It has been super busy the last week and it seems to not be letting up any time soon! I put Jabari out for release last week on my Etsy shop! He’s $320.00 and layaway is offered as usual. I’ve put up a ton of images for him and his body on my flickr page. He is in the Jabari/Jelani BJD set — that shows everything from his early sculpting, to all the various resin casts I made of him :) As with Siofra, he is available in white or pale peach resin color.

I also went to California Coast BJD Convention! It was a small con, but it was lots of fun. My roomate was the amazing Cheryl Crawford of Crawford Manor Dolls. She has AMAZING dolls and costuming *_* Check out her website and her work, because, WOW. Also, she’s a super sweet and fun person, so that just made the whole experience awesome :) Here are some of her dolls from the show and also some random pictures from the show!

Victorian WInter Doll!!

My table setup:

Jelani is next on the list for release and that will happen sometime this week! Everyone seems to really like his smirk, lol.

Also, I’m working on Feenat now, full tilt! Some progress pics:

I finally got my act together and Siofra is up for sale! For the moment, she is only listed on my Etsy Shop, Karlyl’s Creations, but as I put out more dolls, I’ll make them easy to order off etsy as well.  I’m very happy with her and am offering her for pre-order at $315.00, with a choice of white or pale peach resin. I use a UV stabilizer in my resin formula to protect against yellowing, though resin of course will yellow over time (so keep them out of the sun!). I also offer up to 5 months layaway for anyone interested. Anyways, here are a few pics.

There are more on my flickr page which should everything from her creation to all the various test casts, colors, etc that I’ve done with her.

I have completely failed for April drawing this year — I’ve done maybe 6 sketches this month *_* However, I have done art every single day — it’s just been me working on the dolls! So here are some teaser shots of the the pale peach resin color — I really love it. It’s a multitude of colors mixed together to get this.

The wings for the dolls needs more development — after doing some initial casting I found it to be tricky just to get the lightweight resin and also, the wing mechanism needs some fixing. So, I’m moving forward with Feenat’s sculpting — she’s a slender and taller girl in comparison to Siofra ^_^ I’m also going to start Rinc as well — a younger and shorter male to the Jabari/Jelani brothers. Waiting on putting out the wings allows me to create their characters fully — with their armor and other accesories, looks, etc. I’m really excited about it! I’m prepping for California Coast BJD Con in two weeks ( OMG!), and I’m hoping to bring 1-2 dolls with me for sale. If nothing else, my display dolls are done, so that’s a good thing :) Got lots of clothes to work on in the next week, then the last minute stuff! Anyways, more pics of the dolls when I get them kitted out for display!

So, I’m going to my first BJD convention in a few weeks and I am ridiculously excited and terrified about it. I’ll be debuting my BJD line — which will ultimately have 9 (omg) dolls in the MSD size range. With giant resin angel wings. @_@ I’ve been posting a lot of random photos on my tumblr page, which has been serving as a quick posting photo blog for my crap, haha. It automatically posts to twitter, so if you follow me, you’ll get updates about it. ^_-;; For this convention, I’m bringing dolls and doll clothing! I’ve also got this crazy display of doom for the dolls. It really just needs some paint ( I gessoed the crap out of it becuse I used like 3 different clays and they all that paint differently). I’m about halfway through my clothing making ( of course I left the more complicated stuff til the end, ugh)…lots to do! SO I’m working on getting all my casting done by next week. Uh. Heh. Some pics of the new girl…

The month of April is the month of April drawing, where a bunch of us artists try to put pen/pencil/marker/paintbrush to paper at some point everyday during the month. It’s a lot harder than it sounds, lol. I did pretty good last year and hope to do the same this year. Though the difference is that I plan to do sketches that will work for fanart for AM2 in June. We’ll see how that works, haha.

This is Marika from Bodacious Space Pirates! My art style is obviously not exactly the same as the show, so this was just a sketch to see what way I’d draw her and be happy with her. I wanna do a fanart of her and her mom (Blaster Ririka, lol) in their pirate garb :)

And already, I’m back to original art. Hahaha, but she’s in the anime vein with that giant sword! We’ll see how she turns out.

