Initiating Code Virus

I'v had my girl Virus unstrung for the last... gosh it must be going on six weeks now. Between Family Drama, work, a new job, and extra shift, putting her last coat of sealent on, and stringing her together seemed like a dream away, but I finally got around to it this weekend! 
Virus Ala in her natural "Mode"

I also gave Virus as New face-up

And the final Result?

OMIGAWD SHE IS PERFECT!!!
Yes! Virus is my first COMPLETE doll. She is.... everything I want her character to be. Her eyes are striking and unforgettable, her clothing is distict yet simple and most importantly I HAVE HER THE BESTEST FACE-UP EVER!

I love how it can look all serious, but I can just as easily make her look, sweet and kind. Which is something I always struggled with her character. Virus is a discarded "weapon" so to say. She was created to manipulate other, and when she was thrown out, she feels lost, and uncertain. I needed to show both her killer potential, but her vulnerability as well, and I think it's just perfect!
I'm so happy to have "My" Shall, an she is unlike any other. I can't wait to "finish" all my dolls. I know I will love them all this much ^^

Let's see the Sun

Irrelevant title, But I wanted to post up a little photoshoot I did almost three weeks ago. It is really starting to heat up, we're almost mid summer. Enjoy!

Miss him Already

It is ridiculously suspenseful sending out a doll head for the first time.

Cadence's head was posted today, and he's now in the hands of the Aus post! God, help him.
I think it's almost as bad as when I was waiting for him to get here in the first place.
I'm fretting over how soon he will arrive, I hope I packaged him right, god don't lose my box, ahrg!
And it feels a bit like I have a missing hole in my gut.

My nerves are all a jumble with the excitement of a new face, worry I may hate it, anxiety about the post system, and then I will have to wait 4 weeks yet after he arrives in England, to have him completed.
And surprisingly enough, on top of all that, I miss the bugger. I really hope he comes back soon, looking better than ever, and I'll love him all the more. He just left, and I'm already wanting him home, haha.

In the mean time, I WILL get his body all cleaned up before he comes home, so it's all shiny for him.
And maybe make him some new clothes too.

MASSIVE UPDATE!

Since my last post, I finally got my Minifee stuff all together, and I now have a complete two new dolls. A Soom Adamelli Hybrid, and my first Minifee Rena.
I would like to take the chance to welcome my two new girls.

Soom Rayna

FL Lenore

As you can see, they are two really different girls, who are both just GORGEOUS!
I sent out a Dollmore and for my doll order as soon as I opened them, and am really happy with some of my gets from them. FMD has some AMAZING wigs.

I'm still trying to work out a top for Rayna, but I'm very pleased with how Lenore looks. Getting used to the MNF body tho! It's just so different! Rayna's body however I am adoring design wise. I haven't played much with her posing yet I admit, but it looks sensational! And matches Soom WS perfectly.

Other doll news.
Orophen had a new Face-up. 

But it's gone again. I just didn't like the feel it has. It was based on Crobidoll Nia's default, and I think I did pretty good, at capturing the right blushing.
His new Face-up is similar, but I feel it is an improvement to my vision of Him.

These aren't his official face-up pics, just a quick trial I did to see if it had the right 'emotion', haha

And the answer was YES!

I feel this new face-up captures the feeling I had in mind for my protagonist of ABIGLAE! ( Yes, it's still in the works ) and is the one I will be using in my photo story Debut. 

I'm slowly building some room sets, Example of which can be seen in the below, charming little Horror Story scene.  

And I am.... content. With how it is looking. I also finished a shelf last weekend. 

Virus, above first scene, is also getting a new face-up. It was removed, and I will be painting it tomorrow!

However, I have no idea what I want it to look like...

ALSO!

Big News for Cadence. 

He is going out for a face-up. Yes, my limited edition SW lance will no longer have a type B default face-up.

Instead, I am sending him to Lynsey, UK based face-up artists of BANGARANG

I decided to send him out because  frankly the idea of removing that face-up of his brings me to tears, I couldn't do it myself. But it really needs to go. And I want to make sure I'm not going to totally regret removing his face, thus getting it done professionally. 

While he is away, his body is well over due for it's yearly cleaning and whitening  so I'll be positing pics of that as I go as well. So there is my super big update!

I will leave with pics of a face-up I did last weekend, to that adorable head Alasse gave me. 

Very happy with it ^^

Cheers!

Melbourne! - After!

Visiting Melbourne was AMAZING! And cold, haha
But this isn't a holiday blog so I'll skip the non-doll relate stuff.
I met up with two other BJD enthusiasts, and met up with a third one at the Lolita meet, yay!
They were all rally nice to meet, it would be great to go another time.
I also picked up a couple of Re-ment products as dolly props again,

BUT! The big thing, when I got back!

MY MINIFEE BODY!!!!

