A while ago I volunteered to do one of the dolls for the IFDC in July 2010.

I’d never done one before and I liked the idea of volunteering some of my skills to make a doll (that hopefully someone would be happy to own).  I received the base doll a while now & what with all the ups & downs of life she hasn’t had a lot of attention except in my head.

I’ve been mulling over what kind of doll to make her and what to do with her.She’s “Back to Black Natalia” from Fashion Royalty.

IMO she’s a beautiful doll just as she comes.  I’d originally considered doing a repaint on her, but really, I just can’t. She has such a wonderful face/look that I’d consider it just about sacrilegious for me to do it.

So, instead I’ve been thinking about how to style her that can make the best use of her looks while still allowing me to put my creative stamp on her. So it’s come down to her outfit & accessories I think.  As usual, whatever I make is going to have to be completely removable–I don’t know about other people, but I know when I get a doll I want to be able to redress her or change her around. It’s reaaaaallly hard to do that if someone’s sewn or painted her clothing on!!

So this week is dedicated to Natalia! I’ll update as I get things done!

Top 10 toys of 2009 … #1

So at last, we’re at the top of the list!

Doing this list has been a really good exercise for me…It’s forced me to take stock of what I have and what I really use–and why I use it.  I’ve gotten a lot of little nifty pieces (mostly props & the like) and some cool bigger pieces (many of which are here on the previous list entries) and the ones that have made the list have in common the following attributes:

• They’re cool
• I use them more often than not (pretty useful)
• They inspire me in some way

Anyway I know you just want to see what number one is!

#1

Customized 1:6 kitchen set

The customized kitchen (view one)

Description of Toy/Toyline:

This kitchen is made up of multiple parts. The counters & oven are from an old set of Pedigree Sindy furniture, the refrigerator (not visible in the above shot) and the table & chair set are from mattel for Barbie (from the barbie my house series).  The floor was made by hand staining the wood & hand laying & varnishing it. (Technically the kitchen isn’t finished yet–I still need to make the exhaust fan/over the stove unit, and some “hanging shelves” for the wall next to it).

So why did it make my list?

• I love it! It’s sort of funky & retro and of course it’s actually part of one of the sets for The Quinlan Chronicles. Eventually it’ll interlock to other pieces of Cass’s apartment.
• It fits all of my dolls nicely from my Momoko & Volks dollfies to my Hot toys Guys & CG Takara girls & Fashion Royalty dolls. That usefulness is key!

• It’s been a combined effort between my husband and I.  It’s got the best of both of us in it ;)

• It’s probably the most in-depth prop-project I worked on this year from start to (almost) finish.  And I’ve gotten a lot of use out of it.

If you want to find out more about the process of making the kitchen custom please search my blog using the keyword kitchen.  There are a couple of posts with photos of the furniture in progress.

Ok so….that’s about it! Thanks again to  Shaun Wong over at the Fortress of Testicular Fortitude for initiating the whole Top 10 List idea and inspiring me to actually do it (albeit a bit late). ;)

Just in case you missed one here’s a run down of the previous 9 items on the top 10 list!

#10

#9

#8

#7

#6

#5

#4

#3

#2

Hope you’ve had fun reading! 

Since C asked in the previous post, I managed to snap a few quick shots of what Isha currently looks like (bodiless, paint-less, and semi bald).  As usual click on the image for a bigger version.

In the process of taking the photos they’ve revealed that her original paintjob has left staining in her vinyl.  xD

That is a bummer, although without the flash on her it is difficult to see the stains. It sucks for me because I like to paint eyebrows on my own, and often, I find that the eyebrows declare the character/personality of the doll.  I’m not sure exactly what I’ll do about this….

Possibilities:

• try to paint her eyebrows over the old ones. (cop-out & unacceptable to me)

• give her eyeshadow à la the 80’s (you remember the big eyeshadow days, right?) Make the eyeshadow cover any original eyebrow.

