Eye lash replacements

This is where we begin.



The eyelashes are removed, without eye lashes Felice looks a little droopy eyed.


Glasstic eyeballs removed and after a little bit of cleaning we are ready to begin.


Initial sew ins. A knot is tied at the end of each lash. This process took longer than I anticipated. I took a pause in sewing in lashes when it became difficult to; due to hairs getting in the way of each other.


Lashes pulled through to their correct places, silicone 'adhesive' placed under the eyelid together with the knots to keep them in place.


Trimmed those lashes then;
Round 2 of sew ins...


Round 2 pulled into place.


Remaining lashes given an initial trim. Left for 36 hours before placing the eyeballs back in and final eyelash trim.



After the prescribed 36 hours had passed, the lashes were given their final trim.


Eye ball placed back in.



I figured the hair would benefit from some hair wax and baby oil.


And that, I think may be the last modification I do on Felice for a little while.

Hair straightened

Sewing hair into Felice head resulted in strands with kinks in them. I read on a doll care website that you can fix damage doll hair by soaking it in hot boiled water and combing through. Felice hair is a synthetic hair, and as it turns out this worked well for her.

Next target of Ruin: Eyelashes

Felice eye lashes are made of a group hairs held together as a piece per eye. This collective of eyelashes are then held in place with what I suspect is silicone like in the repair kit. I figured since I was already working with hair, I could replace these eyelashes with individual lashes sewn into place.

Sleep damage

As anticipated, there is potential for damage in sleeping with Felice. The joint 'repair' made earlier with wire has poked through the hand. This encourages the idea of using epoxy putty to reduce pointy edges on wire skeleton repairs.

Nose wear

Due to a quirk of net publishing, my page on hair and eyebrow modification have the date of when I started writing them as opposed to the date I finally published them.

As such they have fallen quicker into the archive.



unfortunately, while engaging in hair modification, Felice nose has suffered some damage from teeth of a hairbrush hitting it constantly.


Similar damage happened earlier on her feet, with shoes being difficult to put on.

6th Month, talking about breasts

It's dawned on me a while ago that Felice Breasts bug me a little. The reason for this is that they don't sag. Breasts are supposed to move about a bit, changing from when a women is lying down or has her breasts pressed up against something and so on.

It's possible to remedy this by putting in an implant. A glass ball, like a marble is a candidate. This would give them some pendulous movement, but of course wouldn't be that nice to touch. A soft wobbly but strong alternative is possible by purchasing soft silicone that you would cast yourself. I've thought about engaging in such an exercise, but the expense of time, money and effort is not one I'm prepared to engage in just now.


What I Have been doing is playing with my doll. Part of which involves kneading her breasts. I think they have gotten softer, but don't slosh about. Though softer is nice, I think it's a symptom of wear and tear. Evidence of which is a subtle wear pattern seen between her breasts.

Repair of Joint

A while ago I thought, about the possibility of joint repair on Felice. You could cut open a joint at a strategic point and place wire. I decided though that I didn't want to cut into Felice unnecessarily and so I didn't put too much thought into that idea.



I have of late been sleeping with Felice. It occurred to me that doing so could potentially result in some damage at pointier joint areas. This damage struck me as an opportunity to repair a joint that had broken.



Some 'Chicken Wire' next to the part of 'bone' that had been removed a while ago.


There is a nice space where wire can be slot into. I thought of using an epoxy putty but decided against it as I figured it might impair future repair of the joint.



The result is a slightly wobbly joint, because wire isn't held in place firmly. The joint can however hold a pose once more.

Broken Hip

Well current still engaging in 'Ruin', so shan't be posting pictures just yet.

I've had Felice for 6 months now. Wow. Just before the 6 month mark her right hip joint has broken.


Well on to another important note, it appears that the artetokio website is undergoing a suspension.




image from http://www.artetokio.com/



image from http://www.artetokio.com/english/index.html


Late for me to post this I know, but such is life as they say. It appears that at the time that this post was written that they are no longer taking orders. :(

In light of the news I considered getting another doll, but decided it's best I reserve my money.


This news is important to this site in this regard. I created this site as a means to help English speakers an avenue to get some information on these dolls though my own experience with one. Now that the sales of these dolls are suspended, it seems that a purpose for this site has been lost.

