Asmus Bilbo reveal!

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Very nice of you to share your techniques:) - I don't keep secrets either. I don't blame people who DO who work enough to possibly make a profit, but for me can't imagine. Don't know if I'd ever have the guts to do it but I'd love to re-hair my Legolas. Took me forever to decide to buy him 'coz of the "cake batter" look to the hair.
If I did I'd like to try human hair wefts glued on.

On a side note, Sideshow hasn't shipped Bilbo #2 or Thorin #2 yet, but they were paid off except shipping. Now there is a final ship cost listed. I hope that means that boat in California brought in an ASMUS shipment for Sideshow - I wanna work on my displays. I have little LOTR/Hobbit displays in 2 separate areas - one where the TV and blue rays are kept w. some books and collectibles like the Erebor key. Might as well have figs in places I can enjoy!

No problem. I’d stray away from human hair. I did it once early on (cut a piece of my own hair lol) and it looked so silly. Human hair strands strands are too thick. This could be a good match for Legolas....
0f739e9c86a94dde1394fb4cf288648c.jpg



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Thank you very much for sharing your technique, again, it's stunning !

No problem! Oh yeah forgot to mention the hair I chose for Bilbo....
9b718ceda39462e3ba2ccf58f105ae51.jpg



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Thank you everyone! I hear you about the face the more I think about it and look at every statue sideshow and weta have made and the movies themselves of course the heads are adult proportion to the bodies not kid proportion or “little people” proportion. I put the head on my hot toys Marty and the proportion actually looks better. However shaving that plastic helmet does make a difference.

You'r daaaaaaaaaamn right.

Ask away. I don’t keep secrets. It took me a couple years to figure out my method with no help from others (amazing how these hair artists keep their secrets to themselves. I won’t name names. lol)

Lots of awesomeness, right there!! :)

Unlike most guys who hair I do a more expedient route which saves me time so it’s not as daunting and I can do more. I may sacrifice some detail (I’m by no means as good as these Asian artists or Rhamier) but hey This isn’t my full time job lol.
It usually takes me about two hours to do the hair. Basically dremmel the plastic off. I use basic super sculpy to shape a bald head. Paint bald head dark brown. This will effectively hide any bald spots during the hairing process. Materials- Tibetan lamb doll hair from morezemore eBay seller. Finding right color is key. I don’t dye. Scissors. Fabritac glue small bottle. Here’s where I’m different than most. Most guys glue one strand at a time which takes a LONG time. I apply some glue on the head a little at a time and apply clumps of hair to it. I do this in layers trimming and styling the hair as I go. The distance between the layers is key- too close the hair will look too thick, too far- the hair will look too thin. Both look ridiculous. Working from bottom to top. Creating a seamless hairline where glue doesn’t show is the hardest. I make an indent in the sculpy to do this. I’m gonna do Frodo next so I’ll post some progress pics of how I do him.

Wow. Amazing breakdown. And you learnt all that on your own... I feel challenged myself, even if it will definitely take me years, like it happened to you! Unfortunately, I can't get into that right now... :-(

OK... Let's ask away!

- Regarding the scalp: I guess Super Sculpey is needed because of Asmus' heads not being actual heads but a kit of parts glued together. When rooting a conventional head, there would be enough material making up the HS to sculpt the scalp out of it, and no added structural stuff would be needed. Right?

- Regarding painting the scalp: I take it that if you paint the scalp in the closest color to that of the hair, you have to hair the scalp densely anyway, so that only minor thinness here and there is left. That's where the painted headsculpt would kick in and save us from having to root even more densely. It is a trick, a shortcut which, if properly used (and not abused), leads to a realistically looking, appearingly more dense rooting. Right? It doesn't save you having to do a lot of rooting. It saves you having to do even more. Correct?
But then, what about areas where, because of styling, the hairline must be visible? Think Legolas, or a baldie like Picard. I guess that the huge change in flesh color will be visible and look ugly, right? If you can just style the hair so that no hairline is visible (as it usually is with Hobbits), you need not to worry, because the hair strands cover scalp color transitions. But try to imagine Legolas' temples. All that hair tightly styled backwards. You just can't have the flesh go brown right there, can you? It would show and look unnatural! So what would you do in such instance?
Honestly, I always thought the scalp was painted of same fleshy color as the rest of the head, maybe even paler. Just as the real thing...


- Regarding the actual rooting:

0) Fabric glue because of its flexible curated form? Doesn't it cure to a too-thick, non-transparent mass?
Why the small bottle? Judging by online pics, all bottles seem to have the same precision tip.

