Oculae's Hybrid Lab!

Thanks @CeliathePikachu! She's been a real labor of love. 😊 I actually just finished the base wood of her staff today, using a branch froma corkscrew willow tree! Corkscrew willows are the best at making gnarled-looking sticks, I love em.

Sanded, microwave-dried, stained, and sealed to perfection! It's even the right width for a Dollfie Dream hand to hold. I'm thrilled. ❤️

@bananaaether, Étoile's eyes are from Ersa Flora! She makes the best acrylic eyes, I have some in Hanji and Sonico in addition to Étoile. I usually go for acrylic or glass eyes whenever I can because the high-humidity summers I have are hell for resin eyes. Ersa Flora has a great selection for when I need a small pair or a weird design.

Of course, the fact that it yellows doesn't stop me from buying resin heads. 🤭 Between resin heads and having nothing but normal human dolls, I'll take the resin! Glad my hybrids brought you joy!

Wow, thank you for the recommendation! I'll definitely check Esra Flora out!

The staff is already looking so cute. Can't wait to see it done!

On 5/18/2022 at 11:32 AM, Oculae said:

 

 

I loveeeeee her ita bag so much! Would you mind sharing where you got it?

@Riesz, it's an official Volks item, the La Parsonal Collection Blue Label Heart Clear Bag! They're very popular, I got this one on Mandarake. There's a blue one too!

It's been a good dolly Monday already! Sonico got into witchcraft over the weekend, in the hopes of helping Feloya feel more comfortable once she arrives:

This outfit is an artist outfit that was sitting in Mandarake, seemingly brand new! It was for MDD, but I was able to get it on Sonico by altering the corset top to make it just a corset instead. She's using an AZO2 blouse here, along with that Volks bag Riesz is fond of and a pair of holographic pink boots from Doll Delights! It was a real challenge getting that witch hat to look okay considering her headphones are both a staple of her character...and also the only thing keeping her wig on. 😆

I also got a faceup preview for Sucrose from Watashidoll!

I was originally going to get a blank Tiny Fox and paint her myself, but when Watashidoll posted that they had a full blank girl in stock, body included, I jumped right on it. No offense to my skills, but nothing beats a professional! I'm SO excited to see the finished faceup, she's already looking adorable. Alruna's Aesthetics has her eyes available, and I've had her glasses all ready to go for a while. Once she's ready, all I'll need is an outfit for her!

Edited July 18, 2022 by Oculae

Ohhh the Sucrose faceup looks on point! Can't wait to see the final version 😄 

oh whoaa, i love all your franken dolls and hybrids! now i want to try hybriding resin/vinyl heads/bodies together too
 

Normally I'd wait to update until a doll is fully complete, but.

Everything Feloya needs is here except her bodysuit, earrings, shoes, and neck peg! And LOOK at how gorgeous these eyes are in her! I'm so glad I went with yellow eyes, I think they suit her wonderfully.

...And yes, I did all those piercings myself. White glue is my enemy forever now. 😂

After an agonizingly long wait (when did I get so impatient?), Feloya Felinius, Witch of the Black Sands, is finally done!

I adore her look, she's just as cool as I imagined. I might have to cut some sleeves off though, as her shoulder mobility is terrible right now...4 layers of sleeves will do that to you, I guess! 😆

So witchy!

She's so pretty 😍

Yesterday I did the unthinkable - Eiran is now off his Obitsu 55! 😱

I finally had the energy to reevaluate what it was that's been bothering me about him since I got his new wig, and I eventually realized his frame wasn't strong enough to support the weight of his head and wig. He was floppy!

He's on a DDSB f3 now, after a whole frame swap adventure that led to Feloya's official designation as a display doll and official placement on the DD3 frame. Her glued piercings are beautiful, but after one outing that had me worrying about damaging her the entire time, I've decided she's better off staying home. At least Euphemia has another witch to talk to now!

