Going to attempt an Equestria Girls custom

[PrincessGryph]

I've been toying with this idea for a while, and now the time has come... to customize an Equestria Girls doll.

My plan is to make RD into a Pony. I was originally going to make a Vinyl Scratch or Trixie, but since Hasbro will be putting those characters out in the future, there's not much point.

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Before I get started and tear this poor girl asunder, I'm looking for some advice. I've never worked with a ball jointed figure before, so I don't think my usual painting methods will work as well. Can I dye the body so it's slightly gray? And how would I go about doing that? Also, has anyone else had any experience dehairing these dolls? It looks like it might be a little more complicated than the ponies I'm used to.

[kaoskat]

No advice really as I haven't done anything with these yet but best of luck!

[Colorscapesart]

The plastic on the doll body and the doll head are not the same.  This will make painting or dyeing a little harder.  The head is a softer vinyl.  The body is a hard vinyl.  You might look up info on painting Monster High dolls, there are some recommended spray paints.  The tough part is finding paint strong enough to adhere to the body and yet flexible enough not to crack on the head. 

As for rehairing, its not so different than ponies except that their little neck hole is TINY.  Hemostats will be your friend to get her hair out.  Good luck, it looks like a neat project!

[PrincessGryph]

The plastic on the doll body and the doll head are not the same.  This will make painting or dyeing a little harder.  The head is a softer vinyl.  The body is a hard vinyl.  You might look up info on painting Monster High dolls, there are some recommended spray paints.  The tough part is finding paint strong enough to adhere to the body and yet flexible enough not to crack on the head. 

As for rehairing, its not so different than ponies except that their little neck hole is TINY.  Hemostats will be your friend to get her hair out.  Good luck, it looks like a neat project!

Are those spray paints just bottles, or something you use in conjunction with an airbrush setup? Because I have an airbrush.

I have hemostats too, but it doesn't look like it'll be easy to see what I'm doing in there either way. :p

[Starly]

Of the earlier dolls, like that Dash, the arms, head, and body/legs have all different plastics, the arms are a bit more flexible, while the torso and legs are fully solid. You may be able to get away with a very light coating of light grey so the natural light blue still shows through and gives her a good color.

But I never customized one as much as I want to. :/

[Sakuyamon]

The plastic on the doll body and the doll head are not the same.  This will make painting or dyeing a little harder.  The head is a softer vinyl.  The body is a hard vinyl.  You might look up info on painting Monster High dolls, there are some recommended spray paints.  The tough part is finding paint strong enough to adhere to the body and yet flexible enough not to crack on the head. 

As for rehairing, its not so different than ponies except that their little neck hole is TINY.  Hemostats will be your friend to get her hair out.  Good luck, it looks like a neat project!

Are those spray paints just bottles, or something you use in conjunction with an airbrush setup? Because I have an airbrush.

I have hemostats too, but it doesn't look like it'll be easy to see what I'm doing in there either way. :p

I believe she do mean the airbrush. I have tried both types and spraybottles paint is different from airbrush, its a bit thicker. I have another tip for what you could do to paint her. You could use chalk to color her. I saw a tutorial by MyFroggyStuff on youtube where she made a fluttershy out of a Rochelle doll.
Here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xx76WRD6hxs

[PrincessGryph]

The plastic on the doll body and the doll head are not the same.  This will make painting or dyeing a little harder.  The head is a softer vinyl.  The body is a hard vinyl.  You might look up info on painting Monster High dolls, there are some recommended spray paints.  The tough part is finding paint strong enough to adhere to the body and yet flexible enough not to crack on the head. 

As for rehairing, its not so different than ponies except that their little neck hole is TINY.  Hemostats will be your friend to get her hair out.  Good luck, it looks like a neat project!

Are those spray paints just bottles, or something you use in conjunction with an airbrush setup? Because I have an airbrush.

I have hemostats too, but it doesn't look like it'll be easy to see what I'm doing in there either way. :p

I believe she do mean the airbrush. I have tried both types and spraybottles paint is different from airbrush, its a bit thicker. I have another tip for what you could do to paint her. You could use chalk to color her. I saw a tutorial by MyFroggyStuff on youtube where she made a fluttershy out of a Rochelle doll.
Here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xx76WRD6hxs

That is an idea. Pretty sure all I have is oil pastels though, would have to go out and get some chalk pastels. It also doesn't look like she uses any kind of finish on the dolls. I have a brush-on gloss I use on my ponies, but again I'm not sure if that will work all right on the dolls, or with chalk pastels. Might have to use a spray-on gloss instead.

Will probably strip the RD doll soon and start experimenting.

[Tyrsalc]

Be careful with dismantling the girl. My daughter busted the leg off of her Twilight trying to make her do the splits. The leg is a hard plastic but the ball piece that it fits onto is a very soft plastic. It was a royal pain in the patootie to get back on and I nearly broke the leg doing so. If you are able, I would recommend painting as much as you can without removing the limbs.