Yup, in there is the new minifee Body I purchased in a split!
I have decided not to open her up yet, because I'm still waiting on her head (s) and and I'm also trying to get through all the manga I brought in Melbourne, haha!.

This is the body for my lil' Lenore.
Minifee Active line, small bust, model legs. And she's going to have either a Ryeon or Rena head to go on top. When both heads arrive, I'll see which one I like best, give them identical face-ups to be sure and then see what I wanna do.  Till then, I'm glad to have her here ^^

Melbourne! - Before

In early April I decided I to go to the Melbourne doll Market which would be held in August.
Fortunately, work denied me the dates off for it, but agreed to let me go in Late august instead, just in time to miss Manifest apparently, haha.

Before leaving for Melbourne, I  picked up a few dolly related things. I ordered five cans of MSC from ebay, and brought some fabric at spotlight as they were having a 50% off clearance fabric sale, and as I don't need more than a quarter of a meter for most doll outfits, I picked up some amazing fabric in preparation for when Rayna's body arrives. My Souldoll/Soom Adamelli Hybrid. All this fabrc for $5.00!

Love those Pattern tules  ♥♥♥

You can also see paint retarder in the corner.
I'v been practicing with water color pencils, but before that I used much more acrylic paints in my face-ups. While I LOVE some of the affects I made with water colors, I really miss the dramatic affect Acrylics create in a face-up and have decided to go back to practicing with them again, tho there are certainly some pencils tips I'll be keeping too! This was also a really big buy for me as in the brown paper bag, above the white and teal fabric, are my first artist quality pastels! When I first wanted to do face-ups I wasn't sure if they were for me. I brought some basic quality pastels and if it was something I wanted to continue, I could slowly upgrade my supplies as my skills advanced. Well, these are my first! They are two white chalk pastels, and mark my turning point into high quality materials. I'm really happy to be upgrading slowly, yay!

I then worked for 19 days straight for around nine hours a day, or occasionally 11 hours, and that left my kinda too tired for playing with dolls much. My book case however, has had another shelf re-read as I came home, read, slept and went back to work.

Overdue Blog Post and Doll meet pics

OMIGOSH!
So much has happened since my last post, and yet, so very little, haha.
Prepare for an influx of posts as I explain all!

After my Abigale post, I began working on some outfits for two of the characters.
The Bulk of those costumes are now finished, tho they still have allot of trims and details to be added. For me, seeing the two dolls I dressed and styled, really brought home what putting a photo story together would mean to me, and yes, all Green Lights are now on GO for this project, and I will slowly work on making it a realization  I ordered five cans of MSC about the time I decided this, and they finally arrived today, after six weeks. ( Yep, I should have posted this about six weeks ago, haha! ) So I can finally start putting on faces to truly bring my dolls to life.

In Late August or ehrm.. early July, such a baddie for forgetting ><
There was another doll meet! Gosh I really love going to them, those girls just add a whole new aspect to the hobby which inspires me so! And I got to see all of Alasse's Dolls as well as her amazing DVD collection and wonderful taste in Glee music, haha.

Of course we took some photos tho! and here are some of our fun little experiments!
Dreari is modelling the dress I made for "ABIGALE!"

AND! Alasse gave me this adorable tiny head! I just love that happy little smile and those cute chubby cheeks! I snagged a red wig for her, and am planning a sweet, red, freckle-headed, girl with green highlights in her make-up. I think I want to experiment with swirls too, bit of a modern pixie vibe for her maybe?

Hat Box Tutorial

I saw this adorable hatbox idea in a photo the other day, and I really wanted to try it!
So I made a couple boxes, and decided to share the tutorial here as well ^^

Hat boxes for your Doll!

ABIGALE! in pre-production?

I'm thinking of starting my first photostory, but I'm just really not sure I want to bother with the whPole thing.

I'v had in mind for a while now,a three part series titled "ABIGALE!"
Abigale follows the story of young man suffering from amnesia.
Waking to find his sole memory is the name Abigale, he determines to find this person and discover why he feels so drawn to the name and the person it is attached to. As the search begins tho, there are people wishing 
to entangle the youth, and his simple quest becomes mixed with lies and false impressions. 

Cast List
DoD Sha 
DoD Shall  
DoC Twin-B or Soom Adamelli 

I'v never been confident in my photography tho, and I'm always self conscious of my own stories. I just don't feel like I could create something I would be happy with.  It would also be something I would want to share, but I highly doubt anyone would want to look at it. Maybe a couple views from friends from people I asked to see it, and one or two pity posts. I'm just not sure. 

Pre-production Shot

The photo above is of the bed I finished making yesterday for some of the scenes. I also styled the wig, put clothing on my protagonist, and he looks pretty good considering he has no face-up. The wig is perfect for this character ( but terrible for Orophen, haha ), and I downloaded PaintTool Sai so I can start trying some real photo editing with eyes and lighting ( which I did here ). I think the picture is a great Pre-production shot, with a decent feel for what I want to do, and a good depiction of the character despite it being grainy and...face-up less.