• paint her eyebrows in my usual method and hope to skintone match where the originals show.  Or Paint the eyebrows where I want and try to shade the areas where the originals are.

• Or…as a last resort: sculpt in a few ridges and give her some sort of Klingon name. That’d work well with the bald spot, and the brows wouldn’t be an issue once they got a couple of layers of flocking  :

(The above are examples of Klingons from the Star Trek franchise)

I’d lean toward the Klingon Solution except that:

• I don’t have a single ST character/doll/action figure. She’d be lonely.
• Isha’s FR body is way too spindly to be beefy enough to be a Klingon chick.
• I doubt that Isha as a Klingon would blend in very well to the City of Quinlan where…eventually…she’ll be a businesswoman. *sigh* It seemed like a good idea!

As you can see, from the get-go Isha is proving to be problematic.

Perhaps that’s a good thing though.  She’ll keep me busy at a time (now) when I am having a  difficult time concentrating or working on anything.

A couple of years back I got my hands on a Rare Find Isha.
She was OK, nothing really to write home about and subsequently she went into my box of  “Someday Projects“  and I forgot about her for a few months.
For reference: this is what she looked like:

Thing about Isha was….
She had those horrible bangs (or as they call them in england– “fringe”). 

They hid whatever there was to be seen of her face and pretty much IMHO made her a non-descript entity.  I’m not all that fond of bangs personally– most of my childhood haircuts centered on bangs, now as an adult they’ll never be found on me! Mwhahaha  :p :woot: :p

Her bangs though–I found them really off-putting and thought that maybe if I removed them  I’d like her better.

I did it; and I didn’t.  xD

So….her head went in one box (half denuded—those FR heads are hard to root) and I chose the lazy root route of planning on just filling in thew spots that had to be removed to remove her bangs *about a 3rd of her head*  Her body temporarily got used by a variety of heads (mostly Modern Circle Simone (very good skin tone match) and Happy Family AA grandma (also a really good skintone match)). But after that I forgot about her except for the occasional thought about her potential future nieces & students at Quinlan University.  She was going to be a businesswoman with active interests throughout the city….

Maybe it’s time I rooted in the rest of the hair, and gave her a repaint (I’d wiped her face in the process. You know me–root & branch kind of girl)

Maybe I’ll dig her head out tomorrow and show you all the horror that is her head at the moment *evil sound of maniacal laughter*

Despite some delays I have managed to get a couple of decent shots of Momoko (She was named Sarah but now I’m not sure that that re-name fits her? Opinions?)

This is her before:

And now after:

She’s had a complete re-root with volks hair (black) and a boil perm. It’s not the best re-paint I’ve ever done, but considering how rusty I am (and how I haven’t done one in months & months & months) I don’t feel too badly about it.

Comments anyone?

A little while back I added a momoko doll to my 1:6 collection.

The one I got was  “Day off delight” (aka Sarah).

While I have to admit that I am fond of the face mold–her hair was not all that manageable.  I’d bought Sarah with no real intention of customizing her or changing her in anyway….but now that she’s been here a few months I’m getting bored/irritated looking at her.

Her hair is surprisingly thickly rooted (there is enough hair on there for 2 heads!) and rather more coarse than I like. It’s a shame because I like the color-blend that they used…

Lately, there’s been stuff going on here (Pudgykitten having cancer, trying to get the house ready for the market) that has kept me from feeling particularly creative or motivated to do 1:6 stuff.  I decided yesterday to re-root Sarah the momoko and see if I could make her a little more in line with my personal doll tastes.

I’m making good progress with that, and hopefully later today/tonight I’ll be able to post an update with how it’s going (as well as the CG clothing I made for Etsy)

Sounds sort of silly, doesn’t it?
But I’m serious…it’s been such a long time since I did any repainting or facial customizing on my figures that I now have that old friend “brush anxiety” keeping me company.

