Poppy II: La segunda parte...

Finally! I've started to get somewhere at last!

The spray paint actually worked this time, I built up the layers finely and slowly and left her to dry for a few hours without touching her at all. I came back this evening and started to draw on her calavera markings with watercolour pencil.

I'm really pleased with the progress and hopefully this face-up will look pretty good when it's done! The great thing about this being a painted white mask is that the colour difference between my NS bodies and this yellowed WS head is that no one will be able to see the overlap of colour unless they take off her wig or look very closely.

Poppy

I am pulling my hair out with this girl.

My project head (a modded and re-modded old Volks F-05 (F-03 under new FCS numbering)), is being very irritating!

I've decided I want to make her a calavera (Mexican sugar skull), so first I have to create a smooth white base to then draw my designs on.

On Saturday I started painting her with white artist acrylic. It was too thick and streaky. I thinned it, it was too thin and streaky. I washed the whole thing off and today I decided to try again with white Games Workshop spray paint. Layer 1 went on smoothly. Layer 2, looking good. Layer 3...where the hell did that dust come from? Layer 4...why is it all bumpy? :(

I still think spray is the way to go, but after scraping four layers of the stuff off today, I'm too beaten down to try again. The picture above is layer 3 of spray paint, before it went all rubbish.

You can also see how uneven her eye mods are, but meh. I'm not even in the realm of caring about those at the moment, especially when they're going to be spray painted again and then painted over in black. They're the least of my worries. Her mouth is uneven too, but that's entirely original, so if Volks doesn't worry about that, I won't worry about her eyes.

I've been working hard at designing the face I want to draw on her. I think I want the traditional flowers on her forehead, chin and temples, but I do want spider webs and hearts too. I just need to work out a nice placement for them.

BJD Addicts Written Prompts: #12, #17, #26

Probably time for 3 more BJD Addicts prompts!

BJD Addicts Written Prompt #12 - Undies?
This comes up quite a bit in dolly circles - whether your dolls wear underwear or not. I have a lot of pretty underwear for my dolls, I do feel that it's 'proper' for them to wear underwear, particularly if they're wearing a skirt or a dress. Usually if they're wearing trousers or leggings they don't because it does ruin the line of skinny jeans to have underwear going on underneath!

BJD Addicts Written Prompt #17 - Unfortunate Buys?
I'm not really sure if this prompt is about dolls, clothes or accessories, so I'll talk a little about all three.

Those who know me will know I am really bad with maths and scale. It took me the longest time to figure out what 1/3 scale really is. I have a photography backdrop of a library, which I love, but is more appropriately scaled for 70cm BJDs. I'm hoping that it won't be too noticable being as my SDs are supposed to be 11-16 year olds, so their surroundings are going to be a bit big for them...but it was a silly mistake for me to make.

I have bought beautiful clothing for dolls only for it to not fit how it should, or shoes that are advertised as one size but fitting another - I class both of these things as unfortunate because I really liked them and desperately wanted them to fit!

Unfortunate doll buys can be a bit touchy, especially if someone has then gone on to buy the doll you think was an unfortunate purchase. Anyway, here goes...my second doll was a Bobobie Cookie (a WS tiny doll.) She was very cute, but I was expecting a doll the same size as a Volks YoSD (here's my problem with scale again...) so she was much smaller than I wanted, I quickly realised WS wasn't for me, and the resin was shiny and quite thin. It's not put me off Bobobie/Resinsoul entirely, but it has made me realise that dolls smaller than 11cm are just too small for me.

BJD Addicts Written Prompt #26 - Pretty vs Poseable?
I've been fairly lucky when it comes to this particular conundrum because the dolls I've been interested in have, on the whole, been both pretty and able to pose the way I want them to.

I'm not against hybridising a doll*, so if there was a face I adored and a body I prefered I wouldn't worry about putting them together to make a whole doll that appealed to me on all levels. My personal preference is stability over poseability. It would annoy me to no end to have a doll capable of tons of poses, but be so unstable that they couldn't stand for any length of time or even sit prettily.

I adore my Volks Megu (on an oldskin SD10 body), but her body does drive me insane. I've replaced her legs with other Volks legs and she is semi-stable sitting down, but she's still incapable of standing unaided. I think with some modifications she should be able to stand, but I haven't had the time or the tools to take care of this. In a perfect world, I would love to get a Volks Super Dollfie Graffiti body for her, because it would be super-poseable, but still compatible with her skin-tone and size.

*To return to this point, no I'm not against hybrids, but I would prefer to keep my Volks heads on Volks bodies. My main reason being that if there ever was an opportunity for me to attend a Dolpa, I could bring any of them with me without worrying about headswaps and whether their 'stock outfits' would fit another body. Volks Dolpas, for those who don't know, are events run by the Volks Inc hobby company for customers who have either bought Volks dolls/products or are interested in buying Volks dolls/products. The event is strictly Volks-only, and you can't bring non-Volks dolls or Volks/other-brand hybrids to these events.

Who is Gwenllian Rhosyn Cyffin?

This is the '10 things meme' carried over from Flickr!

1. Gwenllian was born in the Year of the Iron Snake, in the Century of the Goat

2. Gwenllian has a gift for languages. By the age of 12, she speaks five.

3. Her parents are constantly on the move as aeronauts and explorers, so Gwenllian was brought up by her aunt and uncle from when she was 1 year old.

