New Desk!

I finally set up the new desk I got on Craigslist a month ago and my boys have so much room!  So do my books.  Anyway, I wanted to share my excitement, so here are a couple photos of the new arrangement:

Poor Isaac is still in faceup limbo; I've got him in his travel bag downstairs in the craft room waiting to be cleaned again after a failed attempt.  But Lohi's saving him a spot (and taking care of Raffi for him!).

Hermes seems to have collected a duckling army.  I must say I'm a bit concerned.

Best thing about this desk is that it's an Ikea Mikael.  Mi'kael has attempted to claim it as his own, but Theo gave him a smack and I gave him a hearty eyeroll.  The desk remains my property.  Unless Mik wants to give me $50 for it.

My "Type"

So I've somewhat recently realized that I have a definite type. And I'm not actually talking about dolls, although the discovery of an overlap is what prompted me to bring up the matter in this blog.

I've always liked tall, skinny guys (try Christian Camargo, for example: drool). It's not a stretch to follow that into my love of BJDs, which are often notoriously Clamp-like in their tall, skinny, long-legged proportions. More recently, however, I've noticed that I also have definite preferences in two other areas: hair color, and hand type.

Count my dolls (8). Now subtract those I have no business finding attractive (3). Now count how many of the remaining boys (5) have dark hair (4). Sorry, Hope, I'm just not that into you (not that he cares).

The more I think about it, the less I discover I actually want dolls with light-colored hair. I randomly clicked onto the Luts site today and saw one of their new dolls (Sherard). I wasn't all that impressed at first, but as soon as I saw the sculpt in a brown wig, my opinion of him increased significantly. Even when I try to create new original characters they often wind up with dark hair.

As to the hands, most of my dolls have lovely hands. Theo's hands have always bothered me, but his cute little butt makes up for it. I haven't decided whether to look for replacement hands or try experimenting with boiling to curve them a little more naturally; they're nice hands, they just have very Barbie-like positioning. I like long-fingered, finely-boned hands, often with wide nails and big joints (I think that's adorable). "Pianist hands" I've heard them called.

Oh well. If my future husband has any blond in his genetic history, our kids will at least have a chance at it.

Go Center Meetup!

Gaaaaah, so much fun! Took me a while to get the photos up, so I'm blogging late, but the meetup at the Seattle Go Center was super awesome. Just as I thought, that tiny goban is exactly the right size for my boys. So. Thrilled.

Click to see the gallery!

I spent all day Saturday making (and fixing) Theo's outfit. Story time. I used babytarragon's tutorial (on DoA; need a free subscription to view), but made both the kimono and yukata out of pillowcases. I will definitely do this again, but suffice it to say I learned a few lessons from this. First lesson: read all the instructions before cutting anything. Second lesson: pay attention to where your fabric is before cutting anything. I'll admit it, I have a terrible habit when it comes to sewing projects. I get a little scissor happy. And this cost me. My first mistake (even though I didn't figure it out until I'd made the second mistake) was not doubling the torso width of my piece. I thought it looked much too skinny, but I thought maybe the collar would help widen it. I was wrong. I just missed a step, like a dork. My second mistake, and the one that I'm still smacking myself in the forehead over, was that I cut the V for the neck out of both front and back pieces, because I had the fabric folded over. I ended up sewing a triangle into the back panel and it looked ridiculous. Somewhat fortunately, it looks slightly less ridiculous now, since once I put it on Theo and realized how tiny it was I cut out the entire back panel and sewed in a new, slightly larger one to make it big enough to at least connect in the front. It looks all right with the yukata underneath, but it's very tight. In the future, I would also cut the sleeves separately and attach them as per the tutorial, both so I don't have the funky underarm thing Theo's got going on, and so there's no tacky seam on the arm.

I am, however, proud of the random knot I pulled off for Mi'kael's hakama. I totally just whinged that.

Anyway, we had a blast. Hope got his jointed hands (I'm working on stretching them out a bit so they're less snappy, and I want to get some shoots of him talking with them), and Theo and Mi'kael got a lot of attention and time at the tiny goban. I swear, I was going through some of these photos and forgot that it wasn't a full-sized board. The stones were super hard to place, and it was also hard to gauge a 2 or 3-point jump because the spacing is so off when you're used to looking at a full-sized board. I have this trouble with my half-sized board sometimes, but it was even more of a challenge on this one! We used some historical games from the giant book of them the SGC has on the shelf. I can't remember the one Theo and Mik are playing, but tenuki and I played out a bit in the corner after M and I placed the game (the bit Mi'kael is so puzzled about, in his lower left corner. He's definitely dead there. "How did that happen?" he's wondering. He resigned).

The tatami room was very popular, and a fun place for a lot of photoshoots. I hope we get the chance to host another meet here sometime!

If only I weren't so broke...

I would buy this outfit for Hope for the PNW BJD Expo in May. And make him some fuzzy white rabbit ears. And let him borrow my little pocket watch necklace (or find him one from this awesome shop).

I might do it anyway. We'll see how my bank account looks after Sakura Con. I'm hoping not to go crazy this year. But I make no promises.

I may end up trying to make something like it. We'll also see how that goes. Wish me luck.

New things!