I’m trying to gear myself up to do some though!   :woot:   I’ve got a couple of spare heads to practice on (since it’s been months since I’ve done a face-up I know I’ll be horribly rusty & will have to struggle again to remember exactly how I do it) .

So the plan for this week:

• start getting a feel for painting again (3 or more heads painted)
• make a replacement 1:6 couch (black I think)
• sew some CG & Goh guy clothes
• answer pending emails (very late on those)

If I get 3 of those 4 things done I’ll be happy.

As I get the face-ups done I’ll photograph them for those of you who’d like a look at how it progresses.

At last! A doll related post! :woot:

I promised to show what I picked up while I was home re: 1:6/doll hobby. Obviously it wasn’t much (or else I’d have been raving about it from the get go).  What I did find keys in nicely with my desire to have a more diverse population being represented by my collection.

Things I was on the look out for: the Fashionistas barbies (supposedly more articulated than usual and possibly fodder for Frankenstein-ing some body variations)

I did find them but wasn’t overwhelmed by them. However I did want to pick up their “aa” version since I was hopeful that the body would be a good match for a couple of heads I have.

In my search for them in the capital district (I was riding all around)  I stumbled across the (Barbie) So in Style dolls. They were pricey, and came with mostly junk that I’d never use.

BUT…I have to admit that I did like the face-molds quite a bit. However–although I was pleased to see that they had the jointed arms & wrists–i was really disappointed to see that they had the bend-and-click legs. Bleh! I thought. xD

So I went back to my plan on buying a couple of Fashionista Barbies.  I wasn’t thrilled with their oversize heads (not quite as huge as the old my scene heads but a damned sight bigger than regular ‘old school’ FF barbies).  Of course, it occurred to me that one of the SIS heads might be a decent match for the “aa” Fashionista body.

Which of course led to me fence-sitting about whether or not it was worth the money to get 1 workable doll by buying two, one of which I only wanted the head of?! I actually spent the entire time I was there having an internal argument with myself about this (I’m very frugal y’know?) I eventually caved, and bought the so in style Kara, figuring her to be the closest match skin-tone wise for the AA body.  However, when I got her (and the fashionistas in the rental car and was maniacally ripping them out of boxes –I earned quite a few looks from the suburban moms in the cars around me)  :D

Can you say surprised? The SIS Kara was a better match for the Fashionista Sassy rather than the AA!  Heh.(it’s not the best pic, I know) I’m overall pleased (plus I’d found the SIS on sale at target for a few bucks less than it was at TRU)

Ok, that’s about it on the doll front for now!

Yea so it’s taken me a bit longer than the promised week–but here is the outcome (and a few photos along the way). ^_^

First, I started with a pair of legs from a barbie with the jointed knees & a pair of knee joints from volks beauty body.

Cut the legs off just above the knee joint using a small handsaw. Pry the rest of the knee joint off and you’ll need to use a pair of wire cutters to remove the knobbly bit left (sorry no pics while I was doing this part by that time I just wanted to get it done and I’m still having camera issues  :p   )

You’ll end up with it like this after:

If you look at the white arrow in the 2nd pic it shows where you’ll need to start dremmeling out the inside of the barbie leg to attach the volks lower knee peg. Make sure you note that you are dremmeling to fit the larger (lower) peg-part rather than the smaller—otherwise you’ll need to keep at it. I recommend doing it slowly and a little at a time to avoid making the hole too large.

Poke the pegs into the appropriate slots and then stick them onto the doll who’ll be getting high heels to wear.

Here you can see the completed foot/leg mod:

As you can see the doll can still be balanced to stand un-assisted. (shown on a volks beauty b-body). I don’t think it looks too bad, considering! :D

And although this isn’t a very good shot you can see that the modified legs also work/fit  on the regular volks excellent B body(although the appearance of the knee joint isn’t as smooth).

Ok, so that’s about it. It’s a pretty simple modification and I might end up doing it again in the future. Any questions feel free to ask! :)

In my efforts to sort through my doll & 1:6 stuff I found a body that gave me an idea. (Yes I may be procrastinating a bit…it’s a pain winnowing down the stuff that needs to go!)

