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Melissa Ebling

@mel_ebling

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Doll and toy customization and restoration
pen portrait artist
occasionally canvas/acrylic painter, manga style greyscale

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About 17 years ago, in high school for an art assignment, I drew my then partner playing the violin, but never finished with me in the piano.
I used to play.. like 25 years ago...
so this is like an update.

Being inspired by Ludovico Einaudi's Primavera, I finally put my idea on a canvas. The beautiful piano and powerful violin is just lovely and brings me tears. Definitely give it a listen.
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#ludovicoeinaudi #primavera #pianist #violinist #acrylicpainting by @mel_ebling

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4 days ago

Tayama 🚬
Finally getting around to posting my vision of Tayama..
Making a young face with proper shadows is a pain. Like, there's gonna be obvious smile lines, cheeks, and even under eye shadows, but it made her look oooolld. I think I found a decent balance.
Then looking up references and doing the pose myself, Lord have mercy.. having her flat footed, crouching, semi leaning, but not on a crate, then jacket maybe rustled, shoulder up higher due to lean, ugh. Oh and her hair being slightly tilted but still straight bangs. How her ears look and earrings hanging behind her hair.. 💀
People hate drawing and painting hands, but that was the easiest part of this 🤦‍♀️ still looks good next to Sasaki ❤️ 💙
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#yanisuu #smokingbehindthesupermarketwithyou #jinushi #ヤニすう #スーパーの裏でヤニ吸うふたり by @mel_ebling

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13 days ago

Since when did smokers have so few human rights?
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My realistic version of Sasaki. The moment that started off the adventure of two smokers slowly falling in love and realizing their feelings for each other are more than just friendly care.
I don't know why my brain was able to get a better feel for facial muscles and expression from making a skeleton first then adding in eyes, nose, and skin 🤷‍♀️

Yes, yes, I know. He's japanese, cut me some slack, so I had another look in mind. My Sasaki was fairly thin as well, with visible Adam's apple, jaw and neck neck tendons, and temples.. but he was not as tall as the character of Sasaki.

I tried to keep his hair mostly black, maybe a few stray greys, but also have the light from the supermarket shine on his hair and have it look like light and not frosted tips. Maybe he uses some hair gel..

Even though his character has thin eyebrows and only pupils, I imagine he has brown irises and tried to keep his eyebrows minimal, but not nonexistent. Dude needs those for his over the top expressions.

He also seems to have unusual hand positions, or sometimes like he doesn't know what to do with his hands. Maybe it's just something I notice because I do that too.
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#smokingbehindthesupermarketwithyou #jinushi #supernouradeyanisuufutari #ヤニすう #yanisuu by @mel_ebling

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a month ago

Angel Hatsune Miku
Commission from @offensivelyeclipsa
Probably the easiest figure I've ever put together 👏 only downside was she wa missing a half circle on her ankle and needed a heavy, solid base. She is very much so top heavy and going down face first. So she received a new apoxie half circle anklet and a nice base with two bolts screwed in under the birds.
Sealed with duraclear matte varnish, Mr super clear, painted with acrylic paints, blushed with mungyo chalk pastels.
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#angelmiku #mikuhatsune #hatsunemiku by @mel_ebling

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a month ago

Priestess and the air signs, Aquarius, Gemini, Libra
Commission from @offensivelyeclipsa
As usual, just any gave other than the plan boring face they had originally 🤣
Aquarius got a jug with pouring water with water designs on her face.
Gemini got yin yang with castor and pollux constellations and some red designs to match her necklace 🤷‍♀️
Libra got the scale, of course, but with the Egyptian twist of the feather of truth and a heavy heart of sin. The tattoo on her face has the heart heavier than feather but I have her holding the heart up high in a pose to balance the feel out 🤣
Priestess got some moon phases with the all seeing eye with a moon and sun tattoo like the tarot cards
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#airsigns #tarot #Gemini #libra #Aquarius by @mel_ebling

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a month ago

Fishgirl WIP photos- coral, dunkleosteus skull, fish, eel
Statue model made by Sam Greenwell
Commission from @offensivelyeclipsa
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This was definitely a vomit of blue and orange. Trying to make things stand out as individuals but still match the color theme.
The dunkleosteus skull was gonna be hard. How to make the armoured skull of an ancient mega jawed sea creature blue/ orange... well blue seemed to be the better option with light orange highlights to differentiate the plates and segments of the skull. With a light dusting of reddish barnacles.

