Custom Blythe #2: Sanding & Carving

I had a chance to work on Ailis some more yesterday. I did the couple of first rounds of sanding and started the carving process. I want her to have a pouty little mouth with a look of wonder on her face.

Here is the poor girl in bits and pieces:

Headback and eye mech after sanding:

Some WIP pics of the carving work. After the knife work, the poor doll sure looks scary... and scared! ROFL!

This is how Ailis looks now after the first round of working on her.

The finish is not good enough yet, but I may need to take a wee break before I continue with the carving. It's pretty exhausting business and tough on my neck, but very exciting and fun too and I have a hard time tearing myself from the work to rest my shoulders. I will need to set a timer for myself, so that I don't over do it at one go and end up with a headache.

I used a dremel this time. I was a bit reluctant to go there at first thinking I'd not have good enough control and end up damaging the face. My father however convinced me otherways and turned out his dremel was a pretty handy little machine and easily manouverable. My diamond files worked a treat with it and it most certainly makes the process of carving easier. Once I gain even more confidence with it, I'm sure it will also speed up the process. I still prefer using the knifes for carving the shape. It's more hands on, but yeah, I'll be using the dremel from now on.

Ailis's mouth shape was harder to do, because I had to erase the sides of her original mouth to create that much smaller, poutier shape. This also resulted in me having to carve around her nose and mouth at a much wider area than with my custom Blythe #1 Cherry. The biggest challenge is going to be getting her cheeks now perfectly smooth. I also nipped some of her nose tip off. The nose area needs quite a bit of work yet as well. I'm relatively pleased with how she's shaping up. Can't wait to get carving some more, but perhaps I'll take a day off from that today and continue on Sunday.