DollsArtCats

...is here! (Or at least it felt like it today!)

I want to make a wig..a pretty simple wig, basically a hat with hair sticking out under it, so I was rummaging around. Cat recommended Amadiz wigs so I went to take a look. Oh my! That is a Soom Heliot up there, modelling "Moon God". I won't be making a wig quite like any of these, but wow, are they fun to look at! Here is the Flickr, which seems to be more current than their Deviant Art pages: http://www.flickr.com/photos/amadiz/ But here is a Soom Dia they decorated: And the deviant art gallery link: http://amadiz.deviantart.com/ So I am going to go stare at wigs for a while before I go to bed (a little early tonight, we dragged in groceries from Costco). And just for fun, another baby pic:

Cat has a new little creature, a Soom Dolomi with Daisy Dayes hooves (she likes them because they are longer "than the stubby Soom ones") Since this was a special doll, Cat wanted someone wonderful to paint it, so Lachlana was given Snitzel to paint up. All of Snitzel is now fabulous, but I thought the hooves were particularily amazing..look at the detail!(Click up to see the full view). Each hoof isn't much bigger than my thumb, and started out as a blank canvas--they now have the translucency and shine of real hooves with all the delicate detail of ridges and color changes. The rest of Snitzel (not quite SFW) and many other things can be seen here: http://lachlana.livejournal.com/

Isn't that pretty? That tapestry of color is a bjd dress, created by aloiVViola (Viola Voigt) : http://aloivviola.deviantart.com/ She "affectionately collects" various bits of ribbon and fabric to make the clothes; the photographs are lovely, too. She notes: The 21st Century is characterized by the loss of natural resources. But through social change Upcycling is by now en vogue. Recycling doesn't exploit our planet further and awakens unfashionable and rejected material to new life. It also makes one's basement full of tupperware (looks guilty). Perhaps we are "sequestering carbon" this way.

For some reason, "The Drunk Baby" always makes me laugh--probably because default baby behavior is so goofy anyway. And this little guy is pretty cute, drunk or sober.

Xtal wrote to me and said, among other things, "Did you see the egg?" And I was "What egg?" When you say "Easter Eggs" and websites, I think of hidden icons, not actual eggs. :o So I go and look...and omg..it is an egg. It is a strung egg... with 16mm eyes, accessible through "the crack" around Humpty's (and yes, that is Humpty Dumpty) middle. So he is both a Fairy Tale, in keeping with this year's theme, and an Easter Egg. He is also the nuttiest thing I have ever seen come out of a doll company, and it gives me hope that when they do Alice in Wonderland, we might get a Caterpillar. (It seems a bit much to hope for a Gryphon, a Mock Turtle, or Bill the Lizard, though). And his sales page is here: http://dollsoom.com/eng/shop/item.php?it_id=1364257009

It started with a little pink cheerleader skirt by Bukimeisu (with a tail hole) and went on from there. Strangely, Selket looks very cute in pink, scorpion tail and all!

I never would have thought of this myself, but someone wanted to see it...and it looks pretty cute! The neck is a perfect fit. I think this was the type 1 body, it was under a Chiwoo originally. Newer Delf/Luts bodies after 2010 are more pinky normal than this one.

Doll buying is a lot like Internet dating--you see little pictures, you read the text, you order and hope for the best. And usually, it works out...but not always. Take for example the famous, somewhat Topaz-like, Mecha Angel Saiph, now shrunk down by popular demand to Super Gem size. She arrived today, I opened the box, and hmmm. Saiph just looks alarmed to be here. I try her out on an old Super Gem girl body (to be honest, I had a good idea this wouldn't work after testing it with Gneiss) Oh, honey... Then there was the body I though she might sit on, a servicable, but Normal Yellow AoD body. Miss Saiph is most decidedly Not Normal Yellow. She is Soom Pink. So I pull out Noodles, and that was a mistake, because my reaction to seeing Noodles' cute little face was "Awww"..so no way was Saiph going to spend 5 minutes on Noodle's body as a time share. Even though she fits fine. And I'm not going to be spending any money to get Saiph a body of her own (ther...

An odd little doodle of one of my virtual dolls, "Tempest" by Gypsyangel from Renderosity.com. Art Rage is fun to paint in, but I still ended up pulling it into Photoshop to adjust the contrast and saturation. I am a creature of habit. :D

A side result of doing a GIS for "papyrus". Also, if you are invited to a swim party at Krocodilopolis, you might check and see if it's in a pool or the river. (Shotgun optional.)