The outing, btw, was a trip to the Bristol Renaissance Faire and nearby attraction WizardQuest for my birthday. I'd originally planned on just bringing Feloya, but Poppy snuck with too, and I'm glad she did. Poor kitty, stuck in a box all day...

And then here's Poppy, running all over WizardQuest and having a good time! 😂

@Oculae Poppy was clearly the perfect candidate for this venture- she fits right in! Feloya looks like all the right vibes for a Ren Faire... but then again, it's hard to do much if the sun shines, and who can blame you for being concerned about her piercings? Congratulations to Eiran and his new frame! His evolution never ceases to amaze me; you come up with such creative hybrids. He does look more proportionate and straight. Here is wishing him a long and healthy life, no matter what he's shelled on. His new hair grabs my attention now every time I spot it. It's a unique look on anything bigger than a Nendoroid, and nails the cell animation look.

Poppy's become one of my favorite traveling dolls, so I should have known I'd be much more comfortable dragging her out on a long vacation than the doll I'd just finished and wanted to show off. I always have fears about fragility on dolls I've just finished modifying, especially for stuff I've never done before. I will admit that her coming along was an accident, though. I'd had her in her usual carrier in my car, because I bring a doll to work every day, and in the scramble to leave for this vacation right after work, I grabbed my work bag out of the car to bring it inside, but totally forgot about bringing in the carrier! Glad I did, though, or that picture of Feloya would have been all I had of the whole trip. :')

I admit I hesitated bringing her into WizardQuest at first because I thought she would look out of place...considering she's meant to give off "Kawaii Monster Café" vibes rather than "D&D Beastie" vibes. But it was colorful enough in there that her outlandish fashion blended in just fine! Glad I'm not the only one who thinks so.

And thanks! I'm glad Eiran and his wig are well-loved, even if he's no longer my triple hybrid poster child. I'm much happier with the f3 body, it eases my mind a lot knowing that I can easily tighten him if he gets loose again, and since I have him on a third party neck peg, I feel extra safe regarding his neck and mobility. I do miss the double jointed knees and magnetic feet of the Obitsu, but I can get used to the differences or figure out a mod to fix them eventually.

For now though, I'm just happy that I can bring him to work again without worry!

No real doll updates, aside from some pictures! Eiran's clearly happy to be getting attention again. 😆

I also took my tardigrades to the Air and Water show - got too enthralled with the show to get a good pic of them during it, but I did get a nice pic with the skyline in the background before the show!

And here they are, all set up to watch with me!

Went to a local meetup last Sunday - it was the first one this group has held in 2 years! Turnout was immense, as you can imagine - they had about 50 attendees from what I heard! I had a great time setting up my usual suspects in the display area.

It was also nice having in-person sales! I can see why meets are so popular, lol. I had quite a few sales myself and will probably list my leftovers on a sales post here... if I ever get the motivation to take all those photos. 😆

I was so busy socializing and manning my sales that I completely forgot to take any pictures of the display area, but I DID get a chance to stage some really, REALLY nice pictures of Eiran at a backdrop setup there. They remind me so much of how his setting is supposed to look, I teared up a lil...

He's also in his official outfit, lovingly sewn by BJDream ever on Instagram! They did an incredible job, he looks just like his original design. ❤️

And the meet did one more thing for me...a certain cocoa Smartie that I've been hot and cold on since she came out was present, and she looks much more like the promo pic I fell in love with in person. I put a WTB out there, one thing led to another...More info to come when she gets here. 😅

 

Edited August 30, 2022 by Oculae

She's here!!! Well, has been, for about 2 days. Love being busy and tired. 😅

Meet Ciarra Wilson, my new Smart Doll Beyond! Also known as Tsukitti online, where she spends most of her time. She's a huge otaku, has been ever since reading Princess Jellyfish at a young age! The glasses and outfit are temporary, her real ones are currently being 3D printed and I'm still on the hunt for some good otaku clothes for her!

