DIY Vocaloid Papercraft and more...

To those following me on Instagram (@JamGloom) this post will come as no surprise. The past four evenings I decided to explore more into Papercraft/Cubecraft and thus I stumbled upon DIY Vocaloid Papercraft, basically tiny chibi versions of the vocaloid characters (kinda like nendoroid but diy and mucho cheaper). I was drawn to Rin Kagamine so I decided I would attempt her first. I decided to print the whole pattern on one sheet of A4  card paper (which in hindsight was a bit too small for this design the completed figure is under 9cm)...

1) Cut out each individual shape and fold (the easiest part of this project)
2) Stuck the legs into a rectangular shape and then glued two tabs of the feet to the body.
3) Glued the body together and glued on the arms (not so fun as making sure everything stayed where it should was frankly, tricky as hell)
4)Glued the frontal fringe to the head front.
5) Glued head together and bow 
6)Glued head to body

If you like the look of my DIY vocaloid you can grab the free pattern created by desubunny here: https://weheartit.com/Nekitha27/sets/3029753-papiro-vocaloid#  and the instructions on how to assemble here: http://desubunny.deviantart.com/art/How-to-build-Chibi-Papercraft-136816496

Rating: Not for amateur, advanced.



The day after I finally finished my DIY vocaloid I decided to attempt something a bit easier an easy assemble cubecraft which requires no glue! Of the many designs available I found the catwoman hello kitty the most adorable. It's definitely suitable to be a beginner's project, easy to understand (You basically cut out and slot the tabs in the grooves). If you fancy something to introduce yourself to cubecraft or just a small quick project then I'd definitely advise this. You can get the free pattern here: catwoman hello kitty

Rating: Amateur/Beginner




On the same night as my hello kitty Catwoman I also assembled Marceline the Vampire from Adventure Time by Gus Santome. A bit more tricky than hello kitty though with good reason with a beautiful shaped and sturdy body and head. Pattern can be found here: http://minipapercraft.blogspot.com.ar/2012/09/adventure-time.html If Adventure Time isn't your thing Santome's site is still definitely worth visiting with dozens of papercraft's to attempt from cult comic characters to Disney villains...

Rating: Advanced Beginner

Yesterday and today I thought I would again attempt something a bit more tricky to assemble and came across a super cute miffy paper craft pattern. Found here: http://www.paperkawaii.com/2011/02/03/miffy-papercraft-model/#
The pattern is written in Japanese however it's really visual so I managed to work out what needed to be stuck where and in what order without text (safe to say the majority of any Japanese craft patterns are very visual or so I have found from my own experience). Miffy took twoish evenings to complete, the majority of the first cutting out and sticking together the small details. I'm really pleased with the outcome though I did struggle a bit with the head (for some reason it just wanted to keep popping off). Overall from the experience I have gathered from my other projects above I found it fairly easy to assemble, however I'm not sure I would recommend this project to a complete beginner.

Rating: Advanced/Expert

Until next time

Haus of Gloom

DIY-Papercraft day!

I have been wanting to try doing papercraft for a long time so thought I should try with something simplistic, and frankly the milk carton is super cute too.

I printed and assembled the template created by the fab kickasspeanut on deviantart.

The template is super easy to follow just cut the straight lines and score and fold the dotted ones. Other than card, printer ink and scissors you pretty much just need sticky tape preferably double sided to glue it together. I made the strawberry one (as shown in pictures) but you can also make chocolate, banana or plain. Anyway enough ranting if it floats your boat do get printing, you definitely won't regret it!


Haus of Gloom

Wet Felting and Tangkou Dolls

Step 1: Laying out the wool fibres into a pattern

 Wet Felting
 
It's been a while blogger, last week I didn't feel much like blogging as had caught a bad flu/cold bug and was down for the count :(. Anyway I'm feeling a bit better and have been busy crafting away today. I thought I would have a try at "Wet Felting" to those unfamiliar with the term "Wet Felting" is basically natural wool fibre matted with hot soapy water to create felt. Sounds easy but my first try was quite a challenge (especially since I didn't cross layer correctly and thus had holes). Note to self and others reading this, while pre-cut felt might seem like a good idea at the time it is an complete pain in the tush to fuse pre-cut felt with the wool fibres (whether glue has anything to do with it I have no idea).

