DollsArtCats

These are Tygati's current crop of dolls--my favorite is the Soom Vega Last Song, who is the doll on the second row, first on left, with the orange hair--he donated his previous wig to Bird. It's the flaming orange wig I like so much, so I am happy Goldfish (and tygati) were willing to share!

Soom has a new dragon boy for sale until the 5th of September, and he's very cute--I'd love to have his body for one of my Sphaler heads, because he has Feet of Awesome: However, I will be spending an equivalent amount of money on food and lodging in downtown Chicago at the Worldcon. I'm hoping to sell some art to pay for all this! (My brother took that splendid picture).

Hermione is a Fairyland Dreaming Moon--for ages I have had him on a Soom Super Gem girl body--I bought the SG body from Tygati and she stuck Hermione's head on it just for a joke when she sent it to me, but the resin match and the sculpt looked perfect together. So I gave him a girly faceup, and as time went on, he collected various tulle dresses and tiaras. Last week I finally got around to swapping some bodies around and got Hermione on his "real" male Feeple body..only to discover that he looks weird to me in boy clothes. And as I have a heavy investment in princess dresses, I guess I'll need to let out some seams in the top of the dresses and he'll go back to his regular wardrobe. The Feeple body is an amazing poser in spite of Mecha Angel-sized legs, better than the female version, IMO.

(Click to enlarge photos) AnitaS wanted me to show an older Soom head on the new body. On the left is Sensei Fuzzy, Soom MD Sphaler; on the right Bird, Soom Tremo. The inside of Bird's faceplate. You lift off the magnetic backplate, then hold the faceplate (very important) before you lift the banana. Otherwise the faceplate just falls off. Trust me. The "banana" on the neck. I slipped a ribbon under it and tied together the two loops of elastic so I could pull on them. I was unwilling to use the resin banana for a puller. Comparing the two heads--the Sphaler head is smaller than the Tremo head, but not by much. Both wear 8-9 wigs, though Tremo does better with a stretchy wig. Comparing torsos--Tremo's is much thicker in the chest and upper arms, but the neck dimensions are almost the same. Sphaler on the new body. I think it looks fine, if silly here.;) Banana on the old body; fits fine. Faceplate, then headcap, and the two guys are swapped. I think Tr...

Busy today, more tomorrow.

"Who is that pretty boy?" Yes, show a Bird a mirror and look what happens. The flaming wig is courtesy of Tygati, and I may keep it as his party wig. Bird also looks good in Gothy stuff, though the outfit is swiped from another doll who probably doesn't want to part with it, since it's all he has at the moment. The bad news: the old Super Gem tops are too tight across the chest, unless you have something stretchy. It looks like he fits the Super Senior Delf clothes perfectly, and he might be able to wear suits designed for SD17 dolls as well, not that I am buying Bird Volks clothes anytime soon. I am very glad I bought a stand for him, though.

My Soom Tremo arrived yesterday; he spent some time waiting at the post office because of a mix-up, but then J rescued him and I was able to get him home. Of course the box with his stuff has disappeared among the other moving boxes; so here he is wearing Fu Bai's wig and Vittorio's underwear. I have to say his body is not as well engineered as Gneiss's was, but the body may be a work in progress--there are a lot of pieces inside the body, but they don't quite work together. More than anything else, he needs the waist joint back, and I should have bought the Extra Pose legs. However, his hands with the magnet prongs seem much more robust than Gneiss's, and the ability to take off hands makes dressing much, much easier. His legs are shapelier than the older body, but he also needs larger feet to balance the weight of the new shoulders. The faceplate is also a big plus, like the hands, it makes it easier to change the eyes and work with the elastic, which is h...

Unexpectedly I am going to Worldcon, which is a large science fiction convention which this year, happens to be in Chicago. Since I wasn't planning on attending, I will have to paint fast if I want something in the art show. Or I will have to repurpose something that I already have, to make it fit the rules that all displayed art must be of a "fantasy, science fiction, or fannish nature." One year, right before a convention, I found a landscape in my basement; and I painted a UFO on it in the corner. It was sold, and I think it got a ribbon, too.

