2018 in a nutshell

This year has been quite an off year for me dolly wise (and generally too). I’ve kept with the weekly pictures but I haven’t spend much time in any other part of the hobby, this blog included. I keep having this problem of whenever I decide to spend more time on this blog life happens and blocks me from doing so, and this year I have to add to it a lack of enthusiasm for everything. Many weeks I struggled to take doll photos as well because I didn’t feel too motivated. It’s been a while I’m doing the photos I am able to do and not what I would like to do.
I’m really hoping next year is better both generally and specifically in the doll world.

Now, for a sum up of the things that happened this year when it comes to dolls coming, my Merry Doll Round Nanaimo came back in May, but *sigh, life* I still haven’t seen her even, and either my two previous Dollshe dolls because they’re not here with me.
Then by September I decided to put a search for a doll I wanted for a long time, a Dust of Dolls Krot ïlus, and I was very very lucky that after a couple of months or so of searching I found one and she arrived to me at the beginning of December. I’ve since then done a wig for her (I was going to put a post about it but I ended up making it mostly at night and the light was terrible) and soon I’ll be doing some temporary faceup (I don’t have sealant here right now) and some clothes.
She’s smaller and also bigger than I imagined, it’s strange but it’s how I feel about her. My original idea is having two of the Krot line (with the mouse ears), but I’m not convinced on Helö since I want one with a more cheerful expression like Ïlus, so I’m hoping they make more krots with mouse ears in the future.
On the other hand I’m waiting on two dolls that will arrive in 2019. One of them is a Merry Doll Round Bunyol that I preordered mid December (photo on the right from Merry Doll Round’s website). I got her in chocolate skin colour and I can’t wait to see how she looks like, I’ve kept an eye on this doll since I saw the prototype and I already started saving for her. I also really like that so far the three MDR pygmys I’ll have all have different bodies and different skin tones. I can’t wait to have the three of them together in pictures.
And then yesterday I committed the unplanned craziness of preordering a little Cham Byol in chocolate skin from the limited edition (photo on the left from Dust of Dolls’s website).
I never thought she would be put on preorder and I’m fascinated with her body so I had to take the chance of getting her. I still can’t believe I’m getting her, this morning I was telling my boyfriend “OMG I GOT A DUST OF DOLLS CHAM BYOL OMG”, it’s still sinking in haha
I imagine both might come home at around the same time, April or May most likely.
I already have name and style ideas for MDR Bunyol, not so much for Cham Byol since it was such an unexpected surprise. When I saw her I got instantly some ideas for style in my head but we’ll see.
I’m not one for doing new year resolutions, but something I can make a resolution about is that I’m going to be reassessing my doll collection and making some important decisions that I’ve been dragging for at least a year.

I hope you all are having a wonderful time during these holidays. Have fun~~~~~

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My Dollshe dolls arrive

When I already expected that my Dollshe dolls wouldn’t come till at least next summer I was surprised and the dealer received them a couple of weeks ago. She was really nice and sent me pictures of them and I was already so excited. Yesterday the dealer sent them and today they were received. In the end the Angela has taken about 8 months and a half in arriving and Arsene has taken a bit more than 7 months. Considering the backlog Dollshe has I think I can be happy overall even if at times it has been very pretty frustrating. I really think they have to evaluate their whole business model when it comes to how and when they take orders. I like Dollshe bodies and originally I thought that maybe at some point I would like to have a female one and also a mystic body if I needed any of the two for a head, but unless I found one second hand right now I don’t think I would order from them again, you want to trust them, because they always deliver, but I always wonder if at some point they’ll start not delivering taking into account how their schedule is right now. I really hope they can improve in the future because they make fantastic dolls.
Since I sent directly the dolls to the UK and I’m not in the UK right now, I don’t know yet when I’ll be able to see them and start customising them, but I do plan in making a video officially opening their boxes and first impressions when I do. I made my boyfriend open the boxes, check everything was all right while I was drooling over the cam looking at them haha

I have the overall idea of what I’m going to do with Angela and I already have a name for her (still need to decide on surname and other details) and I also do for Arsene, although for him I’m still not set on a name at all and I think until I don’t customise him I won’t probably decide.
There was some doubts about the eye holes they have, if low dome, normal dome, sizes… so in the end I’ll wait until I can see them and try the spare eyes I have around to decide since I’ve had contradictory information, different sizes that look OK for example. Also especially with Angela there are almost no people that has her, so it’s difficult to find experiences and examples.
Another thing I’ve been doing is looking for shoes. For those that don’t know I mostly sew all my dolls clothes, so generally I look more for shoes than clothes for them (also Angela is a weird size and I prefer to directly sew her stuff than battle around trying to find things that fit). Shoes wise Angela uses same size than minifee and since I do have some Dale Rae flats from when I had minifee dolls, she already has some pairs of shoes, although I still would like something more child-like and also trainers or boots of some sort. For Arsene is more complicated, not because there isn’t any stuff but because most of the stuff I’ve found for that big feet are formal shoes and he’s not in that style. In the end for the moment I bought him a pair of trainers I found (image to the left) that are more casual. Ideally I would love to find something in the style of worker boots but I haven’t found any so I guess I’ll have to settle with something in the Dr. Materns style because I have seen of those. In any case I’ll continue looking around for both of them and see what I can find.

Happy New Year!!!

Hope you have a 2018 full of health, happiness and new experiences.