Just finished Anime Conji 2012 and it was a very fun con. It also rained like CRAZY, but that was ok, because everyone came to hang out in the exhibitor’s hall :) I was there with my friend Cindy (of Original Cin, though she was Karlyl’s Creations for the con, hahaha!) and of course, we were the crazy people in the booth :) Thank you to everyone who stopped by the table to just chat about art, dolls and anime, buy stuff, or just be part of our craziness :)

See the full gallery on Posterous

The table layout looked great! I had two of my dolls, Siofra and Jabari on display and they got looooots of attention, espcially once people figured out I’d made them myself! Haha, at this point, I’m so used to the fact that I’ve been making these crazy dolls that I forget it’s not a normal hobby XD

See the full gallery on Posterous

I also bought this super cool plushie…who I named SLUGGGIIIIEEEEEEE!!!! from Sleepy Puppy Plushies. He is AMAZINGLY well made and so soft!! So warm!! So SLUGGIEEEEEEE!!!! XD Cindy helpfully held him up for a photo op for me :) Jabari ended up riding on him for the rest of teh day, but I didn’t get a chance to get a pic, heh.

Here’s a commission I did at the con and I LOVED how it turned out. I hope the commissioner sends me a scan of it, because my phone image is crappy lol. This is Gum from Jet Set Radio. :D

I’m so glad I went to Anime COnji and I’m hoping it becomes a staple of my con going because of how cool it was. Now, back to things like cleaning up piles of doll parts x_x

Oh, have a pic of Tamais, my newest AngelToast Elf Raven head in his snazzy new Spite and Malice wig!

Next Event: California Coast BJD Convention May 11-12, 2012!

The funniest part about my BJD association is that, not too long ago, I was not fond of dolls at all.

 Back in 2004, I remember vaguely hearing about “dollfies”.  I absolutely ignored them. In 2006, a friend of mine brought doll clothing and her Souldoll Tiffee to an artist alley that we were doing. I saw the doll, went “uh-huh, that’s nice” and tried not to get too close to the doll.  It was very pretty but kind of freaked me out.  And it didn’t help when another BJD owner brought their doll to our table and began to hold a conversation with the doll, ignoring us the whole time. I was pretty sure at that point that dolls were not my forte. Little did I know what the future would hold!

 A few years later, in 2009, we again were doing an artist alley. By this point, I had several friends who were into the hobby, so I had definitely heard of Volks and Luts in particular in passing reference. I had never bothered to look up any of the dolls, so when my friend with the Souldoll Tiffee brought her Obitsu to the artist alley to model some awesome wings, I was surprised by how lovely she looked. She was also one of the larger dolls. At that point I had no idea the differences between resin and vinyl, etc, but I was totally taken with the Obitsu. Since we had doll items at our table, we got a lot more BJD people and I found them perfectly normal. :) After that con, I remember posting in my livejournal that I was researching the hobby, amazingly. And I was loving what I was finding. My friends cackled at me because I was the last person they expected to fall for BJDs. Another friend of mine was going to be doing a BJD panel at an upcoming convention and so she brought a ton of her dolls. When I made it to the con, I headed to her panel and she shoved some huge Luts senior or super senior delf who was the size of a toddler at me. I stared at it, it stared at me and I was traumatized, lol.

 But that was the last straw for my resistance. He was a beautifully crafted doll. I was amazed at the artistry. I began to research in depth the hobby. Joined Den of Angels…and stumbled upon the artist workshop area ( which is closed now). And I saw that other people were sculpting dolls. And I had the crazy thought: I could do that…I’ve sculpted before, this might be fun.

So in October 2009, I started sculpting. And a month later, I bought my first BJD, an Iplehouse JID Tatiana. And the month after that, a Souldoll Kid Liddell. Then another month later, a Fairyland MNF Shiwoo. The slope was very slippery. Today, I’ve sculpted 2.5 BJDs of my own, have  several in the works and 7 company dolls of my own and counting. I really enjoy the work an the artisty – it hits all my buttons. I plan to continue in this hobby for a long time :)

And that’s how/why I got into the BJD hobby.