One of my biggest (actually, one of my only) gripes with the Volks dollfie bodies is that they don’t come with high heel feet as an option. You can buy optional hands, optional heads but…no optional feet. :(
I suppose technically there is the option, but only if you want to buy one of the century model dolls and I’m sorry, but 100+ dollars for a doll I only want the feet for is crazy! :o xD

Anyway, It’s a small project and I expect I’ll probably get it completed this week. I’m going to try to take photos though, so that if anyone else has the same desire for HH feet for them you can do it too.

Here are some photos I took a while back (about February) of the raygun I made for my steampunk custom. I still haven’t gotten her (or the raygun) any further along than shown in the photos.

The head is a CG Asuka, re-rooted with mohair. It’s rather nice in that it likes to pouf out into a big bun on top of her head–something that I think will go well with her eventual look. (eventual being the key term. I don’t expect to work on her again until possibly late fall. maybe.)

My progress with Damara’s breastplate isn’t going forward as smoothly as I’d like. I’ve got to admit that part of it is due to my own lack of patience. I want to hurry it along and I should probably (?) be doing it in gradual stages but I’m not.

Anyway, here’s what the original breastplate looked like:

It’s not hideous…but it’s clunky and weirdly bulky in the spots that aren’t made up of boobage.  I don’t much like it and it’s probably the prime reason I don’t like PBs. That and they’re made out of pretty low grade plastic.

So far I haven’t got a lot to show for my work.  My first time experimenting with the epoxy didn’t go exactly as I planned and the breasts ended up considerably larger than planned. They also didn’t really have the right shape going on with them…so I’m not going to count them.

Instead, we have breastplate attempt #1: (I should clarify that the original breastplate is NOT part of this construction)

As you can see I’ve got to work out the issues with the sizing for the sides. Once I figure that out I’ll be happy enough to actually complete the breast plate in question *add further detailing, properly sand it, paint it to match her skin tone, add nipples etc…* (this one will probably join mondo-humongo boobplate in the misc crap box)

Here’s a shot of Damara with breastplate #1 on and a shirt. I’m eventually hoping for a relatively natural look in clothing (something to balance out those hulkingly bulky shoulder joints).

When I get my hands on some more epoxy I’ll try again and update further on her progress.

(ok for those who reaaaaally want to know what the very first attempt looked like it’s the one on the left in this pic)

I’m happy to report that the Damara project is moving along at a pretty good pace.  :)

Here’s what Damara looked like when I started this morning: (you can see part of the boob-plate in progress in this pic as well)

While not all of the work has been 100% satisfactory for me, I’m just feeling pretty good about doing something.  So far since earlier this week — I’ve managed to make her 2 different breast plates (which still need some sanding and detailing done) and they fit fairly well although there was apparently some shrinkage (which I didn’t expect).

I also managed to do her re-root –replacing her default hair with some black hair I had left over from my last restoredoll order.

(you’ll have to check the blog later today/tomorrow for picts of her new hair and breasts)

I was particularly lazy tonight and after spending all the time rooting her–yea, I couldn’t be bothered to do a proper boil perm. Instead I ran the hot water and stuffed her head into the water. Then I doused her in cold tap water. It may not take, but what the hell, right? I’ve got nothing to lose.  Maybe when I get up tomorrow am (or actually I guess it’s am now) I’ll check it out and see 1) if it’s dried and 2) if it worked well enough to at least let the hair lie flat.  I really do hate re-rooting. It is so tedious…but at least at the end of it you know you’ll end up with something. Not like when I sew and I never know if I’ll end up with a usable piece of clothing or something for the scrap pile.

Anyway, it’s about time for bed.

Good question!

Well, aside from sporadically facing the overwhelming amount of email in my inbox I decided that I’d take a little bit of time to work on one of my customs.