We planned to go downtown to look at otters at the Shedd Aquarium, but there was an air show, and a football game; so we stayed home and went to Target, and spent a long time looking at lightbulbs. This is what happens when you are married for a long time. We still had fun.

I have a giant ground wasp nest by my back gate, which is making mowing awkward. The nest is big and deep enough that spraying was ineffective, as was putting a bucket of ice on it, and I didn't want to go to the more extreme methods like gasoline and flame because it's right against the house, and gasoline is much more dangerous than wasps. So we decided to try some traps. If you add cat food to the juice bait, the bees aren't interested in the bait, but the wasps are even more delighted with it. So we bought a really cute wasp trap: After three days we caught nothing but ants in it,(it's not deep enough) so I made a ghetto version out of a plastic milk jug and holes in the middle of the sides and at least 4 inches of liquid in the bottom (fruit juice and cat food mixed, tablespoon extra sugar) that I knew from experience works: You do have to let it sit for a couple of days for the wasps to find it, even if you put it right in front of the flyway for the nest. Bu...

I just got the shipping notice that Bird (Soom Tremo) is on his way! (Happy Dance!)I got the simple pose body--he is the new Soom Male SuperGem standard body, so I don't know if any of the old Super Gem clothes will fit. But I will find out soon.

When we first walked through the house, J and I agreed that the mirrors had to go. Two sides of the living room are covered with mirrors. High quality, bevelled mirrors. Aside from the problem of my having no interest in watching myself vaccum or pick up mouse bits off the carpet (which is mostly all I have done so far in there) the mirrors on this side have been damaged--if you look at the door, the mirror covering it has been smashed by slamming the door shut. (Look at the doorknob, where it was cleverly repaired with duct tape). The door can be fixed by taking it off it's hinges and putting it on the curb, but the panel above it has some water damage, and the whole run of mirrors has a metal frame on the top and bottom that was welded on there for the ages--otherwise I would just put contact sticky paper over the whole thing, put on a pair of goggles and have at the mirrors with a prybar. I think the previous owner who installed them regretted the mirrors as well..she had a ...

This Amber belongs to Anneke on Den of Angels--same mold as the one HerrZog painted, but this one is the Free Choice Amber in Bronze, so she looks suprisingly different, but still very good. I keep meaning to send a head to Angel Toast (who is based in the US) but once a head is professionally painted, then it's stuck that way--I can't move the eyebrows or suddenly wonder how a purple tattoo would look! Here is Angel Toast's commission site: http://angel-toast.blogspot.com/

Yes, it's time to visit HerrZog's Flickr again and see what is new--there is also a pale Lishe that looks like an elegant vampire, and a rather adorable Soom Sard--usually Sard looks unhappy, but HerrZog's painting makes him look handsome and even a little playful. Amber has grown on me--when I first saw her at Soom I thought the idea was wonderful but that her face looked a little blank and frightened (like a real deer!) but since then, numerous repaints have made me see how pretty she can be. And blue and purple suit her, especially since she comes with little crystal horns. Here is the link for you to see the rest of HerrZog's current pieces: http://www.flickr.com/photos/herrzog/

We has them. And they are not all as cute as the one above. The chipmunks stay outside, but the mice, attracted by the leftover seeds from the now-removed bird feeder, have learned how to climb in under the air conditioning pipe into the house, then walk along the top of the foundation wall inside, and then back under the kitchen to find people food. The larger kitchen was an addition to the original house, so the basement doesn't extend back under the kitchen--it's just a narrow space underneath the floorboards, about 50cm high, with a small-rock-and-plastic-sheeting floor. I know this because I took my camera, set it on flash, and stuck my arm in wherever I could wiggle it in around the pipes. The photos look like something from a James Cameron remote camera, but they are useful for seeing not only the mice, but the wiring and piping down there. It looks like soon all the Ikea drawer cabinets,shown here: (which we have dubbed the Fukken cabinets because of how they are...

