Kippura, another doll

I need to apologize again that I am publishing a doll post... Ooops. But this is important, and I try not to keep this unpublished too long time. And I really DO have other things to photograph and publish, what are not about dolls alone.

In this text, I show you Grievous, my last doll for 2016. Of course she was not the last of ever, hehe, no. When I write this, I have already finished the first doll for 2017 too, it has their own time later then.

Grievous is an artist name. I don't know yet what this lady is called officially. As nicknames she reacts to Kippura and Kippo, and other stupid versions based from the art name.

About her creating process:

I didn't plan to make Kippo that tall, but she accidentally turned to be same size as male Breyer dolls of me. Not bad thing as I had nice ideas for her to be, too. I wanted a black silk clay doll with dark brown skin, white blaze, weird eyes and a mohawk. In the blaze she could have spots. I wasn't sure about how I can success with this, but I think... I got more excited to finish her compared to some other dolls of me.

Kippo got a bit too small pelvis and no lower tummy... I really have a habit to add rounder shapes for my dolls, because I think they need it. And having a tummy is important.

Paws, tail and fabric 'coat' areas glued.

When sculpting the head, I got a crazy idea what I adored quickly too much. It's nothing unusual from me; her right eye is right size, but the left is... oversized, and I also wanted quickly that it's not going to be healthy. Yeeee. More about their colorings later!

Painting the face pattern was a bit painful. I wanted to use only white paint before pigmentless skin tint details, so I needed to be really careful. Maybe two sizes of small paintbrushes were used... The reason I didn't add black paint was that I know my paints could be clearly too different tint from the clay's color - the clay is really matta and paints often are not. And although a matta paint can look great, it's not good for too bendable surface (silk clay and inner metal pieces, not the most safe materials together!).

I started painting the face with adding brown 'pigmented skin color' to the nose and mouth area, and around eyes.

Blaze painted.

Bad photo, but the ear tells me that there is already the skin tone added too.

Better view, colors view as they mostly should.

Although it should remind a bit of skull (rat skull of course), it's still meant to be a realistic color pattern. So it can be really non-symmetric too, what I adore.

Kippo's eyes were the funniest part. Right one got to be brown with larger black pupil, but the left... as said, it's not healthy. It's swollen. I also accidentally liked it's color, I mean the bead's own color - and how it glows when photographing with flash! At the end I decided to just paint some blood vein things there and add the pupil, no more paint for the left eye. Added glossy varnish and it was finished - and my craziest looking rat ever was made, first time in a shape of a doll! (Really I have drawn those a lot now, that's why Kippo was so emotionally important project to me.)

Eyes unpainted.

Painted, before the pupils.

With her mohawk I got crazy, as usually, I'm not good at gluing hair! But it helped that I sawed there a place for the tufts, after sculpting the head and it was already a bit dried. Her mohawk stays in shape with water brushing. I got no photos of the mohawks's glueing process.

When she was yet unfinished, Kippura met few other dolls already once, and I wrote a blogtext about it.

After creating, finished:

Kippura wears a roughly made red leather vest, and a blue scarf. All that just to keep her OK for camera... But her nosering and earrings are not for that, they're what they need to be; actual part of her face. She also keeps a chain attached to the nosering, just for fun.

(At February 2017 she got also a brown long vest, and a skirt-thingy, because that leather vest just wasn't good enough. Her scarf also got shortened.)

Took these just after finishing her.

At the end she is not what I waited to finish, and I have found some places to paint better, but for now I am OK with her. I'm not good at retouching "finished" projects, not on paper and not in a shape of a sculpt. Who knows if I could still retouch a canvas painting as they're not my daily thing to do, like drawings...

Kippo is photogenic...

...and ugly.

Oh what the toe, in fact, in one and half of months I have finished more dolls than even started a drawing. Damn.

Anyway. Kippura is not going to under a paintbrush anymore. Instead of it, I let her take a stack of selfies (really many of them are detail photos of her nose, ehe hee):

That is clearly her better side, the innocent right eye.

Nose selfie - noselfie. Stupid angle.

Worse, worse, worse... The ugly side!

Nooo it was not even all... Sorry, but I like to photograph this doll.

I don't notice her skull spots todays, I see just a cute rat in a way rats are.

Contrast added in PSP 7 for fun.

Hmmm... A zombie...?

If anyone is wondering, after checking the text I linked previously... Hupi seemingly had enough patience to wait, and finally met the black lady. Both are dumbos, what are quite rare in Finland (no one breeds them here), and that's also why I don't sculpt them too much as I want to keep things quite realistic.

One thing I want to do well and also look that it does, is to make possible that the doll rides in right positions and fits to the horseback well enough (as well as possible, I don't own any saddles, except some stupid saddle-like leather things I've made). For my harm, I think Kippo isn't the best rider ever... And it doesn't help that I hardly dare to bend her limbs as I fear I break the clays.

All the stupidness in those bridles comes from the bit. Luckily they are detachable from the straps.

Her vest fools a lot, it doesn't really fit her.

(Continued to write this after too long pause, I just don't feel like a writer now...)

Need to giggle how just this one is the doll I see most effective when bending it to different positions. As I make rat dolls, they normally have quite long tails, and that's helpful with posing dolls. She also has good expressions who look OK in photos, in my opinion.

I tried to get photos where the idea is to show a freaking out horse. That chain doesn't help with trying to make it look believable.

From all my dolls, Kippura is one of the most photogenic. She is ugly, but she is meant to be! Not a rare decision from me. She's my first doll who got a recognizable mohawk and fits so well to my world I write and draw. It's build around rats and rat anthros. Here's a digital doodle, showing a random Corpsepainter design I am going to keep wholly myself (I like it too much), and who possibly gets his own anthro doll (or just a clay sculpture in some form) someday:

His name is Malicious. The lineart is bad, drawn with mouse only, but ehm.

As a personality she is heavily introverted, artistic and quite male-like. Kippura likes cats too much, and all her cats have been rescued housecats from an animal shelter. At 2017, she adopted a rat, Ripoff Sideviewer, from Asko's Corpsepainter herd; Siwi was too often tormented by his herdmates, so guys decided to get him a new apartment. Now he lives in a terrarium and is unofficially owned by Kippo.

Kippo being almost ready to go, while Tumpula is yet stretching his limbs... And another cat commands his feeder to give some attention.

Ryysis, a male farm cat.

Ryysis can't accept that his feeder needs to go work...

Sideviewer.

She has also a horse, a weird leopard spotted gelding called Otto. He was also a rescue animal, just one from Kippo's herd of creatures with less good histories.

When Kippo came to the stable... I don't know how it happened, I never really photographed it. Maybe she knew some guys from internet and found out that hey, they live closely enough, she could go there to get a horse life!

One meeting I have captured, and it was her and Cerys's first meet. I guess Kippo was amused while Cerys didn't know how to be, but they get along well enough. I even think that Cerys has already accustomed to see Kippo, although both are something weirdest ever...

At all, she has already good friendship built with Rämä and Juoru, and these three together are 'known' as the youth of the stable. Kippo is oldest, but she fits too well to those with her personality. Except that she is smartest?

I see personalities.

When I publish this text, I have already few more to publish. About dolls mostly... But as said, I have something else too, in different scales and really about model horses and their tack. I also have some photo stories to show - few photos from them are seen in this text.