BJD Quiz

BJD Quiz~
Taken from Armeleia's blog.

List your Crew!

Mafonwen Enku (Volks SD10 Megu)
Mefyswen Enku (Volks oldskin white F-03)
Morideryn (Volks SD13 School B)
Momoko Jones (Volks Dollfie Dream)
Melangell Shigeta (Volks SDC Kurenai)
Prince Klemens-Ruprecht von Klessel (Volks SDC Kurt)
Mari-chan (Volks YoSD Yuh)
Fflur (Seed Dolls Inkling)
Arthur (Camellia Dynasty Wong)


Who was your first doll? Do you still own him, her, or it?
My first doll was a Soulkid Snyder. I recently sold her to a lovely girl in Germany because she no longer fits in with my current doll family or plans.

Who is your favorite doll?
It rotates. My favourite is the one I spend time with the most over a few weeks or months - at the moment it would be Morideryn, but it's always subject to change.


Which doll do you hope or plan to buy next?
I'm quite happy with my doll family as it is, I'm thinking more about scaling down rather than adding to the crew.

Quick! You’ve instantly got $800 and must choose a doll to spend it on right now or it’s gone forever! Who do you pick?
For $800…?  I don't really know what that would get me! Er. Perhaps I'd put it towards an SD16 Ami Ayase and stump up the rest myself.

Quick! You’ve instantly got enough money for any one and must choose a doll to spend it on right now or it’s gone forever, but this time you have to buy the doll for someone else! Who gets the dolly, and what do you get them?
I think I'd pick the newest member on DoA without a doll of their own and buy them something cute and fun like a Minifee.

Are you currently waiting on any dolls, heads, or bodies?
No.

Do any of your dolls seem to like you to the point that they are infatuated with you?
Ha! No.


Do any of your dolls seem to dislike or even hate you?
Not at all. If I got a vibe that my dolls didn't like me, I'd sell them asap.


Who’s your most expensive doll at the time you purchased them, not counting items you bought separately for them?
Prince Rupert, my SDC Kurt, but he was expensive because I paid for him in one go, rather than on layaway.

Who’s the least expensive doll you own?
Arthur, my Camella Dynasty Wong. He's a very cute doll and I'm glad I've got him.

Is there a limit to what you’d spend on a doll?
Yes, it's not so much a set price, but rather there's a limit to how much I'd pay for a doll by size range, availability...things like that.

Which doll did you wait for the longest for so far?
It's probably a toss up between my Soom Glot (no longer owned) and my SD13 School B, Morideryn. Deryn took a while because I was searching for the right body, the Glot took forever because she was a Soom Monthly Doll and got caught in the backlog!

Which doll had the shortest wait so far?
My SDC Kurenai arrived a day after I finished paying for her (she was on layaway with someone from the UK)

Who’s the biggest doll you own?
I'm not sure. Probably Deryn now she's on an SD13 body.

Who’s the smallest doll you own?
Arthur, the cat. Smallest humanoid doll would be Fflur, my Inkling.


Got any floating heads? If yes, how likely are they to receive bodies anytime soon?
I have Mefyswen, my on-going project. I don't know when she's going to be embodied though. Probably not this year.

Got any floating bodies?
Nope.


Do you have any extra, unclaimed pairs of eyes? How many if so?
I've never actually counted. It can't be that many, three or four pairs?

Do you have any extra, unclaimed wigs? How many if so?
I have more wigs than eyes. Still not sure how many though.

Anything you’ve said “never” to in the hobby that you later gave in to?
Haha, yes.

Do you own dolls that aren’t BJDs?
I have Monster High, Momoko, Unoa Light (Sekiguchi ver.) and Dal.

What was your last doll-related purchase?
It was today - I bought a sold out Dollheart outfit for Deryn from the proceeds of the sale of my Soulkid Snyder ;) Morideryn is definitely the favourite of the moment.

What do you expect your next doll-related purchase to be?
It should be a body for poor, floating Mefyswen...but who knows.

What was the last doll-related thing to arrive to you by mail?
Morideryn's SD13 body.

What was the last doll-related thing you purchased in person?
I bought a bracelet for a doll necklace a few months ago. Wales doesn't have very many Dolpas!

Not counting floating heads, floating bodies, and anything on layaway (paid off dolls count), how many dolls do you own?
8


The quiz is over! Any last words?
Meep!

Sales

I sold two dolls today! I have had my Souldoll Soulkids, Snyder and Harang, in boxes for a very long time and today they both found new owners within a very short time of me putting up sales threads!

I originally tried trading them for two custom kimono which fell through when the seamstress flaked and I tried again trading them for more custom doll clothing, but the trader I was working with has been AWOL for 10 months. :( These dolls have been in storage for most of the time I've actually had them!

