Hello! I was thinking of modding a Souldoll Arina - widening the eyes, to be precise - in order to give it a more anime-esque aesthetic. How would one go about this? Is it worth the trouble or should I try to find a sculpt similar, but similar to the aesthetic I'm looking for?
It depends on how you feel about modding. Souldoll has a really wonderful aesthetic to their bodies, their heads also have a distinct style but in a way that it wouldn't be too difficult to find something similar. The only problem I think would be is anything similar actually might cost more.
For resin BJDs, there aren't many true Anime-stylized sculpts, unless you want to look into the vinyl Dollfie Dreams or Obitsu.
But, since this is a modding blog, if you wanted to mod the eyes, it'd actually be pretty easy! A Dremel tool would make it go faster, but for a beginner, you're going to want precision over speed.
For that, just use small pieces of 280 grit sandpaper. Before starting, mark in pencil where/how you want the eyes to be.
To ensure evenness, turn the head upside down!
This is an invaluable tip!! Also, stop sanding at least half a cm to one millimeter before you reach your pencil marks, and move up to 320 - 400 grit sandpaper to smooth/finish up the mod.
Be sure to have a small bowl of warm water to dip your piece in, it helps reduce resin dust. Also keep a washcloth and/or paper towel underneath your work, and don't forget to wear a dust mask!
Final note, I don't recommend doing this to dark resin. The peachy skintone companies offer as "yellow" or "normal" is the basic resin mix, while darker resins ("tan," etc) or special colors (grey, blue, red etc) are usually mixed with dye, meaning extensive modding/sanding can cause visible scratch marks or discoloration.
This actually isn't true for all companies, to be certain you can ask the company on their Q&A forums whether the doll can be sanded/modded safely.
