Altered Vessels Studio

Seemed like a good time to pop the kettle on for a lovely boiling hot water spa for H.E.R to soften her up to get her head and accessories off – I’ve seen seen people use heat guns or hairdryers to warm up the doll to make removing the head easier but I find just making a steaming hot cup of Pop starts my day off juuuuust right!

I’m going to start with making a ii wearing his cranky mask that has dreadlocks sprouting out the back. I’ll do a separate inspiration post for it after this one. The Dark Flash Pop! vinyl has some great texture for the face section. I’m going to take a bit of artistic license with his mask due to those texture ridges on the Dark Flash mask so it’s not going to be exactly as smooth on top as the real life one ii. The H.E.R parts are for the iii spacebuns build I’m going to do in tandem with this build but more on that later.

Pop! Vinyl used in this build (ii dreadlocks) – 1338 Dark Flash

The Dark Flash head came off with no hot water required! Let’s get the body prepped shall we? He clearly woke up a bit happy this morning as there are a bunch of erm… protuberances sticking out from his body that need to be chopped off (ow harsh!). I carefully carved them off with a sharp box cutter. Last pic is the result. Protuberances begone!

   Dreads and back of mask

Should I sculpt his dreads out of clay or make them out of fabric or something else entirely and glue that to the nub? I need to do an image search of what the dreads look like and how they’re connected to the top of the mask. What colour, texture, thickness are they?

These were the best I could find that get close enough for the detail of the dreads and nub. I blew up the last one as it’s a nice clear pic. I’ll put all of these in the inspiration post too).

In my image search I found a bunch of pics that showed the detail at the back of the mask…. which I didn’t realise had buckles so that’s going to be interesting to sculpt. I stalked his Insta for POV vids that showed the buckle detail during a light show flash and took some screenshots. *also a story/mini-rant about the image search at the end…*

OK on to sculpting. I’ve never used polymer clay before so be gentle with me. I’m trying out Sully polymer clay as that’s what they had in the local craft shop so I figured if it it’s good for a start and that if it was crap I’ll find something else. (*spoiler alert* – I found something else).

   Sculpting the back of the head

This clay is really sticky and a bit tricky to work with because all the little fiddly bits keep getting stuck together or stuck to the tools or stuck to my fingers. I’m not exactly happy with the results but I don’t know how to improve them with this clay. I can always use some better clay and go over some of the wonk details and rebake. And get another Dark Flash head ;}

And because I’m impatient I was keen to test out the baking process with this clay and to see if it takes off some of the stickiness/oiliness away in the process. I inadvertently sculpted a bit of a cheeky bum on the back of the mask hehe. Don’t tell anyone mkay?

I’ve put the sculpted head on the back of silicone mini muffin tray with a metal tray underneath to prep it for baking. I wasn’t sure how how the surface it’s sitting on would impact baking the head. Figured that the silicon isolates it from the metal tray heating up and warping the plastic head. Need to do some more research on how to use polymer clay ;). I did mention I’m impatient right?

The result seems to be pretty good. The Pop head is a bit soft coming out of the oven so I’ll leave it to cool before moving on. The last pic below is the baked head fresh out of the oven. Not bad!

I will say that the clay smells a bit while it’s baking so make sure you open any doors or windows needed to get good ventilation. The clay is non toxic but it’s just a bit stinky. I might look into a toaster oven as I’ve seen some other people do that to separate craft and food. That way I can also put it outside so that there are no fumes in the house.

The clay mod seems pretty attached to the Pop head. I’ve read that you can bake over it so I may be able to fix the dogs breakfast that is the buckles. (that or I find another Dark Flash head and start again but I’m going to trust the process).

OMG holy fark I just realised I can make the dreads out of felted wool, actually make some mini dreads! I have felting gear and I’m pretty sure I’ve got some black and tan wool somewhere in my stash. That’ll be so cute to have mini dreads. I’ll go over how I make them in the next post!

And a bit of a rant story that you can just skip if you wanna as this post is getting long. So while I was searching the web for pics of ii’s dreads one of the the mfking top results was a site exposing their identities with a bunch of text in the listing so it was impossible not to see the info. So that’s how I’ve accidentally found out Vessel’s middle name. I’d accidentally been exposed to a YouTube reel that revealed Vessel and ii’s names without me being able to stop it so that screwed that up already.

But Vessel’s middle name, I have a connection with that name too ;} But of course I do….Just one more way I love this band. I can’t understand why people want to ruin the privacy aspect for them. It’s just not necessary in this world that already has so much darkness. Just let one thing be. Anyway rant over. Be kind to each other.

Worship!🖤