[fanmerch] Nendoroid doll clothes for the atelier starring Jiang Cheng

I am back with a project that was supposed to have been finished a month ago lol. If you even care, I have an ongoing issue/injury with my left hand (the hand I need to do crafts and everything else with) since November, so even if I did remember to work on my 2024 goals in January/February, I couldn’t have done much until my hand healed to a slightly better state in March.

Anyway, if you have been reading my Tumblr, I wanted to rework my Etsy shop called Atelier Insomniel, which is the name on the business cards, for some time now. My 2024 goal was to be more inclusive for male customers and non-binary patrons and just people who are not the stereotypical trinket-buying female fan. However, I couldn’t really imagine how to include more types of tastes with my particular drawing style or my preferences in Japanese fashion, I am just too girly and female-oriented. Male fans these days don’t buy a lot of doodads and fanmerch so even if I could draw sexy ladies, at most they may buy some prints or decals or t-shirts and call it a day, and would generally not be hunting for new fanmade stuff unless it’s a gift for significant others. Even itabags are not on trend anymore, which had been my last hope several years ago and why I bought a button badge maker. I looked on Etsy and SuperGroupies and all those masculine gifts are stuff I couldn’t make nor did I want to because it looked boring and also expensive. So unless I got really good at drawing sexy ladies, I would not be able to appeal to fans who are not female and/or not looking for gifts for their female partner.

Just recently I finally brainstormed some ideas that could be more inclusive, my one brain cell working overtime. I have been working on a few crafts of less girly accessories, but I plan to put most of my focus on making doll clothes. Now you may think, what the hell, only girls play with dolls, that doesn’t appeal to a wider fanbase, if anything, that’s an even smaller intended audience than before, are you stupid? And you would be right! At the same time, I am making clothes for male dolls, so that’s where I am broadening my horizons. I feel like this is the best possible bridge of my current tastes and capabilities to something more inclusive in the future.

Atelier means “workshop for an artist or designer,” and my current offerings are technically artwork, but printed by companies and not as handmade or custom as I would imagine an atelier to be. Hence, the new emphasis on actual fashion-related stuff. I do have one of a kind art jewelry made from printed acrylic charms of my art currently for sale, and have been working on subtle fannish jewelry the past few years with semi-precious stones. Unfortunately, my skill level isn’t that high despite my best efforts, and I didn’t want to invest into making jewelry that is too fragile for everyday use or gets tarnished easily and then get complaints about poor quality.

Now I want to show off my latest handmade doll clothing set. The quality may not seem that great, but it was perfect for practice and I feel more confident after working on this cute and tiny hanfu for Sect Leader Jiang Cheng (from the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation donghua animation.)

The base doll is my fan-modded Liu Qingge doll, which you can read all about here on my old wordpress blog, therefore this is from my fanfic in which he transmigrates into Jiang Cheng’s world and wears the Yunmeng Jiang sect outfit. But the shoes are Wei Wuxian’s year of the rabbit boots because I didn’t want to damage Liu Qingge’s handmade boots, and he is holding Wei Wuxian’s wine jar and Luo Binghe’s sword Xin Mo, not part of the fic lol. I hand-sewed the outfit from scraps from my 18th century ballgown and Madame Yu’s hanfu cosplay and leftovers from my lolita underskirt. I especially love the Jiang sect bell made from a silver jewelry finding, so adorably tiny. As with all doll clothes, there is no way to properly line the outfits because it would make the clothes too bulky to put on, and even unlined, they are still tricky to put on if you have big hands. The licensed doll clothes cut down on bulk by simplifying cuts and printing designs on the thinnest possible synthetic fabric. Still, my best attempt using scraps I already had looks pretty good (from a distance), and I think my next attempt, if I got the right fabrics, would look even cuter and much neater.

(Added a new photo of just the clothes I made… inner robe/outer robe combo, outer outer robe, belt with skirt flap thingy, pants)

Anyway, I will keep the listings for the one of a kind acrylic charm jewelry, the enamel pins and the acrylic charms, because… it will be a pain to relist them. But the new listings will be for these fashion-related items, one for Genshin Impact accessories and one for nendoroid doll clothing. As a warning, the prices will be extremely expensive, if you know me in real life, I do not have the energy or drive to finish customs and commissions since I have a full-time job that pays well (at least until inflation catches up). I just want the listing up to make the atelier part of the shop name actually accurate for once. As always, if you have more ideas, let me know in the comments, and thanks for reading this post.