Party Weekend!

I really should be tidying my room - I'm headed out to Y's tomorrow after work, I'm staying over with her and Saturday we're going to do a spot of festive shopping. Late Saturday afternoon I'm going to head back to Llandudno Junction and have birthday takeaway with B and his family and Sunday is B's birthday...I won't actually be home until Monday!


My room is a tip, I've been focusing on my doll projects for the past week and I've got blue nylon doll hair clippings in my carpet and I can hardly see my bed under all the packaging, but it feels good to be doing something creative and interesting. With B busy doing his uni work and my friends either at work or away, it's good to have something to do with my hands.


I should really get back into writing too. Rerooting dolls is apparently very tedious work, so perhaps when I get fed up of rerooting my Cardassian Monster High doll I'll write another scene of my epic Star Trek rebuilding Cardassia fic.


What do I need to pack for the weekend?

• Pyjamas
• Toothbrush
• Hairbrush
• B's birthday presents
• Clothes
• Perfume
• Camera?
• Train tickets & purse
• Notepad & pen for scribblings

Is that it? Hmm. I've probably forgotten something, I usually do!

Ghoulia Yelps

I've done it again! Well... My Abbey Bominable hasn't even arrived yet and I'm already planning the next custom. Creating Chathabialeh zh'Bomeen will be a tiny custom compared with this one.


I'm going to be customising Ghoulia Yelps into a Cardassian original character called Glinn Otala Zeltan. This means I have to wipe her face-paint, cut her hair off, reroot her, add Cardassian facial ridges, repaint her and make her a Cardassian military uniform. It should be worth it though.


Otala is one of my favourite original characters, I have such a soft spot for Cardassians anyway, but Otala is a special one to me. She's not a sue though, I wouldn't handle things the same way she does!


I've already ordered some black saran hair and rerooting needles from My Little Customs, I need to head out to the craft shop in Llandudno tomorrow to pick up some grey coloured Fimo. Fimo is awesome stuff. You shape it like plasticine or clay and then bake it at a low temperature to set it. This is how I'll be making Otala's facial and sternum ridges and extended Cardassian neck. I'll model the Fimo on her and then carefully remove it and bake it. When it's set I'll be able to glue it directly to her face and body and with some blushing it should blend in well if I find the right grey.


What I was astonished at when I took off all the face paint is how angular and Cardassian her face actually is. Ridges would complete the pictures, but she has very chiselled features already and her ears are set quite high, which is going to look perfect when her mods are finally done. Monster High dolls actually look prettier when they have less make-up, I think. Ghoulia has lovely lips, but you can't really tell until you take the red lipstick off.

Abbey Bominable!

I won Abbey! Yay! The auction didn't go over £30 either, so I'm pleased with that!


She's not going to stay as the daughter of the Yeti. I know it seems a bit crazy to wipe her and re-paint her when she's so difficult to find, but I think the repaints look much better than the actual factory faces. Abbey (or whatever her name will be) is going to be an Andorian Starfleet officer too, and they're not really known for their over made-up faces.


I need to work out a way of giving her blue antennae - wires covered with blue fimo? Or felt some? I definitely think wire is the way to go, because then they'll be poseable.


Her name's going to be Chathabialeh. Not sure if she'll be a zhen or a shen though. (Andorians have four genders, two are roughly comparable with the male gender and two are roughly comparable with the female gender.) Andorian reproduction is difficult to describe. The shen provides the 'egg', which is fertilised by the thaan. This is then fertilized by the chan and implanted into the zhen, who adds her gametes and then the zygote develops into an Andorian infant in her pouch.


It depends on what kind of character I want Chathabialeh to be. Zhens seem to be highly-strung, shens seem to be more easy-going and traditional. Perhaps she should be a zhen - Andorians have white hair, but Abbey Bominable has streaks of blue, purple and pink in her hair. I can't see a shen doing that :p


Chathabialeh zh'Bomeen then, or 'Abi' for short :)

Monday Morning

Off to B's in a bit, but first, a bit more musing on the doll body/Monster High stuff I was thinking about in previous blog posts.


I'm currently bidding on an Abbey Bominable MH doll on eBay. Will see how it goes - have 6 mins to go and I think because she's so hard to find someone is going to swoop and steal my dolly. Grr. If she's much more expensive than this (£30) I'm going to have to sit on my hands to resist retaliatory bidding :p


I talked over the BJD body situation with B last night. He isn't in the hobby, so he's not going to be all excitable and enable me, but he can also appreciate that the hobby makes me happy...so he's going to be more balanced than talking it over with my family (who think the hobby is silly) and talking it over with dolly friends, who would probably tell me to get the body :p I will order the Ariadoll body, if I still feel strongly about it, on January's payday, the 20th. It's a distant but close date, January isn't that far away.


I'm trying not to get excited about Abbey. Just in case.

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!

Rerooting Repainting

For the past couple of days I've been looking at fashion dolls rather than my usual BJDs. I've always liked fashion dolls, but they've gone by the wayside a little while I've been more interested in BJDs, mainly because I've found BJDs to be more customisable...but! Almost everyone I know has been busily getting into Monster High repaints and while I enjoy doll painting, I'm not under any illusions that I'm half as good as any of the amazing repainters out there.


Instead, I've been looking into rerooting dolls, which seems like a fun (permanent!) alternative to wigs. My Sekiguchi Unoa doll has a really mean fringe and blonde locks that I don't mind, but don't care for terribly either. I wouldn't want to ruin her by doing a terrible amateurish reroot, but I really do want to have a go. Payday is a week away, so I'm thinking of buying some nylon hair and a rerooting needle from My Little Customs and having a go rerooting an unloved Momoko or Monster High doll. They do sell Monster High girls in work, but I know that as soon as I buy one boxed I'll want to keep her mint and I'll feel bad about cutting her hair off and pulling it out :s


I've been scouring eBay and Flickr for adoptable MH and Momokos, haven't found the right one yet for the right price. I really want a Momoko because I know she'll fit in, but I'd work with a MH doll too.

More New Wig and Christmas Wishes

I have been a bad Jescissa. I just bought those Leekeworld wigs I wanted :p The gorgeous vibrant copper colour was just too amazing to pass up. I wish it wasn't a limited colour, it would be perfect for Deryn.


I like to have a few wigs in the same standard colour for my dolls so that I can mix up their hairstyles a bit without changing their hair colour - I like them to still look like themselves. The only exception to this seems to be Mafonwen who only has the one wig...but her wig just suits her so well that I can't imagine her in another style just yet.


Deryn is going to be another exception - the Leeke wig that arrived yesterday is really gorgeous so some of the time she'll have soft baby brown hair and the rest of the time she's going to be a ginger! I can't wait to see what she looks like in both colours. She'll be back from her face-up in 3-4 weeks and the new Leeke wigs are a preorder so they won't arrive for around 6 weeks. They pretty much will be a Christmas present now!