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DerynifanK

March 17, 2024, 03:48:44 PM
Happy St Patrick's Day. Enjoy the one day of the year when the whole world is Irish.

Re: Work In Progress--Deryni Action Figure Project (was Duncan Action Figure)

Started by Evie, March 11, 2012, 08:52:30 PM

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Evie

#60
Duncan is extremely adamant that I reassure all of you that this is not what it looks like!   :o



I went to the Thrift Store today in hopes of finding a new body for Duncan that would not only look more like he's lifted a sword and shield on occasion in his lifetime, but also would be better articulated (i.e. jointed limbs and preferably waist as well) so that he could be put into poses.  A lot of the 12" male action figures have these features, and I was hoping I might get lucky and find a decent one at the Thrift Store, and if I didn't like his head, there are safe ways to swap out heads and bodies.

So off I went, but alas, there were no male bodies there.  Well, none in Duncan's size at any rate, and none in mine either that I'd have any interest in dragging home.  But I digress.  Instead, in the toy section, I found a terrible sight.  I rescued this fair damsel from a horrific situation--a shelf that looked like the aftermath of an apparent Barbie Doll massacre--and Fr Duncan wishes you all to know that he is merely standing in front of her in an attempt to preserve her modesty.  And I believe that.  I really do.  

<Malcolm Reynolds voice>  "But she was naked and all...articulate!" </Malcolm Reynolds voice>

* Evie solemnly wipes growing smirk off her face

She had the lovely articulation I was hoping to find, and it wasn't her fault it was on the wrong gender body!  Oh, sure, some of the other girls had prettier bodies, but could they move them as well?  Would they look as graceful on a dance floor at Twelfth Night or pose as beautifully in Schola robes?  I think not!  She even had feet that aren't permanently on tiptoe as if she's wearing invisible high heels.  There was only one problem with her.   She would have been perfect for Helena, except that she was golden blonde.  And while the Sharpie trick did wonders for Duncan's hair, I don't happen to have an auburn marker.  

Now, granted, as a young widow, Helena's likely to keep her hair covered most of the time anyway, so did that matter?  Well, yes, because sometimes the front of the hairline or the end of the hair can end up peeking out from beneath a hood or a veil and wimple.  (And it's definitely visible if only the veil is worn.)  Because of the thickness of Barbie hair, it doesn't coil up into a bun or tuck into a snood or coif all that well, and a big bulge on the back of her head would not make a very pleasing silhouette under a hood or a veil and wimple.  So what to do?

And then I saw her...a sweet face (if wearing a little too much lipstick, which I might end up changing later if I get enough painting skill to be able to do so without messing the face up) framed by light auburn hair.  Granted, Helena's hair is supposed to be a darker auburn, and it's supposed to be curly rather than straight, but this was an improvement.  Unfortunately, the Helena head was on a standard Barbie body with the rubber only-slightly-bendable legs and hard plastic unjointed arms.

They were only $1.99 each.  So I bought them both.  As soon as we got home, they both got alcohol sponge baths to wipe off the grime of grubby kid hands, Thrift Store price stickers, and God only knows what off their little bodies, and then it was time to run their little heads and necks under running hot water.  That had the dual purpose of washing their hair and softening the plastic enough so that I could, with a little effort, manage to work their heads off their neck joints safely.  I put the Helena head on its new body and figure I'll keep the blonde head to practice my painting skills.  (There are online tutorials for stripping off the original paint and repainting a Barbie or action figure face.)  I don't really have any need for the extra body, though I might keep it just in case I need a spare for some reason.

So here's a closer look at Helena's nicely articulated body.  Duncan insisted I preserve her modesty, so I had to find some way to cover her up a bit, but not so much that you can't see her "bendy places":



No, I'm very sorry, but that is not AEdwige's head.  I know you were all hoping.   ;)

So, now that I have the right head on the right body, what next?  I thought about trying the Sharpie trick again, but I'm not sure if a brown Sharpie on light auburn hair will result in the look I'm hoping for or if I'll end up losing the redness completely.  And I am afraid that if I try to combine brown Sharpie with orange Sharpie to go for a more auburn shade, I'll end up with something too brassy.  What to do?  Maybe I can use that extra "practice head" to work some of this out.  In the meantime, all of that hair needs to be able to lie smoothly under veils and hoods, so it was time to arrange it.  It's too thick to braid in the conventional way and have it look right, so instead I did this:



This is similar enough to a 12th Century style of wrapping hair that I figured it would work fine for my rescued young lady, so I found my hair taping needle and some suitable ribbon.  I chose blue since if her hair is ever visible, that's one of the colors in the Servants of Saint Camber cincture cords, so she'll be color coordinated with her daily wardrobe.  I was hoping she could just borrow Duncan's Schola robe, but unfortunately he is about half an inch taller than she is and his arms are longer as well, and his sleeves hang well beyond her fingertips, so I suppose she'll need new clothes eventually.  The pink ballet slippers will also need to be repainted, probably changed to a more versatile black.  But that's for another day, and in the meantime Duncan has lent her his old jeans and T-shirt.  It's not like he ever wears them anyway.



