Making Shura

So uh, I mentioned making a character that was very special to me in another thread where I was asking questions on where to get used Smart Dolls/Smart Doll parts, but I kinda wanted to make a thread here that talked about what doll I was aiming for, why I was aiming for her, and what customizations I want to do to her in order to make her this character.  But first, let me start by telling you about Shura. 

 

Shura Anatoli is a character I made well over a decade ago. He/She is technically intersex, so it honestly doesn't matter what gender you call them. For now I'll just stick with She because that makes things easier. She was the very first character I ever made that wasn't a self-insert of some sort. When I was young, even as old as like 6, I was writing (what I didn't realize at the time where) fanfictions. I made self-inserts because I liked the idea of being able to interact with my favorite characters. I had a female self-insert, because I'm female. However in my second high-school group everyone had male versions of themselves, so I did that too. 

That was around the time that I started having some self-love issues with my actual body. I like to joke that I am shaped like a potato, because I'm not what's considered the "desirable" girl form. My chest is non-existant, I've got a little bit of pudge in the belly-area, and my legs are apparently only attractive when they're in a short skirt. I also like keeping my hair short because I am used to living in hot places. It also was worth noting that I used to cosplay in my high-school days, and because I look the way I do, I most often cosplayed boys. The problem with this is that I constantly started to get mis-gendered. Not just in cosplay. I was especially mis-gendered after I cut my hair. Even now, in my work uniform which honestly isn't all that flattering, I get called "sir" all the time. It was a huge blow to my pride because was like I was constantly being looked at and being told: "You're not pretty."

I wasn't sure how to feel about any of this, and without realizing exactly why I made her, I made Shura. She was not only the first character to not be a self-insert, but she was the first character I made that wasn't a fan-character either. She didn't belong to a specific fandom, nor did she really belong in any particular type of fanfiction. Shura was just... Shura. She moved from Russia to Japan with her (abusive) younger brother to help pay for his schooling. Dimitri was his name, and he wanted to become a doctor for very manipulative reasons. Shura was not only intersex, but had albinism as well and a lot of the medical issues that came with albinism. So Dimitri used that against her to keep her more or less under his thumb. (Dramatic I know. But I mean, I made this character in high school. So can you blame me? XD) Shura was also an artist, who painted for a living and actually managed to sell her paintings to relatively high-paying clients. 

Despite all of her flaws, I tended to view her as incredibly beautiful and in loving her as I did, she made me feel just a little bit better about myself. Not only that, but writing for her, and trying to draw her back then, got me through a lot of rough times. I wont go into details, but I had a pretty rough home life at the time and my characters where pretty much all that got me through that. 

 

Now that I've lightly gotten into who Shura is, I feel like it's pretty obvious why I want her as a doll so badly. The thing is, apparently she's going to be a bit harder to make than I realized. For some reason, finding the perfect wig for her was SUPER hard. Thankfully last night, I found one that worked brilliantly. So I ordered this:

 

Shura was always meant to have silver hair, thanks to the albinism. I didn't really want to go the usual white/bleach blond color that I know is more realistic because well, this is still an anime-styled character we're talking about, and this was a hair color I was set on from Shura's creation. This wig even has the perfect bang styling, and is meant to be put in braids. Shura's hair is supposed to be in one, loose/thick braid. That way she can keep her hair out of her paints. 

The next hardest part where the eyes. Thankfully I found these two kinds that I've ordered from Volks:

And these ones as a back-up. I didn't realize just how hard it was going to be to find such pale blue eyes, but these where literally the only eyes I was satisfied with. Everything else was just too bright. 

 

Her shoes where also something I was picky about. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find just plain white sneakers. Shura is very much in the "I'd rather be comfortable than fashionable" side of things. Thankfully I found these:

 

The rest of Shura's clothes should be easy enough to find, because she very much likes hand-knitted sweaters. Especially if they're soft. The softer the better on her poor, sensitive skin. She also likes jeans, which don't seem to be hard to find in this community. She prefers colors like pastel blues and purples, and just lighter colors in general. 

 

Now another part of her that I actually assumed was going to be impossible to find, was the XS SmD bust. Like me, Shura is a member of the Itty Bitty Titty Comity (I actually want to get her a custom shirt that says this on it). Knowing that this piece has long since been discontinued, I thought it would be impossible to find and that I'd have to settle for the normal Small bust. However, someone on Etsy thankfully had exactly what I wanted!

It's 3d Printed and I'll have to paint it, but honestly I don't even care. I'm just so thrilled that I was able to find this to modify my doll with because it's one step closer to making it Shura.

