DollsArtCats

 I ordered her in May and she is here already!! Unpainted, because at the time Covid was making it hard to get faceups. Wish me luck in painting her up today :D Soom has made a few really good changes in how they make dolls--I wish they had done these years ago because some of the simplest changes will help the most. The new certificates have the actual name of the doll on them! I can't tell you how many times I have mixed up Soom certificates here and had to flail around to match the correct card with the correct doll. The other new thing is that there is now a second original certificate for the *body* as well so when you split a doll, there is no sad little photocopied "certificate" that goes with the body, or worse, when you let go of the original certificate with the body and then realize that you want to sell the head later. (sad face). The Owners manual is the pink thing you see in the back, all updated with the current stringing and parts. There is now a rfid chip...

  Soom now has a calendar of releases on their website (they have had it for a few months now and it's pretty useful to see what is coming in the current month. This month it lists Super Gem Jet as the release (Korean time) on September 9th. I must have slept through the first release but you can look at his pretty face here: https://gem.dollsoom.com/en/shop/jet-desert-mercenary/ I'm think he looks more like Cute Shepherd Guy, possibly a Nativity extra, rather than a hardened desert mercenary :D His original release clothes were quite fabulous, so I am curious to see what he'll be wearing this time. I would be tempted to do a "Genie that Resembles a KPop idol" myself, but that is just me :D He kind of reminds me a little of Puss In Boots, with a sweet and thoughtful expression. And my Amber came!!!! I have photos tomorrow, I just need to load them onto the computer and clean them up a little.

  HerrZog (Anna) is selling some of her Soom dolls, one of them being this glorious gray HOOVED Beryl. The later releases of Beryl sometimes did not have hooves, when I got Petra, she didn't come with her full set because she was an abandoned order.  HerrZog's came directly from Soom, with *both* heads, feet, hooves and horns, on the new body. Here is what she has: (I forgot to list the fancy feet/shoe combo--this was a Vesuvia thing ages ago, now several releases have had it). The Romantic head is so pretty. HerrZog doesn't want to split her, understandibly, and is offering EMS as the shipping option (around 120-150 USD to the US at the moment). Base price is now 1300 USD, way past my own budget, especially considering my recent doll purchases :o (I have been selling dolls and parts to cover my purchase of an Asa from Iplehouse, and then ended up buying a very inexpensive Stella from the MP and some other heads and parts ... lol.) Anyway, if you are on Den of Angels this i...

  Fern is being measured for clothes :D She is the taller of the two Blythe sizes, they also made a smaller version of her (which I have not seen yet in person).

 Cat talked me into buying one--she has such a cute (if slightly alarming) Blythe of her own, named Poppy-- so I thought I would go look on Ebay and see what I could find--if you look on Etsy they are customized Blythes but they cost around 200USD up, which I wasn't willing to pay, but on Ebay I found a really cute one for the cost of a low end dinner out--she even came with a dress and shoes and hair!  "Bees!" And when she arrived, I spent like ten minutes looking at her, told Cat she had arrived, and then decided to see what was going on inside her head. Luckily Cat is smarter than I am, and linked me to a You Tube video that showed how to get into the head--it's not as simple as unscrewing the three screws on the back off--you have to use inappropriate force and a screwdriver to pop the back off the supporting plastic pylons AND unhook the spring with a tiny crochet hook--the spring is attached to the back of the head on a tiny bar above the pull mechanism. Here yo...

 Souldoll Agnes' head is absurdly small, especially when you consider she is supposed to go on the very tall, if slim, Souldoll Zenith body. So I ordered a Resinsoul Ai hooved body for her and it arrived a month ago (Covid has made even Resinsoul behind schedule, so be patient while they catch up--you can also get things faster if you order directly from their website; but also have a good antivirus, as their site is unsecured.) I ordered through Denver Doll because I was lazy :D I had put a different, not entirely successful faceup on her before--I like this grumpy one much better. She still needs a custom wig as this one hides her pointy little ears. The resin of the head and the body is a pretty good match--Agnes is about a year older but the RS resin will catch up with her in time. The body is good--she will stand without the stand, though I did have to restring the body--RS puts all the strings up through the neck, shrugs, and wraps it all up in bubble wrap and lets you deal w...

  My friend Cat really wants Soom to create a new, purple Beryl; pointing out that they have done a "light purple" Amber, but not Beryl. So here is a photoshop mockup of what a Light Purple Beryl might look like. (I had to use the Classic Beryl because I do not have the new body with hooves). Soom has done a Creamy white, a Normal, a gray, a Brown Tan, but I can't think of any other colors...not even a Tawny, or a "Twany" even: Twany: My theory is Twany is Tawny with sparkles, or maybe Narmer is just a one-off. I've looked at him so often to laugh that he feels like a family member now. If I bought him (and he is Not Cheap) I would have to make him a fabric body because nothing in his size is cheap--hes either 72 or 75 cm, and chunky. Anyway, I would take a new Beryl (not until this fall, please) :D in pretty much any color, and this time I promise I will order the hooves, because I regret getting the last one without them. And I think Tawny with sparkles wo...