In Chicago, where the weather is either hot, or brutally cold, the malls are not enclosed. At the Oakbrook Mall, which has lots of high-end shops, they disdain to even have the double-door "airlocks" that New Jersey stores have to keep the cold air out and the hot air in. I feel for the clerks at L'Occitane, for example, because the store is small and the doors are large, and when it is 5 degrees F below zero I can imagine them having pans of charcoal and flaming trashcans behind the counter to keep warm. Perhaps the mall brings in some extra plastic vestibule/porch affairs and places them over each door. I know the flowers are all brought in a truck and plugged in like little lightbulbs, and removed at the first sign of spoilage, and the fountains are drained and the pumps removed at the end of the summer season. The mall in Bolingbrook has a really cool fountain of spinning solid granite balls that you can push with your hand, and I assume those too go away for t...

A fancy feathered hat (from the Kane County Fair, a leftover photo) A chick in feathers..(What IS that, Popodoll?? The Barbarian of Rythmic Gymnastics?) And Galena Chicken Feet, which I need to finish painting. I would have worked on them today, but a good chunk of today was spent at the Arboretum Animal Hospital, waiting for a doctor to see the gray cat, who (we think) rolled in the mulch outside and got a stick in his eye, or at least the corner of it. He seems to be fine now, though he will need monitoring and twice-daily eye salve. There is no point in having him be an inside cat, either, since he is capable of eating a cord on the miniblinds or finding pins to chew on, or pulling a bookcase over on himself. At least outside he is busy chasing things on grass 90% of the time, and then he comes in and sleeps.

I went out into the screened porch to store some boxes (it's become a storage room for the moment) and the cats were staring intently at something on the back lawn. It was 2 large rabbits. These were much larger than the baby bunnies that my gray cat caught and ate every night at the rental house, so I figured the rabbits were safe, until I turned around to go back in. I got the tongs, picked the rabbit up with a lot of difficulty as he was heavy . As the gray cat yowled and fussed, I took the rabbit out and put it under a bush. Somehow the cat had managed to grab the rabbit,(as big as the cat himself is), and then the cat dragged the rabbit to the house and then up and over the windowsill, into the screened porch. There is too much "nature" here, I have decided. There are birds everywhere because the previous owner fed them, and they also poop everywhere. Because of the leftover bird food, there are mice, and because there are mice, there are snakes. (I have not ...

I should be testing some Asian 3d fabric patterns (PD and I have both been busy) and I found this dynamic kimono in my stash of Poser stuff. It's so much fun to pose, it is a huge time sink; since it's easy to forget why I started rendering in the first place, and just play with poses and settings. The cicadas are finally out, it must be August. We have gotten enough rain that I think they decided it was safe to come out after all. This one was from New Jersey; though I can hear them, I haven't seen a Chicago one yet.

I mowed the back yard yesterday evening (uphill, both ways, using a push mower), and this morning I found that I don't use that set of calf muscles very often. I think today I will unload boxes instead of doing yard work.

I am probably the only person to have a wtf koi pond. I think the reason the liner is pulled up is that Deborah, the previous owner, bought a 24 inch deep liner and then was told that the koi would need at least a 36 inch depth if they were going to "over winter" successfully, so she sort of folded it in half and stuck it in a deeper hole. The other theory is that she didn't buy the "geothermal liner" that is supposed to cushion and provide an escape route for methane and other gases that build up under the pond as things decay under it, and pulling up one side vents it. In either case, the koi will either go to my neighbor's koi pool in the back, or back to the shop for winter; the pond will get redug and relined, and have frogs and goldfish instead. And water lilies. View of kid paradise next house over, from my dining room. Not shown: trampoline, Scooter the dog, 7 children, flaming chiminea or James, age 8 with his airsoft gun and dirt bike. I ...