I'm so glad that they're moving on to nice new homes! The Soulkid Snyder, actually my first BJD, is going to a lovely new home in Germany and the Soulkid Harang was my first boy doll, my third doll overall. He is going to Kent - the buyer bought him as a surprise for someone special and Harang is going to be their project.

I thought I might be sad to see them go, but I'm actually just relieved about it. They really have been here long enough. I want them to go somewhere they'll really be appreciated and be put on display as they deserve. :)

The other AMAZING thing about today is that the SD13 body I bought for Deryn has arrived! Trouble is, it's at B's in Bangor and I won't be able to go pick her up until Monday. I'm so grateful he let me have her posted to his though, it also means he'll get to see dolly-squee first hand ;) Be afraid, be very afraid! I'll need to charge my DSLR and remember to bring Deryn's head, the doll carrier and some clothes with me, otherwise she'll be naked and stuffed into my handbag, poor thing.

I can't wait for her to be in one (resin) piece. It's been nice having her as a full doll on the Dollfie Dream body, but it'll be awesome when she's on her SD13 one. I also need to buy some more BJD elastic. Mafonwen badly needs restringing - I'm such a bad dolly owner.

There are a few dolls I would really like, (LittleFee PongPong has been released and it's such a cutie!) ...But I think my focus now should really be on getting my existing collection to a point where I'm content with it. I don't really need any new dolls because I have hardly any time to do anything with the ones I already have. I need to streamline my collection so I'm only keeping the dolls I really want to keep and I also need a dolly wardrobe clear-out. My dolls have a lot of kit they don't really wear!


Ultimately, I think I would be happy with two SDs (my Megu and my School B are 100% staying), my two SDCs and perhaps one more Yo to go with Mari-chan. So I'd be looking to sell my Inkling, my Dollfie Dream and my project Volks old F-03 FCS head. We'll see. It's taken me years to find new homes for my Soulkids!

Spring Cleaning

I haven't been very crafty today because I've started going through my things again and having a good clear-out.

I started it weeks ago and I did really well, but then I focused on throwing out old and unused things...now I need to go through my books and clothes and really decide what I'm keeping and what needs to move on. I need to do this with my BJD stuff too, but right now I don't even have the space to get all of that out and decide what to do with it.

Once I've sorted out this round, I can think about the next one!

I feel I have to put a widely held assumption in the DoA-going section of the BJD hobby community to bed. I am a moderator on DoA. It's never been a secret and I wouldn't hide it from anyone. I'm quite approachable if someone has a problem on the forum or off and I can answer most queries straight away.

One of the most frustrating things about being a moderator on DoA is not being a moderator, it is being a target for someone else's frustrations. 

I have a number of dolls that are off-topic for Den of Angels. I don't campaign for them to be on-topic, I don't get upset about it and spit my dummy out, I just go somewhere else to share the off-topic dolls. I don't enjoy them any less than dolls that are on-topic for Den of Angels and when I'm at home my dolls aren't strictly segregated along on-topic/off-topic lines.

It makes me laugh and pull my hair out when I read, time and time again, the misplaced assumption that the moderators of DoA make on-topic decisions based on what we like/dislike. This is completely untrue. There are dolls currently on-topic for DoA that I think are absolutely ugly, but it didn't stop me voting them on-topic. There are dolls currently off-topic for DoA that I think are beautiful, but they weren't right for DoA, so I voted them off-topic. If a doll is 'aesthetically off-topic' that isn't a euphemism for 'that doll is ugly', it means that compared to other dolls on-topic on the forum it doesn't fit in. There is a myth going around that the 'Asian aesthetic' was made up to describe Volks dolls and anything that doesn't look like a Volks will be off-topic. Myth. False. Untrue.

The other myth about the 'Asian aesthetic' is that it's regarding ethnically Asian-looking dolls. Again untrue. The 'Asian aesthetic' has nothing to do with the perceived ethnicity of the doll and more to do with the artistic trends that influenced the creation of the doll. ABJDs are an Asian artform - not only because modern BJDs originated in Asia, but because the dolls are sculpted in styles and observing trends that occur in modern Asian art.

So, less of the DoA mod-bashing please, BJD hobby. If you don't like DoA or the forum mods, you don't have to visit DoA or have anything to do with the mods. If you don't like the rules on DoA, you're certainly more than capable of starting your own forum with rules that you do like. Once you are a mod of a forum with over 10,000 active members and have to be concerned with the security of a huge Marketplace with countless transactions taking place every 24-hours, you might have more of an idea of what you're talking about. Until then, please appreciate we're all volunteers doing this for a hobby we enjoy. It certainly makes the hobby far less enjoyable to be the target of so many snidey attacks.

