Bad blogger!

My poor abandoned blog! I'm sorry!

I won't even try to catch up where I left off last year because I'm bound to skip things and it's a bit too much to play catch up all in one post!

The main thing to mention is that I have retired as a moderator from Den of Angels. I wrote my reasons why on my Tumblr blog and it was a sad decision to step down so I'd rather not go over it all over again. I'm re-evaluating my participation in the BJD hobby and as much as I still love the other mods and being a mod, I want to see if I still enjoy the hobby without DoA tying me to it.

I still like and appreciate my dolls as objects (and that's not wrong,) but I've not done much with them at all, whereas when I started in this hobby I wanted to be actively doing things with my dolls and not just admiring them from a shelf. The new things I bought them were not being worn and I barely photographed them. This year I want to see how attached I am to the hobby, and so far (seeing that it's February) I seem to be doing okay.

In the last year I've sold a few dolls and changed the line-up at home, but I'm happy with my choices and pleased with the dolls I have. I've updated the Ball Jointed Dolls page (above) to reflect my current doll collection.

When dolls don't work out...

Hmm. I feel a bit of a meanie pants.

I did write a bit about dolly doubts last month and it seems my fears were realised yesterday when Kahlua actually arrived :(

She is a very, very cute doll and the tan colour is really amazing, but the more I looked at her and the more I thought about it I don't think she can stay. It's sad, but this is the risk with limited dolls. You get into a flurry about whether to order during the time you have left and worry about whether you can find the doll again if you don't order from the company...and sometimes this works out quite well...but other times it really doesn't!

Swapsies and a new family member!

I took part in a DoA Christmas/Ides of January swap! It was so much fun to do - getting new stuff is always fun, but it was a lot of fun to go through the list of things that your swap partner likes and try and find the perfect things that would fit their wishlist.

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!

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.

Morideryn

Source: flickr.com via Jessica on Pinterest

Here is Morideryn! She should be celebrating because I started a layaway for her real body today!

I did want to get her an Ariadoll Elegance 14yrs body, but Ariadoll are closing on the 31st of March and Switch are taking over their moulds and sculpts after that. I didn't know whether to rush and get an Ariadoll body now, or wait and see what Switch would do...but I could end up not liking the new things they do with the sculpts.

Eventually I saw a Volks SD13 girl body on the MP at DoA at a really good price and decided that was the right body to get.

While I really love the Aria body and think it is very elegant, I did worry about if I ever was able to go to a Volks Dolpa (a dolls party held by the Volks company), I wouldn't be able to bring Deryn because she'd be on another company's body. This way, I know that the resin-match would be perfect and she'll be a full Volks doll, rather than a hybrid, so if there ever was any chance I could go to a Dolpa, I wouldn't have to leave her behind.

The other consideration is Deryn's actual character. She is the daughter of the chief of a nomadic, forest-dwelling tribe and a crack-shot with a bow and arrow and a sling. Princesses are supposed to be willowy and lithe, like the Ariadoll body, but a tribal princess who herds reindeer and lives off bread and stew isn't going to be a skinny minnie. She's going to have some meat on her bones and the Volks SD13 body is like that. It has soft curves and some musculature, which is perfect.

Here is Morideryn's backstory;

Deryn's full name is Morideryn (a Welsh-Japanese portmanteau meaning 'forest bird') and she comes from a northern nomadic people called the Mori, who are all red-haired, raucous and brave. They move from high-ground summer lands in the north to low-ground and sheltered winter lands in the south every year and drive their herds of reindeer and well-trained herdwolves with them.

Deryn is the daughter of a chief, Moribran, and his wife, Alis, who is an outsider to the tribe. As Deryn is only half-Mori, her father decides to send her to her mother's people to be educated at a very posh school called Graiglwyd College for Young Ladies, where they speak her mother's language.

Deryn is a very sweet-natured girl, but this is sharply contrasted with her abilities to hunt things single-mindedly - she can kill, skin and joint a rabbit inside ten minutes and she's a crack shot with a sling. She never forgets she's a Mori princess and although she's never snobbish about it, she does expect to be treated with respect.

Her prized possessions are her reindeer hide boots, decorated with hand-carved buttons and leather cord by her Mori grandmother, and her lucky wishbone and pearl necklace which is the inheritance of the eldest daughter of the Mori chief. She is supposed to have traditional tattoos of birds in flight on her shoulders, (I haven't done this yet because she's sharing another doll's body!)

In Mori culture, it is more important to be brave and strong than pretty, and although she is flattered that her new school friends think she is beautiful, Deryn thinks it's the least important thing about her.

