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...
. 
Love this pic!! 
Excellent review too! 
