Said friend told me that I (we, since friend is too!) an Elitist. When it comes to the hobby anyway. That we want to see better quality work being done, that we want to see people putting more effort into things than propping your doll up against a cereal box.

But I made the argument that we’re not elitists.

What we are is perfectionists!

I say this because while I know I don’t do anywhere near the best that can be done, I do keep trying to improve myself and my skill levels. I’m embarrassed by some of the photos or things that I put out there but I continually keep trying to do a better job. I guess that’s where the perfectionist comes in though–since I expect other people to keep striving to improve their skills and I guess…well, they just don’t want to.

The important thing for them (and me too!) is just that we’re all enjoying the hobby–whichever part of it we’re into, and however we go around it. Yes, it does frustrate me to some extent (ok, a LOT) but life is full of things like that and although I do my best I can’t really see myself as being the sort to inspire other people to think about or change the way they do their hobbycraft.

Things I know I need to work on include my construction skills, my photography (which pretty much sucks) and developing more patience to allow me to do more of the first two items!

Of course, you could actually argue the fact that I am a 1:6 elitist since I am only interested in dolls and action figures that are in 1:6 scale. Anything else is “nice” or “interesting” but not enough to make me bother switching or juggling scales.

Anyway, just food for thought.

Here’s the thing: Aside from Mark and the cats my dolls are the biggest thing that I worry about getting back to the states with me. I might be looking at them with the “lover’s eyes” meaning that I assume everyone would want them, and assume that they are naturally desirable…..I’ve been doing my homework and apparently there’s a moderate percentage of  bags suffer from pilferage (they take things from in them) and of course, some whole bags end up being lost. So that means I have to work out the following:

My airline allows me 1 carry on bag (weighing 12 lbs or less) that is 9x14x22 or smaller in size.

Now, bearing in mind that I’ve been doing my absolute best to clear out and whittle down the amount of stuff I want to take with me….How do I decide which of my dolls go in the ultra-limited space of the carry on?

How fat are my dolls?

There are 1000g in a KG/ 1 pound = 453.5grams/ 12 pounds = 5.5Kg

• Volks EB doll (A,B & N bodies) (with head) = approximately 100grams
• Fashion Royalty Giselle (nu face body with nut) = 166 grams
• Fashion Royalty Kyori (reg body) = 160g
• Volks Goh Guy w/ head = 149g
• Volks EB doll (E,D,J bodies) (with head) = approximately 110 grams
• Hot toys True-type Guy & head = 240g
• Takara Cy Girl body & head  = 145g
• Takara Cy Girl–Head only = 28g
• Volks head (long hair) =50g

So….How do I decide who’s special enough for the carry on?

Do you have any favorites among my dolls?

(You can see most of them here:http://www.quinlan-chronicles.com/profiles and you can find more info about some of them in the Friday Monologues )

What do you all think?Who would you be sad to know went MIA?

I’m having a really difficult time deciding!

It is pretty bright. Nothing wrong with vibrant colors — but wow, huh?

The patches all started out as individual squares. And no, before you start thinking I’m an absolute masochist–there was a reason for this: I had already had a number of them cut (to the wrong size for my Insanity quilt) and this seemed like the perfect way to use them and not end up wasting the fabric. I didn’t know if it was going to work but I gave it a try and I’m pretty pleased with  the overall look. Next time I’ll try to do it as a Nine Patch rather than just random placements.

This quilt marks a lot of firsts for me.

• It was the first patchwork I completed. The other one I’d started got tossed in the bin as a needless exercise in frustration),
• The first time I made my own bias binding (not as hard as I thought it was)
• The first whole doll blanket that I bothered to quilt by hand. Although I have to admit that it was a pain, and it is part of the reason why Nerissa’s Quilt is only lightly quilted.
• I used a combination of tying & hand stitching to quilt the quilt.

So I sewed all the patches together, quilted it, washed it and now comes the really hard part–deciding which character gets it!  After sticking them on it I came to 3 conclusions. Shayna could have it (but since I’m working on the insanity quilt for her it doesn’t seem right she should have two. Does it??Nope.) So….either  Mallory or Parker will get it.

Maybe you folks can help me decide? Who do you think owns this quilt? I’ve snapped a few pics of each with the patchwork quilt so you can help me decide! There’s a poll at the end of this post–please vote!

Sooo..what do you think??