Kennels of Irritation

It seems a bit bad to be opening a new post with annoyances, but these have been building up a while and I want to get rid of them. So here goes; 

Recasting - I really don't care what your justification is for buying that bootleg, so don't even try. I've heard things like 'Oh, but I *really* love the dolls and can't afford originals' or 'I'd never buy a recast of a doll from single artist studio, but Volks/Soom/Iplehouse are really big companies - it's like sticking it to Walmart/Tesco.'

I'm not an elitist who says 'GTFO of my hobby if you can't afford it, peasant', I don't think like that. At all. But the hobby is expensive and anyone getting into it should be aware of that. You're not 'doing everyone a favour' by driving prices down by buying recasts - you're sowing distrust throughout the community. Second-hand dolls pass through the community a lot and many people are happy to finally track down the doll they've admired for years, but this is all going to stop if we can't trust that the second-hand dolls we buy are genuine. There are already a few countries on my personal blacklist for being too prevalent in dealing in bootleg BJDs. I just can't take that risk with my own collection.

All the people I know in this hobby are not made of money. We love the dolls and scrape and save to be able to afford them. There is no big horde of rich collectors sneering at you because you can't afford a doll. That is your insecurity. We want to cheer you on and encourage you as you save, the way we are encouraging each other, we don't want or like to pat you on the back for getting a 'bargain', when it means you've basically rubbed an artist's face in muck and trod on their back to get their hard work and innovation for cheap. Nice, huh?

There is a common misconception that Volks is a huge company. It isn't. It's a successful hobby company, but not huge. Super Dollfie is the smallest wing of the company, it only looks huge in the hobby because we only see the BJD side, not the garage-kit and figure-kit side. They are hit by the recession as well, closing down Sumikas and moving to areas with lower rents. Volks isn't in trouble, but they are feeling the pinch. If you keep buying recast Volks dolls rather than genuine Volks dolls, the people who create the dolls you admire will be out of work because they won't be paid if they can't sell their product.

Everyone loves a bargain, but a direct copy harms business. There are enough smaller studios copying trends from bigger companies - there's a doll for every budget, honestly. There is no need to buy a recast doll.

Having a whine about DoA - I love being a moderator on DoA. I love helping people out and giving something back to the community, I really like DoA as a fun space to be. Nothing pops my bubble faster than seeing other people slag off the forum and the mods.

It's not difficult to follow the rules, they're there, black and white, anyone can find them and read them. The same as forum announcements - we write them and post them to keep members informed about upcoming changes or updates. I find it so disheartening to receive angry PMs from members who have broken a rule that was announced over two years ago. If we bother to write these announcements, the least you could do is take a couple of minutes to read them, or if you're new, try reading the rules first before jumping in head-first and getting unstuck for spamming.

I have a thick skin, thicker than some of the other mods, but some of the things that have been said about me personally really make me gasp. I'm a mod for an online doll community and you don't even know me personally. I had no idea that being a mod would make me 'high profile' enough to be bitched about. I don't know whether to roll my eyes or be proud I've 'made it'.

People gushing about new dolls and then turning around and selling them a week later - this isn't really a huge annoyance, just something that gives me a wry smile. It really is entirely up to you what you do with your dolls and if you really don't want to keep a doll longer than a week, you shouldn't have to just because you worry about what other people will think. I just find it amusing to watch people so in love with their new dolls quickly put them up for sale. People have unique circumstances, I know this, there may be a pressing reason why you need to sell the doll and get the money together quickly, but when it happens three or four times in a row with new dolls, I do wonder a little whether the person might be better off hanging on to their money and enjoying the dolls they already have for a little while before buying the next doll? So much money must be lost with Paypal fees and conversion from JPY/USD/HKD/SGD/GBP/EUR... over continuous sales. I don't know. If this is you, more power to you, I just don't think I could do it myself!

Busy Month!

January is almost over now! I can't believe how fast 2012 is going already.

This has been quite a busy month. I've been busy with work as well as resurrecting my Poupée Girl account. That's my profile in the link. It's a sort of Japanese fashion/social network where you upload pictures of your clothes for others to admire and you earn ribbons and jewels to spend on clothes for your 'Poupée'. It's much better that I spend fictional ribbons and jewels on stuff than actual money! I need to be sensible and save up!