Who?

Damara.

Bet you’re wondering who the hell is Damara!??!

Damara is part of my attempt to add some more faculty members to the Quinlan University staff.  She’s also a fabrications instructor (meaning she helps pound through the students’ heads how to make something that will stay enchanted etc).

I realized that I needed her to balance out August’s place on the faculty. He’s basically on the rag all the time & a moody bastard. Damara…I don’t think she’s as moody.  She’s certainly more pleasant.

Deciding what figure to use for Damara was a little bit harder.

I’ve got a couple of CG 2.o bodies left (and a miscellany of heads) as well as a few Volks bodies. But I really didn’t want to use the volks since they’d essentially be the same as the current professors w/ volks bodies. I do like to have some kind of physical diversity in the cast if at all possible (without sacrificing posability though).

Damara is starting life as a BBI AA PB.

I was very lucky to get her from a fellow collector and I have been waiting to work on her for a while and now seems like a good time.  As I got her 2nd hand she didn’t come with 2 breast-plates.  She’s come with the default size 1 boob-plate.  I don’t mind small breasts on my dolls–but I do mind it when the breast-plate makes the torso look ungainly and weirdly bulky. (I should probably also say here that I actively dislike the PB bodies and the main reason for that is the way they designed the torso).

So.

What can I do to make her more aesthetically acceptable to me?

• Re-root her with dark hair. That weird peroxide blonde gone bad look does absolutely nothing for her.
• resculpt her a new chestplate (s).

Since I’m not that hot at sculpting human anatomy we’ll have to see how that goes.  I’ll update as I make progress.

I said previously that I was unhappy with my repaints.  I still am.   Stella being the one I was least pleased with she got wiped the same day she was painted. I’ve been trying to repaint her. This is what I’ve come up with:

Stella Before & After:

All I can say is that at least now she doesn’t have that “robotic-glazed eye stare” that she started out with. And she and Lori look slightly more related in the eye-color department.

Here & now is where I say that I am NOT going to be doing any more repaints.  At least not any time soon.  My brushes are shot and I can’t seem to find any to replace them. The frustration that I am getting from painting (and knowing that half the dissatisfaction is due to my tools is just too much for me to deal with. Life is full of enough BS these days that I don’t need to add more to it).

So, until I’m either back home in the states, or someone in US retail realizes it DOES NOT COST 15 BUCKS to mail 2 paintbrushes snail mail…no more repaints.

Yay!  Here’s your chance to see the  heads I painted! And even better–it’s a chance to do me a good turn by giving me your opinion! Now, please remember that as I stated in the last post I’m not really pleased with how they came out. So please don’t expect much.

I hope to update with a new post later this week with the final heads re-painted for choice. I’ll do a poll-feature then for final votes! :)

Below is a gallery of photos of the characters’ names & below that is a brief  “interview”blurb from each of them.

• Please take a few minutes to read them over and pick which figure goes with which quote (there are no right or wrong answers!!)  use the number in the photo to ID the head.   :)
• Feel free to suggest possible hair styles or clothing choices–or hobbies! LOL!

  

  

  

  
  

  

  

  

  
  

  

  

  

  
  

  

  

  

  
  
  

• Olivia Aston-Lang (Livi)

“No, I sketched those myself.  I’m ok at it–I’d have gone into fashion design except that it’s such a cutthroat field.  I’d have liked it but that’s just –well I’m not good enough to always be shoving my work at people and saying “Like it! Damn you, Like it!”   What? Oh.  My major is enchantments.  Mostly because they come easy to me.  I don’t even have to study and I can do them right off the cuff.  My adviser’s suggested that there might be a future for me in R&D. Yea, making new spells–isn’t that cool!?!

