DollsArtCats

I've been busy with work, so no doll stuff today...well, there is a bit from yesterday--Chalyss sent me some AMAZING mermaid doll accessories-- and for some reason the headdress ended up on Gideon. He looks pretty cool in it: His fantasy body was made by Sicktress and for some reason it works on him too. Gideon is indeed a strange angel :D Chalyss also sent me some normal clothes, and here Vera/Rose is trying out new things: I was so interested in her knit stockings I didn't notice until now that her skirt is a bit ...short here. Rose has big feet--at least the flat ones are, so I have found that only men's shoes fit. The heel feet are a little smaller but Rose isn't really a high heel person, so the canvas shoes are fine as an alternative to her boots. Eventually she will need sandals, but not for 6 months or so. Here's one of the paintings I am working on--it's the Magician from the tarot decks but I think I may scrub out the circular stamp-like s...

My two angels are not sure the new additions to the doll closet are "the last"-- but they will be for the forseeable future--I rotated out most of my Iplehouse girls and leveraged them into new people and heads...and this lady is now the new Hyacinth the Barbarian: She is a Fairyland Tan Chloe and though I swore I would not get another FL65 body, this one is actually a nice poser. Who knew? Maybe the fact that she came with papers makes a big difference :o I am debating if I want to send out her faceplate to be professionally painted or not...I did ok painting my Bronze Gneiss (Sabby) but Chloe is a shade darker. Maybe I will do her a temporary face and then send her out later?

I love calendars, especially art calendars--and I don't throw them away when the year is over, I cut out the pictures that I like the most and frame them (free art with purchase of calendar!). So I was scissoring up a Kinuko Craft calendar and looked on the back, where they have the tiny images for you to see before you buy the shrink wrapped calendar, and I realized they were perfect sd size. This one even had the months underneath the images. Usually they just have the images in blocks like this: In that case you have to do a bit of cut and paste on an index card, with the image on top. Then open up the calendar and grab one of the "previous/next month" calendar images: ..and snip out the dates you want and paste them down. And there you have a nice calendar page to stick up on the wall of a doll's room! For scale, here is Violetta, who is an SD sized girl: (Alexei is sort of a zombie, which is why his eyes are rhinestones. It makes sense to me :D)

Last January, when K was here, we discussed what the perfect bjd would be. In general, K's answer would be "any tiny cute thing", and mine would be "Huge princess Barbie I can sew for". We did find an overlap in the person of Tauriel. I would be the custodian of the large "Tauriel" bjd, and K could design clothes for her. Also, there was a good chance that once I had done a small version of a dress, I could take my expertise and scale it up for Cosplay Elf K. So I looked around. Originally I thought maybe an Iplehouse girl would work, but Marilyn (Iplehouse Jessica) seemed vaguely resentful of the project and I wanted someone who could sit around in half-finished clothes but in persona all the time, and who I wouldn't be petrified of sticking a pin into. And just at the same time Impldoll had a new series of Looks Like Elves dolls (My minty Midshipman Christopher Kipling is from that series as well, which is why he has elf ears. The Minty color i...

Sometime last year one of my neighbors got chickens. My neighbor across the street has kept chickens for ages (we use to worry our gray cat would go over there and try to catch them), but the ones behind us are new. I've thought about getting some chickens, but if you want to keep them here you really need a largish dog, as there are coyotes and they can, and do, snatch unattended chickens. The pet dogs at least discourage the coyotes. So I have to enjoy these guys second-hand. I love the noises they make. The other birds we have now, besides a million robins and woodpeckers, are cardinals: This one was trying to figure out what the camera was. The other indoor birds, (besides Bird the Soom Tremo,) are Polly the Harpy, who needs clothes, and angel Gideon, who now has a robe and jointed hands, but needs his wings rigged up:

For those of you who have rolling Iplehouse heads and no bodies to put them on, may I suggest Impldoll's upgraded Star Body? This is not the EID sized Idol body, but a smaller sized body that is pretty close to the SID size. A Iplehouse Bane head or a Lee head would work pretty well. The Impldoll neck is quite forgiving of all sizes as it tapers inward and not outward (Iplehouse necks are mushroom-shaped): The posing is pretty good on both--Gideon, my Impldoll, suffers from wanting to cross his legs because of his internal hip cross-stringing, and he also has small, slippery feets: I suspect those are the original Star body feet, who was smaller all around (I have a couple of the older Star bodies, they are fabulous if not terribly handsome ) The new Impldoll Star body has only two parts, the lower and upper torso, there is no waist joint: This joint is the same on both the SID and the Star body, though the edges are designed differently and the SID moves more easily than the ...

Gideon (Impldoll Chapman) was on this Resinsoul Long body just as a test (it's a bit skinny for him, though the height is good) and I saw this nifty shadow, and took a photo. Today was spent doing some floor scrubbing and dealing with the shower drain, which is being more of a drama than you would think. But there was a treat--a grab bag of glass eyes came from Denver Doll, and I was really pleased with the selection--here they are, all 14mm The "threaded purple" looks really like brown to me, and I didn't see what the taupe ones were, maybe one of the "wheat" varieties. Also, what spiders are green? But there they are and they are all useful, even the crazy floral ones. The eyes also ship right away since the sets are made up already.

This is a start on Gideon's wig-hat, since I am waiting for the magnets in order to finish the wing harness. The next photo is how I started, using Cat's instructions, to make a glue and paper "hard" wig base. It turns out to be easier to make than a cloth base, so I think I will make more of these wig caps. Basically you just put plastic wrap over your doll's head, then get something thin like a paper napkin (or in my case, Kleenex); tear the Kleenex into little pieces, and then apply polymer medium or modge podge to the pieces and cover where the wig cap will be. You can also use white glue like Elmers. Let it dry overnight. Here is Gideon with his unattractive little paper and glue cap: Then I put some yarn on the front of that cap, and I stitched the pieces down instead of glueing them, though glueing them with hot glue would probably be faster and easier. I then took a piece of the styro packing stuff Soom sent the Nephelin wings in and clipped out a sha...

Just Gideon with no hair--I need to make him some kind of off-the forehead paperclay headdress, but I haven't come up with a design yet I like. Here's a shot showing his original color--I think he was from when Impldoll was casting in French resin--it's pretty, but also slick and rock hard. I'm glad the gesso stuck as well as it did. The Sugarable body is interesting--I need to look up how tall it is--it's over 65 cm for sure. It has magnet hands, which I like: It also has magnetic feet, which are bogus (they fall off). The sculpting is really lovely and it poses well; though it needs tight stringing or wiring because of the size. The chest piece has pockets for magnets in the back, but the placement is directly under the shoulder blades, so there is a lot of resin thickness between any inner magnet and whatever wings the Genie came with. (I haven't seen how the sugarable wings work). I spent some time this afternoon rigging up a harness for the Nephelin win...