Andy
Is there anything that Emelie Jensen AKA Tomodachi Island cannot do? we’ve seen Emelie custom many platforms, made her own resin toys, illustrations, 2D drawings, 3D designs and the list goes on. After seeing endless WIP of her latest custom Ori – Bode Broad. Designed by Mark Bode x Da Bronx, and his company Planet 6. By far this is one custom that will surly raise eyebrows due to the face the amount of OCD Emelie has when customising her ideas into a toy. We worried about how much time she was spending on this custom as many artists/customisers would tell you that the actual amount of hours spent would reflect on the price charged for a commission like this one. Turning a belly dancer into Sci-Fi Pinup girl who thought of that idea? Emelie presents to you Ori.
Anyway getting back to this stunning custom Ori. if you’ve been following Emelie’s Instagram feed you should’ve seen Emelie chop and change like the drape that the figure had and other bits. Making life hard for herself HA, but this shows Emelie willing to spend more time to make it her own without fully changing the OG figure too much so you couldn’t distinguish the OG figure.
“This toy is so well sculpted and something you can’t appreciate in a photo. Every curve in her body is perfect and she is so well weighted. Even though she was well sculpted there were many bits that wouldn’t work with the style I wanted to go for. I had a long an hard job in front of me. Cutting her drape off was the hardest part! I decided to keep it at first but as I went along it was just getting in the way. So I brought out my dremel and started hacking away at it. At this point there was no turning back and I just had to go with it. Little did I know of the massive lump of resin that was sitting in her feet. I nearly killed myself getting that out but I won in the end. After this I had to re-sculpt her legs which took me an age. If there is one thing I’ve learnt over the past year, it is that nothing will get in my way of achieving what I want when it comes to customizing.”
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Her face was the most important thing to me. I wanted her to look like one of my Sci-Fi Pinup girls, so I had to restructure her face. Getting the eyes in there was not easy and this is when I wish I had more than one set of hands. After allot of struggling and re-positioning I managed to secure them in one place. But before I even started sculpting, I had to find a way to make her visor…. took me a while to figure that one out. After allot of thinking I had a light-bulb moment! It was a bit of a gamble to be fair, but worked out! I found a place online that did see through Christmas tree baubles in all sorts of colours and since I needed the visor to have a slight bend in it, it seemed like the perfect option. I ordered two different sizes as I didn’t know which one would be the right size. Funny enough the smaller one had the exact same bend as her face. WIN! I also redid her nose and added those big ears. Don’t even get me started on the ears…..
This was Emelie’s first fully human custom she states “I really want to design my very own Pinup Vinyl Toy one day! That would be a dream come true! I’ve got so many ideas and a much better understanding of it now” If we had a company we would give her a shot, would you?
One thing, this is only a personal taste but we preferred blue/ turquoise colour that Emelie toyed around with when she was deciding on the colour Ori should have. Anyway we’re sure the collector is happy with the results. If not send it to us 🙂
Check out our interview with Tomodachi Island HERE
Find Tomodachi via Faceboook, Instagram and check out her Etsy storeHERE which has some cute and awesome accessories and customs.
Much more on her store that is just a sample! have a look at her sketches too take a look at http://tomodachiisland.com/
