#eyemech

After what is probably a year, maybe more, I have put Rida-Benie back together with the @andersonsallpurpose eyemech! I really missed her! I’d been “stuck” on trying to make the eyelids work and when the cosmomoore pullip arrived, I got out the eyelids to compare with the mods to the others and realised the approach was all wrong: I wasn’t going to make them fit: wrong angle, wrong size. So I used friendly plastic to make a thin plastic flap molded to the proper angle, painted a black acrylic rectangle at the base, glued+selotaped them down and added lashes like normal lids. Might need to curl the lashes up a little. This method would also work for no mech with acrylic eyes instead of the “double eye lash and photograph from good angles” method.

Also switched out her annoying obitsu27 for the generic busty body (bought another one to mod for lootenant Dan-na). Thinking about selling the obitsu27 hardbust for cheap or trade if anyone’s interested, it’s still horribly tight and creaky but likes to pop out of the lower belly joint.

I’m going to save up for a pale curvy made to move for pullip #6. It could be a while before she comes together, she’s currently blank and I need to decide whether to invest in sealant and try myself (!) or find a EU based faceup artist that still works with non-resin & simple styles.

Eye mech repair part 2 (unfinished, to be continued):

I soaked the eyechips in a tissue of alcohol for about 20 minutes then rubbed with qtips and gently scraped with a needle down the ridges of the ‘iris’ part to remove the paint.

Now for the superglue damage: I used medium grit (4) then polish grit (7) after securing the eyechip on sticky tack. There was damage inside though so I ripped off parts of the sanding block paper, flipped the eyechip upside down on the sticky tack and used them on the inside of the pupil. For the iris part, I just couldn’t get in (too small areas) but gently rubbing vaseline on a qtip into the frosted areas helped restore some shine. Thanks to this tutorial.

For the lashes, you cut 1 human fake eyelash in half, bend it with pliers and use simple white glue to apply (wait five minutes for it to go tacky) with the longer parts towards to the outside of the eye.

You’ll notice that I removed part of the plastic from eyelid R (red circle)

I also removed the piece circled in red below with wirecutters and a crystal nail file and sanded down the bits in yellow on both eyelids:

However, after modding, I discovered that the eyelids are not the same shape or size (?!?). The curvature and length is also different

so what worked on eyelidR (which blinks fine) did not work for eyelidL (the wonky one on your right) Note: Rida is wearing 12mm chips here which are slightly too small on type 3 and MIO Pullips

Eye mech repair part 1: Eye Wells and spring

I received this Make It Own Pullip eye mechanism in a trade from the lovely @andersonsdollpurpose and am repairing it and modding it to fit a type 2 pullip (three part head).

Upon arrival, from the tell tale frosting, it was clear that I wasn’t going to be able to cut out the eyechips without damaging the eyewell and decided to keep the eyewells in shape and sacrifice the eyechips instead (this will be part 2 or 3, they are surprisingly mostly intact!). So I popped out the eyechips from behind with a plastic paint brush end.

I have experience working with super glue mess on hard plastic from years of doll + gadget fixing and from my Pullip Assa who was bought covered in superglue and pretty much welded together.

Clearing the eyewells of superglue took 3 hours and is a delicate process of applying acetone by dabbing it for a few seconds then attempting to dislodge or scrape off superglue residue in sections of about 5-7mm at a time. I’ve since found out that using ice can help break the bonds between the superglue and the original plastic. You want to apply acetone to the super glue without it touching the plastic because that would cause melting and other deformation. Sanding and dremelling without a magnifier is just a recipe for damaging the original plastic.

The photos are posed 1 handed and for illustration only, you need both hands and to get a good feel for what is and isn’t the original plastic by how your tools “feel” in your hands against it and running your fingers against the area itself, fingertips are very sensitive down to the micromilimetre. Especially working with clear or white plastic, visual cues aren’t much help though I do recommend taking high res photos and zooming in to see if there are any areas you missed.

Work against a towel or foam so that you can apply force when needed without worrying about breaking stuff.

For the damaged spring, my first idea was to try and replace it but pen springs are slightly too wide for MIO eyemechs. Then I tried to reshape it on needle nose pliers and that didn’t work but in my box of doll parts I found a metal cylindrical dowel and used that with normal pliers to reshape the spring by twisting and pressing. I then cut part off with wire cutters as it was still too long.

end result, held in place with elastics to keep everything in place while working on the fit inside the head. Glue residue on the eye whites was scraped off with the back of a craft knife then polished with the buffering sandpaper on a nail block.