A lot's going on at the Toontown museum today. Two fieldtrips, one from the schoolhouse and one from the embassy, happened to intersect on the same day, making double the fun! The two teachers, two old friends might I add, waste no time in having a chat and catching up after so many years. While they're distracted, the students take it upon themselves to tour the place and learn about all the artifacts. Some are very eager to learn, so little Constance takes the opportunity to talk about all the history facts she's learned in school and from the books she's read. Others, however, are far less eager to learn, such as Sparky, who just wants to joke around and pull pranks on everyone. It looks like everyone is crowded around a journal, and the page it's opened to reads as follows:

Michael Doodle

This is my part of an art collab meme I did with @yourdeadprince! We both finished the meme in record time. >:]c

Hello and welcome to part two of I'm making myself my own BJD cuz they don't look how i want them to and even if there was one I'd be too stingy to buy it.

Mostly making this a tutorial for myself, because this is the second one and maybe I'll make more cuz it's a fun hobby, albeit a bit expensive, mainly because of the materials.

I used white Sculpey, Liquid Sculpy to attach unbaked and backed clay, and all of the above. As absolute necesities considering tools I'd say that circle ruler and those curved knives, get really ones cuz if they aren't sharp enough to cut your fingers when looking at them you won't have a good time. And also the safety gloves to prevent you from cutting your fingers, get those too no discussing. Sculpting tools are nice to have and they improved mine tremendously from this first but you can do without.

Also good to have is a power drill with very small drills ( ~ 1mm - 2 mm), a dremel for sanding, and some isopropyl alcohol to smooth the clay.

Making the body:

First I made a sketch of my poor OC, facing front and a side view, I could've made a back view but for that I just improvised and looked at some references. This sketch took me month to get right that't why I started with this doll so late I'm planning this one since a year. Whatever.

Then make a little friend from aluminium foil, i also added some wires this time cuz for the last doll i had some troubles removing the foil and this way you already have a little hole. But I ended up using the power drill to clean it up anyways. Maybe i just like drilling into plastic body parts.

The foil friend gets a small layer of clay and then off into the oven at 130C. I should've made the foil base thicker to reduce the amount of clay for this one.

This clay base then just gets the rest of the meat added on top. I just looked at my sketch, several references and added the muscles one by one and then smoothing and evening all out as i went. The toold were really helpful for that and I still don't know how this went that well but idk I just did it somehow and kept going back and forth, it also helps putting it down for a day and picking it back up the next one.

Then when i decided i was done I went over it again and smoothed everything out with isopropyl diluted with a bit of water. It made everything really smooth and this doll already looked better then my last one even without sanding it. So I also didn't sand it and decided to do that when all was done.

And thats the body done already. I say already but this took me a week.

Next step was marking where to cut it apart. And yes I said cut it apart and this hurt me more then you would think because I was really happy with how this came out, but this heavy brick isn't moving and I want it moving.

So I just took 100 pictures of it to calm myself and then just hacked his legs off.

CUT IT WHEN ITS FRESH OUT OF THE OVEN AND STILL HOT IT MAKES IT SO MUCH EASIER AND SMOOTHER. Since the clay is still slightly soft. I just yelled that at myself so don't worry. I tested this for the first time today and it was magical.

Thanks for the tag Enchant @enchanted-lightning-aes! Sorry for taking a bit to do it, I am terrible at doing tag games on time😅. Here's a snippet I wrote from Spectre last night, where Michael and Melanie meet for the first time!

This must be Michael

Melanie noticed that he was gripping the paper in his hands tight and his hands were shaking. 

He looked up when the two walked in and gave a small smile, a smile that accentuated the anxiety swirling in his eyes. 

Melanie had thought she was nervous today, but this guy looked terrified. She felt an urge to go over, pick him up and rush him out of the building to save him from this social situation. 

That wouldn’t be socially acceptable though, and being a complete stranger would probably make the situation worse. 

So instead she offered up a smile of her own. One that she hoped would come across as reassuring.