My new favourite company is Crobidoll. I haven't bought a new doll from them, I bought a wig for Melangell. Well, I originally ordered two but when one was sold out, I got a quick email from Crobi explaining that I could either have a refund to my Paypal or they'd give me store credit so I could buy another wig from them another time. I asked for a refund because I wasn't sure when I'd next be buying a wig and that was super fast too - this was barely 48 hours ago...and today I had a package from Crobi with the wig I ordered (gorgeous, soft and glossy!) as well as a freebie furwig and some stickers saying 'A Present for You'. How lovely :) The customer services person who emailed me was extremely nice and wished me a happy new year - I thought that because of the Lunar New Year and most Korean companies being on holiday that my order wouldn't come until next week or even later if they had to sort through the post. I am beyond impressed with them and I definitely recommend them.

Playing with Dolls

Yesterday, the amazing wigs I ordered months ago from Leekeworld arrived! They were a bit of a naughty buy, but they were definitely worth it when I opened the parcel and put them on Deryn!

Here she is wearing LR-035_E in Real Carrot. This was actually my gamble wig. Her main wig was going to be LR-020_E (a straight wig in the same style as Mafonwen and Momoko's default wigs) in Real Carrot, but I actually like this one on her a lot. This is after a re-style though. The wig arrived in very tight ringlets and didn't look very nice, I wanted the smooth waves from the picture on the website, so I...brushed it.

That wasn't a very good idea. The whole wig was a frizzball and it was far too long for her as well. Deryn looked like she was sitting in an orange cloud. This morning I washed and re-set the wig and I trimmed it to the same length as the LR-020_E wig, so now it sits to her elbows and is the perfect length!

I'm also beginning a career in BJD lingerie. I can never find nice, inexpensive underwear for my dolls, so I've decided to try making some myself. I'm not sure how well this is going to go, but I'm going to try!

For my birthday and Christmas I got some beautiful MSD-sized corsets from Adventure Girl and Carawj, so I've been playing with those as well! They fit Melangell perfectly! The above picture isn't perfect, but I was running out of natural light and started playing with flash/shadow! I will get better shots of her soon!

Meet Morideryn

This is the first embodied, clothed, bewigged and eyed picture of my Volks School B, Morideryn! She's back from her visit with Caroline, dodging snow and storms on the way, and she looks gorgeous with her new face-up!

 

I've put her on a Dollfie Dream II body for now because the SD10 body she was going to share with Mafonwen was a bit too chunky for her slimmer face and smaller features. It's definitely convinced me that she needs an Ariadoll 14 Years Elegance body, I don't mind resin/vinyl hybrids in the short term, but I prefer all resin or all vinyl dolls to hybrids of the two. I don't really like the difference in texture between the resin and vinyl. Plus Momoko, my Dollfie Dream, is going to want her body back.

 

Morideryn's eyes were a big surprise too - I bought her some expensive Hand Glass Craft eyes in turquoise and when I tried them they didn't look right. These cheaper unbranded sparkly glass eyes actually suit her much better! It's making me a little bit nervous about her incoming red wigs - this baby brown wig suits her so well that I don't know whether a vibrant red will suit her :s Nervous!

To Buy or Not To Buy?

I've been putting some serious thought into getting a body for my School B head all day today. It's pretty much all I could think about at work.

Next Friday is payday and I'm getting extra money in my pay because it was accidentally left out of last month's wages after I did lots of overtime hours. I know I should probably save this money (and I know that's the best option), but I'm tempted to just go for a body and ask my brother to pay a little towards it for my combined birthday/Christmas present. This way I get to open something on Christmas day that I actually would look forward to opening, (I do like surprises, but I also like knowing what I'm getting too. Knowing what it is and having to wait to get it is part of the Christmas fun for me.)

I've been looking at two options; A brand-new Ariadoll 14 Years Elegance body (without the extra heeled feet to keep costs down) is $348 (£220) including shipping, but there's a Volks SD10 body on the DoA Marketplace for $298 (£188) including shipping. It's a difference of £32. Is it better to go for the cheaper option (used, slightly yellowed body) or just ignore the £32 difference and get the brand new body?

I can't decide. I've been wrestling with it all day. If I'm going to be getting this as a combined birthday/Christmas present, it'll only look credible to my parents if it's in an official company box and looks brand new (point to the Ariadoll body)...but if my family find out how much it cost, £188 sounds a lot better than £220, (point to the Volks body.)

The other thing is, how yellowed is partial yellowing? Do I take a gamble on something that might not work out and might be difficult to sell (Volks body) or do I spend a little more on something that (should) be factory-fresh and have no flaws? Hmm.

I know what I probably should do is ignore the Volks body on the Marketplace and unbookmark my Ariadoll links and forget about this whole thing until after Christmas. Being able to unwrap a BJD at Christmas would be wonderful though :( Torn.


GOOD NEWS though - I checked back on the Viridian House website and Deryn's head is 30% done according to the info. Perhaps she'll be home sooner than I thought!

