custom HELP! Melting vinyl for a closed-eye head?

Hello all! I recently got obsessed with Marcille and Falin from Dungeon Meshi. If you don't know the series, Marcille is a talented but flappable elf mage, and Falin is a ditzy genius cleric. Falin is the sort of character who keeps her eyes closed most of the time. I intend to represent her with a modded DDH-27 closed-eye.

My intention is to manipulate the vinyl with a heat gun, soldering iron, dremel, and sandpaper to make a closed-eye head that looks like a sleeping doll.

I recall someone telling me that there were parts of a DD head that could be "harvested" with a x-acto knife and melted down to fill in the pits around the eyes. Can any of y'all offer help, resources, or advice of your own? Many thanks in advance!

(I have represented Marcille with a Gokidoll Miimy on an imomodoll body similar to an MDD mochi ashi. I intend to put Falin on the semi-white MDD mochiashi/DDS hybrid body I made (check my post history for the tutorial/pics if you're curious.)

I've seen people do additive mods with DD heads that involve some sort of putty. Usually they make the eye shape narrower but I think it can be used to achieve the closed eye look as well. I don't advise melting the vinyl personally, out of fear that the head will be ruined.

The early parts of this tutorial show the most common area to harvest vinyl scraps from!  He also does a really great breakdown of different heaping techniques, the description has a full timestamp listing of parts so you can bounce around if you don't feel like watching the entire thing.  Really excellent heaping video for people wanting to get into it.

A different video with vinyl heaping that is a little less tutorial driven, but still a nice watch for technique!

I haven't done it myself but to add to the collection of videos showing the process of altering eye holes I have this one. It isn't very in depth but the artist regularly alters doll molds this way so it might be helpful.

 

 

Just so you know, that person in the video is someone I would consider leagues ahead of a majority of people who do faceups on the forum.... Basically I recommend practicing on maybe Imomodoll heads or something just to better your skills.

Is this more effective than the vinyl slurry approach?  On the older version of this forum there were posts about a solvent that could dissolve DD parts and then you could apply the solution as additive mods.  Don't recall the chemical or how well it worked out long term.

DO NOT DO THE VINYL + SOLVENT APPROACH. @rudebuster actually tried this hack in desperation once, and all she managed was a melted doll head. The solidified mixture just popped right off. I would not recommend this approach to anyone who doesn't know what they're doing, as it is very, very dangerous.

Edited August 30 by chupakiba

I'm pretty sure I've seen either putty or UV-resin especially in DD skin colors for modding purposes on Booth, sadly I can't find the listing at the moment.

I'm a beginner in this field but i've tried both vinyl melting and UV Putty:

melting vinyl is the expensive option you need to buy a Hakko my pen alpha machine + voltage transformator depending on your country, sanding stuff and it takes lot of time! I harved vinyl from inside the cap to heap the eyes holes, when done right it's looking amazing and seemless

Here's a helpful guide on the subject Additive Modding: Wielding Edition By Gweneveryn

ALSO SOLDERING IRON WON'T DO!! I tried it firstly as it was expensive to buy the my pen alpha and transformator machine, I used a Hakko soldering iron (same brand) on low setting but it still ended up either not melting or discoloring and burning, i don't recommend going the soldering iron way

 

UV Putty is the cheapest option but doesn't guarantee 100% color matching, you need to buy from a proxy as no one is making these outside of japan BUT you can try to make your own using UV Resin, colorants and a bit of corn starch (I did it, it works great but it's hell to color match if you're perfectionnist like me)

Bakutan is the best but always out of stock, it's the one used in the videos

there was another option on booth but i can't find any of their listings I guess the shop closed 😞

 

I hope this will help!

3 hours ago, dolloramore said:

there was another option on booth but i can't find any of their listings I guess the shop closed 😞

It was likely this one, but they seem to have gone private atm. They’ll probably be back at some point.