  It's got both sleeves! And a skirt hook, a snap and a back lacing :D Everything except the corset is just shaped flat rectangular pieces, which for a professional tailor they would be fast and easy to make. The length of the skirts, ungathered, were about 180 cm long. The "sleeves" would have taken me about 5 minutes if I hadn't needed to do a bit of needle lace to hook together the two sides of the lace rectangles. A pleater would make all those gathers faster than me doing them by hand, too, and many of them were already part of the nightgown I cut apart. My biggest mistake was sewing together the two layer of the skirt--they would have worked better as two separate skirts, with the underskirt gathered into a flat panel. My next one will be much better :D Now the hard part will be to figure out who needs clothes next (not the guys, they look fine). It's hot here, after all. Jeline will lend this out for a photo shoot for Sophie, the hooved Beryl, but it's ...

  This is actually a boy head, a Blue Blood Doll X601 (Catchy name, huh?) I was actually just looking for an inexpensive head for a Iplehouse modified body, but this head ended up on a Loongsoul girl body that I had in storage since the size and color was good. It's a really nice head--the eye wells are super flat, so I need to look for some 16mm eye that has almost no dome to it--right now I have some glib eyes in there and even those are too curved to fit quite smoothly in the space. But overall I did an ok faceup for her and I'll make her some clothes because I have almost nothing that fits the Loongsoul chest. That is a Grace body, by the way, they are *very* tall, 68 cm with a head, so great for big heads. They are surprisingly good posers. You can order them from Alice's Collections (Alice has perfect English, I get the impression that ordering directly Loongsoul is fine unless there is some issue and then it's harder). http://www.acbjd.com/loong-soul-63cm-3part-t...

  This is another msd sized mermaid, a re-release of Serin and Rico. It's limited to 30 sets and looks like it begins tomorrow, with the color being Powder Blue with a Pearl White tail, and either a bundle of human legs and tail or the options to include the human legs, a boy body, or heel legs. (I guess we will see he options tomorrow.) I'm not sure about faceups yet, because of covid faceups have been very limited, but I really like the blushing on this cute mermaid. She has such a sweet face sculpt-- and I am a sucker for those shell ears :D The sales page is mostly live, and should be all set tomorrow: https://gem.dollsoom.com/en/shop/serin-rico-le-qty-30/

 This is such a nice release--these are the msd size Sooms, at 43 cm (Little Gems) and while I am not usually a fan of resin tails, the simplicity and nice shape of these tails are pretty..tempting :D I also like their faces--I think you could paint them to be less worried (though the sad faces reflect the story, and yes, there is a story with them, just like for the Classic releases!) The listing has so much good detail--if you scroll all the way down you can see what the difference is between the "cutie" body and the "Blossom" body...basically the Blossom body is more like an adult fairy, and Cutie is more like a tween body. You can also order a boy body! The colors are blue and pink--over time the blue mellows to a more aqua color as the resin yellows, but it's still beautiful, and Pink just looks like a slightly warm classic white. You can order the outfit and the crown, but the outfit is very limited so I would do that asap. The human body comes with heel l...

 The Naperville Doll Show was on! We all wore masks, but we could sit, vaccinated, in the lobby and drink Starbucks and pretend it was all normal. And I bought some things--most of the lace and fabric on the left is for Cat; the dress was probably from some unfortunate Chinese porcelain doll, and the tiny clothes on the right ..might..fit my Nanuri Fairyland girl on her small Moe body. Since they were a dollar apiece, I thought it was worth a try. There was a plastic futuristic rifle for Rain to shoot mutant giant bugs with, a tarot card box, and some silk flowers. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN. (I also bought a wig from Akutenshi, not shown here, but I will take photos for a later post.) The dark blob on the right is actually a hat--there is a vendor at the show that always has a display of perfect little doll hats, and I try to buy one just to support her. I have made human hats for a small Renaissance Faire and it's a lot of work--and crushing if no one buys them! And they are really well ...