So before I forget (again), I need to remember to take pictures of Mi'kael's new shorts. Once I complete them, anyway. I finally got around to making him a proper pair of shorts after nearly two years spent in the purple bloomers, and boy do they look awesome. Seriously. I spent most of a day on them, and I still haven't installed the zipper (yes, zipper) or belt loops (yes, belt loops, too). And I got so excited about Lohi's faceup that I forgot how I excited I was about Mi'kael's pants. I also really need to reposition his eyes (again). I hate to say it, but I'm afraid I may need to look into getting new eyes for him. I can't stop him from looking cross-eyed. Maybe I can figure out some way to install a stem to make them move more easily... I have a bunch of leftover silicone caulk and some sticks.

Anyway, the real reason I'm posting (I know, Mi'kael is so neglected) is that I got my wigs from the Crobidoll group order today! And both of them look absolutely perfect. I am so pleased. You get pictures.

Poor Isaac's faceup is getting chipped all to heck, so I'll most likely give him a new one as soon as I can afford to get a couple more pastel colors. I'm also not a huge fan of his vivid lip lines or high, bushy, yellow eyebrows. He looks so much better in this wig, though. I'll not likely be reshelling him anytime soon. Here's my tip for today: Before you ditch a doll, make sure you try on a new wig and a new faceup! I tried three wigs and five faceups on my AS Kana before I finally sold her.

Anyway, hooray for new wigs! And look how adorable Hatcher is oh my gaaaaaaaaaaaah~ *dies* Ahem. Sorry. I do that with Hatcher, sometimes. I mean. Look at him. He's wearing a sweater vest for crying out loud.

My First Faceup!

Well, first serious faceup, anyway, with quality materials and an actual plan. His lips are a bit darker than I would have liked, and the lashes were a HUGE pain, but aside from that, I'm pretty pleased! I think the freckles turned out quite nicely considering how freaked out I was about them.

He's not glossed or anything, and one of the sealant layers went on a bit thick so his nose creases are a bit shiny, but that's really just being nitpicky. I like it. I love him so much and I'm so happy he has a face!

Shopping and Reshelling

So I went out to Blick on Capitol Hill yesterday to shop for supplies with my trusty buddies M and S, not realizing the Art Walk was going on. The Art Walk happened to coincide with Blick Madness, and I ended up getting a free sketchbook, sweet deals, and 30% off my entire purchase! It was pretty sweet.

Long story short, I forgot that I'd wanted to get some MSC, so I just made that purchase today and am now waiting for that to come in before I begin painting Lohi. I did clean him, though (which was good, since I'd tested pastels on him before I bought them and he was smudged all to heck; wish I'd gotten a picture). The Winsor & Newton brush cleaner is as magical as they say.

We had a blast, and I was reminded of how much I love Capitol Hill. An old friend of mine from the Village (who quit before I did) is working part time at Blick, now, so I ran into him and had a bit of a chat. Also saw two of my other Village buddies just in passing. I love walking around up there and knowing where I am and where stuff is and who people are. It just feels good. It made me want to apply for jobs up there again. Maybe I'll apply at Blick; D would put in a good word for me!

But I digress. Back on topic, I've been thinking about this reshelling business and how I feel about it. Also about my beloved Delf Chiwoo. The fact is (not that any of you know this, since I haven't put up their bios, yet), Angel is not from the same universe as the rest of my dolls' characters. Everyone else is from M's 'verse (name of Barsheth), which is a sort of magical hub where more or less anything goes. Angel is from LA, now lives in NYC, and has only ever heard of magic in Harry Potter books. I also have a slew of other characters from this 'verse (ie. ours), and have been considering putting them into doll form as well.

Recently, I considered that this could be a way for me to have 1/4 scale dolls without twitching over them looking weird together. The Barshins would all be SDs, and the "real life" kids would be MSDs. And that is when I encountered the Angel Problem. You see, I have always loved the Chiwoo sculpt in all its forms. But it bothers me that he doesn't quite match the aesthetic of my other dolls. His eyes are huge. His angles are sharp. In short, he's a BJD of the first generation, and styles have expanded and shifted and my personal taste leans more in the realism than anime direction of the scale. I'm even considering reshelling Isaac for this reason. I love Iplehouse dolls. That should give you a clue. But I also love my Delf Chiwoo. I love his faceup and his piercings and his huge eyes and tiny lips! But he just doesn't work. And that bothers me.

M proposed a compromise as I was pitching her the idea of reshelling him. That I do reshell Angel into a 1/4 scale doll (Iplehouse Ryan, probably; the MNF Chiwoo is entirely too adorable and would run into the same issues as his 1/3 scale counterpart when it came to getting him a girlfriend), but keep my beloved Chiwoo as a Barshin character. This way, he could become a magical creature of some sort and his huge eyes would no longer be jarring but intentional. I have a similar plan to introduce my planned Iplehouse Tatiana (Jerusalem "Salem" Shore) as an original species (called flifti; they're tree-dwelling humanoids with hollow bones and opposable big toes; I already have the feet from Victorian Winter). I plan to put her on a Neo-Angelregion iMda 5.2 body with a slightly modded neck (I even got someone on DoA to take a picture of this hybrid, and I think it totally works). So all I need now is a species with big eyes, which I can manage easily. And then a new character. Until then, I'm afraid it may be back in the box with my dear Chiwoo. But not until I replace him, of course.