That’s not reaaaaaaally a problem for the volks/obitsu dolls since they can wear the mattel/ barbie clothing with no trouble.  But the trouble makers are of course– my fashion royalty dolls.  Yes, those lovely, fashionable dolls! Although  the fashion royalty girls can wear a lot of the barbie stuff (and their default clothing) but in general I always find myself struggling when it comes to finding them  pants/ slacks since they can’t wear many of the babs bottoms due to their incredibly loooooong legs.  So I made them a few skirts, pants and now I need to start the great clothing assignment of 2011!

The tough thing for me about doing this sort-out is…. who should get what pieces? Which outfits look better on…. well you get the idea, right?

So what I’m hoping to do later this week (probably this weekend) is to start shooting some photos of  the clothing on some of the dolls—basically asking you to be the tie-breaker and help me decide who gets the clothing!

Are you guys up for that?

Anyway, I need YOUR HELP! Yes, I need your feedback on what year these students are in at Quinlan University. So vote, yea?? Please?

First, Meet Kennedy.
I’m not overly thrilled with him, but on the same hand I don’t know that I could do any better if I wiped his face and tried again. I didn’t have the heart to cut all of his (very) long hair off.



Verity:  Old style C-head.  She’s supposed to be Tristan’s sister.  I don’t know if she’s older/younger or if they are fraternal twins….(suggestions? anyone?)

Meet Tristan:

Tristan is Verity’s brother (again, any ideas folks if he’s an older/ younger brother or a twin?) All I really know is that Parker thinks he’s yummy!

Meet Floyd:

(yes he stole Raven’s glasses)

Tan N head &body. Floyd is actually the repaint I am happiest with. I like how he looks sort of like he might be squinting or narrowing his eyes a bit.

So there you have it folks—I’d appreciate you taking the time to click the buttons and let me know what you think! and I promise I’ll try not to wipe anyone’s faces!

Now, here’s where the questions (for you,  the reader) start:

Each episode originally made up between 5-9 scenes of various lengths.

Looking at them now I think I’d probably burn out if I tried to do one all in one go.

But… If I am only showing one scene at a time (probably 2-10 pages of images on the web) do I still refer to them as episodes?

I mean, the scenes are parts of the original episodes….is it a cheat to call them episodes?  If it is a cheat, then what should I refer to them as?

Do I differentiate by Season?

Season 1 Episode 1

Season 1 Episode 2

(or maybe?)

Season 1 Episode 1 part 1

Season 1 Episode 1 part 2

I’d like to keep it simple (for my sake, really!) but I don’t want to clutter things up either.

Although I’d originally written the scenes to kind of weave together,  since I’m working under some constraints I’ve decided to edit out some scenes (primarily those dealing with the “adults” of Quinlan until I can move and actually build the sets I need for those) to make it more do-able…

I know I must sound like I have no clue. And really, maybe, I don’t. If I did I don’t think I’d be asking for comments and ideas at this point?

For those of you who read the blog & do photostories….how do you do it?

I’ve spent some time over the last week or two working on the main website for Corsetkitten’s Workshop.

It’s not complete (I don’t know if it ever will be) but if folks felt like stopping and taking a look I’d be really grateful! It’s probably going to display best in Firefox & Opera (the 2 browsers I checked it in–I don’t use explorer, and chrome always hates me).

And folks? Be kind, eh? I’m not a whiz with the web design & stuff.

To celebrate the month of October (The Best Month of the Year!!**) I’m going to set a sewing challenge for myself! If anyone feels like joining in feel free to! (and post your attempts in my comments area(or link to your photos)!

Here are the details:

• I need to sew a minimum of 1 new outfit (1:6) a week. Ideally I’d like to aim for 2 or more, but realistically–work won’t let me do that.

• It needs to be photographed & posted here on my blog by Sunday of that week.

• The outfit needs to consist of a complete set of clothing–meaning either a top & bottom, a dress, lingerie & stockings etc. (Basically, just not 1 piece all by itself.)

Ok that’s it! I might mix up which dolls the clothing will be for (Takara CY Girls, Fashion Royalty, Volks etc).

** It’s my Birthday in October, so could I think better of any other month???!!

I’ve been trying to build up the energy to add some more books to my “library” and have been working on those. They’re a real pain in the ass to do which is why I only work on making new ones every couple of months or so. They’re labor intensive and just really hard on the eyes.

I’m working on some of the fictional books too and might have them done in a few weeks, since they aren’t first up on my priority. Things here are sort of up in the air (the house, the space scenario etc)

But hopefully I’ll have more photos of stuff to share soon.