Step 2: Adding hot soapy water

Step 1 (above) is all about laying out your wool fibres into a pattern (least if your doing a tapestry anyway).

Step 2 (right) is the fun part >< adding the hot soapy water and beginning to fuse/agitate the wool fibres together (note to self and others it's definitely worth the investment of a fine mesh or muslin cloth so your fibres don't casually float about.)

Step 3 continue adding soapy water until the fibres are squidgy to touch, then you can start rolling your "tapestry" with your bamboo placemat this should make your tapestry nice and flat (though in the image below I found that although my tapestry was nice and flat my pre-cut felt kept wiggling about :\)

Step 3

Step 4- Finished product

Step 4 once satisfied with the flatness and composition wring the soap out and wash with hot water. When the water comes clear (basically not soapy) wash with cold water, wringing it out as you wash. Et voila one wet felt making tapestry complete :) (I wasn't entirely pleased with my first attempt as I realised that I had layered the layers to finely so I had another attempt (see images left).

My second attempt was definitely more successful a) because I didn't include pre-cut felt and b) because I layered the felt up much more thickly.

I have yet to photograph them but  after my second tapestry attempt I decided it was time to try out making synthetic felt dreads (though it seems I struggle to roll the felt with my bare hands so I ended up having a handy assistant (otherwise known as my mother to roll the length of felt into dreads (and there fairly easy to make you just roll the felt with your hands and add a bit of hot soapy water as you go).

 Completely unrelated but my tangkou doll family expanded (I now have a fab family of 3). Tangkou's have definitely changed since I purchased Marilyn (Tangkou France) last year, the clothing is definitely more detailed and as for face up's well they two have had an "upgrade" with detailed eyeliner and eyebrows (which really surprised me). If you want to see more of my Tangkou Loli Izzabella you can visit my set on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/jam-gloom/sets/72157631761669160/ and if you want to see more of my Tangkou Vampire Veronica you can visit here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jam-gloom/sets/72157631761669164/

Hope you feel inspired 

Haus of Gloom

xox

Digital Processes Tutorial

Model A (head), Model K (body) and Model S (legs)

 
At college today we were provided with the task of merging 3 people together (sounds easy yet really isn't lol) using Photoshop CS 5 and a Wacom Bamboo tablet. The provided "models" are from my class (left to right: Model K, Model S and Model A). I had nothing to do with the photography shooting just post-processing. (Just to be clear). I used a variety of tools to extract the models from the background (white wall, blue carpet) mostly magic wand and refine edge tool, but also used other selection tools, layer masks and sometimes the eraser to get to tricky areas. (the graphics tablet helped with my accuracy in erasing and selecting) I then selected my chosen portions and merged them into a proportionate sequence, Model A  was a struggle to add head-wise into the sequence as the neck line of the other model was angled slightly differently, however I feel for a mock up/practice run I achieved a fairly good outcome. Lastly I place a light grey shadow to create a more realistic feel.

What do you think? Any feedback or suggestions on what I should do next time etc, will be greatly appreciated.

Haus of Gloom

xox

Dolly Diorama making

Dolly Diorama-Bathroom (c) Jam Gloom 2012
 (Do not redistribute any of my photography
 without my consent.)

Had planned to post this yesterday as that was when I made and photographed my dolly dioramas, but I ran out of time. Thankfully kind of a good thing as college kept me busy from doing anything creative outside of the project I am working on.

Close up of the bath Dolly Diorama
(c) Jam Gloom 2012 

Have been wanting to make a dolly diorama for a while and the one's I made yesterday were of a 1/12 scale. The "room" is in fact a old soapbox with the top and lid removed and then lined using double sided sticky tape. I chose a soothing blue for the "bathroom" diorama with blue felt and orchid gift wrap for the floor and walls. The small box on the right hand side of the scene used to be a matchbox but I covered it again with giftwrap and for the drawer knob I used a brads pin. The ceramic bath and washbasket cost £3.99.  The plastic props and doll for that matter are from MGA's Lalaloopsy line (the doll is a version of snow white and the props belong to marina, think the duck is from a littlest pet shop blythe release though). Lastly to make "fake" bubbles I used cotton wool balls. >< Was fairly pleased with my makeshift outcome.
In regards of photography I had an external flash gun pointing downwards (lighting the scene) and a macro lens.