"In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas."

--WARNING!!!--
I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words, and I'm not afraid to use it!

Shiral

 ;D Why of COURSE he's shielding her to preserve her modesty! 

But that's not stopping him from enjoying it, is he?  =o)

Melissa
You can have a sound mind in a healthy body--Or you can be a nanonovelist!

Evie

Helena felt quite out of place wearing those odd clothes, so she made herself a linen underdress that fits her properly.  (Actually it was almost too snug to go over her shoulders, but she managed to squeeze into it.)  Duncan lent her one of his dress tunics to wear as an overdress, and she switched out her pink shoes for black ones.  As she doesn't have a proper veil yet, we just tucked her hair under some leftover linen so she'll look presentable for mixed company:



And then we tried another way to wrap the head-gear so I could see if the fabric will drape enough to make a proper wimple or if it will be too stiff.  If it's not thin enough to have the proper drape, I might need to go with silk or some other very fine fabric instead.  Maybe handkerchief fabric, something that will look like fine linen and not overly fancy?

"In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas."

--WARNING!!!--
I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words, and I'm not afraid to use it!

Shiral

Quote from: Evie on March 24, 2012, 10:38:02 PM

No, I'm very sorry, but that is not AEdwige's head.  I know you were all hoping.   ;)


Awww, PLEASE?
This is where the Deryni Universe meets Mary Shelley's Frankenstein!
I can just  see you wandering through thrift stores looking at old dolls, thinking  "This body would go nicely with her head..yes, that would work...."  ;D

Melissa
You can have a sound mind in a healthy body--Or you can be a nanonovelist!

Jerusha

I now have this horrible picture in my head of Duncan frantically digging up that shallow grave only to find....a headless Barbie doll!  :o
From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggity beasties and things that go bump in the night...good Lord deliver us!

 -- Old English Litany

Evie

This nightmare brought to you by Evie and Mattel, makers of Deryni Barbie....   ;D
"In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas."

--WARNING!!!--
I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words, and I'm not afraid to use it!

derynifanatic64

This thread is really taking on a life of its own.  It's almost like a fanfic story.
We will never forget the events of 9-11!!  USA!! USA!!

Elkhound

Quote from: Shiral on March 25, 2012, 01:33:10 AM
;D Why of COURSE he's shielding her to preserve her modesty! 

But that's not stopping him from enjoying it, is he?  =o)

Melissa

*channeling Duncan*I'm celebate, not dead!/*channeling Duncan*

Evie

#68
LOL!  So true, Elkhound!   :D

OK, ever since chat ended I've been researching ecclesiastical heraldry (which it turns out has different sorts of achievements of arms--that fancy stuff around the shield--than regular heraldry) and trying to come up with a nice coat of arms and achievement that would be suitable for Duncan once he's stepped down as Duke of Cassan and is simply an auxiliary bishop.  I wanted it to draw elements from his original McLain arms while at the same time not be too derivative of it, and something to show his loyalties both to the Haldane Kings and to the Church would be a plus.  Alkari gets full credit for showing me a rampant lion with a crozier charge online which ended up inspiring me in this direction:



I think I'm finally figuring out how to use GIMP.  Kinda-sorta.   :D  If the lines of the white lion look a bit washed out, that's because he started off as a sort of greyish-tan, and I had to figure out how to remove the color while leaving behind the outline.

The blazon for the shield would be something like "Per chevron throughout argent and azure, two roses gules and a rampant lion maintaining a crozier argent."  To be completely correct, I'm wondering if the roses ought to be totally red without the yellow and green bits, but I'm afraid I'll mess this up if I try to fiddle with it more.  The motto "Ad Lucem" means "Toward the Light," or at least so a webpage on Latin mottoes assured me, but if that's incorrect, let me know.  It seemed a fitting personal motto for a Deryni bishop, though if something like "In service to the Light" would fit in the banner, I might try out that variation and see how it looks in the scrollwork.  (Assuming, of course, that someone would be willing to translate that into proper Latin for me!)

