AlDub Fan Art

Before I joined the fan art contest I previously posted on this blog, I've made quite a few toothpick dolls for Alden Richards and Maine Mendoza way before. 

Alden Richards and Maine Mendoza are one of Philippines' most popular celebrity pair. Love teams or pairs are the trend in Philippine entertainment. While most Filipino celebrities get paired by working on the same TV drama or movie, Alden Richards and Maine Mendoza got paired by working on Eat Bulaga!, the longest running noon show in the Philippines. The show is more of a variety where they host talent contests, games, and community reach out through one of their segments called, Bayanihan of the Pipol (which translates to the term used by Filipinos when a community works together).

Alden Richards was already a prominent actor in the Philippines when he joined Eat Bulaga. He was a breath of fresh air for the noontime show since he's one of the heartthrob's of Philippine show business. Just a smile from him makes the audience scream their hearts out. 

Maine Mendoza was a Youtube sensation because of her compilation videos of her doing the dubsmash. Eat Bulaga invited her to be part of the show, only she wasn't known as Maine Mendoza at first. Instead, she was called Yaya Dub (yaya translates to 'nanny' or a house helper). Her role was quite unusual because despite that it's a live show, she wasn't supposed to talk nor hold her own microphone. She communicates through dubsmash audio, where she was known for being able to do it so effortlessly. 

Then one day, while she was doing her usual dubsmash antics, she was caught being self-conscious when she saw Alden Richards watching her on a separate screen. She was caught off-guard resulting her being unable to control herself and momentarily forgot her role. After which, they both got teased by the other hosts of the show since they were both single and it turned out Maine actually had a secret crush on Alden Richards (who wouldn't?)

Hence, the birth of AlDub, their screen name as a couple. They were such a hit to noontime viewers that they boosted the show's ratings and they were always on top spot on twitter trends list. For some odd reason, they became a force to reckon with, beating twitter records, bagging dozens of TV commercials, modelling for magazine covers here and there, even being noticed by international celebrities such as Brian White, whose song God Gave Me You became the theme song of the couple, Brandon Beal, who even visited Eat Bulaga after learning that his song Twerk it Like Miley became a music chart topper for months, and Dawin, whose song Dessert became so popular in the Philippines after the show played it on a daily basis and even visited the show.

Local artists also got enthralled by the magic brought by the pair. Big celebrities became fans, even mimicking Maine Mendoza's signature wave (pabebe wave), singers and composers producing songs only for AlDub, and artists creating art pieces such as sculptures, paintings, digital art, and so on.

So since they were all over the place (from TV to magazines, fan made books, to social media platforms), I decided to create a fan art for them.

In here, they were wearing one of their signature outfits from their segment on Eat Bulaga called Kalyeserye. Maine was wearing a glittery pink top and skirt because she had a dance performance while Alden was wearing his casual clothes.

I chose these outfits because it was the time when they had a really high rating and it was the time they met up close (they weren't allowed to meet in person since it was the 'rule' of the segment).

The challenge on her wasn't the glittery details, I used a glittery pink nail polish on the toothpick doll for it (yeah, I have a lot of glittery nail polish, don't judge). The real challenge lies on her curly locks. I've never done curly hairstyle for my dolls before. I tried soaking the yarns on water for a day, then letting them dry completely which gave me the curls I wanted. But when I glue them on her head, the curls end up unraveling, resulting to an awkward supposed-to-be-curls now a fly away. Sad life, right?

I somehow tried my best to make the curls, but luck wasn't on my side on this piece. Her locks looked like the messy hair instead.