 

So now that I've got all of this stuff, you'd probably assume that I have the doll herself already, right? Sadly, no. I bought my V1 Kizuna with the intent on eventually just switching out her head, but honestly after all of the work I'm putting into restoring her, I don't really know if I can bring myself to do that. However her face isn't the right face for Shura's. But you know who is?

Serenity.

I cannot even put into words how perfectly Serenity's face matches up with how I used to draw Shura. From the sweet look in her eyes, to the cute little blush, to the way that she has that soft little smile. Her eyes look so kind, and yet at the same time she almost looks just a little bit tired. So I'm on the lookout for a Serenity in Milk Skin because she is absolute perfection to me. Here's to hoping that one day I can find her, because Kizuna has absolutely thrown off my plans for modifying her to be Shura. (Kizuna's pretty perfect as is, which I'm sure most of you who own Kizunas will agree with.)

 

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I look forward to updating this as pieces come in the mail and as I get to finally get my hands on a Serenity and customize her. 

Guys I am SCREAMING right now. 

Challenge and Serenity are the same. 

They just have slightly different face-ups. 

The Milk skin wasn't as pale as I wanted it anyway, so screw it. Screw paying someone $800+ for a used doll that might get to me just as stained as poor Kizuna. I just threw a good chunk of the spending money I'd saved up for my Japan trip in February at my roommate for him to buy this girl for me for $572 instead. 

Shura is coming home.

Edited September 8, 2020 by ButtonsMcGee

Congrats!  I'm happy your plans are going to be realized soon!  Please be sure to share pics of her when you get her, I'm sure everyone would like to see her completed! 

And welcome to the forums!

 

 

Billy

@baldylox

Thanks so much!

I absolutely will post photos her once I get her home and all put together. I am laughing a little bit because I feel like even though I ordered her after a lot of her stuff, she's still going to arrive before everything else. But I can't wait to share her with you all~

This is so exciting! Congrats! We all look forward to seeing your progress on them! 

Wow I love how much backstory you’ve put into this doll design. She’s going to be so cool when you have her all together! 

1 hour ago, HazelMaze said:

This is so exciting! Congrats! We all look forward to seeing your progress on them! 

Thanks so much! I'll be posting here once Challenge arrives in the mail, and then it's just a matter of waiting for everything else to arrive. I really can't wait!

1 hour ago, Adele said:

Wow I love how much backstory you’ve put into this doll design. She’s going to be so cool when you have her all together! 

Thanks so much! Shura is incredibly special to me, so having her in doll form is something that brings so much joy to my heart. I can't wait to show you once she's all together. 

She's here!

What's interesting to me is that her face-up is actually a little bit different than what's on the website, and I like it even more!

Eventually I'll be needing to get her face-up changed a little because Shura has silver hair and the eyebrows don't match, but for now this is a cute face for her to have! DHL actually delivered her in just two days. I'm stupidly excited and I can't wait for all of Shura's other items to arrive so that the real customization can begin.

Conrats on Shura! I love your concept for them!

They're beautiful!

Wow that was fast!  She looks beautiful tho!  Congrats on getting her home safely!

 

 

Billy

2 hours ago, Guest said:

Conrats on Shura! I love your concept for them!

They're beautiful!

Ah thank you! Shura will look more like themselves once their eyes and wig get here. The anticipation is killing me, but I think DHL has spoiled me with their speedy shipping. 

1 minute ago, baldylox said:

Wow that was fast!  She looks beautiful tho!  Congrats on getting her home safely!

 

 

Billy

Right? DHL has been on the ball! I'm also excited that the place that I'm looking into Shura's clothing from is also using DHL. So once I order them on Monday, the clothes will probably be here by the end of next week just depending on how quickly they actually ship them out. 

 

For some reason the absolute hardest part is finding knitted sweaters. Shura's two favorite colors are pastel blue and pastel purple (lavender) but they're pretty much non-existent. 

So there have been 2 sad things that have happened with this, but one amazing thing~

So I'll start with the sad. 

Neither the shoes nor the wig I ordered are working out. The wig seller messaged me stating that (even though their listing showed the silver wig in stock) they don't have that color. I messaged them back and stated that the silver was the only color I wanted and asked them if I could cancel my order and get a refund. They now seem to be ignoring me. ;w;

So I'm using paypal to try and get my money back. 

The shoes I'm gonna make an outright warning to others about. This is the listing. It outright states that these shoes are for Smart Dolls and even shows a photo of a Smart Doll wearing them. The first review stated that they where a little big but that it still worked out. I should have read the other reviews, but I got too excited. I paid the $40, the shoes arrived today...

