DollsArtCats

This was my favorite of the photos I entered-it's three photos; one of the Du Page river bank(for the rocks and the snake in the middle right), one of Teodor in my backyard above the pond before I filled it in, and a final one of Alexei in a box at more or less the right angle. And yes, my pond did have ice on it! The skull is a tiny plastic skull from the Spirit of Halloween. This one is just a portrait: Another "just a cropped portrait" of Aldwood and the Cat: And a fancy one of Sidonia/ Ami on a very windy day ;) I had ambitions to do much more elaborate photoshoots, but it ended up I had paying work to do instead, so it worked out fine--there is always next year to do more! I hope everyone checks out the other entries and the winners !

Yes, this is the same old Fataio wig that Aldwood has been wearing since he was painted up. I was never quite happy with it because it's short and doesn't pull back into the regulation queue in the back, and I hadn't found a longer wig in the right color/texture--I did find one and it looked so much better on his mom (an Iplehouse Doria) that she is wearing it now. I finally gave up and went out Saturday, and bought a skein of Lion Acrylic yarn in the right color, made a wig cap out of white felt (after a couple of false starts), picked apart sections of the yarn, and made this wig: Which was OK, but also a not an amazing wig for 8 hours of stitching, and you can really see how wimpy those eyebrows are. So I changed out his eyes for the new ones, took off the eyelashes that were shedding, and repainted his eyebrows..and tried on a Jpopdolls Kana wig on him that was kicking around, and it looked a hundred times better than the yarn one. It's not fond of being tied ba...

I took a LOT of photos. One of the things I did was to put the photos in a folder, and come back the next day and look at them again as thumbnails; then I waited 3 or 4 more days and looked at them again full sized. This way I was a little more objective in sorting. I figured I would do 4 photos that were more "client oriented", as if I were doing promo pix, and then allow myself one personal fave, no matter how stupid :D. This was my personal one, even though it's really a snapshot and the items in it are not all to scale: In the other Mads/Teodore one I submitted, I was careful to hide most of the non-granado hands as well as I could (I think the hand is the weakest part of the top photo here): The one I entered of Sidonia (Ami) made me worry the most--a lot of her is the Soom Cyborg body, not the Granado Nuevo body, and as a company I wouldn't want the competitor's body featuring prominently in a photo--so I ended up making the photo monochrome to sort of b...

I ended up not submitting this one, because it looked too much like a photoshop comp (which it is) and while there were no rules about using photoshop or not in the Granado Photo Contest, I wanted to enter things that were all "in camera', or at least 98% so. I did use Photoshop in places to remove cat hairs and sharpen things a little, but I didn't do any overpainting. I sort of regret not turning in one overpainted one, because it can look awesome. If you go look at SaikoXIX's flickr you can see some amazing paint-overs with her dolls--very profession and awesome. Im pretty sure that Granado Gitana will be the winner of this year's contest, if Saiko entered it. I can't imagine how many hours Saiko put into those tiny designs!

I will be honest--I hates it. How two little resin pieces can make or break a whole body I don't know, but even just getting her together (a body from the Cinderella release) was a major pain. Below you can see the torso with just the head string showing--that part is ok, though the tension for the head seems a little off--but it could be from me using a hook instead of the resin "banana" in there. Here are the Hip Pieces of Doom. Before you put the thighs on, be sure the slot points down: There is no room for a knot in the thin hip pieces--those two pipes have to touch each other inside the pelvis, so I tried tying the knot on the thigh side of the hip piece: That was a fail because neither the knot or the extra string would fit in the tiny space at the top of the thigh. So I did what I did on my Simple Pose Tremo body--I sewed the elastics together. USE A TOOL or the backside of the needle will be much happier going into your thumb instead of into the tough elast...

One of my very favorite things to receive is wadded-up newspapers cushioning doll purchases. I always flatten them out and read them, and I am happy to report that Singaporean real estate agents look just like their American counterparts, that Finnish real estate pages show that all Finnish houses have charming kitchens and lake views, and that buying electronics in the UK is very expensive compared to the US. So you can imagine my joy in finding the grocery pages tucked around the Garnet head that was sent to me. It also was around lunchtime, and I was hungry. Look at those beautiful arrangements of food! And look, my same steak knives can be purchased in the grocery store! and there must be a page of patisserie items... YES THERE IS and I see cherry pie!! and chocolate croissants...oh how divine to find these things in the grocery..wait... WHAT IS THAT??? NOOO... Yes, it's rubbery imported fajitas ! Oh France, where is your Minister of Culture now? You need to pass a law tha...

This yukata is so much fun-- I love how it came out. I am sure it was a pain in the butt to sew, but the texture and the drape are so perfect for Teodor, my resident (dead) necromancer. Since he is a dead guy, I can wrap his yukata any way I want, too. ;) Rajendora added a tie of a complementary stretchy stuff that grips and hold the fabric awesomely well. I had her make three--the blue paisley is for someone who isn't here yet, as Iplehouse is backed up for faceups, but the "digital" fabric from Spoonflower is really cute, and softened up nicely from being washed and pressed. Here Ami just wishes I would finish her wig. Eventually there will be beaded accents on her yukata: Here you can see some of the interior detailing--the seams are all finished inside and the collar has a nice little stiffening piece to make it hold it's shape when worn. Rajendora does beautiful work. I need to get some of my own patterns usable for someone else so that I can have her sew some...

This is just a science thing, not a serious wish to put a WS head on a bronze body, but the size and shape of Sidonia's head looks pretty nice on the new Soom Super Gem body: It is of course not the cheapest option--and I do like her best on her own Granado body. And now for something completely different: Nick wearing the smaller boa that Girrl sent, because it is cold in here :D

I spent some of today working on Ami (granado Sidonia), making her a little yarn wig. I put things on, I take them off. It's actually a lot of fun since there are no rules about the appearance of the head of a cyborg girl, so it doesn't have to look like hair or anything. Plus I just like that "Homespun" yarn from JoAnns a lot. Here is the "more done" side:

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 was planning on trimming these lashes, but they make me laugh. I still am supposed to be painting a gray coat over her lips, but I have held off while I think about it.

It was above 40 degrees F today so I got a start on Ami (Sidonia's) faceup. It's looking pretty rough still, but it's fun to see how different she looks already from the default! And those Ersa Flora eyes are spiffy. :D

She's here! Stripey is not interested in boxes any more; the porch is full of boxes that we recently unpacked, so she is more interested in squirrels. But I was thrilled! Here Sidonia is nested in her Styrofoam: And there was a nice note from Crocus Lee with her certificate! I admit the first thing I did when I took her out of the box was not stand her up, or put eyes in her, but to pull out her hip so I could see what the string is SUPPOSED to look like--and look! It's the end of the string that goes there!! (As a side note, Sidonia is much whiter than this--I have yellow overhead lights. You can see her color best in the last outside photo.) As soon as my shoulder is better, my Katrien is going to get restrung like this. Because Sidonia stands and moves just fine: Even with no eyes, such a cute face! And even nicer in person--the resin is translucent enough the camera does not show the tiny details in her upper lip or her forehead. I love her nose, too--it is adorable: S...