Darwin Violet Doll Plan

I know, I know, so I haven't actually finished working on Mefyswen's mods or got around to getting her a body of her own, but that doesn't mean I can't start thinking about another doll. ;)

I've always liked Volks School B and I think for this character the head is perfect, but I can't really put my finger on why. It just feels right to me. I was debating a couple of different heads for this doll (Pixydoll Dino, Crobidoll Thor...) before I remembered my old favourite School B.

Darwin Violet is one of the names I'm reserving for a future daughter, but just in case I don't get to use it, I want to use it somewhere! I did think about getting a little Beagle and calling her Darwin, but it's not quite the same.

This is my moodboard of all the things I've been thinking of that relate to the character or cute things I would like to dress her in/pose her with. All that's missing are a pair of pastel coloured Wayfarers. Glasses are important to this character, I think.

I haven't bought any of these things yet, but if I do find a School B for a good price I think I'll go for it. Mafonwen's body is going to get so crowded with three heads wanting to share!

This is the current state of Mefyswen's head > > > > > > > >

I still haven't had chance to do the final things; sand her eyelids, locate some sealant and start on her new face. I am a bad dolly woman. An especially bad one to be planning a doll in a different skin tone - That means I'll need Ariadoll Elegance 14 Years bodies in WS and NS. I should probably finish the Mefyswen project before I start on the Darwin Violet one, but that depends on what I see first when I have the money - an Ariadoll body or a School B head!


Bella the Dal/Momoko hybrid is unimpressed by my lack of finishing up Mefyswen as well.

Sadface

I'm so upset right now, I don't know what to do. I'm not participating in the DoA staff contest any more because so many things have already gone wrong.

• My MSC can has disappeared and I don't have time to get more or find Purity Seal to replace it, I thought I would have just enough to do this one face-up for the project and then have time to get Purity Seal to do a lasting one, so I have to abandon my project with Mefyswen for now because I can't do her face-up,
• I switched my project to a bedroom box for Fflur, but when I took her out of her box to have a look at her, her default faceplate fell off - the magnet had come out. Magnets are easy enough to put back with a little superglue but no...the magnet will not lie flush with the resin, so when I put her faceplate back on, there's a huge horrid gape between her faceplate and the headback. There's also a smear of superglue on the side of her face. The magnet just fell out of her frowning faceplate too...I'm not going to touch that just in case I ruin that as well

I hate the thought of ruining a doll, especially one that means a lot. The beginning of this year was very stressful and difficult, lots of things have been hard to deal with and Fflur was a present to show me that things don't have to be crap. I hate to think that I've ruined her!

Doll Project

This August, Den of Angels celebrates its 7th birthday; for the past few years there have been anniversary contests with some lovely donated prizes by different companies. Moderators like to play along in the contests too, so this year there is a staff only talent competition. Entries are due in on August 15th.

I don't tend to take part in the anniversary challenges and competitions, sometimes it's because I'm not feeling the inspiration to take part, but mainly it's down to not having enough time. This year however, when I really do NOT have the time because of my dissertation, I feel like I should take part and I really want to. My original idea had to be scaled waaaaay back because I just do not have the time to devote to that level of detail, but hopefully one day I'll be able to resurrect it. My current idea, the one I'm going to run with, is much simpler and will enable me to do a good job, but also fit it in around my dissertation. Hopefully.

I won't give too much away now, and in any case there will be progress journals on DoA once the pieces are submitted, but I will just say that I am using red dotted fabric (think ladybird) and I'm making pyjamas.

The doll I'm using is a modified Volks F-05, an oldskin FCS head (it's the sleeping Four Sisters head - renamed F-03 after the FCS overhaul), she had her eyes opened a few owners ago, but I've closed them back up because I already have an open-eyed version of this sculpt. You can see the modification on my Flickr. The modification I don't mind talking about because that's not the focus of my 'talent show' offering. I've never done any modding before and I suppose that you can tell from the picture, but I'm quite proud of how it's turned out. I just need to sand the Milliput a little to even it out and then I can start on the face-up - I desperately need some new sealant though. MSC is very rare and expensive in the UK, so I've been looking at alternatives. Games Workshop Purity Seal seems to be the best bet within the UK, you get more sealant per can with Purity Seal than MSC and it is safe on resin. I just hope it dries as quickly as MSC does.

On the dissertation front I'm not doing too shabbily. I still have my 8994 word target in my sights with 6842 words to go, not too bad at all considering I started properly yesterday. I do have a shift at work tomorrow, which is annoying and eats into my time, but it's a time-in-lieu (T/L) shift, so at least I'll get the time back when I need it (the week before my dissertation is due!)