• Ivy Elizabeth McMullen

“Yes, I’m Ivy. Ivy McMullen. Um, yea, I’m in professor Kohle’s class too. Er…yea. I have the homework done…it was problems 1-16 and 20, and 22. Uh…no. You can’t copy it. I’m–I’m not a really good student, so, uh, I know most of the problems are wrong… (thought: not really but who are you kidding? you don’t do your work and you think you’re gonna use mine? Not!)
Say, did you see the notice about the lectures we’re supposed to attend next week? Yea, that’s a bummer they’re at the same time as the fall fashion show.”

• Claire Marie Chase

“Is that silk?  Very nice.  I prefer it to linen. Oh look at him–he’s simply delicious! I spent the summer in Oxford and I didn’t see anyone who’d compare to him. Mmm!  Pardon? Oh?  So what if he has a girlfriend?  I’m sure I’m better looking than her and better dressed.  I’ll have to ask my brother for any information he has on him.  MMmmmm… What about Theo? Do I think he’d be into you….Darling, do you really want me to answer that?”

• Jillian Carmichael (Jilly)

“No. The answer is Strontium sulfate. How did you manage to get accepted without knowing that?” Rolls eyes. “You’re not going to be able to skate by without studying–I don’t care how short your skirts are. Or how perky your boobs are. They’ll fail you. And you’re my roomate–so you’d better knuckle down and study. How you do reflects on me and I don’t want anything ruining my average or my chances at getting into a good grad school.” Shaking head. “You’re not an idiot. Just try harder. And read the book instead of watching American Idol!”

• Claudia Karsten-Kane

“Oh, please. Tell it to someone else, would you Mallory? I know you’re completely smitten with that man–but you’ll never get anywhere with him if you don’t _do_ something! I say you should try to investigate–you know he’s got his girlfriend–and a woman on the side…why not see what else you can find out? Then maybe you’ll have an in! Don’t look at me like that– you know that’s what you want to do anyway. Really.”

• Portia Amelie Guichard

“What would you like to know about me? Yes, I’m from the Avondale Guichards. No, I am not seeing anyone at the moment. I broke up with my fiance over the summer. Oh, he was being a prat. I can do better than that. Not to mention my goals are set higher–I am not content to live off my family’s effort. I have goals that I aspire to. No one, man or woman is going to stop me.
Excuse me?
Of course I expect people to listen to what I say. Why shouldn’t they? I’m a very knowledgeable woman and I come from a good bloodline. Not to mention they usually regret it if they don’t. (small smile) Me? My flaws? …Well, maybe I can be a little bit vindictive. But who’s perfect? (laugh) I’m probably as close as you can find in human form.

• Tara Mills-Bowman

“I’ll tell you, being an Resident Advisor this year is great! It’s giving me-and Stella-the chance to be recognized for how much work we did the last two years…Last year was really rough what with the demon that those stupid girls summoned in the bathroom. Talk about a mess…Exploded pipes, water all over–and Shasta–the RA for the hall was unconscious. Stella stepped in and I-well, of course. I helped. That’s what best friends do. She also inspires me to try harder at whatever I do…My future? It’s bright. I’ll either take a post in the family or I’ll go on to do research. Maybe both. I’m not sure…and that’s the lovely thing about being so wealthy–I don’t have to worry. I’ll decide when I’m ready.”

And out of the 9 heads I did start off knowing which of them were going to be Stella & Lori Vanderhoff:

• Stella Alexandria Vanderhoff

“It’s only right that they appointed me as RA for the hall this year. And of course Tara too. She’s so dependable. I believe that friends can be invaluable–as long as you choose the right ones. Am I popular? Oh, I don’t like to boast…but yes. I’m never lacking for dates, study partners, or people who just want to bask in the glow that is me. (small smile). I’ve made Dean’s List every semester since I was admitted. Right now I’m in the top 2% of the 3rd years. I plan to be in the top 1% before the year end. Did I mention that I’m studying with the intention of going into the legal field? I’m starting an internship this year. I’m rather excited about it.
Lori? She’s my little sister. Am I going to treat her differently? (chuckle) Hardly. As long as she follows the rules of the university, and the ones of the hall, she’ll be fine. Otherwise – she’ll learn the hard way. She’s bright though, so I’m certain if she wants to break the rules she won’t get caught. After all It’s all about being caught. Just like life.”