I've wanted a Beyond ever since I saw her promo pic, but when the product pic came out on her release, she looked DRAMATICALLY different. So much so that it broke my heart and I lost all interest. And that was that...until last week's meet, where I finally got to see her in person!  All I can say is MAN, whoever took the product pictures for her really screwed up. She's a lot closer to the promo pic I fell in love with at the very beginning.

I'm so glad I got to see her and change my mind, especially considering that the timing made it so she was really cheap on the secondhand market when I finally started looking. She was only $350! Granted, that's mostly bc I didn't want her wig, but can you blame me? This Dallas Doll Co one is really good. 😁

Hello Ciarra!  She looks so cute!  And your recent pic of Eiran at the meet, all blue glowy is downright ethereal.

More Ciarra! I found an ADORABLE crochet jellyfish keychain, and since Tsukitti comes from Tsukimi, the main girl's name in Princess Jellyfish, I had to pick it up. I use every part of the keychain whenever possible, so she got herself a cute necklace and bracelet as well. 😁

...And then I immediately threw all that back in the clothing bin and threw a fall outfit on her instead. 😂

It's subtle, but I also adjusted her face a bit - I made the corners of her mouth a little taller and added a thin line of black along the inside of her lips. It's the same thing I did with Eiran, and on both of them it really makes their smile easier to capture!

Edited September 8, 2022 by Oculae

Tinyfox's new fox goddess inspired me to get cracking on my little birdy again - her outfit would be so cute on Meteion! 

Turns out dying whatever TFs are made of is not easy, so I ended up using Angelus, a tough gloss coat, and a couple layers of MSC for the legs. (hopefully it all sticks 🤞)

Her head wings ARE dyed, since they're resin. In true Meteion fashion, I ended up having to mix a little black into my blue dye to get them to be juuust the right color. 😆

All I have left now is her little leg baubles, and I'm still undecided on whether I want to do them myself in polymer clay or epoxy putty or just buy a custom sized 3D printed set from Dangerous Ladies on Etsy. Tough decision!

Ended up going with polymer clay and Suffering. I much prefer the Suffering involved with having to figure out how to bake tiny pieces rather than the Suffering associated with painting air-cure epoxy or communicating measurement details back and forth to a vendor...as well as paying for and working with the resulting 3D prints. Plus, I already had nice sparkly gunmetal clay on hand!

I'm bad with capturing progress pics, but essentially what I did here was grab the legs off of my other old-style Tinyfox and wrapped them in plastic wrap to use as a base that I then sculpted each piece on top of. The plastic wrap was just a precaution, as polymer clay in its unbaked form eats through the plasticizer of certain plastics. As for why I didn't use Meteion's legs...I don't trust the sturdiness of the paint. I'm sure it's FINE, but the mere idea of somehow damaging her while I was trying to finish her was too terrifying to consider. 😆

Here's both legs done! I took a couple liberties with the design - while several areas of the official leg pieces wrap all the way around the leg,  these are only the front pieces, as I wanted to minimize failure points when it came to putting clothes on and sitting. I also just carved crosses into the diamonds instead of beveling them like in the official design, bc it's my dolly and beveling is a pain, lmao. Sculpting those tiny fleur-de-lis on the tops of the shins was definitely the worst part!

To bake them, I very carefully peeled the plastic wrap off the leg and pulled the clay pieces off of the wrap from there. Polymer clay is still bendable after it's been baked as long as it's still warm, so I baked each piece flat...

...and then burned myself by pulling each piece off the baking sheet, applying superglue to the back, and slapping them on Meteion's legs as fast as I possibly could. Thankfully, the burns were minor and the leg pieces attached and curved correctly without much hassle. The crafting gods were kind this day.

The final result, featuring Meteion's Hermes plush as well!

