DollsArtCats

This is Gravitas, (an Ariadoll Gravity) who is acting as Teodor the Necromancer's assistant. It's hard to get good help these days--Gravitas ends up being a liability, I think, but meantime he was seriously fun to paint. I should have taken a photo of his hands-- but I will next week, as I have a doll meet tomorrow. So I have been busy finding shoes and boxes and wigs. Tara, Soom Beryl and Ereshkigal, (Granado Gabe on a Soom Topaz body,) are all dressed and ready to be boxed here: Bird, Soom Tremo can't find his shoes (I am not sure he can find his feet, much less clothes, but he is a pretty boy:) And after a lot of sewing I discovered that the Countess Constance, Lady Aldwood, (who is an Iplehouse Doria) wouldn't fit in the limited space in the car, after all the others had been stuffed in; so she has to go to some event later. By then her corset should be hemmed and her nails done. :D

He came in a box all wrapped up neatly, but it's been a year since I have put together a Super Gem body with the Easy Pose legs, so it took me a while to set this up. But you can see roughly all the parts. Here's some details of how the legs go together at the hip--they don't go up into the body at all, they just loop around each other through this sort of pipe piece: Then here's the extra thigh piece, which is so worth the extra 20 dollars when you are selecting options. It makes a huge difference in how well he sits, especially. So after about an hour or so he was all done and standing up! He's got no real name yet (he's not mine) but he will need a face and some clothes before he gets sent off. Interestingly, both he and Bird, my Tremo, don't have the "Soom logo stamp" inside the head between the eyes--the "Legend of the Gem" is written inside the headcap, and then the sculpt name Tremo is written inside the faceplate. I'm not...

That is the Small Bust Body, and the new Bronze! It's a gorgeous color, but not exactly Iplehouse light tan, though it is close. The problem is the neck hole size on the Iplehouse head--those things are huge and I had completely forgotten that. The New Iplehouse Youth Head (like a Bianca or a Rexy) (NYID) might work, I haven't looked yet, though I will. The truth is it's just a beautiful color for it's own sake. I have my Epidia head on this body at the moment and the shape and fit is perfect, even if the color is different (I have the dark brown Epidia). The Soom Tremo there is Soom's Tan (not Bronze, the Bronze at soom is more reddish than either the Tan or the Granado Bronze). Haha, so many colors! I'm sure my Epidia just wants me to paint some leopard spots on her neck and shoulders and call it good.:D William says "That is my hat."

J is a fly fisherman so between doing work stuff, he tied a lot of flies. I love this because he collects a lot of tiny stuff to make the flies, and I steal beads and feathers for the dolls: I also made something between working on the computer, a belated Christmas present for JennyNemesis; it's a pleather collar for one of her dolls. I wasn't sure of the fit (Bird is modelling because he's the closest in size that I have)so I made it in two parts, which means it will fit mostly but it won't look as nice as if I had the original Volks doll in hand. (JennyNemesis and I don't have a lot of overlap in our collections except for one lone Iplehouse size): Here's the back: The material is from the purse that PayPal killed. To be honest, I was having trouble with the lining of the purse sticking in the zipper before PayPal duplicated a transaction, but then the credit card company called and wanted me to prove I had tried to run it through PP and that I had the ca...

Mom sent me some knitted goodies, she said that two of them were potholders or dishcloths, but one of them immediately became a chair cover for my new doll chair (actually a plant stand from a garden store, and the perfect size for Bird.) Bird received a magnificent scarf called "Firebird", which looks like a feather undercloak would look fabulous under it. Kalypso the Shushu immediately tried to make off with Bird's neck scarf: The last one shows the seat cover a little. And finally the gray cat asked me to stop goofing with the camera and feed him.(That is the camera lanyard he's pulling on.)

I have this stuffed turtle. Mostly it sits in my closet, taking up space, but when I took it down to clean the shelf, Stripey promptly took it for a pillow. (She had her head on it, but she had to see what I was doing with the camera). Yesterday I took a break from working in photoshop to see what Herr Zog has been painting. She has been painting another, very handsome Tremo, also in brown tan. I was amused to see he also had a knitted-style scarf on for the winter. More new things by Herr Zog can be found here: Herr Zog's Flickr She is sculpting a head!