 I just don't feel like it will be good, worth it or....anything. I showed my sister the pic and tried talking to her about it and she was like meh. I feel like if I can't get my own sister to take a look at this, I don't think anyone is going to, and I don't want to go through this whole thing if it's going to rot on my computer, die in the back pages of DoA, or just be another set of bad pictures on flik'r. I'll put in all this hard work, get nine views over the entire trilogy and maybe one comment for each. Or maybe I'm just wrong for waning a little acknowledgment when I put in effort. I'm just really not sure I want to bother with the whole thing...

For the BJD owner on a Budget!

Hello total of six blog readers xD

Very little doll happening's here while I save to go to Melbourne, but I wanted to quickly introduce to you to an up and coming website I think has allot of potential in the doll community.

Rags to Resin

( I can't get their nifty little banner to work darn it )
Rags to Resin in a website all about being in the doll hobby on a budget. It only has a few articles up right now, but they are a smashing read and really well written in a casual yet informative style.

They also have a FaceBook group, so go Like them there too if you're interested in seeing more ^^
http://www.facebook.com/RagsToResin

Hope everyone is weather as sunny as it is here!

Photo post

After waiting what seem like AGES! I My LeekeWorld GO finally arrived! Even the Host pmed me to check if they had arrived yet, but woe is the Australian postal service.
So I'll let the photos do most of the talking for me, shall I?

Lovely note and appropriately named gift tea

Shoes bought with Cadence in mind are definitely giving me
 a Lamalass and  Orophen vibe. Oh well, it's not like Cadence hasn't
 got four pairs as is, haha

                                       

Season Limited Colour.
Thought it was grey in the box, but it's icy blue!

Season Limited Colour
CAN NOT CAPTURE HOW LOVELY THIS COLOUR IS!

I'm SUPER inspired by all these wigs, and I suddenly remember each purpose I brought them for. 80% of them are for Dreari but I also got two for Lamalass, and one for Orophen, which I am not loving.... but c'est la vie. I'm highly looking forward to using the two red wigs I have for a Songsstory photoshoot that's been in my head the last few weeks, and the brown wig I have will be wonderful for a Victroia Francais inspired idea. I'm gonna need to order some MSC to keep up with all the face ups I want to give Dreari, HA!

Also on the cards I have a few sewing projects of outfits for these wigs that I will keep posted.
In the mean time I'm also sewing a Petticoat for my Boyfriend's Mother, a lolita miniskirt for my sister,a dn I want to make an SD bed for another photo story AS WELL AS making another Hime Gyaru dress for and playing Sims2/Catherine on Xbox and fidgeting with my new old Camera xD

Speaking off, I brought some dolly Re-ment props back from Brisbane with me. Very exciting time for dolls in the house, and I will be a worn out Jasmine by the end of it, phew

HELLO KITTY ICECUBES AND MAKER!

Did I mention
I also finished paying off my FL Body
I'm still waiting on my Souldoll body
I really need to get around to doing a ForMyDoll order
Doll meet up is on the 28th
My latest want is for a Gorillapod for photos, like crazy  <3

Thanks for reading!

Non Dolly Post

I haven't purchased something over $300 outside of my doll and lolita hobbies for a while, so this one gets a special post. 

Today I went out and brought home a new box, what was inside? Not a doll, or shoes, or even some glittery piece of jewelry ( Much better than that ). 

I FINALLY SAVED UP FOR MY NEW LAPTOP!

Oh it's so beautiful, I love it to pieces already, and I'm just posting this quickly before I run off to to give a full work out on Portal. I'v never had a computer that won't lag on sims, or can run graphics at a high level before, so I'm so exited to finally have a laptop to be proud of! ^^

Check out my Crobidoll Mouse-pad to go with it! Tei is such a cutie.

MonstroDesigns

I spoke to soon! The moment after posting my GETS! post, what arrives? My MonstroDesign order from Etsy.  Alright, stuff grab pictures!

What can I say about MonstroDesigns?
Stock didn't take long to make, or arrive
Products are a really great quality, LOVE THOSE WIGS!
I guess my only 'complaint' would be the packaging had a little to be desired. They were just stuffed in a box, no protection on anything but the glasses. Not really a biggie, But I would have liked them mm... maybe in a bag in the box. But seriously, wonderful quality on all accounts! Wish I was half as talented as the chick who makes this stuff,  just great ^^

You may also noticed Drea is again wearing Red...it's not intentional, just red is my favorite colour! Everything looks better in red, so I can't help but reflect that in my doll buys, and Drea is just sort of languid to wear what I like her to. I think she is getting a bit lonely being the only MSD in the house tho, but it will be fixed soon enough.