I happened to find this broken elf doll from my work place (recycling center, I find tons of interesting shit all the time) and the shape of the face felt just too perfect to pass so I decided to customize him and turn it from an elf to a fluffy dragon gijinka, Orestes.

I had already bought some paper clay for the job but then I happened to reconnect with an old friend and this old friend is very, VERY deep inside the BJD hobby sphere. In fact she makes parts and customizes and paints those dolls for other people so lemme just say, she has the tools. ALL the tools. And she allowed me to try some when I visited her just now.

It was a limited time to do things and my ability to focus is even more limited but I managed to strip the elf to his undies, remove most of the glue residue, and sculpt him a new nose with nostrils, plus add a fifth finger to his hands. The clay is Apoxie Sculpt, two part compound modeling clay. I haven't worked with any kind of clay in years and years, and never this small either, but I found it nice and malleable to work with. And it dried to a nice, hard surface that I can now sand down to something smoother. Might need to buy me some and get a bit more deeper into this stuff...

Next step is removing stuff. That tooth needs to go and I have to shape the ears a bit. I also still have things I need to sculpt, like horns and feet (this guy's other foot missing so nothing to work with there) but I likely won't be using the paper clay for that either, since it apparently has a tendency to break easily.

I have plans (and materials) for a proper, made from scratch doll that I've been procrastinating on for over a year so I decided to make this one into a more naivistic looking doll, with beanbag body, or something soft and more shapeless like that. Or I might keep that plastic barrel body and work around that too, I don't know yet. Sculpted things first!