By Saturday the ant problem had gotten out of hand. Even with everything cleaned, the floor coated with whatever nasty substance comes on Swiffer pads, and the sink devoid of dishes, there were still ants wandering about. Eventually they would find the trash can in the living room and all the tasty stuff in the pantry, so J decided to go after them. He went first to the hardware store for boric acid, and the clerks were amazed. "You have ants ?? In the winter?" Oh yes we do. So J came back and pried off the molding, and discovered that the vent there is held up with duct tape underneath the floor (it's in the crawlspace that no one can crawl into, because of how the pipes were put in afterwards), and that the previous owner had ..painted over wallpaper. That part of the kitchen is all vinyl wallpaper under the paint, which explains why the paint looked odd in places. So that will all have to come off. J said it might be easier to just pull off the wallboard and at the s...

(Hopefully Soom will send a stringing guide when they ship out the kits, but in case they do not, I took some photos.)The longest piece of elastic they send with the kits is the one that goes through the legs (and only the legs, not up into the torso.) Aside from that, it's less complicated than it looks. The big changes from the old body are the hands and the head, and you can see the inside of the head here: Soom's Faceplate System Here is the rest of the joints so you can see which way they go together. The shoulders are a little tricky because the "nubs" need to slot into those grooves: Elbow ("stem" goes up): Hand (put "c" on last so you can squeeze the prongs): Chest Plate inside. Head string goes to hips, comes back up. Photo Below: The string closest to my hand is the one that goes to the head--as you can see in the sketch, that is all it does--just holds the head on by looping through the hips. The lower string here connects thr...

My mom, who probably should be inventing the next Bejeweled or Tetris, is instead amusing herself by knitting and crocheting. And for Christmas, among other wonderful things, she sent me some tiny knitted and crocheted things for my dolls. Here Kalypso shows off her new hat, which I stuck a scrapbooking flower onto with a small pin. (I suspect the hat will have all kinds of pins and feathers attached to it, depending on what else Kalypso is wearing). It is simply adorable. And here is a grainy picture of Bird, trying on one of the scarves that the humans here got for Christmas. He actually got his own scale scarf as well, but I need to take a picture of him in it during daylight hours, so the detail will show.

A while back I ordered two wigs from Happy Camille, through a group order with Shelly on Den of Angels (I think her business of eyes is under Ersa Flora), and they came safely last week. (Shelly is a lot of fun to order with, too). This wig is (I think) called Phoenix and is the perfect color for Bird, though it needs a few additional wefts added on the crown (which I will do later) and some Very Careful Trimming of the fringe so his eyes will show. The fiber is a little stiffer than the Kanalon that Jpop uses, but it's still very nice--it's a lot like a CoolCat wig. I bought a size nine and it fits perfectly, which makes me think Happy Camille sizes run a little small. I also bought Bubbles (a Soom Cass) a wig, which I will try later today on her. He's a bit untidy because it came straight out of the bag onto his head.

(Click to enlarge photos) AnitaS wanted me to show an older Soom head on the new body. On the left is Sensei Fuzzy, Soom MD Sphaler; on the right Bird, Soom Tremo. The inside of Bird's faceplate. You lift off the magnetic backplate, then hold the faceplate (very important) before you lift the banana. Otherwise the faceplate just falls off. Trust me. The "banana" on the neck. I slipped a ribbon under it and tied together the two loops of elastic so I could pull on them. I was unwilling to use the resin banana for a puller. Comparing the two heads--the Sphaler head is smaller than the Tremo head, but not by much. Both wear 8-9 wigs, though Tremo does better with a stretchy wig. Comparing torsos--Tremo's is much thicker in the chest and upper arms, but the neck dimensions are almost the same. Sphaler on the new body. I think it looks fine, if silly here.;) Banana on the old body; fits fine. Faceplate, then headcap, and the two guys are swapped. I think Tr...