Dippi

At 2017, Rämä got a mother. But despite what I wrote in one blogtext, it's not black in color but brown. Brown-white, chocolate/badger with odd-eyes.

I've not been in a good writing mood lately, so I try to skip needless mumbles about dollmaking now. Because I really captured a lot from this doll's process, so I can later use them for doll tutorial or whatever they fit to.

So she is made from white and brown silk clays, has white fabric in limbs and leather for paws and tail. Eyes are plastic beads what I painted. And not like I planned, again, she is too tall, but in fact that's not bad neither... Because rules are possible to break in nature too. This rat lady is taller than any other of my female dolls (not saying that I could own many of them yet, but...), and also few guys are shorter.

First amount of clays on.

As I like photographing her a lot now, I know the head got sculpted nicely enough. I even like how the blaze looks, it's not too childishly made. Ears were a bit tricky as I needed to re-attach one, but to nose I am pleased enough - yet. 

Sorry for the deadly flash attack again.

I always glue eyes only before painting the eyes, when everything else is finished.

Yet few pics to show her progress. Sorry for lack of fullbody photos, I don't know how sensitive people are to see naked dolls?

Rämä is judging my sculpting skills.

Rolled piece of fabric to the legs, it works.

About these work table pics, I apologize that the light doesn't focus to the area I want to show, or then the needed area is blurry. My table lamp doesn't like my photographings and adds orange tint to my pics, and flashlight often makes impossible to see tints in paint and so. To keep things rightly colored I just moved the light away and took those dark-ish pics... Only they automatic setting has OK flash who doesn't kill retinas when capturing closeup views.

Eyes popped off, socket painting done. Note that the paint was really wet before adding stronger strokes, to make it look more realistic.

I tried to take better photo to show how I painted the nose and mouth, but my camera and lamp hated me. Or then the doll hated all of us. "Let me add my makeup myself!" OK and sorry, lady.

Eyes glued.

First layer of dark blue on the right eye.

And first layer of cold red (almost pink) on the left.

A layer of mixed red and yellow, to make the eye to look orange...

...and again one red layer to keep it red, but warm tinted.

Pupils painted.

Bleergh, I guessed it... When I want to skip telling the process, I of course need to write things next to photos. Yea. (But seems that this works better to me! Once again I see how visual person I am, need to see things as they are before I can write.)

At the end I like her look a lot, she has delicious colors and realistic enough look to me. And a blaze - and odd-eyes! I even like her suit, what's an oversized (purposely) white sleeveless jacket/vest/skirt thingy. I wanted to keep things simple enough, as I really have no skill with doll cloth making, so I am surprisingly happy with how her clothes came out. There's not a real place for neck in it, her neck wire is hidden inside the cloth to give an illusion of a real neck. A gold colored chain keeps it in place and shape.

I also left the skirt's hem overlong and not symmetric. I like it enough that way, it's just a piece of fabric on a rat lady. I also can hide her toes there and that's nice, more eye fooling. The hem also is purposely worn-like.

A dark brown leather belt keeps the skirt thingy in shape, or should keep. It has a tongue buckle.

After finishing everything I yet added a needless keychain piece around her neck. It fits. (I have no beauty eye, but I like chains.)

Her name is Dippikastike, shortened to Dippi. The name means dip sauce... Try to imagine then if it's chocolate sauce on vanilla ice cream, that's what I adore too much at summer. Delicacy colored animals are just too great not to sculpt and paint.

Honestly, if anyone is claiming that rats are ugly animals... Imagine one in dress. It's true that in wild a rat can't always look that clean, it can have dirty fur, scars, injuries and missing body parts, but it comes from the environment. Just like with any other wild animal - I could go close to a wild fox as less than a wild rat. Domestic animals are different, they are bred to trust us, and we humans can keep them safe, healthy and clean. Even rats, too.

But yea, she is a mother for Rämä. I like the idea, now the little rat boy doesn't look too poor when he roams at stable with only a... long vest, as everyone else, almost. Also, I seem to know who gave him his photography hobby. Dippi carries camera everywhere, and when Rämä doesn't photograph, his mother captures it all.

Now I need to hurry if I want horses to Dippi and her pup, because... Urgh, I have less horses than possible owners! Only Asko and Omar - my Breyer CM dolls - and Kippo do own any horses, but so many else also should do. Of course it still couldn't be Rämä who officially owns a horsie, he could just keep one like own although the real owner is his mom.

(Hey sorry, some of my photos are too bad in quality, so I like to try to edit them to look a lot different. That's why there can be seen green, blue etc. tints who lie a lot when showing a doll's real look. Some of those also aren't taken with flash, so they could look boring without heavy editing.)

What comes to behavior and personality, Dippi has a history already, or almost has. She had been a punker at her younger days. Her taste of music haven't changed anywhere, just the look she has doesn't tell about it.

I also add few pics where she is with Rämä. Especially one group photo of my whole doll herd had a nice detail... There she was almost hugging her son, and same time Rämä secretly showed that despite his stupid teen boy image, he really adores his mother.

One thing what she does most of her time is to photograph things. A lot she captures Rämä and others riding or arguing with horses - or each other...

I just wonder how a rat sees what they are photographing, as they have very different sight compared to primates.

Her camera is made from silk clay, and stays in hand with a small piece of blue-tack.

Dippi's personality is yet under building, I mean, she is yet telling her story and personality. I'm going to write about it to the traditional scale dolls page, who I have written a lot now. Still not having any hurry with it...

When this is published, I have already two dolls to write and publish. Aargh. I wish I could post something else too, but I simply like creating dolls more than for example tack right now. Because, guess which of them has personality.