Other projects that I’m working on this week:

• I’m working on the Cafe again and am painting the walls for it this week. I’m going to see about adding the detailing to the furnishings *and oh, yea painting the tables and chairs LOL)*. It’s a slow going project but at least when it’s done it’ll look good.
• I also need to make a base for the front of it (sidewalk) and the awning area (and some door handles & locks for the front door).

FYI I’ll be working on my regular website this week so if you happen to stumble across it and it doesn’t look right/work or is not there you’ll know why (but feel free to ping me an email anyway–it might be a mistake! LOL)
I’m still learning when it comes to that stuff too. It’s been a while since I did anything with it and since y’all were nice enough to comment on the fact you’d like to see a diorama section I’ll be sure to add one.  It’s kind of funny but looking at the analytics for the main website vs. the blog it’s almost 2 different sets of visitors. Go figure?

This is your chance –you lurkers & regular readers — to speak out and tell me if you think I should either add a tab on the blog for that, or possibly make a section for them on my website (which has a planned re-vamp coming). If you have an opinion one way or the other please leave a comment on this post.  Also if there’s any additional information you’d want with the diorama/roomset info.

So?

Would you like to see my roomsets all put in one place? Possibly with information on how I made them or what I did to custom them?

Or…

Do you just want to continue to troll Flickr, My blog & various forums where I post them piecemeal?

Comments? Opinions?

You know, there’s a reason I use a lot of plain ol’ white walls in my dioramas & roomsets. They don’t clash & the match with just about anything I toss in them. And of course it means I don’t have to wrestle with my color-commitment demons! (those are the ones that make me go to sleep with clenched teeth while trying to decide on color schemes for things like couches, furnishings, quilting….)

But….speaking of the Un-named Cafe (and I have a few more ideas for what it could be called :silly: ) we have to discuss color and the general ambiance & feel I want for the place.

So I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out what colors I could use that would produce a semi-eclectic, interesting cafe type environment. You know what I mean, don’t you? :cheerful:

Well just in case you don’t –I trawled the internet (as part of my research for how I wanted the interior of the cafe to look like) and have a few “inspirational” photos to share. Don’t ask me where I got most of them–random google search for random words mostly. :whistle:

So! Looking around I’ve realized a couple of things:

1) I like the red for the perceived warmth it gives.

2) I’m liking the kind of “harvest gold” and “pumpkin”-y colors too.

3) As far as I’m concerned only one wall should be red. The cafes that I’ve seen with more than one “dark” wall tend to be dim & dark.  Which is fine for mood & atmosphere but not so much so for my lighting set-up & clear photos for photostories.

4) I’m finding myself *unaccountably* drawn to the cafes that have multiple colors in the room (ie different walls different colors). It’s kind of radical for me (but Mark’s said that if I do it in a roomset the worst I have to do is paint over it if I find I don’t like it).

With all this in mind I tried to put together a basic/potential color palette to work with. I’m still not certain about it (since it’s based on what I have on hand, and what I can get with my last 5 bucks).

I’m not sure how this will look on other folks monitors but  we’ve got:

Olive(ish) green

Golden (harvesty orangy-yellowish)

Dark red (wine colored–this is from our front door)

Robins egg blue/ some kind

Browns (the counters, cabinets & trim as well as flooring will all be some sort of wood or wood-tone)

I found this nifty   site for messing around with colors:

COLOURlovers

And I decided to try to do the re-vamped room up in sweethome 3d again. This time with the window & door swapped around (to allow layout room for the small sofa, coffee table & chair. (the types of furniture shown are just roughs since I don’t have a lot of it in my library).

I did my first ever fly-round today using the program: (it’s not much to look at and I’m still figuring it out—but it was fun)  :biggrin:

It’s too big for me to actually upload into the blog I guess but you can find it here:(it’ll take probably 5-10 minutes to load which I’m sure if I got better at it I;d know how to make it load faster/shorter)

Video fly-round of the cafe

EDIT:

It was suggested that the blue room was too bright & the multiple colored walls were similar to elementary school   So here’s a 2nd option with 2 of the walls the golden color instead!

Is it too much goldeness?? Yea, I think maybe….

So how about……. This?

final color choices:

Ok, so here are the questions to keep in mind as you look at these pics:

(these are questions I’d really love some feedback on folks!)

I plan on doing the back wall (the one behind the counter) a darkish red.