Eel was a pain... so many details in a tiny face. I wanted everything to be obvious but not mush of lazy coloring. Each mouth tentacle has to go Stonehenge that was a similar color and it disappeared. Red scales with highlights looked like weird stripes. Trying to figure out what would look better, gotta make the teeth and eyes very visible.. I think I did alright in the end. It was supposed to be just glued on the side, but that felt too weak. So a couple holes and wooden pegs later, eel and fish are secured into fishgirl.
Fish was easy, just a stripy little dude that didn't face into nothingness against the stripey fishgirl fins. 🤷‍♀️
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#blue #orange #fishgirl #samgreenwell #dunkleosteus by @mel_ebling

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2 months ago

Fishgirl WIP pictures- body
Statue model by Sam Greenwell
Commission from @offensivelyeclipsa
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Eclipsa loves this artist, loves the statue, just not the color. She wanted me to paint her like a bright and vivid saltwater creature with only two colors to go off of, blue and orange, and NO GREEN so help me God 🤜💥 she liked the @dollightfully mermaid and how she was colored, pale body, bright fins, and accents.
So I went off the following photos for inspiration and guide.

Blue and orange bettas and coral, blue eels. I liked the stripiness of lionfish, as you can see from the spikes..
I actually didn't have the colors as vivid at first. I went pretty mild with the blues and oranges but Eclipsa demands contrast! So darker shadows, brighter highlights, saturated orange, all highs and lows of true blue. I worried if it would be hard to tell one thing from another with blue and orange, but the og colors are fairly dark, grungey greens and browns and you can discern the pieces in there.
Of course an artist is their own artist critic, I feel like the fins look too much like feathers, maybe my painting or the molding, but the Eclipse is happy and that's what matters 🌙
Can't unsee eggplants in the mold 🍆
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#fishgirl #samgreenwell by @mel_ebling

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2 months ago

Fishgirl
Model made by Sam Greenwell
Commission by @offensivelyeclipsa
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What else can I say besides GORGEOUS. I love this sculpt. The detail in everything, body, fins, scales, coral. All amazing.
Maybe it's just me, but I couldn't not see eggplants all over though 👀
I'll have to make a separate post just for the different stages I worked on 🤣
Statue was a base color of white. Came in pieces, head, head spikes, body, hands, fish, eel, coral, dunkleosteus skull and base, dunk jaw.
Sprayed with Mr Super Clear matte varnish, painted with acrylic paints, blushed with mungyo chalk pastels, finishing varnish duraclear matte varnish.
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#fishgirl #samgreenwell #statue #paintedfigure by @mel_ebling

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2 months ago

Romi
Commission from @offensivelyeclipsa
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Always giving me artistic freedom. Just went wild with sith like tattoos, kind of like darth talon. She wanted romi to be fairly symmetrical, which I can get down with, but I did some mirrored symmetry and volume symmetry. So some tattoos are the same on the other side and others just have the same amount of tattoos to skin ratio..ish.
Originally a pink twi'lek, I can't believe I didn't get a before picture of her pinkness... this doll is beautiful. I loved working with her. The body is just gorgeous and joints are so smooth...
Anyways, i dyed her in red Rit Dye More. During which, one arm became soft and weak then broke. I repaired it with apoxie sculpt and was thankfully able to color match and then cover-up the apoxie with tattoos, painted with acrylic paints.
Tattoos were first sketched out in prisma watercolor pencils. If I had other crazy designs in mind, I discussed it with Eclipse before painting them on the doll. Overall simple, dye, restring, tattoos. Simple but plentiful 👏
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#bjd #twilek #darthtalon #dolltattoo #sithlord by @mel_ebling

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2 months ago

Teddy bear Hatsune Miku 🧸
Major wip photos
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Multiple spots in her hair had to be broken to lay down evenly and still want as flat as I wanted. Most connections had to have small holes drilled for support posts since glue alone wouldn't keep pieces together.

