Completed custom: Juushika.
Feb. 26th, 2005 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
juushikaRemember that bait Minty I bought that I promised was going to become a custom? She's finished, in record time. There are a lot of pictures chronicling her transition from bait to beauty (all but one are no larger than 200px, so it won't take forever to load). She's a "persona" pony, made my me, for me, and about me. I love her.
Without further ado:
We begin our story with
The thrift store find: a 2005 McDonald's Minty with nasty hair and a chewed tail.
Because this Minty was a double (Grant bought me one a while ago), I immediately chopped of her hair, tore off her head (was delightfully easy to do), ripped out remaining hair plugs, wiped off her symbol and hoof heart, and carved off that big plastic tail (I cut most of it off with scissors, then carved with a sharp blade until it was almost flat, then wet-sanded with water and an emery board; it isn't perfect but it's damn close enough), thus producing:
Naked bait.
So I'm sitting here looking at this naked, tiny pony wondering what to do with her, and I'm thinking: "She's green. Green is my favorite color. Oh, look, I still have red doll hair left. I have red hair, myself. Hmmm..." So I decided to be selfish and make myself a custom—by me, for me, about me. Granted, all I knew at this point is that she would be for and about me and that I would use red hair. I also knew that she was
Really, really small in comparison to a full-sized pony.
That makes for tricky rehairing and an even more difficult paint job.
I started by fooling around with red hair, combining it with some brown and white to make it look more varied and realistic. As it turns out, it just looked messy, so I scrapped that and started from scratch. I didn't want her hair to be all red, and was rather taken with the white hair, so I finally rehaired her with red hair and a white stripe in her mane. Now, keep in mind that my hair is very straight and can barely hold of a curl, much less do I ever wear it curled. Meanwhile, I've now rehaired a pony with
Curly, waxy, tangled hair.
Both the red and white have this same horrible texture. I tried a couple old methods of straightening: brushing, washing conditioning, and press/hang drying. For short hair those methods work ok, but here the curls simply would not come out. Then I remembered something I'd read about rehairing Pullips dolls: ironing. Generally, non-MLP fake hair (like this) is known for having a very low melting temp, and heat is to be avoided at all costs. However, the guide I read recommended wetting the hair and protecting it with a wet towel on top. So I hunkered down on the floor with a makeshift ironing board, a soaking towel, a big glass of water for rewetting, and an iron. White was the easiest to straighten, which is lucky (next custom will be straight white hair dyed blue); red was a bit coarser. It took me upward of two hours but it turned out wonderfully. I then had
Super Long Haired persona pony.
Don't get me wrong: I love long hair, and have really long hair myself. This, however, was a bit too much. Beautiful, but too much. However, I waited until I had finished painting before cutting her hair.
Choosing symbols for cutie and hoof mark was both difficult and innately obvious. My trademark, besides my red hair of course, is my collar and padlock. The padlock especially draws attention, and rightly so in my book: for me, a collar says that the wearer is willing to be owned (e.g. enter into that kind of relationship) whereas a locked collar says that the wearer is owned (e.g. has entered into that kind of relationship). The padlock therefore indicates not hope but commitment, and does so very blatantly. I get a lot of comments on it and wear it with much pride. What better icon, then, for a persona pony?
Except that said comments are not always positive, and I know a lot of people have reservations regarding my collar. For the greater part I don't care but I wasn't sure it was appropriate for a pony, persona or no. Making the decision came down to one question: I asked Devon what the symbols should be. For him, too, a padlock was obvious. So a padlock it because, with a small key for a hoofmark (I put a heart on the key, and suddenly everything seemed much cuter and more appropriate).
The eyes I painted green for three reasons: 1) That violet had to go; 2) My eyes are blue, yes, but I don't really care for their color and would rather have green; and 3) I wanted to keep a simply color scheme, and since she was already green it seemed like a good idea to stick with that color. As expected, painting the eyes was hard. So, so tiny. It did, however, get done.
I trimmed her super!hair down to a more reasonable length, but one that is still longer than your average pony. Why? Because my hair, too, is my trademark, and I wear it quite long. Naming the pony was also simple: I've been using the screen name Juushika for about four years now.
Therefore, I present:
Juushika, a custom My Little Pony by Jessica/Juushika
And the truth is, I am very proud of her and love her to death. She was completed in under two days (a record for me) because I couldn't stop working on her. I love how straight her hair is, I love the white stripe, I love the symbol symbols, I even love her eyes (troublesome as they were). She is about to become my new icon at the Arena, and ... yeah. Life is happy, sparkly, and good. Complete with padlock.