And they're basically clown shoes on my dolls. They DO fit my roomie's 65cm tall muscular boy doll from Angell Studio, but not a Smart Doll. So now I'm sadly trying to re-sell them because trying to get a refund means I'd have to pay for return shipping and then I'd lose half of the money I spent on the shoes trying to get a refund. So it's not worth it. 

So watch out for that. The shoes where VERY well made, but they don't fit at all which makes me sad.

 

Now for the GOOD news. I found a milk head in the sculp that I wanted and have ordered it. Now Shura gets to be the complexion I actually wanted. I tried to tell myself to be satisfied with the Cinnamon skin, but it just wasn't pale enough for a character that's supposed to be albino. So for right now Shura and my Kizuna (whom I'm turning into Fisheye from Sailor Moon) will be sharing a body until I can get a second Milk-skin body. 

Also I got a new wig which I realize works even better because it's also paler. So now Shura is going to look even better than they would have before. 

 

I just hope I can get my money back on the wig and manage to sell the shoes. ;w;

19 minutes ago, ButtonsMcGee said:

It outright states that these shoes are for Smart Dolls and even shows a photo of a Smart Doll wearing them. The first review stated that they where a little big but that it still worked out. I should have read the other reviews, but I got too excited. I paid the $40, the shoes arrived today...

And they're basically clown shoes on my dolls.

This isn’t all that uncommon, and particularly so with sneakers. Something about doll sneakers just seems to make them much bulkier than the doll’s foot. Even Volks sneakers for Volks dolls look big on their feet. My theory with shoes is that the inflexible nature of a doll’s foot means the shoe has to be a bit bigger in order for the doll foot to go in, and that’s why some styles of doll shoes unzip in the back.

Smartdoll feet are longer and narrower than Dollfie Dream feet, and Dollfie Dream feet are very similar to SDGr flat feet. I would be wary of shoes that say they fit both DD/SD and Smartdoll because the fit won’t be good, and the same with long pants. 

13 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

This isn’t all that uncommon, and particularly so with sneakers. Something about doll sneakers just seems to make them much bulkier than the doll’s foot. Even Volks sneakers for Volks dolls look big on their feet. My theory with shoes is that the inflexible nature of a doll’s foot means the shoe has to be a bit bigger in order for the doll foot to go in, and that’s why some styles of doll shoes unzip in the back.

Smartdoll feet are longer and narrower than Dollfie Dream feet, and Dollfie Dream feet are very similar to SDGr flat feet. I would be wary of shoes that say they fit both DD/SD and Smartdoll because the fit won’t be good, and the same with long pants. 

Yeah that makes sense. This was incredibly oversized. The inside was 8cm in length and fit a doll who's feet where FAR larger. 

I'll have to be careful to make sure I look for the Cm measurements and HOPE that they are right. One of the problems I've had in the doll community in general, both in resin and in vinyl is that for some reason no one measures things properly? I once found a pair of shoes that claimed that its measurements would fit a doll I had that was absolutely tiny. Like, picture a YOSD sized foot, and then picture half the length and half the width. Suuuuper small. The etsy store claimed it would fit, and this shoe size was hard to find. So I (stupidly) ordered one pair in every color. Well they get here, and they fit YOSD sized dolls perfectly, but not the other one I'd gotten. And I bought 4 pairs. ;w; 

Shoes are the hardest part of finding clothes in this hobby, I've found. 

Hopefully the clothes aren't as hard. I'll keep in mind what you said about the long pants. So far the main place I've ordered clothes from is TTYA because they model them on Smart Dolls, so I'm hoping they fit well. For now I've been trying to focus on clothing places that specifically sell for Smart Doll until I get a good grasp on what size clothing they need. These are the first dolls that I have that had been this big. All of my resin dolls are MSD sized. 

11 minutes ago, ButtonsMcGee said:

So far the main place I've ordered clothes from is TTYA because they model them on Smart Dolls

There is a theory that TTYA was the manufacturer for SmartDoll clothing. I’ve only ordered shorts and jeans skirts for them, and those fit DDS like SmD low rise short jeans fit DDS. 
 

Doll Delights and Dollgerie sell stuff modeled on SmartDoll. 

1 minute ago, BeyondTime said:

There is a theory that TTYA was the manufacturer for SmartDoll clothing. I’ve only ordered shorts and jeans skirts for them, and those fit DDS like SmD low rise short jeans fit DDS. 
 

Doll Delights and Dollgerie sell stuff modeled on SmartDoll. 

