DollsArtCats

I am bringing 5 dolls and it took me ALL DAY to locate shoes, wigs and jewelry that was presentable for these guys. I need to start drawing names out of a hat and each week make one complete outfit for each doll, so that if they have a chance for an outing, they have something to wear..both tops AND pants. I never did find Rusty the Vampire's cravat, though it has been floating around on table tops for weeks. Up there is Isley, named after Poison Ivy. She always has good shoes, though I just today realized that they don't zip all the way up her calves 0.o After this photo I found shoes and a witch's hat for Cherry, though she still looks a little chilly to me. Rusty, saying "Who needs a cravat anyway? Blaa." This girl needs her own clothes--she got the cast-off tights I made for Naomi and decided they weren't good enough, a skirt that belongs to Tanglewyn, and a corset owned by Cecelia, who is a Granado Nuevo and has a similar wide shoulder. Cor...

I was curious to see if old-fashioned rag rollers would curl a mohair wig, so Isley became the test subject. It worked pretty well--it might have worked even better if I had used a hair dryer on the wig, but I didn't want to scorch or dry out the mohair, so I just waited a few hours until the rags were dry. Here is the hair with the rags removed: You can see the nice wave in the front--it took out some of the natural frizziness of the wig, too. Here is the other side: (You can see I only did a bit of the front of the wig). While I was messing with hair, J made a peach pie: And it was delicious.

So this is Isley, whose head is a slightly modded Granado Venus. Her body is one I bought from Gus, though "bought" is kind of the wrong word for something that was basically a gift-with-postage. The Free Choice Vesuvia used to be MissAlly's, and after she passed away (much too soon) Gus inherited her very large stash of dolls and has been gradually dispersing them since then. He very kindly strung her for me, but I wanted to blush her tail, and somehow the tail hook had gotten lost and Gus made do by looping the string through the tail tip, which is super if you never ever want to take the tail off again, and I am sure that is exactly how he felt after he had strung it together. The problem is that both the leg holes are much smaller than usual, AND the top hole is sort of a tiny slot, so getting into the "tail compartment" is..well, a pain in the ass. First here is me making a little hook for the tail tip: Then this is how I think the tail is supposed t...

It's not bad, but Dee has a BIG head so you need to be aware that you are getting more of the Luts aesthetic with a larger head/smaller body, especially with a wig. I like the Impldoll Idol better, even with having to modify the neck a bit smaller, and I am waiting on an inexpensive Mirodoll body that I am hoping will match in color. Once I receive that, I will post it up here. Both Venus and Deesse here were painted by Sicktress.

They came in a tiny box with a tiny shrunken postage label--just like you would print on your computer for the USPS, but the size for an SD. I think KOK is run by dolls now.:D All the eyes came in little perfect boxes, with the part number on the outside--and poster tack! yay! And inside, the eyes! The guy I planned to put the beetle eyes in is off with Sicktress getting painted, so I tried the gold eyes in Claudia, my Granado Venus. Right now she has green ovals that you can't move at all, so it would be nice to have round ones so she can look to the side and up. And here are the gold eyes--I find the pupils are large but they are sort of cute, and the size is better than the green ones she had before: Sicktress also painted Claudia; I love the sweet/mischievous look she captured with this faceup! So once Neptune gets back I will try those tiny, tiny blue ones. I don't know who gets the fancy glitter 14mm eyes, I just thought they were great. I was also happy with the q...

I wasn't doing the best job on Claudia's face, and Sicktress was willing to paint her up--and she made Claudia *perfect*. Here is a better photo from Sicktress herself: Sicktress not only has steady hands, I love her style and it was exactly what I wanted for my glam con-artist/street magician/ actual mage (though she doesn't know it) Claudia the Conjuror. Claudia already has a huge box of North African-inspired outfits and magical rubbish, and now a face. :D I did have an Iplehouse Stella before, and as beautiful as Stella was, she didn't have the charm that the Venus sculpt does. She also seemed to have "one expression" for all occasions, probably because her face was so symmetrical. One of the things I love about the Iplehouse Bianca is that she is not symmetrical at all, so she can smile or scowl depending on how you turn her. Sicktress also makes props (Teodor the Necromancer's staff was made by her) and she made Coriel an Elvish bow with leaves--...

These are the ears Cat sent me! Cass' shell ears, that no one will part with. (Cat said that her Alice in Labyrinth Chloe wasn't interested in them). So here they are, and I will make Cat some weird little eyes in return. This is the baker's dozen I sent out to Chalyss this morning: They do look a lot better in an eye than out of it. Though I do need to make Claudia new ones--you cant tell here, due to the Miracle of Photoshop, but Claudia's eyes in person have so much glitter they look like LEDs in the sunlight, and it's a bit much. And here Arnold enjoys his new Cat-made blanket on his favorite chair:

Claudia (Granado Venus) all painted up, Bartholomew (Granado Jaden), who will take over Benny's Claw foot Euclase body since Bart has a good neck hole. He's a big head, which is why he isn't on my old Impldoll Star boy body I had laying around. Instead the underloved Soom Puss (Still named Puss at the moment) is sitting on that body, waiting most likely for a Granado Lads body late in the fall: Puss could also use some hair and custom eyes, as his eyes are two different sizes (!). And Scilla (Iplehouse Asa) now has her own custom eyes..they might be a bit small so I may make her a couple more pairs. Gradually everyone here is ending up with the eyes that I make, because they fit and they are the right color, no matter how blobbly they are in the back. Then there is William Tyler, the Scourge of the 17th Century Seas, or more likely of the local tailors and hairdressers. He's getting some Cavalier stuff eventually, and probably Puss as a sidekick. And finally, Ital/...

She arrived in a much less dignified way than "on a shell with attendants"--it involved one call to the post office, and some driving around in my car to find the postal truck and ask the carrier if he had her box--it turns out the carrier (who was a substitute) had forgotten the box on the floor of the truck. I am sure I would have gotten it eventually, but this was I was able to drive back to the house and wait for it and sign for it with less fuss than chasing it around the back of the post office today. Once she was inside, I was so anxious to open her and be sure she was ok that I took no photos. Because her casting got delayed by DollLive, an unexpected rush of orders at Granado, and even more seriously, Crocus Lee getting an impacted wisdom tooth; I actually had a wig and new clothes and custom jewelry for her. I hope Crocus Lee understands he can take his time with my orders so that I can get things ready for whoever is coming in--I left a note at the website to ...

Here she is, still a work in progress, but already someone I could have plans for :D. She also looks slightly familiar though I can't quite place her. I missed posting yesterday because I have a couple of projects going, and I wasted a lot of the day driving in Malaysia, playing the MapCrunch game. MapCrunch hooks up to Google Street View and randomly picks a landing spot for you, and then you have to use the road signs to find your way to the nearest airport. There are no prizes or anything. (J found this a little baffling as to why I would spend three hours and a lot of swearing trying to weave my way through construction in Kuala Lumpur to find an airport, when I wasn't even going to get a score.) Somewhere there is a scored version, but I cheat and transfer my coordinates to Google Maps at the beginning, so that I can move myself down long highways faster. For one thing, my cache fills up and then Chrome freezes. So far the most fun I had was going from Tres Valles in V...