And now Soom has that too--in the drop down menu for skin colors. I think someone on Ilsonya's blog asked for it. :D Same URL as before: http://dollsoom.com/eng/shop/item.php?it_id=1363847799

Think of it as a "serving suggestion". The more I thought of "why did Soom issue her in Normal Skin", the more I realized it was a good idea--for one thing, you can swap heads, but also you can choose how much or little you want her to be "human". I picture this version as having a wire wig, maybe worked over a yarn core to make it lighter. http://dollsoom.com/eng/gem.html

One of the current projects and my favorite at the moment! Just a detail...painted in Art Rage.

Via Reddit, of course.

...so we made the couch and Stripey brought out her favorite string.(Down on the red carpet).

This Soom Cass is wearing a sweater knitted by "Lynn" who keeps a tiny knitting blog, also on Blogger, here: http://dolly-rocket.blogspot.com ZOMG so many little, little knitted things!

I actually just bought one box, and I saw a robin! I also had to drag out the pond filter and clean it; the pond is once more overrun with algae. But the sun was shining while I cleaned it. :D Meanwhile in Kiev (via unicornholio/reddit) We get that weather tomorrow.

I am just getting ready to go to the post office (I found a home for the Iplehouse NYID body, and will be getting a Soom London (with a head!) in return. A great trade!) Anyway, I thought I would take a minute before I left, and peek through Sarqq's deviant art gallery: http://sarqq.deviantart.com/gallery/ Sarqq made Torukia the most tasty-looking little loli hat! (heart icon). I think one of the reasons I like Torukia so much is that she has that scorpion tail and loves princess ruffles. And chocolate.

...are fab.

If you would like to see the original image without the SFW bars on the Iplehouse site, log in (you have to be a member, but registering is easy) and go here: http://iplehouse.net/board/view.php?board_name=DREAMBOARD16&choose2=&choose1=&pagenow=1&CB=&ID=64 Iplehouse notes these changes: Characteristics of new EID woman body 1. Improved elbow, knee and hip joint : Elbow, knee and hip joint is improved like nYID body to enhance mobility and stability of the EID body. 2. Torso joint is improved to enhance stability. 3. Thigh, belly, belly button, and collarbone are re-designed to look more natural. 4. If you put old EID woman stand up straight, knee will be attached and there will be a gap in the feet. However if you put new EID woman stand up straight, there will be no gap between the feet. And by straightening the legs, legs got little bit longer and total height got little bit bigger. But there is no difference in hip, thigh or any part of leg ...

Holy Carp, it's a cyborg with Vesuvia's head! Darn it, Soom, did you sit around a table and say "Let's prank Fishcake! We'll say that we are doing cute little fairy tales and secretly MAKE A FREAKIN AWESOME CYBORG SF GIRL! Oh, and we'll name it after Fishcake's favorite gemstone and well put one of her favorite style heads on top!" And there would follow a lot of supervillain-like laughter. Because of course I am selling bits and pieces already to pay for the LAST soom girl I bought! Argh! Oh, the sales link..yes, it would be nice if she was white or blue or purple...but I am sure they will eventually do all those. http://dollsoom.com/eng/shop/item.php?it_id=1363847799 Sales period is March 22, 2013 to April 5th, 2013. (sweat) Edit--now in cream white...go up to Soom Garnet in Cream White to see my Photoshop version of what it would look like.

Hyacinth arrived yesterday in an enormous Iplehouse shipper--I am not her first owner, and I was really curious to see if an Iplehouse Elemental was any different from a standard--the answer is "not really"..except that Hyacinth (who is really an Iplehouse Aurora) has elf ears . I had no idea! They aren't huge points, just little cute ones. Iplehouse, if you had told me, I would have bought her new. I do like buying secondhand--for one thing, I can afford them, and often the dolls have had factory problems already corrected--they have been restrung, sueded, the seams sanded down, and sometimes problem areas re-modded. The downside is occasionally I get a doll that feels like I bought someone's stuffie--this girl was obviously loved, and even had her name pencilled in her head. And I am going to do rude and amusing things with her--Hyacinth is like Boadicea and Conan the Barbarian rolled together and has no taste in clothes whatsoever, and a big yarn wig which I am ...

http://memories-restored.net/GG3012/index.html Karl has been busy adding to the Galactic Geographic--it used to run in Heavy Metal Megazine, but I think Karl is enjoying being able to add to it on his own schedule, on his own website. And yes, he does photo restorations, too--it's spooky how he can drag up the correct colors and shapes out of the past, like a spirit medium with photoshop. He did a couple of pieces for me and the photos looked like they were when they were new and fresh!

