DollsArtCats

The original Tatiana was a Soom Cuprit Soulmate in tawny, which I ended up selling because I got such a good offer for her. I have  regretted selling her since then; but unless she comes back on the market, it looks like this version will have to do--Tati Two is a Granado Gitana on a Maiden body, and she poses like a boss (she is standing there unsupported, and I was able to walk away to get my camera without worrying she would fall over.) I have had her since last fall, but I haven't had a chance to sit down and paint her until today. It was warm enough that I wore sandals part of the day :D Here is a profile: And here is another view: Granado Gitana As a faceup, it's kind of minimal (it looks better in person), but now she isn't blank and I can sew some things for her. Her feet are so small they fit almost all the girl shoes I have :D

Yes, it's Gitana no 2... though I supposedly got her so that Dierdre, my Granado Fayette, could have a Small Bust Nuevo body--for some reason the Small Bust has a slightly larger neck than the conventional Nuevo, so the proportions work better with the Fayette head.  I was going to dig out the spare Large Bust Nuevo body I have to put the new Gitana on it, but since Dierdre's Maiden body was right there, I put the Gitana head on that one instead, and it looks pretty good! The neck does gap because the Gitana head is the Guilem twin, so it's got a old "man sized" neck hole. The previous owner modded her chin a little, and she did a wonderful, smooth job with it; so the daintier body looks good with the more feminine head. (I had tried Gitana no 1 on the Maiden and wasn't satisfied with the look, as Sophronia is a big actress/ opera singer and needed a bigger body. And Sophie still has the original big chin :). This Gitana is now "Tatiana" and w...

This is my other Sophie (I did not name Sophie Cushion the Beryl, but her name was too hilarious to change). This Sophie has been awkwardly living on several different bodies, until last week I gave up and found a second-hand Granado body that she is supposed to have, and bought it. This unfortunately frees up a body and in possibly record time, I have a possible candidate coming to check it out. So in order to make room, I have been going around trying to decide who needs to stay and who needs to go. The "to go" list is depressingly short. Several very old timers are still necessary to my happiness and have zero value on the open market, the less-dear but more expensive ones would be hard to replace, and so on. One possibility is Garnet's head, as she is basically a Vesuvia with some interesting headcap details, and I have a Vesuvia already. Her cyborg body has been claimed by Breccia, and I never felt that the Garnet head was a smooth match with the new body (and I ...

And they are really nice! AND assembled, which made me so happy--I never did put together my Soom jointed hands and ended up sending them to Cat instead. They are small and intended for smaller dolls rather than the larger boy dolls or EID sized girls. They do fit my Soom Super Gem Female body (who once had a Cinderella head on it), and that made me happy too. The hooks Resinsoul sent are intended for 3 to 3.5 mm elastic, and for some reason Sophie has 4.5 mm in her arms, so I swapped out the provided hooks for ones with a larger wrist hook. The marked hook was the size included. The fingers have good mobility and stay where you put them--they aren't strong enough to hold anything but a paper flower or two, but wiring could improve that a little--I still might not put a heavy china teacup on those fingers, though. They are really for gesturing. The white jointed hands really are paper white, though they may mellow--I didn't really care, as both her body and hands need to b...

She's a really nicely balanced little body, and stood up right out of the box. Stability and balance seemed to be what Crocus Lee really wanted in this pretty body! Look at the heel feet--no ankles to slip! She can still move her feet apart about the same as the Nuevo body: She sits well, too--no falling over backwards! She is a little smaller than the Nuevo body: She is closer to a Delf size, but bigger than an Elfdoll: And yes, that is the Granado faceplate--looks weird but makes dressing and putting in eyes (and positioning eyes) much, much easier. Gitana (Sophie's) head is actually too big, IMO, for the Maiden body: But the Sidonia head looks great! Pretty hands on both bodies--Maiden on the left, Nuevo on the right New anchor point (wire, not a resin hook) inside the hip socket: "And now that we have bodies, where are the clothes?" Always a problem with these dolls--they already have more clothes than I do, but still want more ;)

I kept going past Sophie's head as I got things together for Ami the Sidonia; and finally I gave up, picked up Sophie's head (she is a Granado Gitana) and put her on the new body, where she looks like she belongs. I then took a very old Dollmore Model Body out of storage and put Ami's head on that, and it looks ok--something about the Sidonia sculpt looks better on the thin Dollmore neck than the Gitana head did. I'll be dressing her so that the neck won't show anyway. Sophie thinks that Ami looks fine on the Dollmore body, though I suspect Sophie would be fine with Ami on a glue bottle. Gitana really does need a Nuevo body to look right.

I'm working on a New Youth Iplehouse Doll sized dress, or at least I hope that it is that size--I sold the NYID body I bought from Jay Searle, and now I have another one coming in (this time with a head, though). Since I don't want her to sit around naked, I have been working on a simple dress for her. I also thought it would be fun to try some of the things in the Manipulating Fabric book I have--it tells you how to do pleats, smocking, and every kind of ruffle imaginable. This is the cover: It has a lot of clear diagrams, so if you are having trouble picturing what is going on from the text, you can look at the drawings. It shows you how to make the sort of decoration that is on this dress, which possibly is in the Kyoto Costume Museum (I snagged the image off Pinterest): I think Sophie's opinion is that Moth (the incoming NYID) can just wear a scrap of lace like she did, and I should be working on Sophie's dress instead. I would point out to her that it's pro...

Finally, I got a start on Sophie's dress, so she won't have to live in a scarf. Just a start, though--I have a tottering pile of work in my "in" basket.

I had a plan..my plan was to take the professionally painted head in Sophie's lap, which is the original head for the body she is on, and then clean off Sophie's face, paint him up as her twin Guilem (the mold is a M/F face), and put THAT head on the complete WS Davon that I bought from Zelda because I am weak. But no, as soon as I unwrapped him, I discovered he's a boy. For one thing, I think he was cast in the earlier, harder resin so his facial details are "sharper" than Sophie's, so Sophie looks more girly than he does. Plus I have just gotten used to Sophie's goofy little face. The woman needs clothes, though, if she is going to be in a photo contest...

I took a break from work yesterday, and sat down and re-strung my Granado Nuevo female body. I like Granado very much. it's a small atelier, only two years old; and the sculptor, Crocus, has enormous talent. Because of this, I wanted to sit down and look carefully at the female body and be sure that I understood how it was supposed to work and why certain decisions were made on the engineering. Parts of the way the body was constructed felt a little like "trying to reinvent the wheel by making it square". Doll companies seem to feel they have to do this, as in "We don't want the hip cuts to show, so we will make some kind of contraption inside the hip.":p (I blame Iplehouse for this). Never mind that doll owners already understand that this is a doll with joints, so there will be joint line; and I don't see how a mobility thigh cut is much different than a hip slot. Anyway, for me the problem of the female Nuevo body was the hips. The way I had it st...

Ok, so I did paint a doll today..not perfectly and I have to reglue one eyelash, but it is supposed to snow again tomorrow night--and as soon as the porch thermometer hit 50, I got out the can of Mr. Super Clear. I think I am going to get the "twin" head and paint him up to look like a guy--I sold the Pointy Ears Head (the Soom Benmore Pointy Ear head) to Cat, and that will fund the Granado Guilem head.

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!