Hello everyone! As you’ve probably noticed from my last entry, I finally received my Bimong order from last May and got to work with her immediately. I spend the first day modding the torso and the next few days painting her and playing with her. And since I documented most of what I did (starting with the tail last April) I thought I’d make a post about it. For my own records if it’s not of interest to anyone else.

I’ve wanted a mermaid doll for forever. Actually since childhood: I quite loved my barbies and other dolls with mermaid tails. I even have Siren because the Soom Cass pieces at the time were pretty much the only things that came close and they’re beautifully shaped. But as I am now, I’m also very picky with actual mermaid tails. Most dolls either don’t have attractive jointing in them, the tail is too thin or too short or they’re only sold as giant fullsets and are too expensive for me (looking at you Asleep Eidolon and Angell Studio). Or then the dolls are just tiny and I wanted something bigger. But when I saw the Fairyland seahorse tail for the first time, I quite liked what I saw. It’s not that smooth or mermaid-y looking but the jointing is quite well hidden and above all: versatile. So yes, I knew I wanted it, and that brought forward this character.

So, once the bottom half was decided on, how about the actual doll? Initially, I thought I’d get a grey skin Withdoll for this character, but I already have most of the head sculpts I want from them and I’m not a huge fan of the torso of the girl body anyway. However, a cold blue tail with a grey torso would’ve made a really nice cold climate mermaid. But when Bimong announced his final preorder for Narae and Narin, it all clicked. I’d wanted a 408 head for a long time and also a tan Narae, so what better than to combine the tail, 408 and tan skin. She’d be more warm toned and kind of tropical for our climate but what the heck. xD

I originally hunted for the clear blue tail, but I let all the ones I could find slip through my fingers. I didn’t have the funds and I wasn’t looking at it that seriously as I wasn’t, at the time, sure what doll I would get to be on it. Well, when I finally was able to afford and seriously look for one, pretty much all of them had gone and the market started to be replaced with that steampunk tail -which also was clear, but I did not want the carvings and gears and stuff on it, so it was no good. Luckily I at least found one mint tail with all the pieces that I could buy, so that’s what I had to use. But it really needed to be dyed. :3

Once the dyeing was done, I did some detail painting on the fins but it’s nothing impressive, as I’m planning on making a better fin anyway. Now, all I had to do was to wait for the doll itself to arrive so that I could get to modding. And it was a long wait. I was done with the tail in May 2018 and I finally got the doll just before February 2019. Bimong very generously provided me with an extra hip piece so that I was able to leave her with the option of using her human feet. Otherwise I would’ve ended up with feet I couln’t use at all.

Next up is making the Narae torso fit the tail:

Some details of the torso on the tail, its posing and the paint:

I’m very happy with how it fits now, although in the middle of the daunting sanding job, I felt like it would never work. There were times where it just seemed like it wasn’t going to happen, though in theory it should.

On the day the Narae order arrived, I took some blanks photos of her and made a crappy photoshop mock-up of the face up (yeah don’t mind me, I can’t paint digitally):

This is how the actual one ended up and I’m still not sure if it’ll stay:

I’m really liking the dark lips but I feel like I gave her too much eye makeup to really be natural. Well, she is kind of prissy with the amount of jewellery she owns… for a water creature -but I still think it’s quite a lot of make up on her. Time will tell if I get used to it or if it starts bothering me more. Other than the style itself, I’m very pleased with the face up. It was my first time doing such dark lips but her lip shape is perfect for them. They’re unglossed and have a little bit of the gold paint on them as well.

And to finish this entry off: some more shots I’ve taken of her because I can’t stop playing with her right now:

I can’t wait to find her a better quality wig and get to actually go outside with her *u*