Clumsy

 8 hairplugs down...so many to go!

Disaster has struck too. I am notoriously clumsy, but I usually take trouble to be careful when it comes down to my crafting materials and I try to keep them neat...but I dropped my skein of Cognac saran hair as I was measuring it out and it's been so impossible to untangle I had to throw it away. I had enough for my eight hairplugs above, plus some that I was able to detangle and store using a candle as a spindle (pic below)

This is pretty frustrating!

My options now are to blend Hazelnut and the remaining Cognac and give her streaks of colour at her temples so at least those areas are matching and reroot the rest of her head in Hazelnut only, or order a new skein of Cognac and wait a little longer to reroot her.

It's annoying because I like to prepare a lot of hairplugs in advance because once the hairplugs are done it makes rooting the hair with a long needle a much faster job. It's not as fast as using a reroot tool, but it is far more secure. It will require a little glue to stay put, but because it's knotted it's not likely to slip out.

So...what do I do now? I have a headless, naked Momoko with a tuft of hair over her right ear! I guess I'll start making her some clothes so at least she won't be naked!

The New Girl

Well, the new Momoko has arrived and she looks great!

This is her straight out of the shipping box. Her hair doesn't look as bad as it did on the Mandarake picture, but it's not great. I could probably live with it if I hadn't got the gorgeous saran hair from MyLittleCustoms.com :) I'm also pleased to see that someone else has repainted her mouth and got rid of the ghastly pale pink lipstick she originally had. I prefer this coral colour much more and it's what I was going to pick anyway! All I need to do is paint her teeth.

Here she is modelling the skein of Cognac saran. :D It's an awful picture, but I hope it's easy to see how well the cognac will go with her tan skin and dark eyes. The hazelnut skein looks good too.

Now to get her head off (hairdryer on a low heat will make the plastic more flexible and allow me to take off her head without risking her neck bobble), cut her hair close to her scalp and get her ready for rerooting! 

EDIT:

 Here she is - all bald and ready for rerooting to start!


I warmed up her head with a hairdryer on low to get it off her neck bobble - you can also warm up the vinyl in warm water to make it more pliable. I think a previous owner tried yanking her head off as there are slight stress fractures on her neck. It won't show in photos and once her head is back on properly they won't be seen.

I cut her hair very close to her scalp and then used a small crochet hook to start pulling out the old hairplugs. The hardest plugs to get out were where her part line was thatched and densely rooted. I dipped her head in warm water to loosen the glue and it was quite easy to get all the old hair out of her head.

Happy Summer Guaranteed

A couple of posts ago, I wrote about my incoming Momoko, Happy Summer Guaranteed Pink ver., who was being sold as junk on Mandarake!

Well, she'll arrive tomorrow! The Post Office and Parcelforce have been closed for Easter, but post should start moving again and according to the tracking she's ready for delivery in Deeside!

What makes this super exciting is that her new hair arrived on Saturday! I ordered the £3 skeins of katsilk saran hair in 'Hazelnut' and 'Cognac' colours from MyLittleCustoms.com and they look great. The Cognac hair is quite a bright brandy red, but once it's mixed with the Hazelnut it won't be too overpowering. I'm going to blend the colours so that each hairplug has some strands of each colour, making her hair colour multi-tonal. I want to avoid giving her definite streaks of colour in case they don't blend well and I want her to look fairly natural.


I'm not sure about names just yet. I'm thinking Shiloh might be a good name though. I've been learning Hebrew at a slow pace for a month or so now and Shiloh is the first word I was able to read and understand!

Happy Easter!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter break! I've been working all weekend, sadly, but I did get to have a lovely dinner with B and his family yesterday and I've not long got home with my huge Easter egg! Noms!

Adventures in Crafting

Not content with the other outstanding projects I've got on the go, I've found myself a new one!

I was browsing the Mandarake site when I saw a forlorn Momoko being sold as junk because her hair was cut and her lips were partially rubbed off. When I looked up which Momoko she was she became a must have - she's a Happy Summer Guaranteed Pink ver. Momoko, which means she's the rarer, alternative version to the standard Happy Summer Guaranteed. She's a tan skin doll with blonde hair and pale lips. Although I didn't much like her in her original form, I can't wait to transform her into a new doll because I've always wanted a tan Momoko!

I'm going to reroot her in a blend of hazelnut and cognac saran hair (from My Little Customs again) to give her a multi-tonal hair colour. Warm brown mixed with the dark red is going to look awesome next to her tan. I'm going to paint her lips coral or a tan brown and paint in her teeth. I may gloss them a little as well.

Pretty excited about this project. I'm making clothes for her as well because she won't have a stitch when she arrives.