[archidraca]

Be careful with dismantling the girl. My daughter busted the leg off of her Twilight trying to make her do the splits. The leg is a hard plastic but the ball piece that it fits onto is a very soft plastic. It was a royal pain in the patootie to get back on and I nearly broke the leg doing so. If you are able, I would recommend painting as much as you can without removing the limbs.

I second not removing the limbs. My daughter also took off a Twili-leg by forcing splits. I had to shave off a little of the ball with an Xacto knife to get it back on...

[PrincessGryph]

Be careful with dismantling the girl. My daughter busted the leg off of her Twilight trying to make her do the splits. The leg is a hard plastic but the ball piece that it fits onto is a very soft plastic. It was a royal pain in the patootie to get back on and I nearly broke the leg doing so. If you are able, I would recommend painting as much as you can without removing the limbs.

I second not removing the limbs. My daughter also took off a Twili-leg by forcing splits. I had to shave off a little of the ball with an Xacto knife to get it back on...

I wasn't sure if I should remove the limbs or not.... thanks for the warnings O_O

Post Merge: March 06, 2014, 12:50:38 PM

Okay.... so this is step 1. I dehaired her, which was a little more difficult than a pony head, but still doable. Since the plastic is already pretty pliable, and the glue inside seems to be light, I didn't need to boil the head.

I stripped the paint from the face with acetone easily enough, but the body was a little different. Because of the glitter, it was really hard to strip the paint off the torso, and then when I did, the plastic responded very strangely. I know that soaking or exposing plastic to acetone can sometimes warp it, but it usually takes a while to see any significant impact. When I soaked part of this, my fingers got covered in a weird film that hardened when I rinsed the doll. Some of that film is still on the doll too, but I found I could gently scrape away the worst of it with my xacto blade. It's a little harder to get it all off my fingers, however. I don't know if this was the plastic reacting and melting off, or some kind of sealer used on the doll. Either way, next time I think I'll just paint over it instead. The parts of the legs that were exposed to and rubbed with acetone (because some of the pink from the torse got on them and I had to clean it off) are slightly discolored as a result, but not so badly I think it will affect the end product.

I cut the wings off her boots with my xacto to prep them for further modification. At this point, with the skirt, I'm pretty sure fabric paint will be the best bet, since I think dying it might cause color to bleed onto the doll if it's left in storage with the skirt on for too long.

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Post Merge: March 06, 2014, 03:18:44 PM

It's starting to come together...

I think I'll probably paint the boots and skirt before I tackle the body. It's still the part I'm most nervous about messing up in some way. :x

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[PrincessGryph]

Okay. So I tried some techniques for the skin, and I'm having some difficulties... But first, my current progress:

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I first attempted Rit dye, just a little bit, on non-essential areas, to see if it would take and if it could work. I may have been to timid about using too much dye, but from what I was seeing, it just wasn't dying the parts evenly enough to be reliable. I wasn't ready to try dying the whole body.

Next I tried the chalk pastels, and that's what you're seeing here. It got a good color, but it looks really uneven, and I don't like it. Looks more like RD climbed a chimney and fell of the roof and hit her head. And it rubs away pretty easily, so I'm definitely going to have to use some kind of sealer. That's assuming I stick with this method. Maybe I can try the same method with oil pastels...

The torso takes acrylic fine, but the problem is in the shoulder joints, since the paint scrapes away when you move the arms. I'm not sure there's any way around this, short of making her pose static. I might do this, since I'm planning on gluing the peg legs into the boots, too.

The skirt is done - just painted it over with fabric paint. At least one part of this was simple and easy :p

Post Merge: March 09, 2014, 10:36:24 PM

Posting some of the WIP pics within my usual brony circles..... the response has not been kind

;_;

haters....

[archidraca]

Don't listen to them. You're doing fine and they're just jealous.

[sd_dreamcrystal]

Some of those in the brony circles just don't understand You're doing find and don't listen to them. Some of them just have attachments to some of the characters.

[PrincessGryph]

They're not really criticizing my craft, per se, so much as the existence of the EqG line itself. But all the feedback has been like this:

Can you guess where this is going? (post WIP pic)
- Uhm...the microwave?
- In the trash? *laughs loudly, then slows down to a quiet chuckle.*

I'm not taking it personally, but it's not very encouraging. I just figured, even though bronies didn't really like the dolls, there would still be some interest in customs, because I did a little poll on my DA page a while back to gauge interest: http://gryphyn-bloodheart.deviantart.com/journal/poll/4050508/

But the whole point is for me to get to do something new and have some fun, so it ultimately doesn't matter how marketable they are. If I can't sell them, that just means I won't be making more than one or two.

[okiegurl1981]

I've been working on an EG custom off and on for a while.  It's going to be my persona.  Luckily, my persona is a white pony, so I just used a Rarity body.  I do plan on making a doll.  I had planned on just airbrushing it, and using a good sealer.  I do expect the joints to have paint loss, but hopefully the clothing will cover it.  Rehairing was easy enough, but it did take a long time because there where so many holes!  Be sure and be careful around the ears, because the holes can split.

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