• Lori Apollonia Vanderhoff

“I’m so glad to be done with high school! Coming to Quinlan University is a nice change–although having Stella looking over my shoulder all the time isn’t what I was hoping for. She spent the summer boring me with how much studying I’ll need to do. How I need to behave. What classes I should take. Which girls I should be friends with. What kind of clothes I should wear…Blah, blah, blah! As if. She’s always been jealous that I took after mother and she–well…she’s almost as flat chested as a pancake! (giggle)
My studies? I don’t need to study that much–I’m brilliant–did you know that? What? It’s true that my grades aren’t that good…but it’s because I find classrooms bor-ring! Four boring walls, some teacher droning on endlessly about some obscure fact…I can make C’s without reading or practicing so wh

y should I waste the time? Yes, I could make B’s or A’s of I studied. But why bother? Anyway, everyone says that your first year is the time you’re supposed to have the most fun at university–and I intend to!”

I tried but I really couldn’t stand some of the faces…

I thought the painting quality was way below even average for me. After doing a 2nd round of repaints I am coming to realize that a big part of my problem is the brushes that I am using (they need replacing).  I’m still not entirely thrilled with #’s 1 & 7 but I think they are vastly improved. As for blue hair…I know she could be better but I think she has a certain something about her…

Before yesterday (May 7th) I hadn’t painted a head in 1:6 for months.

Yes, months.

November was the last time I actually sat down with a head to paint.

:?

Understandably, I’ve been feeling uneasy at the thought of sitting down again and doing it. It isn’t really like riding a bicycle at all–and if you don’t do it for a while you get rusty (and in my case you forget how to do it).

So yesterday I finally sat down and determined to beat down my procrastination and do it. And my thanks to Milk for the encouragement yesterday & today, it was (and is) much needed.

Yesterday’s exercise didn’t go particularly well… I had 11 heads that I got out of storage (my whole volks/obitsu stockpile) and tried to sketch in their starts. I struggled with that for a couple of hours but managed to get the eyes relatively even/acceptable for my use. I even got a few expressions/character in them so I was pleased.

But then, (of course there’s a but!) when I tried to actually add color, dimension and some illusion of depth everything went south.  I don’t know if it was from trying too hard, not trying hard enough, or a low level of frustration, but all in all it was not very productive.

I came out of yesterday with 3 things:

1. The new (and odd) knowlegde that it is easier for me to draw 3 level lines on both sides of the eyewells with my left hand than my right.  My right hand (dominant) seems to be unable to do this. The left can. I don’t know if it is related to perception or what…now if only I could develop better fine motor skills with my left hand! (must try in the future).
2. I’ve begun to remember some of the process…so I am on the right track (although my brushes are getting ready to give up the ghost).
3. One head painted that I feel is acceptable, although not particularly good. I decided against wiping it as I feel the face has a “bitchy” feel to it and I need that for some of the students.

Now I am trying to settle in and give it another go.  If I can get a few heads done today that I like I will post them all here and you readers can have some fun telling me which names & faces seem to fit better (I actually want to have a bit of fun with that so it will also include a little bit of dialogue for each)

Ok. Enough procrastinating! Off to paint!

You know, I’ve been doing some thinking. Remember, this is my blog so I can spout out all the opinionated folderol I want to here! Yes, I do that on occasion.

I was thinking about how things have changed in the hobby since I started back in 2000. In terms of the supplies & stock available to customizers and collectors and just the state of information in general.

People don’t really know how good they’ve got it now–both on the 1:6 and 1/4-1/3 scale  areas of dollfies & the BJDs.  Really.

