Let's get to it! (And refer back to the prior post for the materials list.)
To begin with, I chucked that clunky "statement necklace" to the side in favor of working on a choker that actually resembles what Duchess wears in the webisodes. Her necklace is a black choker with a teardrop-shaped purple jewel. I decided that I wanted something removable, hence I needed to use velcro.
I ended up getting a small length of black ribbon to use as the base, about two inches, give or take. I took a little bit of velcro, cut small squares out, and sewed them onto the ends. As a reminder, they should be on opposite ends of the ribbon, and on opposite sides. See the picture below for a reference. Getting the jewel to sew onto the necklace was a little harder. I was trying to find something that would be in proportion to Duchess herself, while being big enough to work with easily. I sort of compromised, and ended up with a bead about 5 mm in size. Sewing it on to the necklace is not an easy task, I will tell you. Make sure you've got a small needle.
Mine fits a little loosely around Duchess' neck, but not too loose. It's MUCH more accurate than the necklace she's shipped with, in any case.
The stockings were frankly the easiest part. Etsy is full of sellers making custom doll clothes. I searched for "Monster High leggings," and was able to find at least half a dozen sellers offering leggings in any color imaginable, including white. Note that I searched for "Monster High," because A. The demand for custom Monster High doll clothes seems to be higher than Ever After High, and B. The dolls are made from the same molds, so they can wear each other's clothes. Pricing was very modest; the average pair seemed to be about $5.
The last step is painting her headdress and shoes the proper colors. Now, this is a little more difficult, since Duchess' hair decs look like this:
But the doll's headpiece looks like this:
NOTHING alike. So how to paint it to make it look similar? The answer I settled on was "Just make it not look like crap." I decided to leave the band as the same black color, to blend in with her hair. Remember, the webisode hairpiece doesn't have a band, so we want this to be as invisible as possible. The strands of pearls are easy; just paint them white. I struggled a bit with what to do for the...flowers? Pom-Poms? ...whatever is attached to that headband. I ended up leaving the feathery flowers in the back unpainted. The round Pom-Pom like thing got dabbed with flecks of paint to make it look multicolored, and the flower at the bottom got painted to match that gray fan-like piece as closely as possible.
I picked up a bunch of different acrylic paints to work with: black, silver, a pearly white, a medium shade of purple, and a deep indigo. I already had a tube of red, so I didn't get any. Joke's on me, it came out more of a watermelon shade than a ruby shade, so I just had to grin and bear it because there was no way I was going all the way back to the craft store again.
The middle of the painting process. You'll want to use a brush with as fine a point as possible, especially since there are so many little crevices everywhere. Use a toothpick to dab paint if you need to. Once it's painted, spray it with an acrylic sealer, and let that puppy dry out for a couple of hours. It will be sticky to the touch initially, but that goes away the more you handle it.
Duchess' headpiece, all finished! I will admit that it is not my best work, but I am not a painter, boys and girls. I merely struggle to do the best that I can. Looks TONS better than before, though. All you need is color!
And the shoes are loads easier, I promise. Just paint the ribbons with the indigo paint, spray with the sealer, and dry. The shoes will be a bit stiff initially, so you may need to work at getting Duchess' feet in there.
In the next installment, which hopefully will not be months and months away, I'll show you the modifications I made to her dress and hair. It's a lot of work, but a small price to pay for beauty. :)
Miss Scarlett, signing out!