1) What kind of stuff does the Tibetan lamb hair come attached to? Is it like some plastic card? Do you actually cut strands off the card? If the card was a thin sheet of (matt) transparent plastic couldn't you just cut patches of it and directly glue them on the scalp? Wouldn't that save you time and look better?

2) When doing the hairline, and because of the difficulty of doing it properly, do you proceed hair-by-hair? Any tips on doing hairlines? Can you show us some of the ones you have done?

3) When rooting, does the eventual hair styling have any impact? (parting line, hair growth, etc)
What do you mean exactly by "distance between the layers"? Are these layers the successive hair applications from bottom to top, or different regions you mentioned, such as sideburns, etc? That distance you mention, how can be determined and kept? What is better, gluing bigger flocks, or smaller?

4) Layers: should I assume that each card of TL hair comes with all the hair needed to do the different layers on one HS? TLH cards seem to be inexpensive, at ca. $10 including shipping, aren't they?

5) Trimming: any particular remark on this step? Something we must consider? What about mistakes made when trimming? Are they undoable?

6) Styling: can TLH be washed with soap and keep the curls?
Hair-rooters use tibetan lamb hair because it is finer. Can it be worked upon with heat, just as normal human hair? (to straighten up or to intensify the curls)

7) With longer hair, such as Aragorn's or Gandalf's, does the rooting become simpler? But there would still be layers anyway, right?

8) What about beards? Does the process change much?


Could Asmus do it this way? No way. And I do the expedient route. Here’s the thing. For figures with curly hair synthetic hair would look ridiculous cause it’s so straight. The hobbits would look like the Beatles. The only synthetic hair I’ve seen with some curls is the black toys joker. MAYBE if they found some curly synthetic hair it can be achieved but you still have the challenge of layering and styling. Hobbit hair has different layers- sideburns, mullet back hair, etc. and it would only look right if these layers were achieved. TOTALLY different challenge then the long one length hair Aragorn or gandalf. Basically the shorter the hair the bigger the challenge for it to look right
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- Regarding Asmus:

1) Why would Asmus use plastic hair instead of TLH, especially when the latter is so superior and cheap? And I am sure that Asmus could get it even cheaper via bulk buying. They could even ask their provider to supply the TLH ready to be glued, attached to some thin transparent film that would be applied directly onto the scalp. Things like that. There are many chances of optimization.

2) You say it took you 2 hours to do Bilbo (which is really astonishing btw). I will assume all the dremmelling and redoing the scalp was not included in that time lapse (Asmus would not need to do any of that btw). My question: considering that Asmus does have people that get trained and paid to really get good and quick at doing this kind of stuff (not that you are not, considering you took a couple of years to perfectionate your technique and skills), and that they do it on a daily basis, and assuming that they might even have engineers capable of building tools and procedures to speed up and/or improve the quality of rooting, don't you think that they might be able to match or better your output, in the same time you took, and for a more than reasonable extra cost? (Don't know about you guys, but I'd sure say "YES"...........!!!)

EDIT: 3) Here you are synthetic curled hair! :)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/M00822-MOR...m-Curls-A60-/201429520672?hash=item2ee6229120



Please keep us uptaded on your Frodo. Maybe WIP pics would be more effective!
Thanks for you help Cman!
Best,
m.

EDIT: for the record, I just found this guide to rooted hair with TLH...

https://morezmore.wordpress.com/2015/04/20/how-to-make-dolls-hair-tibetan-lamb/

... via any of morezmore's ebay listings. Morezmore seems to be a powerhouse on anything doll-related and dollhouse furniture. Absolutely amazing. I had already somehow/somewhen stumbled upon them, but then I completely forgot about.
I have sent them an email with questions. Should I get an answer, I'll let you all guys know. I am also contacting Asmus via email with Cman's custom and morezmore info. Let's see how they react... :)
 
No problem! Oh yeah forgot to mention the hair I chose for Bilbo....
9b718ceda39462e3ba2ccf58f105ae51.jpg



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Could you tell us which part of this TLH correspond to which layer of the whole hair?
Thanks again!!
m.
 
No problem! Oh yeah forgot to mention the hair I chose for Bilbo....
9b718ceda39462e3ba2ccf58f105ae51.jpg



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thank you for posting the specific colors! And just looking at that Tibetan lamb - IMO that would also be perfect hair for Thorin, parts of the waves look dead-on. Not that I think Thorin REALLY needs a re-hairing. But eventually I'd like to do a BOFA Thorin - also I am just plain curious what silkier, more "flowy" hair would look like. Also a bit of blood and dirt on a BOFA version - that's a long-term project tho:horror.