15 hours ago, Oculae said:

Ended up going with polymer clay and Suffering. I much prefer the Suffering involved with having to figure out how to bake tiny pieces rather than the Suffering associated with painting air-cure epoxy or communicating measurement details back and forth to a vendor...as well as paying for and working with the resulting 3D prints. Plus, I already had nice sparkly gunmetal clay on hand!

I'm bad with capturing progress pics, but essentially what I did here was grab the legs off of my other old-style Tinyfox and wrapped them in plastic wrap to use as a base that I then sculpted each piece on top of. The plastic wrap was just a precaution, as polymer clay in its unbaked form eats through the plasticizer of certain plastics. As for why I didn't use Meteion's legs...I don't trust the sturdiness of the paint. I'm sure it's FINE, but the mere idea of somehow damaging her while I was trying to finish her was too terrifying to consider. 😆

Here's both legs done! I took a couple liberties with the design - while several areas of the official leg pieces wrap all the way around the leg,  these are only the front pieces, as I wanted to minimize failure points when it came to putting clothes on and sitting. I also just carved crosses into the diamonds instead of beveling them like in the official design, bc it's my dolly and beveling is a pain, lmao. Sculpting those tiny fleur-de-lis on the tops of the shins was definitely the worst part!

To bake them, I very carefully peeled the plastic wrap off the leg and pulled the clay pieces off of the wrap from there. Polymer clay is still bendable after it's been baked as long as it's still warm, so I baked each piece flat...

...and then burned myself by pulling each piece off the baking sheet, applying superglue to the back, and slapping them on Meteion's legs as fast as I possibly could. Thankfully, the burns were minor and the leg pieces attached and curved correctly without much hassle. The crafting gods were kind this day.

The final result, featuring Meteion's Hermes plush as well!

The legs looks so much better. Despite burning yourself and the enormous amount of details in small shape, you pulled this of nicely. 

On 6/26/2022 at 10:44 AM, Oculae said:

Not pictured is my newest character doll, the one and only Hanji Zoe!

She goes on my Hanji shelf, newly made as well after I got really into the character again after divorcing her from AoT. She's now using the muscular body I had Olive using, with a modified 50cm male bust on there.

I made the armholes bigger to fit the exposed shoulder joints of the AP B arms, as they bothered me, and went with the male bust as it was the smallest bust I had that still showed off the abs! Her head is an AP type G, custom painted by me using one of my keychains of her as a reference.

 

Love the dolls! I'm a hybrid junkie myself and was wondering which lower torso part is this? I'm always on the hunt for boy parts 😛

37 minutes ago, RogueMarks said:

which lower torso part is this?

HAHAHAHA GOOD LUCK. Genuinely. 🥲

This is an AZM3 torso, and the only time it was ever released, to my knowledge, was with Azone's 50cm version of Japan from Axis Powers Hetalia. I have only seen him for sale ONCE, and that's where I got this torso. I have the bust too but it's horrible. This is how it looks all together:

Friends and I call this body in its stock form "Dorito-senpai" for a reason. 🤣

More Meteion photos, featuring her tail (which I nearly forgot to add, whoops!) and the apple dress I bought when I first got her. This is actually my first time putting her in it!

She got a small hand update as well - I decided the new chubby-style 1/6 hands fit her childlike proportions better, so I did some surgery to swap her wrist joints with the new ones that fit those hands. The old wrist joints did not survive unfortunately, they're wedged in the arms pretty deeply and snapped when I tried to remove em. I had to drill the armhole wider anyway (a 5/32 inch hole fits the new wrist pegs perfectly fyi) so it didn't stop me, but it was sad regardless.

Since she's finally at a point I'm happy with, I can start work on my NEXT project...

I'm calling her Muse. I may be the first one crazy enough to attempt a subtractive mod on one of these girls, but that romantic gaze and big forehead are BEGGING for me to give her a third eye, so a third eye she will get. Pray for my hands to stay steady, everyone. 🤣