Without further ado:
We begin our story with
The thrift store find: a 2005 McDonald's Minty with nasty hair and a chewed tail.
Because this Minty was a double (Grant bought me one a while ago), I immediately chopped of her hair, tore off her head (was delightfully easy to do), ripped out remaining hair plugs, wiped off her symbol and hoof heart, and carved off that big plastic tail (I cut most of it off with scissors, then carved with a sharp blade until it was almost flat, then wet-sanded with water and an emery board; it isn't perfect but it's damn close enough), thus producing:
Naked bait.
So I'm sitting here looking at this naked, tiny pony wondering what to do with her, and I'm thinking: "She's green. Green is my favorite color. Oh, look, I still have red doll hair left. I have red hair, myself. Hmmm..." So I decided to be selfish and make myself a custom—by me, for me, about me. Granted, all I knew at this point is that she would be for and about me and that I would use red hair. I also knew that she was
Really, really small in comparison to a full-sized pony.
That makes for tricky rehairing and an even more difficult paint job.
I started by fooling around with red hair, combining it with some brown and white to make it look more varied and realistic. As it turns out, it just looked messy, so I scrapped that and started from scratch. I didn't want her hair to be all red, and was rather taken with the white hair, so I finally rehaired her with red hair and a white stripe in her mane. Now, keep in mind that my hair is very straight and can barely hold of a curl, much less do I ever wear it curled. Meanwhile, I've now rehaired a pony with
Curly, waxy, tangled hair.
Both the red and white have this same horrible texture. I tried a couple old methods of straightening: brushing, washing conditioning, and press/hang drying. For short hair those methods work ok, but here the curls simply would not come out. Then I remembered something I'd read about rehairing Pullips dolls: ironing. Generally, non-MLP fake hair (like this) is known for having a very low melting temp, and heat is to be avoided at all costs. However, the guide I read recommended wetting the hair and protecting it with a wet towel on top. So I hunkered down on the floor with a makeshift ironing board, a soaking towel, a big glass of water for rewetting, and an iron. White was the easiest to straighten, which is lucky (next custom will be straight white hair dyed blue); red was a bit coarser. It took me upward of two hours but it turned out wonderfully. I then had
Super Long Haired persona pony.
Don't get me wrong: I love long hair, and have really long hair myself. This, however, was a bit too much. Beautiful, but too much. However, I waited until I had finished painting before cutting her hair.
Choosing symbols for cutie and hoof mark was both difficult and innately obvious. My trademark, besides my red hair of course, is my collar and padlock. The padlock especially draws attention, and rightly so in my book: for me, a collar says that the wearer is willing to be owned (e.g. enter into that kind of relationship) whereas a locked collar says that the wearer is owned (e.g. has entered into that kind of relationship). The padlock therefore indicates not hope but commitment, and does so very blatantly. I get a lot of comments on it and wear it with much pride. What better icon, then, for a persona pony?
Except that said comments are not always positive, and I know a lot of people have reservations regarding my collar. For the greater part I don't care but I wasn't sure it was appropriate for a pony, persona or no. Making the decision came down to one question: I asked Devon what the symbols should be. For him, too, a padlock was obvious. So a padlock it because, with a small key for a hoofmark (I put a heart on the key, and suddenly everything seemed much cuter and more appropriate).
The eyes I painted green for three reasons: 1) That violet had to go; 2) My eyes are blue, yes, but I don't really care for their color and would rather have green; and 3) I wanted to keep a simply color scheme, and since she was already green it seemed like a good idea to stick with that color. As expected, painting the eyes was hard. So, so tiny. It did, however, get done.
I trimmed her super!hair down to a more reasonable length, but one that is still longer than your average pony. Why? Because my hair, too, is my trademark, and I wear it quite long. Naming the pony was also simple: I've been using the screen name Juushika for about four years now.
Therefore, I present:
Juushika, a custom My Little Pony by Jessica/Juushika
And the truth is, I am very proud of her and love her to death. She was completed in under two days (a record for me) because I couldn't stop working on her. I love how straight her hair is, I love the white stripe, I love the symbol symbols, I even love her eyes (troublesome as they were). She is about to become my new icon at the Arena, and ... yeah. Life is happy, sparkly, and good. Complete with padlock.