Legolas I think - he's not horrible now that I own him - but - yeah, I think re-hairing him would be a huge improvement.
 
Thank you for posting the specific colors! And just looking at that Tibetan lamb - IMO that would also be perfect hair for Thorin, parts of the waves look dead-on. Not that I think Thorin REALLY needs a re-hairing. But eventually I'd like to do a BOFA Thorin - also I am just plain curious what silkier, more "flowy" hair would look like. Also a bit of blood and dirt on a BOFA version - that's a long-term project tho:horror.

Legolas I think - he's not horrible now that I own him - but - yeah, I think re-hairing him would be a huge improvement.

No prob! Yeah Thorin is great but the wavier hair would bring the realism to another level.


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You'r daaaaaaaaaamn right.



Lots of awesomeness, right there!! :)



Wow. Amazing breakdown. And you learnt all that on your own... I feel challenged myself, even if it will definitely take me years, like it happened to you! Unfortunately, I can't get into that right now... :-(

OK... Let's ask away!

- Regarding the scalp: I guess Super Sculpey is needed because of Asmus' heads not being actual heads but a kit of parts glued together. When rooting a conventional head, there would be enough material making up the HS to sculpt the scalp out of it, and no added structural stuff would be needed. Right?

- Regarding painting the scalp: I take it that if you paint the scalp in the closest color to that of the hair, you have to hair the scalp densely anyway, so that only minor thinness here and there is left. That's where the painted headsculpt would kick in and save us from having to root even more densely. It is a trick, a shortcut which, if properly used (and not abused), leads to a realistically looking, appearingly more dense rooting. Right? It doesn't save you having to do a lot of rooting. It saves you having to do even more. Correct?
But then, what about areas where, because of styling, the hairline must be visible? Think Legolas, or a baldie like Picard. I guess that the huge change in flesh color will be visible and look ugly, right? If you can just style the hair so that no hairline is visible (as it usually is with Hobbits), you need not to worry, because the hair strands cover scalp color transitions. But try to imagine Legolas' temples. All that hair tightly styled backwards. You just can't have the flesh go brown right there, can you? It would show and look unnatural! So what would you do in such instance?
Honestly, I always thought the scalp was painted of same fleshy color as the rest of the head, maybe even paler. Just as the real thing...


- Regarding the actual rooting:

0) Fabric glue because of its flexible curated form? Doesn't it cure to a too-thick, non-transparent mass?
Why the small bottle? Judging by online pics, all bottles seem to have the same precision tip.

1) What kind of stuff does the Tibetan lamb hair come attached to? Is it like some plastic card? Do you actually cut strands off the card? If the card was a thin sheet of (matt) transparent plastic couldn't you just cut patches of it and directly glue them on the scalp? Wouldn't that save you time and look better?

2) When doing the hairline, and because of the difficulty of doing it properly, do you proceed hair-by-hair? Any tips on doing hairlines? Can you show us some of the ones you have done?

3) When rooting, does the eventual hair styling have any impact? (parting line, hair growth, etc)
What do you mean exactly by "distance between the layers"? Are these layers the successive hair applications from bottom to top, or different regions you mentioned, such as sideburns, etc? That distance you mention, how can be determined and kept? What is better, gluing bigger flocks, or smaller?

4) Layers: should I assume that each card of TL hair comes with all the hair needed to do the different layers on one HS? TLH cards seem to be inexpensive, at ca. $10 including shipping, aren't they?

5) Trimming: any particular remark on this step? Something we must consider? What about mistakes made when trimming? Are they undoable?

6) Styling: can TLH be washed with soap and keep the curls?
Hair-rooters use tibetan lamb hair because it is finer. Can it be worked upon with heat, just as normal human hair? (to straighten up or to intensify the curls)

7) With longer hair, such as Aragorn's or Gandalf's, does the rooting become simpler? But there would still be layers anyway, right?

8) What about beards? Does the process change much?




- Regarding Asmus:

1) Why would Asmus use plastic hair instead of TLH, especially when the latter is so superior and cheap? And I am sure that Asmus could get it even cheaper via bulk buying. They could even ask their provider to supply the TLH ready to be glued, attached to some thin transparent film that would be applied directly onto the scalp. Things like that. There are many chances of optimization.