I went ahead and face-upped another one of Siofra’s junk casts — this time with some fun colors!! I really like how she looks. :) I’m surrently cleaning up her original ( for the final time) so she can finally be ready to be produced and hopefully sold :) 

See the full gallery on Posterous

Creative Paperclay
Activa Ladoll Satin Smooth Air Dry Clay
Magic Sculpt
Hader’s Metal Clay

I primarily use Paperclay to do my sculpting. I have tried many, many, many clays and find that the texture, working when wet, smoothing, sanding, etc properties of Creative Paperclay is my favorite. I use the Ladoll Satin for finishing, filling, smoothing purposes and it also works great. Magic sculpt is a new material for me, but I like it. I use it primarily for structural support in larger pieces that I’m ball jointing and I plan to use it for OOAK figurines.

Metal Clay is a very specialized product that I’m finding that I’m in love with. I like base metal clays, like bronze, copper and steel. These require that you fire them after sculpting. There will be shrinkage, so there is a lot of planning that is needed in order to make a finished piece.

Sculpting Methods:

Messy. With Water. And Messy. Wear clothes you don’t care about ruining! Actually, I have no method. I practiced until I got the result I wanted. I use some tools: needle tools, shapers, rubber scrapers, etc – but mostly I just use my fingers. I sculpt very wet, which is why I like air dry clays for sculpting except when I want a sturdy material. Magic Sculpt smooths very well, but doesn’t get as wet. I’m still learning the right methods for this one, but I like it lot more than Aves Apoxie sculpt, personally.

Casting Materials:

Smooth-On Resin
Smooth-On Silicone

Smooth-On has the easiest resin for me to acquire and use and also has the most options of everyone I’ve researched and tried. Alumilite and Polytek are other companies, but for me are more expensive than I’d like or don’t have the product range that I need. I use Oomoo 25 and Mold Max T 27 for my silicone needs. Primarily I use Smooth-Cast 326 for my casting purposes. I do add various dyes and fillers to achieve my looks and the 326 is formulated for that very process.

Casting methods:

Long, extensive and expensive! I would check out Smooth-On’s website for their tutorials in mold making and casting as a good starting point.

I’ve been posting a bunch of in progress stuff on my flickr page, so check things out!

There are a ton more photos on my flickr account. Also, karlyl.com will be up and running soon, showing off my doll concepts and progress pics, etc!! Hooray!! :D Things are looking up :D

I also added a link to my tumblr site! I have no idea what I’ll be using it for. I’ve been putting up pictures there? Anyways, if you like tumblr, follow me! I’m going to try and keep updating it with art and photography.

Going to be casting a gray skin Jabari this weekend. I did a test cast last week to get the color right and I’m quite happy. I’ll be finishing him up and doing a photoshoot with my other dolls in some of the clothes I’ve been making. I’m actually going to do an art doll with Siofra as well, but I also plan to change some facial features on her before I go ahead and put a cast of her up for purchase — though the art doll will probably be fore sale unless I like her too much :). I updated my etsy shop with a bunch of dresses, some artwork, etc. I’m also going to start adding artwork to my “portfolio” page on this site. I’ve also added information regarding commissions and things. Gotta get back in the grove for art work stuff!

This was from Hetalia, the Principality of Sealand. I had no idea who this character was, but the kid came back to pick up his commission dressed as Sealand and he was SO ADORABLE.

I did this piece there — not a commission, but she’ll be up for sale on my etsy store once I get around to scanning her.

Next to the guy with the Jesus glasses, this Sokka made my con. Seriously THE best Sokka I’ve ever seen. makes me want to bust out my Kyoshi warrior cosplay!!! Also. Katara doll. EPIC AWESOME SAUCE.

I’m pretty freaking proud of this commission!! I don’t know why I get the DBZ commissions ( my art apparently screams “draw DBZ!!!”), but this was pretty rad to do.

This is the commission I did that didn’t get picked up. if it’s yours, contact me so I can send it to you :) it came out so cute!

Jabari and Siofra looked especially evil this con :)

Cindy, hiding behind the enchanted forest!!

Shing is actually demonstrating the best follow through after hitting someone in the face. Elbows work nice.

My table!! I actually used the whole thing o_o

Kyt is so perplexed by the flashy shiny thing that was stealing her soul…

I have more commission pics and pics in general, but I’ll probably just upload them to flickr at this rate, lol.