• Do you think that the other walls should be some color other than white? What color(s) would you think could go with it? (the cabinets will all be done in faux wood tones)

Another question:

• Do you think that there needs to be some sort of “casual” seating area? Ie a couch & maybe a coffee table & arm chair? IF so–which table(s) would you get rid of to fit it in? (assume the couch is appx the size of the my scene coffee shop set one)

Yet one more:

Although Quinlan has a lot of paranormal & unexplained occurrences – it isn’t outwardly admitted that “magic” as such exists. I’d like to give a nod to that in the Cafe’s name but am finding it difficult.  Is that important?

The names I’ve come up with so far (and have been suggested to me) include:

Cafe Fantome¹

Fortean Cafe²

The Caffeinatrix (yea I know I made the word up)

Bats Coffeehouse

Steep’n'Brew

Brewing Grounds

¹Fantome is supposed to mean Ghost in french (so this would nudge me toward thinking the cafe is haunted by some sort of spirit).

²Fortean is in reference to Charles Fort

OK and now for the photos! (the furniture is roughly in the places I expect it would be when it’s finished)

and one from sort-of eye level (sorry, I couldn’t be bothered to stand Lori up straight for the photo!)

So….thoughts? C’mon folks! :blush:

When I’m sewing for myself I can barely be bothered to sew on snaps or hooks & eyes. Most shirts are simply pinned up the back because I can’t stand the repetitious hand sewing. I design bunches of outfits but I don’t make them –because I’m just not motivated enough to make them–for myself.

Now throw a friend into the mix.
Someone who doesn’t sew, or doesn’t do it frequently. Said friend mentions things that I know I can make…Can someone explain to me why I’ll go out of my way to make things for other people, I’ll spend hours sewing on stupid snaps & hooks, adjusting pieces etc. And I still won’t think it’s good enough?

*sigh*

Anyway, here’s a few pics of the stuff I made today.

Anyone wanna guess who they’re for?

My long talked about, long planned, long scripted photostories…

My point: Making changes in my plans for my photostories.

I’m in a kind of tough situation at the moment.

We’re trying to get the house ready & up for sale (which means getting rid of as much stuff as we can, and packing up much of my belongings & so on).  It also means that I’m really really limited in what I can do  work on with regard to my photostories.

This bothers me because I’m still scripting & planning. I have such a lot I want to do. And I’m frustrated that I can’t do much of anything because of my current (perceived) limitations.

So what do I do??

• Do I put all the dolls & roomsets away (the ones that won’t get taken apart & discarded) and just stick to writing the scripts? And hope that in a year from now when we’re settled *fingers crossed for luck* and I’ll want to make the sets & shoot the stories then?

• Do I try to do them now and end up doing what I’ll feel is a half-assed job?

I say that because I have a really definite idea & vision in my mind of how I want the Chronicles to be.

I don’t want them to suck (The stories don’t. However,  I feel like I’m letting myself down by not making the settings the best I can.) I’m caught between a rock & a hard place because I can’t work on any sets.  I want to make them. To share them with people.  But I want to share something I can be proud of–or at least semi-satisfied with

I do know I don’t want to shoot them & then  re-shoot them again in the future (I’ve tried that once and it was like all the magic of it left with the first shoot & the second was just “oh I gotta do this again!”).

So where does that leave me and  The Chronicles?

They’ve been stuck in a holding pattern for so long now.  It’s unspeakably frustrating…and I get tired of thinking about the “someday” aspect of it.

So what can I do?

I’ve been giving it a good deal of thought.  I want to feel productive about the Chronicles on some level, even if I can’t produce whole episodes.  I want to continue to explore characters & see if I can develop them more.  So I’ve come up with the following (probably very lame) idea:

Do a weekly photostory/ interview with a character from The Chronicles.

I know it’s not the same as doing an episode, and that whatever it is will likely be a monologue delivered by said character.  It’ll all be done in 1 room. The plan is to do them once a week and post them up on Fridays. Hopefully folks might feel like suggesting characters they want to learn more about (from the main profile site).

This Friday’s will focus on Thom Tazzo.

So there it is.

That’s the plan.

Please don’t laugh me out the door…… :blush:

I find myself thinking about that when I hit the fashion doll boards  and see the vast amount people have on hand to dress their dolls in.  I swear that most of those dolls have better wardrobes than people!