I can look right out my window into his treehouse. This morning he had a little nap with his head out the hole of his house (the tree is hollow).

Not a lot, but last night I kept looking at the outside thermometer, and I wailed to J: "Every time I look at it, it drops a point!" And he said: "What the hell? I bought in at 40!"

I have an old copy of Painter. Painter7, to be exact, which at the time I purchased it, I paid a lot of money for it. So I have a commission where it would be nice to use some of the features of my moldy Painter, so I load it on my new machine, and guess what? This machine has too much memory to run Painter7. Now I don't like the bloatware that is Painter 12; so get off my lawn, Corel. Plus, Adobe is phasing out boxed editions of Photoshop, so they are going to switch to a subscription service and you can download the app from The Cloud to use it, and it will all be puppy farts and rainbows. If you do the math, the cheapest version of this will cost around 250.00 per annum, which considering I buy new versions of these things every 5 years for that same amount of money, kinda sucks. Actually it sucks a lot. So I shoved Painter7 back in the box until I can get my old 2004 computer repaired, and got out a pencil and some illustration board. I know how to use this toolset. Edit...

Another photo from Tuesday's "procrastinating from painting" photo session.

I thought the older Soom Vesuvia (from 2008) and the newer Soom Gneiss (2012) didn't look much alike, until they were sitting together on my bureau--and now I can see a kind of "family resemblance" between them. The original Vesuvia was a slow seller, probably because she was a bit expensive compared to the base dolls people were used to, but I think partly because of the outfit...Soom makes wonderful clothes but this one wasn't quite in their style: http://dollsoom.com/eng/shop/item.php?it_id=1249033324 My friend Laura called it "the Goth Hooker outfit", which didn't quite fit the shaping of the doll herself or the sparkly purple surface (which I don't think they have done again, though they have done non-sparkling purple resin dolls since then). But Beryl also had a ridiculous outfit and people bought her like crazy. The clothing design in 2012 was great though--I loved all the concepts for that line-- and of course didn't buy any of the o...

Stolen from reddit, of course.

I was sorting and putting up some doll stuff on the Den of Angels marketplace, when I saw these guys sitting together (A dream of Doll old Lahoo, and Valentine, a Simply Divine Harlequin by Stein Sculpture), and I had to take a photo. And since I had the camera and a lot of dolls out of storage, I took a couple more. Granado Davon: A slightly blurry modded Delf Lishe (Amethyst the Schemer, in front of Nick Jainschigg's Amethyst study): And a leftover picture of Noodles, Soom Gneiss; from St. Patrick's Day:

When I was a kid, I thought the head on the needle threader was Mary See, of See's Candy, because that was the only cameo portrait I had seen. Mary See must have been a domestic goddess, in charge of candy and sewing. (I think in reality it is supposed to be Athena, goddess of needlework, but the image has been passed around through so many years it's starting to look a lot like Augustus Caesar). The beads are a scarab thing I am making for Selket.

There is a fun site that Kihaku created, where you can compare (or just look at single shots) different doll molds/sizes. The photos are owner photos, not factory photos, so there is some customization and a bit of hybrid hands here and there. You first go to this page: Kihaku's Comparison Heaven And then scroll down to the exclamation point (!) at the bottom of the page, where the instructions are. You can click on two dolls and it will load the images like Layers in photoshop (there must be some interesting coding on that page) and then use your cursor to move the photos around to line up on the grid. If you hit the edge of your screen, you will need to pull down your own window before you can move the doll image further down. Depending on where you are, it's Not Safe for Work (I have to add the stupid Prudery Strips to photos of plastic dolls here because of Blogger's guidelines) but of course the dolls are bare so you can compare the sculpts. The list is huge of do...

The grey cat says he'll just stay in his box with his string until Spring. (I like how his house is "sponsored")

(The baby snakes were stolen from Reddit, and that is my Soom Gneiss, Noodles). By the way, I once asked J what caused the Irish Potato Famine, thinking I would get a scientific answer-- and he said , "You must have had relatives there." I do like potatoes. :D

This Migma is for sale on Den of Angels (she is on a Clozel body, I think) and I was utterly charmed by her red cloak and her clover-and-ladybug "pin." The link below will only work if you are logged in as a member, but here it is: Eol'ta's Sales Thread for Migma I am pretty sure Eol'ta, who lives in Russia, did the sewing and aesthetics herself. There are more photos on the forum...Miss Migma has some great clothes!