I've been having fun watching the volcano in Iceland (I am not going to attempt to spell it) on this guy's channel--he has good narration, too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISSBg0CLqmg (Fast lava)   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EolSZQ4B5rs Yesterday's overview of the site with a bonus paraglider (!) Iceland doesn't seem to have a local diety in charge of volcanoes, which I find surprising, but if you ask you would get the response that "Iceland is a Christian country" and has been since people arrived roughly 800 AD or so. This seems like a gap in diety coverage so I present Pele here as a "fill in" for this important job of rolling lava about a landscape. :D

  It's Amber in the new, 59cm size! The photography is exquisite! As is the outfit; sadly for me her ears are still the original cute deer ears, which I never could get a wig to stay on. I took a look to see if the pink wig was being offered for sale (Soom wigs are really nice, they are heavier than Monique's and less likely to tangle) and while this pair were not offered, I found some wigs from the back catalog that I wanted and ordered those, and some eyes, since I knew the EMS was going to cost me around 50.00 anyway. I really wasn't tempted by the fantasy body, though it's quite lovely and looks sturdy and proportionate--I have learned that one or two hoofies are fun, but after a while they start agitating for stockings and shoes, and I have to go toss around the marketplace and ebay for legs and feet. It's so nice to see the Super Gem girls again; the mid size/mini Gem dolls are cute, but aren't my favorite--the Soom princesses are my very favorite dolls, a...

  Soom is trying to move away from plastic (amusing since the dolls are resin, but I appreciate the effort!). The new boxes are layered paper with a vinyl coat only on the lids, and the certificates are now in paper folders. Not sure how they will cope with a substitute for bubble wrap. There is a new method of authentication, which I also don't have a clue about since I haven't bought a doll since the Before Times. But now I have some money saved so we'll see. If you would like to read the full article, it's posted here (log in first) https://gem.dollsoom.com/en/notice-en/notice-for-the-soom-package-renewal/

  While we were all sitting at home, K has been learning new digital paint programs. This is her latest from Heavy Paint; she has been practicing by finding random web images (landscapes) and freehand repainting them. This might be Cheddar Gorge? Not sure. Sometimes the Heavy Paint effects are random, here they work beautifully with the shape of the landscape. She also sent me this: I finished another texture set for a T Shirt, and I am pretending the grass is not out of control in the back yard. (Set has a travel theme)

  It must be Spring because I got an email from Alice, and she (and I am sure her crew) are just as tired of Covid as the rest of us, but meanwhile the Chinese companies have been hard at work designing, sewing and casting some mighty fine dolls--the gentleman above (despite the name and the World's Prettiest Wig) has some gorgeous photos and seems to be the primary caregiver to some adorable little person. He also has at least one tail? I am actually not sure what sort of demi being he is since he seems to have dragon ears and the tail is brocade, so it's all quite splendid and mysterious. You can see here: http://www.acbjd.com/lexi-p-15723.html?cPath=32_159 (Please note that Alice's price is just the bare doll in a box, and maybe some Glib eyes, if you want all of Lexi you will be paying at least double the marked price). Something I do love about Alice is that she has limiteds long after their normal sales period has ended (if it's a Chinese company), and even though...

 That's what I have done this weekend..many scary patterns :D

  Pixeluna and Shadownet, my talented Renderosity friends, just finished a new clothing model for Daz's Genesis 8 figure. It can be animated, so they named it Soft Winds-- as the drape can blow around if you want it to. I have had a lot of fun making an add-on set for it, since I learned how to make things glow in Daz Studio! The trick is to put your grayscale mask in the slot next to the Emission slider, and then change the Luminance Units from the default to the MUCH BETTER Kcd/m^2 . Who knew? This is the setting that actually works to make lights, instead of the default. No, I don't know why. Your Emissive value becomes the color of the light--3000 units is more reddish/yellow, 6000 and up become more blue-white. if you look in the render settings under Filtering you can add a Bloom filter to make it blow out, too :D (The background here was designed by Fabiana Kofman --FKDesigns, or fabiana on Renderosity). it's a mirrored floor and a transparent curved background prop,...

 Cyrus Bronock's tiny creations, customized Barbies for TV: https://slate.com/culture/2021/01/search-party-doll-designer-cyrus-bronock-barbies-hbo-tbs.html?via=rss

  The Smithsonian now allows you to browse and take a huge amount of public domain goodies from their collection! Here's a good entry point: https://www.si.edu/openaccess/updates

  Among other things, I have been trying to learn materials in Poser 12; things are a little different than in previous versions..I think a little better, though there is one option that I miss, and that was a little script that got rid of any slots that you weren't using, which made it just cleaner and neater to set up materials. And of course the best way to learn is by doing, so I am justifying my habit of buying little trailer and house models for Poser and redecorating. They certainly take up less space than real doll houses. This is another Meshbox trailer model, called "Granny's Trailer", and boy, does Granny like pink. Here is the inside of the kitchen/living area: I bought the chihuahua off of TurboSquid (with points!) and he was not really optimized for Poser scale. This is what he looked like when I first loaded him: It took me a minute to find him because I was looking under the trailer with a spotlight, trying to figure out why he wasn't at the usual ...