2) You say it took you 2 hours to do Bilbo (which is really astonishing btw). I will assume all the dremmelling and redoing the scalp was not included in that time lapse (Asmus would not need to do any of that btw). My question: considering that Asmus does have people that get trained and paid to really get good and quick at doing this kind of stuff (not that you are not, considering you took a couple of years to perfectionate your technique and skills), and that they do it on a daily basis, and assuming that they might even have engineers capable of building tools and procedures to speed up and/or improve the quality of rooting, don't you think that they might be able to match or better your output, in the same time you took, and for a more than reasonable extra cost? (Don't know about you guys, but I'd sure say "YES"...........!!!)

EDIT: 3) Here you are synthetic curled hair! :)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/M00822-MOR...m-Curls-A60-/201429520672?hash=item2ee6229120



Please keep us uptaded on your Frodo. Maybe WIP pics would be more effective!
Thanks for you help Cman!
Best,
m.

EDIT: for the record, I just found this guide to rooted hair with TLH...

https://morezmore.wordpress.com/2015/04/20/how-to-make-dolls-hair-tibetan-lamb/

... via any of morezmore's ebay listings. Morezmore seems to be a powerhouse on anything doll-related and dollhouse furniture. Absolutely amazing. I had already somehow/somewhen stumbled upon them, but then I completely forgot about.
I have sent them an email with questions. Should I get an answer, I'll let you all guys know. I am also contacting Asmus via email with Cman's custom and morezmore info. Let's see how they react... :)

To answer your questions...

Each head is different. If there are gaps I fill with sculpy some I don’t have to

Painting head dark brown makes applying hair more forgiving in that it hides any gaps in the hairing

I should clarify- there is the hair part which I do by making an indent and the hair line. The hair line is a b$&@ to do. I do it but This is what separates the pros from guys like me who just do it for fun. Check out rahmier or shane pooles Instagram to see what a seamless hairline looks like. Yes hobbit hair or any hairdo where the hair is in front of the face is much much easier

Fabritac dries clear. The smaller bottle has a more precise tip

T hair is attached to the skin of the lamb I think l it’s the hide. Wouldn’t work to use the hide too thick

Yes when doing hair line it’s best to do one strand at a time

Regarding layers or rows I’ll post pics of Frodo answering this. Also let me clarify customizers don’t do “rooting” necessarily it’s more “applying”. The mass produced companies “root” in that they poke tiny holes in the scalp and tie the synthetic strands through the holes thereby creating “roots” out of the scalp.

Yes each TL comes with enough for a figure usually with some to spare. TL would be more expensive to mass produce

Trimming- you do need some skill with hair styling to do this. This comes with practice.

TL can be heated ironed burned etc. it can even be microwaved. One way to die it is to microwave it in a jar filled with vinegar and food coloring.

Beards are the easiest. Just get the most Curley or wavy strands,

If Asmus found out what hair black toys did for their joker they can possibly do it. That would also be great hair for beards as their gimli while very good the beard is too straight.

Hope I answered most questions. My posts on Frodo will be a lot more helpful I’m sure.


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Is this asmus’ bilbo sculpt? Saw it on hot toys sculptor viva lai instagram page

2da25808707be02b3a7a344268a8c65f.png



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No, Bilbo was actually sculpted by another talented artist called Shand, you can easily find his works on his facebook page.
 
Yeah I know Shand did the Asmus sculpt. I was just curious if he made a modified version or somebody moded his original. It looks very similar


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My retailer made a mistake and sent me Bilbo instead of Thorin which I had ordered.

Should I keep him and what price should I pay for him?
 
IMO Bilbo is a wonderful figure and certainly worth having, but if it's not what you want return. ASMUS sells Bilbo for $170, Thorin is $200.
 
Hoping my last flex payment isn't pushed back a third time next week. Asmus never gave me a decent answer as to why.
 
Hoping my last flex payment isn't pushed back a third time next week. Asmus never gave me a decent answer as to why.

Why would you contact Asmus when you ordered from Sideshow? Wouldn't SSC be better able to give you a delivery estimate on their stock ?
 
Why would you contact Asmus when you ordered from Sideshow? Wouldn't SSC be better able to give you a delivery estimate on their stock ?

Tried both. SSC said its up to Asmus to send them the stock. Asmus said if I ordered directly through them the shipment would have come straight from Taiwan, which doesn't answer anything really so I think he misunderstood the question somehow.
 
So apparently you have to sign for Asmus stuff with USPS? Never had that before. Bilbo also shipped and arrived on a much quicker turn around, I wonder if they used an expedited service to beat Chinese New Year.
 
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