Did I Choose the Wrong Doll?

So, the problem isn't at all with the doll herself. I love my Hujoo Action doll, and I'm looking forward to completing her in time for Halloween (making her a black and orange dress instead of her usual black and pink or black and purple). The Hujoo Action body is at least a teenager. The same body is also used for Chicaloca, and I assume that "character" is supposed to be a younger adult. So, it's not a problem with how mature the body appears to be, either.

 

It's just that the doll doesn't seem quite right for my character, Eriko.

 

I kind of designed the character to have a cute, magical girl feel to her (she just happens to use necromancy in various creative, non-evil ways to achieve her goals, but she does believe in the power of love and friendship ). She's a teen-aged girl who dresses in Lolita-inspired attire. She's been using a wand topped with a heart with bat wigs as her weapon of choice more recently (though she used to use a spear, but everyone said that was a scary weapon).

 

Eriko went from being just a role playing character to my indirect mascot. So, I've made many virtual dolls of her to get some ideas on how she might look. I decided to make her into an actual physical doll a few months ago once I had a more coherent idea for her style. It's been kind of a slow process, since I keep hitting some obstacles. The wig I bought didn't fit at all, and I had trouble finding shoes for her in styles she'd actually wear (besides combat boots, but how many pairs of combat boots does a girl need?).

 

I don't know if it's just the run of bad luck (the difficulty finding things that fit, the manly eye brows, removing half the eye make up to remove said eye brows, screwing up most outfits I've attempted to make thus far--instructions are your friend, Elle), but I've been debating on making her into a DDS instead. I can buy the pieces over time, she'll most definitely come off as a teenager, and the shoes thing won't be as much of an issue. I've also debated about a standard DD body (or a DD head and 60cm Obitsu), just the initial investment will be much higher.

 

I don't know for sure. What do you guys think?

Do you have any screenshots or photos of what she is supposed to look like and what she looks like now? It would be much easier to know what you are looking for that way. Custom dolls are really fun, but sometimes they can be a bit aggravating to figure out.

 

~Sister Kyoya

Well, ultimately it's what you feel is right.

 

Though still, maybe we can at least help figure out what it is that feels "off", so you can decide whether it's truly a deal-breaker or not. Pictures of both the character design and the doll will help the rest of us see what's in your head like Sister Kyoya mentioned.

 

It does kind of sound like some of the problem is frustration with clothing that particular body, and possibly with getting her faceup right too. I can empathize with both aspects. *significant glare at Boobsy Mcboobsalot Captain Picky the irksome faceup girl Agatha* I used to fret over never being able to get clothes for her, because a lot of what would suit her character won't fit her, and what will fit her often won't suit her character--and when both criteria line up, odds are, it's Volks or Dollheart and therefore both limited and expensive. Learning to sew for her has helped, though with her figure it's more like engineering than anything else and I'll admit is less convenient than just buying something. After a while I just kind of came to peace with the idea that Agatha is just never going to be a "clothes horse" like some of the other girls on this board. She'll get stuff when I either get around to making it or on the rare occasion I find something that I want really really really badly enough to fork out for, and that's it. Certainly makes storing stuff easier!

 

As for faceup, blarg. I did cover some of the faceup funk on her one-year retrospective post, but Agatha's faceup took me quite a while to nail too. And even then, I'm still looking at redoing it *again* sometime in the future, as when removing one of her past faceups I accidentally singed her head. ^^; You can't really tell the singing anymore, but covering it with paint has given her head a subtly funky texture, so eventually I'd like to replace her head with another 03 and hopefully get it right.

 

Really, I actually did struggle with some negative feelings with Agatha for a while, sort of a stress of "Will she ever be right? Will she ever be *done*?" Once I accepted the idea of her being my on-going project, rather than one that ever gets done, I felt a lot better. So what if some outfit doesn't turn out quite right, or her faceup is just at a stage of "close enough" for the time being? It's come to be part of the fun of it for me. So if any of that sounds familiar, don't worry; maybe it's just a slight perspective change you need. (If not, just ignore Poofie Random Tangent Time. XD)

Thanks, guys. I have a few pictures from the virtual paper dolls (mostly from when I decided pink and black were going to be her colors). I can't draw, and a friend asked what she looked like, so that seemed like the easiest solution:

 

http://i1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee414/tieflingshaman/magicalgirlelliestandard.png

http://i1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee414/tieflingshaman/ellie-uniformv2.jpg

http://i1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee414/tieflingshaman/elliewalolita.png

 

The third one with the wa-lolita fashion was just an attempt to figure out what the heck wa-lolita was (someone in the group said I should make her an outfit in that style, since she's part-Japanese). Once I can convince my brother to draw her for me, I'll have a better image of what she's really supposed to look like, rather than a vague idea.

 

The body is roughly the same height as my Parabox 45cm boy. She's a bit thicker than the old Delilah body, though I have seen pictures of her wearing Delilah Noir clothes without any obvious stretching. Here's a picture to give some idea of what Hujoo Action body is like (doll nudity warning):

 

http://i1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee414/tieflingshaman/dollssizecomparison.jpg

 

(Undressing Delilah proved to be a big challenge, so she got to keep her clothes for the picture. I couldn't get her shoes off, so I couldn't get the tights and stockings off. At that point I was tired of fighting with the outfit.)

 

Here's a picture of her face up. I'm kind of debating on removing the brown blushing and going with pink, but I'm not sure how that would look.

 

http://i1226.photobucket.com/albums/ee414/tieflingshaman/EllieWIP1.jpg

 

Volks has a dark brown wig with pigtails for SDC, which I'm planning on ordering tomorrow. Again, it might just be a temporary solution (until I get the nerve to order from an overseas source), but if I grows on me, she'll keep it.

 

The shoes issue was getting me really frustrated for a while. So, for the Halloween outfit, I think I'm just going to make some ballet flats, since that looks simple enough. I'm just not sure what to do for her after that (Dollmore seems to have some shoes that would fit).

 

I was also having a bit of trouble figuring out which patterns would work for her. I haven't made anything I want to show off, since I've mostly made test pieces in white broad cloth, but I found a pattern that fit and was simple enough that I could start and stop with many interruptions and not have trouble picking it back up. I like sewing for my dolls normally, but I haven't been enjoying having to take my sewing projects to work. I'm very tempted to just order something for her because I've been getting so frustrated lately, but I wouldn't know where to begin to look for something in the styles/colors I want for her.