"In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas."

--WARNING!!!--
I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words, and I'm not afraid to use it!

Elkhound

Add that the roses are 'seeded or & spined vert'.

And wouldn't the crosier and processional cross behind the shield be for a diocesan bishop, rather than an auxiliary?

Evie

#70
Actually, I'd be more likely to just change the roses rather than the blazon, since the McLain roses are gules.

I'll need to go back and double-check the ecclesiastical heraldry sources again now that I'm more awake.  I was thinking he'd be entitled to both, but if he's not, it would be easy enough to drop the processional cross.  I'm almost 100% certain he's entitled to the crosier, though, even as an auxiliary bishop rather than a diocesan one.
"In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas."

--WARNING!!!--
I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words, and I'm not afraid to use it!

Evie

#71
OK, after a bit more research....

Matters are somewhat more complicated in that there are various traditions of ecclesiastical heraldry--for instance, Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox--and while the Church of Gwynedd is inspired by the first two, it doesn't adhere perfectly to the practices of either.  One Anglo-Catholic site I visited proposed the following for an ordinary who is a titular bishop:  

"English" proposal--
Mitre, crosier and key (America) or one or two crosiers (Britain)    

"Roman" proposal--
Green pontifical hat with 6 tassels per side, single-barred processional cross

Granted, since Duncan isn't part of the Roman Church, nor is he living in America or England, neither option particularly applies.  KK mentioned the mitre being used for a crest when this project came up in chat last night, so that's why I was going with a look leaning more closely towards the English proposal.  And it would certainly be easy enough to erase the processional cross out of the achievement I posted above.  Or, since when I did a Google Image search for "auxiliary bishop heraldry," most of the images that came up were of the "Roman" sort, I could go with something like this:



I'm really not fond of that green galero, though.   :-\  The mitre is a lot more attractive, in my opinion at any rate.  And in the achievements that were of this sort, they all contained the green galero and processional cross, but no crozier.  And as Duncan belongs to a completely different tradition than either of these, in a kingdom that probably has its own ecclesiastical heraldry rules, it could be that an auxiliary bishop there could use both the crozier and the processional cross, rather than a key, in his achievement if I stick with the more "English" style I posted earlier.  And should KK herself decide to express a preference, then of course the Subcreator of the Eleven Kingdoms (to borrow Tolkien's term for a world-builder) holds precedence over anything our world's heralds say.   :D

Here's what KK had to say about what Duncan probably would have used during the Mearan War, when he was both Duke and Bishop and his permanent status was still in a state of flux:  "<KK> At that point, with things still in flux, I'd guess he was using the McLain arms with saltired cross and crozier, probably a mitre as a crest, and maybe with the lion holding a cross in its paws. More suitable ecclesiastical arms would be devised at a later date."  So that's why I was leaning towards him retaining something of that look in his later achievement, only changing the shield to reflect his new personal arms instead of his old McLain arms.  Well, that and the fact that the galero puts in mind of a tricked-out sombrero for some reason.   ;D
"In necessariis unitas, in non-necessariis libertas, in utrisque caritas."

--WARNING!!!--
I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words, and I'm not afraid to use it!

Elkhound

Quote from: Evie on March 26, 2012, 09:09:36 AM
Actually, I'd be more likely to just change the roses rather than the blazon, since the McLain roses are gules.

Differencing by tincture is a perfectly respectable method.  Not as common in British heraldry as in German, but not unknown.  Look at the Wars of the Roses; the Plantagenets used a yellow rose, and the two cadet branches, the Lancasters and the Yorks, used red and white.

Elkhound

What about, when he was both a bishop and a duke, a crossed crosier and sword or lance behind the shield, with a miter enclosed by a ducal coronet or a ducal helm with a miter in lieu of a crest?

Alkari

For Action Duncan, I think Evie wants to do his banner as it would be post QFSC, after he has abdicated as duke. 

The description in TKJ when he rides out on the Mearan campaign is that he had a -

"... jazerant of quilted leather studded with steel, the edges bound inbright McLain tartan and the McLain device picked out in silken stitches on the left breast.  A sword and crozier crossed in saltire behind the embroidered shield gave hint of his dual status, but only at close range."

So a new bishop-only form of arms with crossed crosiers en saltire, or sword and crozier the same way, would be consistent with what he'd previously used.  As I could not ever see Duncan adopting any type of squashed sombrero hat-with-tassles device on his arms  :D  (Imagine what Alaric and Dhugal would say to him!), IMHO the first design would be simple, elegant and appropriate, with or without the central bishop's mitre.