Summer dolly projects

[dargosmydaddy]

I've been trying to get some doll projects accomplished this summer, whether its restyling, sewing some new clothes, or otherwise revitalizing some dolls, both old and new. I also want to try to take more photos of my dolls. So I thought creating a thread might motivate me to share some of what I've been doing and keep at it.

First up... 


After spending quite awhile being anti-Byul, I finally took the plunge over a year ago when I picked up a cheap Byul Tiger Lily head here on the boards. I'm fond of her, but I can't say she endeared me to Byuls... Still, I am a sucker for bargain dolls, and I ended up with a cheap Romantic Queen from ebay last winter. She was adorable rewigged. So when the above Byul Siry showed up on ebay in May, I couldn't resist. She was missing an arm and has a rub mark on her cheek, but she was only $26 including shipping, and I could see some potential.

I rewigged and rechipped her upon arrival, and just recently got her a new body from PullipStyle and made her a dress. I think she's adorable!

S4 by tisue999, on Flickr

Bonus picture of her with Henri, who benefited from the new body as well... Henri's foot broke awhile back, so I used the lower leg from the Byul body to give Henri a transplant.

HenriS1 by tisue999, on Flickr

The only thing the Byul needs now is a name... I'm usually good at coming up with names, but I'm struggling this time. My other Byuls have names that end in "a," so I'm hoping to continue that trend...

[Lilcurly]

She is adorable. How about Mya or Mia?

Best of luck with progressing with your dolly projects, I look forward to seeing how you progress

[Jubilee]

I have a few suggestions I played off of the color she is wearing. Rina ,Yarkona ,Verna ,Zelenka and Aileana . I hope this helped.

[KiraKira]

She's so cute. I'm not much of a Byul fan myself, but your rewigged/rechipped girl is very endearing.

I'm not so good at names either, but maybe...
*Zara
*Aria
*Ayla
*Katya
*Bria

[davidd]

Byul... ends with an "a"... Beulah!

(Well, it ends with an "a" sound, anyway!)

((Spell it: Byula!))

(((Okay, maybe not....)))

((((Any excuse for a Hayley Mills in Summer Magic video clip!))))

[Alliecat]

I'm not a Byul fan either but do tend to find them much more appealing in owner photos; this one looks good in the wig you chose. And I always like hearing about dolly rescues -- an armless doll finding a new home with a new body is great Cute dress too.

[Cornflower Blue]

Byul Siry looks great as a brunette! Names: Ramona, Romina, Lila, Delia, Tia, Lena, Augusta...

[TrueFan]

I googled "Henri and" and a number of interesting possibilities came up.
Flora
Jules
Regan
Emile
Marie-Jeanne
Blake
Loup-Garou

[dargosmydaddy]

Thanks for all the name suggestions! I'm still mulling... I like a lot of the names, but not sure if they're right for this particular girl. I did crack up over "Loup-Garou," particularly after Googling it (apparently it's a werewolf?)... I actually named Henri after a werewolf (the character Henry on the TV show Sanctuary) because I thought she looked kind of wolfish

CB, Ramona is actually the name of my Byul Tiger Lily

[dargosmydaddy]

Up next (I am so not going in chronological order here, or posting as much as I wanted to...)

Another cheap ebay find from last February, Neo Angelique.



She laid around for quite awhile, skulking in corners of my dolly area. I finally gave her a new look this past week, and she turned out to be sweeter looking than I ex.pected.

I decided to order some Lullaby eyes for her. This was my first time ordering from them (though a few of my secondhand dolls seemed to come with Lullaby chips). I ordered July 8, and they finally arrived a few days ago. Yikes! The site said they ship in 3-5 business days... they finally updated as shipped on etsy on July 21, and then when the envelope arrived it was postmarked August 1. I wish they had been more upfront about shipping time-- I'm fine being patient if I know what to ex.pect.

