24cm parabox customization inquiries

hello all! i am as new as new can get when it comes to bjd customization & owning bjds in general. i recently received my 24cm parabox doll & am interested in customizing her to look like an oc of mine, though i've run into a few troubles...

i bought a pre face-up'd head and need to add a beauty mark under her eye. and since this character is a robot, she has robot ears akin to hmx-12 multi from to heart. what would be the best way to go about adding these? 

since i'm not doing an entire faceup, using pencils would probably be easiest. any recommendations for type or brand? assuming i'd need to seal the beauty mark, any sealant tips and tricks would be appreciated as well... or would i even need to, since it's such a small feature? her head was done with tampography technology & a hand-painted finish, so would adding a layer of my own sealant maybe mess with what was already done?

i asked a friend about molding her ears & he suggested polymer clay but the main issue is how to attach them. i'd prefer if they didn't come off but it would probably be easiest on the head to not use glue. i read a post on here about someone attaching elf ears to a doll of theirs using "patafix" so perhaps that's a good choice, though their doll head and mine could be different materials. 

i thought this would be one of the best sites to ask. hearing something from people who know more about this stuff than i do would definitely help. sorry for all of these questions, and thank you to anyone who reads or has some advice to give!

and of course, here's my girl so far. i plan on getting her a new outfit & shoes soon, as well as everything else needed to make her look like her. (^_^)

Your girl is very cute!  I'm not sure how to add elf ears, but I can give advice on the beauty mark.

Use watercolor pencil to add the beauty mark initially. If you get it wrong, you can wipe it away with a wet tissue or Q-tip and try again. Once you're happy with the pencil version use brown or black acrylic paint to finalize it. (Brown will give a softer impression than black if you want it) Use a small paintbrush - the type made for painting miniatures & models - if you have it, but assuming it's just a dot a toothpick can work too

Sealant is nice, but not necessary according to Parabox's face up tutorial. From my experiments on 1/6 heads I can vouch that unsealed acrylic is stable under normal/careful handling, but easily removed by scrubbing the head with dish soap and hot water.

I've heard Mr. Super Clear or Tamiya Flat Clear are good sealant brands if you want to use it. They are spray cans and you'll need a well-ventilated space as well as a mask and/or spray booth to protect yourself from inhaling it. It should be OK to spray over the previous face up.

She looks lovely! I think clay is a great idea for making the robot ears you want but I would suggest making sure you pick a type of clay that is lightweight. For attaching anything like large ears/horns/robot features to the dolls head, using small magnets is a really clean and simple way to do so without worrying about it getting in the way of changing the dolls clothing or accidently getting broken off if it was attached in a more permanent way.

In your case since its likely going to be placed over the usual ear area I think you would be able to use tape or putty/sticky tack on one half of the magnet on the inside of the dolls head in the position you want the robot ear to be. The other half of the magnet can be attached to your robot ear and then it should sit nicely on the outside of the head where you want it. 

DD Kaito came with a magnet to attach his ear piece headset and I was really amazed at how well the magnets worked for that! It holds its position very well even when rotating it around (I think that would look very cute and expressive for robot ears ) 

If you ever need to attach something higher on the head where the magnet would need to attach through ticker layers of material, usually putting the magnet under the wig cap (if you use one) or wig itself helps keep the strength of the magnet when it might be too loose if attached inside the head. Hope this helps 

3 hours ago, meteorite said:

Your girl is very cute!  I'm not sure how to add elf ears, but I can give advice on the beauty mark.

Use watercolor pencil to add the beauty mark initially. If you get it wrong, you can wipe it away with a wet tissue or Q-tip and try again. Once you're happy with the pencil version use brown or black acrylic paint to finalize it. (Brown will give a softer impression than black if you want it) Use a small paintbrush - the type made for painting miniatures & models - if you have it, but assuming it's just a dot a toothpick can work too

Sealant is nice, but not necessary according to Parabox's face up tutorial. From my experiments on 1/6 heads I can vouch that unsealed acrylic is stable under normal/careful handling, but easily removed by scrubbing the head with dish soap and hot water.

I've heard Mr. Super Clear or Tamiya Flat Clear are good sealant brands if you want to use it. They are spray cans and you'll need a well-ventilated space as well as a mask and/or spray booth to protect yourself from inhaling it. It should be OK to spray over the previous face up.

thank you! ^_^ i'll try to aim for a similar brown used in the eyelashes. it all seems pretty simple, i think i'll try after i get her ear situation sorted out

5 minutes ago, roro_robot said:

She looks lovely! I think clay is a great idea for making the robot ears you want but I would suggest making sure you pick a type of clay that is lightweight. For attaching anything like large ears/horns/robot features to the dolls head, using small magnets is a really clean and simple way to do so without worrying about it getting in the way of changing the dolls clothing or accidently getting broken off if it was attached in a more permanent way.

In your case since its likely going to be placed over the usual ear area I think you would be able to use tape or putty/sticky tack on one half of the magnet on the inside of the dolls head in the position you want the robot ear to be. The other half of the magnet can be attached to your robot ear and then it should sit nicely on the outside of the head where you want it. 

DD Kaito came with a magnet to attach his ear piece headset and I was really amazed at how well the magnets worked for that! It holds its position very well even when rotating it around (I think that would look very cute and expressive for robot ears ) 

If you ever need to attach something higher on the head where the magnet would need to attach through ticker layers of material, usually putting the magnet under the wig cap (if you use one) or wig itself helps keep the strength of the magnet when it might be too loose if attached inside the head. Hope this helps 

this is a really good idea! i never even thought of using magnets. i'll try and find some tiny ones and see what happens from there. i think polymer clay is quite lightweight but i'll do a little more digging into better clay types for this kind of thing. thank you ^_^