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nareenpullip31When everything was dry I rubbed away the liquid frisket. What looked like a mess before slowly turned into delicate swirls.

nareenpullip32Not everything was peachy though. Some of the rubber had suffered from handling the doll, and some of the paint came off from rthe hard plastic of the limbs due to rubbing. I took out a small brush and retouched the areas where paint was missing.

nareenpullip33As a last step I used a scalpel to scratch away paint from the limbs to achieve clean, crisp outlines. The thick consistency of liquid frisket isn't made for accurate outlines, after all. It's impossible to remove colour from the soft torso, so retouching with more paint is the only option there.

When I was done it was dark outside, so I put the doll aside for today. Tomorrow I'll wash it to get rid of the last loose pigments and rubber stains, then sand away any stains. After drying it will recieve two layers of matt varnish like the head.
Currently the body is very sensitive for stains due to the rough surface, so the dress has to wait too. Taking measures and trying on stuff now would be an invitation for desaster.

nareenpullip34Bravely I tried to disassemble the doll to add varnish and it worked. Just the thighs can't be removed from the torso.
I coated everything with two layers of - supposedly - studio quality matt varnish.

nareenpullip35And yet desaster strikes. The doll is close to ruin because the soft rubber torso becomes sticky due to the varnish. Exactly what I was afraid of from the start. Within minutes Nareen is covered in dirt and fuzz (no wonder with all the fabric around, the cheap velvet loses a lot of hair).
With a medium grained piece of sandpaper I try to sand away the varnish from her body. It takes me hours until she stops being sticky and at that point her tattoos are all damaged and the varnish on her thighs became sticky too due to my sweat and the continued handling.
The photo shows the leftover stains after roughly 2 hours of scrubbing. That wasn't the end of it, I kept scrubbing some more.

(Note from 2013: Due to this experience I STRONGLY recommend using only Mr. Super Clear sealant. Everything else was just rubbish. If it's hard to get in your area, try Ebay. There are sometimes merchants who sell it. Also shops that specialize in model building.)

nareenpullip36Finally a good day again: Nareen's boots arrived from Taiwan. Many thanks, CoolCat!
(I even got a free gift that will make my other dolls happy.)

Since the boots are magnetic and the dust cover of my desk has a metallic core by coincidence Nareen stands on my desk like a rock. She can even walk up the heater horizontally. Cool.
This makes me forget about her damaged body for a while.

nareenpullip37With the boots also came the new eyelashes. They are for a Blythe doll and each turns out to be twice as wide as a Pullip's lashes. I decide to cut both in the middle and give Nareen two layers of lashes. The short lashes go on the outer sides of the eyelid.
The old lashes are cut away with a knife, then a bit of superglue helps attach the new ones. I put the second row a bit higher so that the hard rims don't stack and interfere with her eyes.

(Note from 2013: As it turned out these eyelashes are in no way different from fake eyelashes for women. So I bought a pack with 10 or 20 from a Chinese vendor on Amazon - and paid only slightly less for the whole thing than what I paid for just one pair. If you plan to customize several dolls this helps enourmosely. Unless you buy brand stuff - that's extremely expensive.)

 

nareenpullip38Here's a comparison of the new lashes (on the left) with the old ones (on the right, naturally). Quite a difference, huh!
The small picture shows the new lashes from behind.

nareenpullip39After the glue dried the head was assembled again. I put the eyelids in, then the eye mechanic with its three screws. The eyelid springs were attached to the eye mech again and the handles for blinking were reinserted.
Then I had to put a rubber band around the upper part of Nareen's neck because Obitsu necks are very slim and the Pullip head has a larger hole and thus wobbles. Sorry I can't show a pic, it took two people to get the rubberband in after the body was inserted into the head front, we had no hand free to take a pic.
The head is still a bit wobbly but that's due to the movable neck part and the heavy Pullip head. Let's see how that works out once the hair is on. I hope she won't become a bobble head. Wink

Then the back of the head was attached.

(Note from 2013: These problems don't exist anymore these days but there are new ones. Obitus bodies now come with a very large neck part and the modern Pullip heads have considerably smaller holes. In fact I had to cut off 2/3 of the height of the neck plus to get the eye mech into the head again. You only need rubber bands now to keep the head from sliding into a very slightly tilted position.)

nareenpullip40Here's a closeup of the finished face. Don't her eyes look stunning with the new thick lashes?

 

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