4.Even though she is an only child, being brought up with her cousins means that they are as close to her as brothers and sisters.

5. Gwenllian was born before her parents got married - her middle name 'Rhosyn' is actually her mother's maiden surname.

6. Gwenllian is usually the peacemaker amongst her friends.

7. When she grows up she wants to travel and learn even more languages.

8. She finds tall, dark and handsome men attractive. (Bit of a shame for her though, I really don't do boy BJDs!)

9. Gwenllian's most prized possesssion is her silver bow bracelet, which belonged to her mother, Catrin, as a young girl. (This is being made by orangebabydolly and I am so excited about it!)

10. Gwenllian's name is pronounced 'gwen-kh-lee-ann' (the 'kh'/'ll' sound can be heard on this Forvo page for the word 'llall', there are two 'll's to listen out for!)

Winter

Hair is grey
And the fires are burning
So many dreams
On the shelf
You say I wanted you to be proud of me
I always wanted that myself

He says
When you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do
When you gonna make up your mind
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses have gone ahead
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change
My dear 

-- Winter, by Tori Amos 

Today would have been my Taid's 88th birthday. I still can't believe he's no longer with us. 

End of Summer, Beginning of Autumn

 Starting with a BJD picture is always a good thing :)

At the end of last month, I was asked to make a blog header by the awesome Adventure Girl - Llinos Cathryn Thomas for her blog 'Biscuits In, Writing Out'. On the theme of writing and biscuits I got out my great-grandmother's Bavarian tea set, some oatie biscuits, a cotton blend napkin and my swish Parker Pen and snapped away. The top ranked result can be seen here! Her blog is filled with funny, insightful and thoughtful things as she blogs about writing, creativity, awesome women, and lots of other fun things!

I really like this time of year. The weather is usually very nice in early September, just in time for kids to go back to school, and I tend to enjoy early autumn far more than summer. Summer for me usually means uncomfortable heat, lots of overtime at work and lots of tourists on their holidays, but by this time of year everyone's gone home, the heat has cooled down and my shifts get less crazy too.

This time last year I was stressing over my impending dissertation, so it's very nice to have a September I can actually enjoy!

B and I have been on a bit of a health kick for the past week, we've been eating really good, healthy food and this week we've started throwing in some exercise. My word. I am aching!

Monday we walked up the Jubilee Path on the mountain Moel Lus (ouch!), and yesterday we walked to Llandudno and back. Today we had a much shorter walk, from Deganwy to Conwy ;) I don't think my poor legs could have managed much more!

This afternoon I came back and took advantage of the sunny afternoon to take some pictures of Morideryn in the garden. The sun hits a lovely spot at the top of the garden and lights up the crocosmia and the old shed at the back, so I thought it would make a nice backdrop for doll pictures.

Here you can see her full outfit, she's wearing a summer dress by Kalcia, white slip by Nine9Style, stockings by Plume Blanche Creations, and the brown version of Dollheart LS000186 boots.

I do dress my dolls in a style that I tend to wear myself - B describes it as 'verging on twee' ;)

 The browns and oranges are really making me feel autumnal :D

Hopefully by the next update I'll be able to show off Gwenllian! Her body is on the way from Thailand and her face-up is almost finished in Scotland. It'd be so awesome if they arrived together and I could put her together straight away.

Incoming!

I've finally paid off the layaway on Gwenllian's body and Viridian House is almost done with Gwenllian's face up, so she is finally coming together at last! It's going to be really exciting to see her in one piece with her new face-up and put her in her Wimukt mori outfit!

As well as Gwenllian's head and body coming in, I have a few wardrobe additions too! Now, I haven't been too bad by buying these because I have sold some dolls and clothes, so I'm actually spending hobby money on my hobby this time, instead of my wages!

The outfit and boots are both by Dollheart - the outfit is LD000502 [SteamPunk2012] - Journey and the boots are LS001219. I know I've said it before, but I love buying Dollheart outfits because there are just so many pieces involved. I can get a few outfits out of one set this way and each piece can be used with other items I have in my dolly wardrobe. Originally I was just going to get the outfit, but then I saw the boots as well and couldn't resist ;)

The deer antler headband is by Kuloft, who make very cute things for dolls from colourful plastic. This was another impulse buy. This is Dal-sized, which means it fits heads that are 8-9" in size. This should fit Deryn and Gwenllian well, but might be a squeeze on my melon-heads, Mafonwen and Tommeliesl, whose heads come up to almost 9-10". Kuloft do Blythe-sized headbands as well (9-10"), but I wanted to try something I know would be smaller just in case the Blythe ones were far too big.

Last but not least, the summery dress is by Kalcia from Etsy. It's going to be Gwenllian's. I think the pattern is very cute and it's going to break up all the blues, greys and browns that she normally wears.

My parents are away on holiday this week, but instead of having wild parties and staying up all night, what I'm actually going to do is finish some BJD projects I've been putting off. I want to re-string Mafonwen properly with new elastic and I want to catalogue my BJD wardrobe [/librarian!] What I really want is to catalogue and photograph everything so that instead of hunting through for the things I want, I can refer to my own guidebook. It should hopefully keep things neat and tidy this way too.