4th month

Well, since I'm currently engaging in 'ruin' of Felice, I haven't been playing with her quite as much as I had been before. Still I have been playing with her some.

4 months and 3 weeks after I got Felice, her knee bones are broken.

Sewn Close

So the wound that reopened on Felice foot. It turns out using silicon sealent for glass doesnt work quite as well as the silicone from the repair kit from Arte Tokio. So I repaired it slowly with the proper silicone again.


I then, sat on it by accident; it was under a blanket... So it reopened again. This time I decided to try to save some time and sew it close instead of trying to balance weights. It seems to work well.

Ruin of Felice, part 2 - Eyebrows

So using what I've practiced a little putting hair into Felice's head, I've decided to put in eye brows.

Making a hole with a pin, then putting a strand of hair into that hole was the initial method I had intended on using. I had difficulty with this method, and it seemed like it would likely result in damage, so instead I resorted to a sewing style method.

Hair would be sewn in, snipped strategically, then silicone applied to have it stick.



Hair stuck on, roughly snipped at first.


Then trimmed to give good shape and evenness.


Here we are again, trimmed, and even with more strands of hair added to her left brow.

While undergoing Ruin

While I was working on a modification for Felice; and old wound opened up.



Quite to my surprise. I guess repairs can sometimes still come undone. I decided to see how well this other silicone I bought at a hardware store would fair in repair.




Of course utilizing 'advanced' repair methods.

This happening bout 3 month and 10 days after having Felice.

Ruin of Felice, part 2 - Hair

Yes, I got Felice with the intention of making her a doll for play. A couple of things that bothered me were; after her neck 'bone' had broken, the head would fall off or the neck joint would behave awkwardly, and while playing with her with a wig on, the wig would slip or fall off and so on. With regards to hair, yes it kinda does bother me that she doesn't have eye brows at the moment; which as it turns out is a neat secondary to what we are trying to do now.




The tools of ruin.

I bought some hair clips/toggles. The cost $25 each. You can cheaper ones, you could even get wigs for that price, but the hair quality didn't seem as good, so I went with these instead.

Needles.

Silicone for Glass and Aquariums. Why this particular silicone? Well it turns out some other silicone you can buy contains anti mold in it, as so isn't recommended to be around food or water. Also this silicone is an 'acid cure' silicone which is the same as the one from the Arte Tokio repair kit.

CD marker. Nothing sticks to silicone, so marks made with this pen will get rubbed away.

Tweezers

& 'Cuticle' scissors.




First we mark where we want to place hair.




And next we place the hair in. This was a trial run, taking about a half hour. At first I made a hole with the needle, then used the tweezers to put hair into that hole with a bit of silicone. I decided this was going to take too long, so I thought of a different way to do this.




Several days later I applied more hair. The time I've spent on sticking hair on at this stage is about 3 and a half hours. At this rate I've estimated that it would take 100 hours to do the whole head. I'm hoping I get faster. To be fair some of this was done while watching TV. I decided to kinda 'sew' hair in, apply some silicone, then cut the little bit of hair that sticks out. I could have it coming through, with the end result having hair that is half as long as the strand sewn in, but I kinda like the length I'd set so I've decided on this method for now.





Some days later, after a bit of play, some strands of hair came loose.

In light of that I decided to use a more robust, time consuming method to stick her hair on. Using some sewing and knots for some strands (depending on the length of hair).

Later I found that it turns out there is a way that I can pull out the hair I bought so that the length is effectively doubled. This way I can use the other sewn method I had intended, where the hair is sewn in, then out, half coming out either side, while stuck in silicone in the middle.

Also, I decided that I'm not going to sew in hair a strand at a time.



At this stage it's 11 hours of sticking hair on.



14 hours



About 18 hours here.



20 and 1/2 hours



22 1/2 hours


30 hours


39 1/2 hours



40 1/2 hours



49 hours



57 hours


73 1/2 hours




79 1/2 hours
looks rather like male pattern baldness at this stage



100 and 1/2 hours


This is what she looked like when I was playing with her at this stage.


150 hours, also by this stage, a packet of hair had been used up.


182 and 1/2 hours


195 hours



199 hours


at this stage Felice's hair looks quite complete from the front.


215 hours


216.5



and finally at about 217 and 1/2 hours, the hair sewing is complete.







unlike a wig you can see skin at a parting;


and a hairline.



Now the hair needs to be cleaned up a little bit.