Dolly Diorama 2- The Bedroom (c) Jam Gloom 2012

My second dolly Diorama attempt was using pre-made setting (a fake wooden book that I bought awhile back for £1.99). The plastic props come from MGA's Lalaloopsy line and Moxie Teenz Line (Teddy and purse=Moxie Teenz +Alice doll, cheshire cat, white rabbit, and snow white squirrel=Lalaloopsy). The bed is from the same line as the bath and cost £6.99.
It's not as great as my makeshift room, however I think the outcome is reasonable for the time being.
I used a macro lens and an external flash gun pointing at the doll from 45 degree downwards angle.

Thanks for reading,

Until Next Time

Haus of Gloom

xox

Doll clothes making

What I spent my Monday doing-yay sewing!

To those who have read the about me to the side, my post is likely to come to no surprise but to those who haven't ta-da! This is one of my passions, dolls. (Sounds childish somewhat, but I really adore asian ball-jointed style dolls namely Pullips).

Why do I have a collection of dolls, you ask? Am I a inner child? Well, technically no. I mostly started collecting with the main intention of using them in my photography inspired by the likes of Gina Garan and pullipographers on flickr. The poseability and humanlike features of pullips (well baring the fact they clearly have an oversized cartoonish head) make  them perfect replacements and practice for shooting portrait photography. The great thing is unless something diabolic happens (e.g the hand falls off) dolls will never let you down for a shoot and they won't ever say "I look atrocious in all these images do I really look like that?". Still that aside having human models is usually the best bet (though I don't exactly have many willing friends (kekeke sacrifices- I joke) who will model for me, because they are either camera shy or way too busy -_-. And thus how I fell in love with pullips.

The other positive about using dolls instead of human models is that is much cheaper to style them as any outfit you might buy or sew uses less fabric (and in the case of my meat dress photo, much more hygienic too)...though it does come with some complications...1/6 doll clothes are not exactly fun to make, as they are so tiny and detailed, well sometimes my sewing machine hates me and rucks it up. Anyway think this is my 5th attempt at making dolls clothes (and each time I have used a different pattern). The above picture is basically a hand-drawn dress template pinned onto the fabric in question (in this case a patchwork style fabric). I cut two of these dress shapes out the fabric in case you're wondering. To make sure the fabric doesn't fray I folded a small portion of the fabric on the neckline and the bottom and sewed using the sewing machine. Pretty obvious what I did next... The dress came out fairly well (though annoyingly the machine decided to play up right at the end :( )

Until next time :3

Haus of Gloom

This blog, Haus of Gloom, is now open!

Inevitably corny way to start a blog, I know. But what else can one do? (and that's rhetorical...)

If you haven't read my bio/about me to the side of this blog then I guess I ought to introduce myself. I am a ex-media journalism student (long story as to why I quit that career route) and currently a art and design student specialising in photography. Why have I started blogging you ask? Boredom? Addiction to talking about your daily life? Neither. (well maybe, but shuush...) It was advised at my college that I should attempt to "sell" myself and my work to the public audience, basically to get myself noticed (that and the dozen other students told the exact same thing). So in the past two weeks I have created a dozen or so different ways to stalk me and my portfolio (cough I mean follow, not stalk).

Why title your name as Haus of Gloom and why is your username Jam Gloom? The abbreviated story is that the name Jam stems from my initials and Gloom from my Ruby Gloom faze in Upper School (and no I didn't pick it myself, a friend did and it kinda well stuck, somewhat corny I know). As for Haus of Gloom it's something that popped randomly into my head today, and if I'm honest until all of 2 hours ago I hadn't even considered making a blog today.

So what will "Haus of Gloom" be about? Well I will from time to time post/plague (depending on how you feel) Photography related posts, such as things that inspire me, my own work, tutorials etc. Crafty related projects I am doing and many other unrelated gibberish that might pop into my head that I feel is worth sharing (though inevitably some of that belongs to the land of twitter).

Probably rambled on enough about introductions so I shall clam up and get back to reality, until next time.

Jam of Haus of Gloom

xox

P.S. woohoo stalking links (ahem mean follow, not stalk >>) 

www.flickr.com/photos/jam-gloom

www.500px.com/JamGloom

www.facebook.com/JasmineAmeliaMurrayPhotography

www.saatchionline.com/JasmineAmeliaMurray

www.twitter.com/JamGloom 

www.pinterest.com/JamGloom

(not that I post much on this anymore) www.jam-gloom.deviantart.com