and so awesome! I want to play with him XD

      Thanks, I think he's so cute X333 I wish I had time to work on him now, but for the next three weeks my priority #1 is all Alex. *doom*

      Delete
  2. Oh gosh I've kind of fallen off the face of the earth! Sorry! I swear every time a DoA anniversary event is going on I'm not active for some reason or another. It's tragic.

    That paper doll of skullface is awesome though! Wow! I really had no idea what they meant from the contest description but that's really neat! I'm super impressed with how much time and effort must have gone into that and how seamlessly he goes together despite being from multiple different photos!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lol I love the anniversary stuff. Even when I don't participate (I did two of the contests this year!!). I just like to look at everyone's stuff. And the off-topic chat. I do wish they'd do another Homme Fer someday though. I love the two I have....I could use, like, 5 more. XD

      Thank you! It was a lot of work...my hand was sore for days XD it was so worth it though, just to have the paper doll (aaaaaand to actually win lol that was good too). The multi-photo thing was difficult, I still don't think I got it right, but I guess it worked :D Thanks again!

      Delete
  3. Oh congrats on all the new arrivals! Sounds like it's a busy time over your way. And paper bjds, now that is something I haven't seen before. I think you did a brilliant job of yours.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! I like him. I've already made some for a couple other people XD PaperSkullface is a popular guy XD
      The whole paper doll thing is something I NEVER would have thought of, and now I'm a little obsessed. I need to try and make a few more. If there's ever time @_@

      Delete