This of course brings us to my clothing collection and how I organize it (or more like the trouble I had with that) :rolleyes: .   I thought for laughs, I’d take a couple of photos of my personal doll clothes collection.  And how my storage of it has changed.

Originally I started out with zip lock baggies–each character got their own and all the clothes were parceled out as they came into the collection.  Of course, my favorite figures always got first dibs on the good stuff!!   But…I’m an impatient person & it became a hassle digging through a baggie trying to find exactly what I wanted–and or–figuring out what I wanted!

I’ve recently started working on a better way of organizing & storing the clothes so that I’ll be able to access them:

1. easily
2. quickly
3. with minimum disturbance of other things
4. in a way that was easy to store

But before I managed to do that…it devolved into chaos (see photo below) if you look closely you can still see some of the original zip lock baggies in the baskets.  

Now they look like this:

I’m pleased with it!

Easy to find a particular piece, easy to sort them (all short sleeves in one, all dresses in another, professional clothes in another) etc.  When I get around to it I’ll make labels for the sides of them–and store them on a shelf! (I’m psyched about that!!) The best part was how cheap it was to do this–the folders/boxes/ came from the pound shop. What a deal! 

Looking at all this stuff all I can say is hey, I’m still a kid! I need doll clothes! LOL!

I think it’s a great idea and I’d love some company this year! (Without some egging on I kind of lose steam and putter out…though I did begin it last year but I never actually completed my final 3 or 4 entries…I don’t know at this point if it’s worth doing so before I start the next list)

Here’s a link to more info (including the format!)   It’s fun.  Really!

Fortress of Testicular Fortitude:  Let’s all do a Personal Favourite Toys of 2009 List

Anyway…Think about joining in the fun! (and leave me a comment if you think you might–so I can be sure to watch your blog when you start!)

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?

To which I said, well, maybe part of it is economics.

My friend pointed out that yes, the hobby does take money & time resources, and I agreed that with the current state of things dolls & action figures probably aren’t on the top of folks priority lists. (Ok, they’re pretty damned close on mine though)

I said that maybe one of the reasons people have 1) stopped maintaining blogs is that they weren’t getting the feedback or comments from people. Some people depend more on outside validation than they do on their customs.  Some people don’t.  I think it’s probably half-a-dozen of one or the other either way. 2) they’ve got other things going on that don’t give them the time or energy for the hobby.

I know that for myself, I  am a bit happier whenever someone can be bothered to take the time to comment.  I think that there are about 5 people in total who ever comment on my blog.  5.  Not a lot, and it’s not one of the popular blogs out there.

Does it really matter to me?

Well….I’d be lying if I said no.  But does the lack of comments make me not post?  No. (Although I’ll admit that if I got more comments I’d probably bother to post more stuff and better photos) My blog is more about me having some kind of record of what I’ve been up to, as well as a way to communicate with other people interested in the hobby.  Would I like more comments? Sure! Who the heck wouldn’t?

Feel free to take a look at them here:

The Quinlan Chronicles: profiles

If anyone wants to check it out and let me know how it looks/loads/ I’d appreciate it. ^_^  It’s best viewed with Firefox and I’m not making any promises how it looks in crappy IE.

Here’s hoping that I’ll soon get to work on the grown-up profiles for the chronicles!

I’m going to ditching  the following stuff:

• fabric
• 1:6 furniture
• 1:6 props

• I may ditch a few of my dolls/figures as well but I’m not sure at this point.

The majority of stuff is likely to be the doll furniture & varied props.  I want to narrow it down from 13 A4 sized paper boxes (furniture/props) to about 3 max. The doll/sewing  fabric needs to get whittled down from an over abundant 10 boxes to whatever I could comfortably fit into a smallish suitcase.

Yea, I know I’ve spent the last 3 years collecting this stuff—but—most of it isn’t special enough for me to go through the hassle of

1) shipping it home

or

2)incurring the cost and expense of crating it home. (This is an ongoing dialogue between M & myself about what we really NEED to take with us vs. what’s “habit”.   Hey I can easily & freely admit I’m a pack rat, but M has a problem (although he has 40 yrs worth of stuff spread between here and his folks place). Besides, I believe the occasional re-boot/total clear out is good for the soul.

After all, at the end of the day, it’s just stuff.

SOOOOoooooooooooo…..If anyone is looking for anything in specific (furniture/props/fabric) post a message and let me know. If I’ve got it I’ll let you know what I’m after (more than likely just a few bucks+postage)