I’m gonna sound like a cranky old-timer here, but really…how it was in the old days:(at least for me and my fellow customizer friends)

• If you wanted supplies (volks dollfie bodies, rooting hair, heads etc) you had to either order them through the 1 (and only) retailer in the US (the Doll & Hobby Shop)  at the time or you had to go through a shopping service in Japan. For a short while there you could buy volks stuff from HLJ but that was discontinued. :(
• No matter which of those routes you went you were bound to end up waiting MONTHS for your supplies to arrive.
• If you wanted anything special you were going to wait even longer.
• Sometimes you could buy your supplies on feebay or on a forum but generally they were priced even higher than the cost of going the other methods.

Those things made the hobby more of a labor of love than basic ol’ barbie customizing. If you customized barbies (or the like) they were considerably easier to get your hands on–and if you screwed them up you weren’t likely to cry as much either. If you wanted to buy someone else’s customs (and this still hold true for the really good ones) you’d pay and arm & a leg.

But this brings me to where the hobby is now….or at least how I perceive it to be….

• It’s well-and-away worlds easier to get supplies now.
• For those inside the US you’ve got Volks USA & various outlets selling parabox/obitsu stuff.
• For those outside the US (in Europe, like me) you’ve got volks.co.jp which will now sell to your through their website. It’s something of a pain (mostly because between the shipping charges-EMS only–and the customs fees) but better than nothing.
• feebay is now totally awash with dollfie/obitsu customizing supplies.  (Back inthe day you could type in “dollfie” and you’d be lucky to end up with 50 items…now you get thousands. You want heads? you can find em there. Want bodies? Ditto. Clothes? Ditto. Accessories? Ditto. There are so many more listings for dollfie/obitsu related items than there have been before. That’s good…right?

Well…yes…I guess.

I say that because, well, I think that to some extent, the hobby has suffered because of the ease of access. I know–you’re thinking –”what? didn’t you just say it was a good thing?!!” .

I did.

But IMO it’s made the 1:6 suffer a bit because everyone’s gotten completely sucked into the 1:3/ 1:4 scale dollfies. (Don’t get me wrong–I like them. Heck, I had them in the past and sometimes regret giving them up!) What I mean is that the 1:6 aspect of the hobby is getting overlooked. Example: If you search dollfies online, 8-10 times you’ll find that the result is something related to BJDs and not 1:6 dollfies.  Even Flickr, a site which thousands of people (maybe more) use…dollfies more often than not will bring up BJDS. *sigh* (and can I say here for the record one of my biggest pet peeves is when people refer to volks (excellent, beauty, CM or Dollfie plus) or obitsu as BJDs. For Pete’s sake before they say that why don’t they LEARN what exactly a BJD is??!! (a Ball Jointed Doll) *and for the record, BJDs (historically) were made also made in Germany although that link doesn’t mention it*)

And that’s the thing-The 1:6 pool seems a bit empty at the moment.

Things wax & wane in popularity. People’s interests change or expand (or contract). I’m guilty of this myself, at times. But I always go back to my 1:6 dollfies. I think they are my first love and always will be. I just wish more people could realize the positive aspects of them. I think to a certain extent I’m worried that they may end up being pushed off/out of the market. *shrug* I don’t know.

I don’t think that the pool of customizers is as big as it could/should/would be….but I guess that’s the nature of fads and hobbies?  I’m glad to see that it doesn’t seem to have waned much in Japan  (at least judging by the Japanese blogs I read, and my browsing on YJ). I hope that the 1:6 hobby picks up in the future.

Why am I bothered about this?

Mostly because seeing the work that other people do/put into making a figure inspires me. It makes me want to try and create something too.  I can count on one hand the number of western doll people I know who actively customize & repaint their figures. That’s not Bad…but I just wish there were more. As it is, I frequent a lot of Japanese sites & blogs because I find the level of artistry astounding & awe-inspiring. And I need to be inspired…to be motivated. An example would be PAPY (one of the few japanese customizers on Flickr) who I admire.

Ok, I guess I’ve rambled enough.