Good to know. Thanks a lot! 
I actually ordered Shura's sweater from Tobias Malfoy. I didn't really want to because it was the ONLY thing I wanted from their store and shipping was insane, but the sweater was literally perfect. So I figured it would be better to pay a high price for something I KNEW I'd like instead of paying low prices for things I would settle for and eventually want to replace anyway. 

I've seen Dollgerie's stuff. They have a pretty nice selection. I'll have to look up Doll Delights as well.

5 minutes ago, ButtonsMcGee said:

I'll have to look up Doll Delights as well.

Some of their stuff is pretty risqué, but they have a lot that isn’t. Their F*ck Cancer shirt is never in stock so they may not restock sold out items. 

19 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

Some of their stuff is pretty risqué, but they have a lot that isn’t. Their F*ck Cancer shirt is never in stock so they may not restock sold out items. 

Good to know!

Depending on the doll, I don't mind risque, honestly. 

On 9/15/2020 at 10:33 PM, ButtonsMcGee said:

Good to know!

I asked, they do restock. 

Ah, I didn't see this until now! Congrats on getting the doll for your character ^o^ she's so pretty!

(Sorry you've had a bit of trouble with shoes and stuff. Hope you can find the perfect pieces soon)

14 hours ago, Katsudon said:

Ah, I didn't see this until now! Congrats on getting the doll for your character ^o^ she's so pretty!

(Sorry you've had a bit of trouble with shoes and stuff. Hope you can find the perfect pieces soon)

Thank you! I actually just got the head in the mail and.... oh boy. It's a good thing I was planning on re-doing this lovely Milk-girl's face up because the person who did it obviously sealed in high humidity. It's cracked aaaaaalllll over the face. 

It's okay. This kinda seems to be a thing in the bjd community in general? Both in Resin and in Vinyl. There's not a lot of quality control. But I'll get it! This character is too important for me to give up just because of a few setbacks. Even now, the original milk body I got for Kizuna is going through another set of "spa-day" treatments and this is the 5th thing I've tried to remove stains. My absolute last resort is using the sandpaper Danny suggests because honestly that freaks me out a bit. @-@

But thanks! I appreciate the well wishes. 

1 hour ago, ButtonsMcGee said:

My absolute last resort is using the sandpaper Danny suggests because honestly that freaks me out a bit. @-@

If you haven’t tried it yet, I strongly suggest try remove-zit before sanding. 

2 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

If you haven’t tried it yet, I strongly suggest try remove-zit before sanding. 

The Remove-zit is the next step if this one doesn't work. We have the stronger BP cream and got a light that heats up more to try that out, because that was less money. But if I get the remove-zit, I also have to get another product in order to actually wash it off of the doll and overall, all of this stuff is racking up quite a bit money-wise. I'd need the light for the RZ too so that wasn't a waste, but this poor doll has been so badly mistreated that she's really high-maintenance to restore. 

3 hours ago, ButtonsMcGee said:

but this poor doll has been so badly mistreated that she's really high-maintenance to restore. 

Gonna call in the cavalry here.

@baldylox didn't you have to restore a doll that had basically been given full body tattoos? Any tips or advice for the fixing this Kizuna?

It might help if we could see pictures to see how bad it is. Sorry, I'm not trying to push you to post images if it's more effort than you want to undertake, I just want to see if we can help.

30 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

Gonna call in the cavalry here.

@baldylox didn't you have to restore a doll that had basically been given full body tattoos? Any tips or advice for the fixing this Kizuna?

It might help if we could see pictures to see how bad it is. Sorry, I'm not trying to push you to post images if it's more effort than you want to undertake, I just want to see if we can help.

I only have the photos of before we started on my roommate's camera, and I'm gonna be fully honest with you, the stains don't look all that bad in the photos. The cameras don't catch a lot of what was there. 

I've had the BP cream on it for six hours now and it does seem to be slowly but surely working. It has taken off a good layer of the staining. There are darker stains that are spots and long line-like marks. There's one worse spot on her inner thigh next to her groin. Otherwise there was an entire layer of light black/blue down her legs which I'm assuming where from her pants. 

There are also stains on her feet that will have to be worked on later because I can't fit them under my lamp right now. But every time we try to take photos, it for some reason doesn't show up well. @-@

No no, I totally appreciate it. Honestly if our shitty phone cameras could actually catch the problems, I would have posted photos in a heart beat. I've got another 2 1/2 hours till she's done with this treatment and I can wipe the cream off of her. So I'll let you know how she's looking after that. But this will be the 3rd 3-hour treatment for her today. I plan on basically just doing this for the next week straight to see if it helps.