DollsArtCats

All the items I have ordered over the holiday season are coming now, it's easy to lose track of what is still pending and be surprised. I wasn't expecting Gitana for at least another week! But here she is; she is a M/F sculpt, depending on how you paint and present her, she can be "Gitana" or "Guilem". Here's what she looks like as the adorable Guilem: Uh, choices, choices..but I do have a leftover Soom girl body and not a leftover boy body, so Gitana it is--actually "Sophronia Stevens, The Tragic Muse, actress and toast of 18th century London." aka "Lets do more puffy ballgowns!" I also love that she is not a "cutie" sculpt, but a beautiful one!

Soom includes three lengths of elastic in the kit--the shortest length is for the arms, the medium length is to be folded in half and used to hold the head on, and the longest piece goes around through the legs. The only place where you might want hooks (and Soom doesn't send any) is for the hands. Or you can untie the shortest piece of elastic and loop it over the posts in the hand pieces. I made my own hooks. The arms are already sort of put together. I found it easier to pull off the shoulder piece to string the arms. Now for the head stringing: Now the legs: For some reason I didn't do any pictures of putting the feet on, but the earlier post Super Gem Stringing Guide shows that. Here's Antoine all strung, if bald:

Merry gets a head,(the Impldoll Christopher head I have had for ages), Antoine the Were-Deer gets the Benmore Human head (but tragically can no longer fit in his favorite coat): And Robyn, the Pointy-Ears head, is stuck on a Migma body for now: He will probably get a boy body later. Here he says "Dude, I like this wig." Merry does not look pleased.:

And also on the topic of Too Much, look what happens when you put your goldfish in a lake. I think that is a real pic..I know carp get big.

No blue box, which might be standard for kits? This is the first kit I have ordered from Soom, so I have no idea. And now the stuff! The much-awaited Pointy Ears Head..which is not an Amber. But cute. And now a profile: Sadly, not a girl. Merry will just have to find another head for her body, poor thing! The adorable human head. I like this one even better than the pointy ears head: View from the front: The issue I had with "no room for the leg knots" has been fixed, too--in both the human legs and the fantasy legs: Glorious hoof feets: No need for hooks on the hooves, either--they are molded on! And the human head has pockets for the magnets so he can wear the horns too. :D Once again, I was amazed to get everything pre-sanded--somebody at Soom is very nice to me! Now I just need to wait for it to be warm enough I can spray him and give him a face--in the meantime he needs clothes, like everyone else. It was like Christmas all over again!

They are making a "special delivery run" for the box, which I think translates to "Oops, left it in the bin this morning". J says calm down, it really was on a separate truck, as it just arrived at his office.

How to create animated gifs from your drawings: 1. Redraw parts of the pose, such as head turns. 2. In Photoshop, isolate parts of the drawing as independent pieces. 3. Create a Photoshop file with each element on a separate layer. 4. By switching on and off visible layers, create frames of animation. 5. Upload frames into online gif-creator such as "imgflip.com" and adjust settings 6. Upload file to Photobucket, etc. as above. About once a week, Gurney posts a total gem of art info on his blog. The rest of the week he puts up cool paintings. :D Gurney Journey

No, it left customs at O'Hare at 3:30 Am last night and no one has bothered to update the tracking since, though I know perfectly well it's sitting in a canvas bag at the local post office, being ignored because it is inconveniently large. And it's supposed to snow more tomorrow, making it even less fun for everyone to move the box around. Argh.

You can make this a lot bigger to see the detail if you go to Ira's website here: Manuna Mouse, and in Costumes LOL every day it's getting harder to enforce the "no tiny" rules around here--this one is as cute as the Aileen Doll's Dragon, and is much more posable. Ira does good work, as well as creating the bjd patterns I blogged earlier (I still need to make those shoes). You can buy the mouse conveniently from Jpopdolls in the USA, too--Grace is selling the tan ones: http://www.jpopdolls.net/store/home.php?cat=429 Light Tan LE 50: Available at JpopDolls, preorder time: 25.02.2013 - 31.03.2013 (Feb 25th, 2013 to March 31st, 2013) Height: 10.5 cm Price: 225 USD

Alerted by Ilsonya's blog that the new event heads were up at Fairyland, I went over to see the details. Duration : February 8th, 2013 ~ March 22nd, 2013 2013 Valentine Event a. $400 or above : pukiFee Space Helmet (does not include the visor) b. $600 or above : MiniFee Head (Siean Elf) c. $600 or above : MiniFee Head (Yder Elf) d. $900 or above : Two choices from a, b, or c e. $1200 or above : All of a, b, and c - Above price EXCLUDES shipping fee. And here is the helmet in action on a Puki Vanilla...ermagherd cute! And here are the Minifee heads: Fairyland Main Page

Aside from painting up Davon last week, and putting a wig or two on him, I haven't done much here but wait for cover approvals, and clean things. People have been sending me cartoons though; K sent me this one: And Greg Frost sent me this one about ants: With luck, the box from Soom will be here tomorrow and I will start my Benmore Jigsaw Puzzle then.

K invades Lady Gaga's closet for a shawl.

Shipping notice from Soom! Now comes the postman stalking. In ant news: And did I mention I got a shipping notice? :D And finally the dance with Michelle Obama: Mom Dance

Sarqq has a new doll--a beautifully painted "crow" Galena (Sarqq likes crows). And the photos are magnificent too. I did not buy the white skinned Galena on the Marketplace, because I really don't need one--but I am glad that Sarqq has one I can admire (and not have to store) :D. Sarqq's Deviant Art :

In case you wanted to know if the new heads would fit on the old bodies--they fit ok, but the head looks a little small to me (also Gneiss is Normal Skin and Merry (aka the Cuprit/Amber body) is Cream White). And yes, the clock always reads 8:10.

I had a chance to buy an New Youth Iplehouse Doll body very cheaply..the catch was that it had..no head. I thought that I had plenty of heads here, and the Normal Skin is pretty easy to match, so I jumped on it. And here it is, with my Cream White SID Jessica in a supporting role. It's a nice body, a little startlingly loud (there are ratchets in the hips) but unfortunately Iplehouse, whether by accident or design, made a neck that I will either have to mod-- or find some odd head/native Iplehouse head to go onto it. The neck flares out at the top, and it will take a Soom girl head, but Gneiss at least looks strange sitting on there. I think I'd like an Iplehouse Asa or Eva head, but that means laying in wait for Iplehouse to decide to sell some extra heads, or park at the bottom of the Den of Angels marketplace, waiting for one to bob up. My plan was to make an "Alice" doll, since apparently no doll fancier's collection is complete without one. If I was smart