Anyhow, the chips are gorgeous. They are listed as 13mm... my understanding is that they'd fit Type 4 Pullips, but not other Groove dolls that are 12mm. Oddly enough, the peacock colored pair that I bought with the intention of using for this doll seemed a bit large... I could have made them fit if need be, but they weren't great... but they fit a Dal I was working on perfectly! OK, then... I tried the other pair I got (meteorite) on the Pullip, and they fit better. 

Finding a wig was also a bit of trial and error, but I finally settled on a Leekeworld wig that I got from Denver Doll a couple years back. I've always found this wig rather disappointing; I loved the colors, but the bangs were overly long, and if you tried to part them so you could see the doll's eyes, the wig cap showed massively. However, this time around I discovered that if you brush the bangs straight down, the sparseness of the hairs is not apparent at all. So I bit the bullet and attempted bang trimming for the first time. I don't think it came out too bad!

Meet Daphne:

Daphne2 by tisue999, on Flickr

[Alliecat]

Whoa... she looks terrific. Trimming's not hard and this looks fine. The streaky effect is cool.
Looking forward to seeing some more of her in your posts
(I have that outfit too! )

[davidd]

Nice choice on her hair. It seems to go well with her face and ex.pression. And those smoky eyes!!!

[dargosmydaddy]

Next up... I did a mass re-chipping day awhile back, always a major undertaking for me because I tend to have issues with getting screws out. Sure enough, all four dolls I was working on (two of which I'm focusing on today, and two more who will get their own posts later, 'cause I did other stuff to them besides re-chipping) gave me issues! The good thing about working on multiple dolls at once was that I could keep switching off as I got frustrated, but yeah... kind of major frustrations throughout. Stupid screws! I think I worked on them for over an hour the first night, and didn't succeed getting all the screws undone on any of them! Luckily when I returned for round two the next day, I finally succeeded with all of them Yay!

First up is Charlotte, the Alice du Jardin I picked up on ebay last year. She was missing an arm, but I managed to rebody her pretty quickly (cheap Pullip bodies are usually easy to find, as opposed to cheap Dal and Taeyang bodies before the recent PullipStyle restock). Now I decided to give her different chips, a kind of purplish pair. I'm still not sure if this is her final look... I'm kind of tempted to re-wig her in something less pink, but my want list of wigs is quite long right now, so it'll probably be awhile.

Charlotte6 by tisue999, on Flickr

As for Catinka, she's a Pullip Dahlia Cinderella I got from the Sample Sale a couple years back. She has gone through several wigs over the years, and while I don't think she's worn any of them badly, someone else always came along who wore them better! First she had a Leekeworld wig...

Cat1 by tisue999, on Flickr

Eventually stolen by Jem (Akoya)
Jem11 by tisue999, on Flickr

Then she had a ForMyDoll wig...

Cat11 by tisue999, on Flickr

Eventually requisitioned by Evangelina (VeryBerryPop)
Eva4 by tisue999, on Flickr

I finally gave her a Luts wig last year that she seems to be keeping, but I've long thought she'd look better with brown eyes. I tried to rechip her last fall, but after getting her head open I could not get the screws on the eye mech to budge. This time around I attacked them directly with pliers, and they finally came out!

Then I discovered that one of the few pairs of brown chips I have left were slightly small and misshapen. Luckily I remembered reading this from CornflowerBlue-- https://www.flickr.com/photos/cornflower...703217143/ -- and decided I'd give painting the inside rim of the eye globe with black acrylic a try. I was a little nervous as I don't have the steadiest hand, but it worked out OK. Of course it's probably not apparent at all in my crappy quality photo, but I think the slight black rim looks really nice. All in all I'm pleased with Catinka's new look.

Cat18 by tisue999, on Flickr

[davidd]

Both of your girls turned out beautifully. I particularly like the brown eyes. It appears that the "black rim" method worked out nicely.

[Alliecat]

These kinds of "issues" are why I'm not brave enough to open anybody's head!! I can see me messing up the eyemech and having to mail a head to some dolly friend to fix it
Both the girls look nice. (As do the wig-stealers.) The black rim painting sounds like a clever fix, and I think the pink wig is cute on Charlotte.