Top shirt ruffle had to be broke and reassembled to fit over her shoulders and leave empty space for the overall straps. Straps had to be broken since they didn't lay flat on her back or curve over her shoulders. A lot of the strapping was connected with apoxie.

There were major gaps in the skirt. Her torso and legs fit in it and everything lined up, so maybe the skirt wasn't finished printing, or the maker wanted a gap to make sure things didn't overlap, but I had to fill in a lot of gap.

Bear was another anomaly. Head, arms, bow, and miku's arm and hand. Her hand had a molded spot for the bear's right arm, then that arm had to line up with the bear's had and bow, the left arm, while making sure the bear's body fit in the spot in miku's arm. Then miku's arm didn't line up with her shoulder.. dremel was needed to flatten and attached posts to make the arm look seamless.

Then the bear sitting on miku's lap fine from the side, didn't line up with her arm position. For the bear to sit like in the product photo, there was major gap from bear on skirt. Then instead of the right leg resting on Miku's leg, it just stuck out in space.

Her head was connected to the hair. Mistake... when her head lined up with her body on the couch and pillow, her hair was no where close to the couch. When her hair lined up with the couch, her neck was so far away from her body. Needless to say, more breaks and post holes were made.

Since the chair legs didn't line up and lay flat, I just replaced those with wood.

Her body was screwed into the couch so she doesn't move. Everything is finally lined up and looks decent.

"maybe you did it wrong," but looking at product photos, and gluing things together, nothing lined up. Hopefully whoever gets the kit next, has better luck. From my understanding, this was a very old figure that someone recreated into kit form, so it's not perfect
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#hatsunemiku #garagekit #animefigure by @mel_ebling

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2 months ago

Teddy bear Hatsune Miku
Commission from Mr. @offensivelyeclipsa !
If anyone wants to try and get this kit and put together, be forewarned, precede might not fit the way they should. There's also not a lot of reference photos. I hope I got enough angles to show off the way her hair is supposed to lay on the couch and floor.
I painted her with main colors of red, pink, purple, blue, and tan acrylic paint. Her original colors were pretty dark and a lot brown, light and dark.
Tiny drink "liquid" is just uv resin with dark blue dye, then cured, then light blue resin added on top.
Sealed with msc and duraclear matte varnish.
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#hatsunemiku #animefigure #garagekit #vocaloid #teddy bear hatsune by @mel_ebling

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2 months ago

Endive 🥬 from Chowder
I apologize to those who have been blessed with the gift of sight, but I have used my art for evil.
Commission from @offensivelyeclipsa
Lovely clothes made by the always talented @dolluxedesigns
Green hair from @dollplanethair
Eclipse actually sent the Vladonna body for this project over a year ago. So long ago, I can't find the pictures of her pre-orange bath. We had tried using different hands to see which set worked better for endive since the og hands were bleh. We tried monster high Treesa hands and some others, but no pegs seemed to fit the vladonna wrists. Thankfully EAH dude hands looked the best and actually fit.
Endive was postponed for other projects until there were no projects left but her. She sat naked, orange and headless, in my drawer for too long. I had a bad bout of depression and couldn't even do a reroot for the Bloodgood head.
When I finally forced myself back into an artsy rhythm, endive just became a silly thing to joke about because.. damn, she's.. she's something alright. She got hella nails and a sassy face, that I think was affected by the orange dye, but 💩 🤷‍♀️
Damn those giant red lips. She's just hilarious evil and hideous. So behold, this lady
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#endive #lettuce #chowder #vladonna by @mel_ebling

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2 months ago