Goodbye 2017

Not much has happened since I bought the Dollshe dolls, in fact I’m still waiting for them. I know that company takes a long time in doing their dolls, but what baffles me the most it’s the general acceptance of people to what I call a lack of professionalism. I had some idea before ordering of the issues with waiting times and lack of communication, but the fact that people waits more than 6 months and there are some in a 1 year club seems really unacceptable to be honest. I’m just hoping at this point that whenever they come everything is all right and I don’t have to wait more. Sigh, I guess I’m from the resignation group at this point. Certainly this year is going to go like the year of dolls bought but none received.

The last to join the group of waited dolls has been a Merry Doll Round Nanaimo (picture on the right by Merry Doll Round from her Facebook page), she will be my new Brynn that until now had been in the sculpt of a Pukifee Zoe. Nothing against that sculpt whatsoever, but since I saw the sculpt of Nanaimo that I thought she looked a lot more to what I had in mind for Brynn originally, and on the other hand, since Nanaimo is from the same scale than Alani (my MDR Mousse) it’s simply easier if more dolls can share clothes or shoes than having so many different sizes. I already have many different body types that require unique clothing sizes, so the idea of reducing a bit that pool was certainly a plus. So the old sculpt for Brynn’s character has been rehomed and now I’m waiting for Nanaimo. I only ordered her in human, since I have no use for the narwhal parts.

Now I wonder, will I receive earlier Nanaimo than the Dollshe dolls or not? lol

In terms of other doll related stuff the truth is I haven’t been able to do much generally. I’ve managed to complete the 52 weeks picture challenge and I’m still wondering if I should change a bit the one starting for the new year by not limiting it to BJDs but also other dolls I have (Blythes for example). But I’m still thinking about it.
I’m not going to do a list of things that I want to do for next year because mostly they never happen or other things are made instead, so I’m only going to hope that I simply do more doll related stuff than this year and I get on with some long time projects I’ve had in mind, but without pressure, if not done, I’ll do them at some point.

I hope everyone had a very good dolly 2017. See you in 2018!!

New dolls coming

I wanted to do a quick update because I have news in my BJD family.
Another new member is going to join the crew!!! And it’s a BOOOY!!! haha
A Dollshe Arsene to be exact!
After I had one bad experience with a boy years ago I decided to not try and have one again. Simply I find girls a lot easier for some reason and the boy I had ended up not being who I wanted, his character didn’t fit, didn’t know what to do with him, so I sold him in the end and hopefully the person that adopted him used the full potential he could offer.
I think I mentioned in my ex-family members page that he had also an awful body. I bought a minimee body at the time and to this point is still the worst body I’ve ever had in my hands. Sometimes I think that it’s the main culprit that I got rid of him.

Anyway, time goes, likes and personality change and now I think I’m ready to try again.
Not only is a boy, but it’s a BIG boy, so we’ll see how it goes. I already have an image and personality in my head for him.
The main reason why I haven’t tried until now as well is because I’m really picky about bodies. It’s easier with girls nowadays to find different body types (I don’t like massive breasts for example, and that’s the reason why nowadays I felt more comfortable going back and trying big girls too). In the past when I started in the hobby it was pretty rare to find varied body types so between the male bodies being how they were and the girls having so many breast I went more for 1/4 and 1/6 sizes, it was easier to find something I liked.
I left it ambiguous what I don’t like about male bodies in general and that is the six pack, I don’t like it at all, and male BJD bodies tend to be too muscly and always show the six pack, even bodies that look skinny have a six pack.
I know there are bodies out there without the six pack, but there was always something, like maybe too marked rib cage (I don’t like this in girls either to be honest) or I didn’t like the head, etc. So until now I hadn’t found a male BJD I really liked, and when I saw THAT body without six pack, realistic proportions and I loved the head too, I knew he was the one!!!! hahaha
The only exception I would do to my adversity towards the six pack would be for a 5th Motif Venitu, because I like that sculpt soooo much that I simply would get it with my eyes closed. Plus it’s not as exaggerated as in other sculpts so that’s definitely a plus too. I like the proportions of Dollshe’s Mystic body too, but I’m not convinced by the six pack again… I wonder if sanded it would look good…

So he will be the second Dollshe doll coming!  Yess! The second! (although since I bought them through dealer I asked if they can be sent together, but technically I ordered the other one last month).
My other doll coming is a girl as I said two posts ago, and it’s a Dollshe Angela.
It’s been sooo long that I wanted a doll like her, I like my dolls to be diverse in features, skin tones and bodies and I’m really glad that we’re right now at a time when more dolls like this one are released.
I got her in Honey Caramel Brown. It’s going to be my first experience with the Honey skin, I hope she doesn’t stand out a lot compared with the resin of the rest of my dolls. I had maaany problems to choose the skin tone, I kept looking at people’s pictures and I couldn’t find uniformity in the tone. I’m a bit concerned it’s going to be too light for what I had in mind. Fingers crossed I will like it.
There are not many Angelas around, I keep checking forums, flickr, etc, to see if anyone puts more pictures of this beauty, but no much luck so far. Hopefully more pop up at some point!

A long wait has started! If you learn anything in this hobby is to be really patient haha I’m just hoping that since I bought them through dealer that Dollshe doesn’t take as long in making them. Fingers crossed in this too!!

Green Dolly Day

I’m quite late with this, but I went to the Green Dolly Day in Barcelona a month ago.
The night before the event I had only slept about two hours so I was pretty zombie like going around the stands.
I don’t want to make a full text review because there are others out there and because my opinion wouldn’t be the most popular one. So summing it up in positive and negative points (disclaimer: This is MY opinion, I find it great if you don’t agree or have another perspective).
Positive:
➳ The location of the event was easy to find and access. The room was big.
➳ There were quite a lot of stands so you needed to go around a few times to take it all in.
➳ People in the stands were very friendly and helpful.
➳ Staff people were also very nice.
➳ Prices were good, you could find many price ranges so there was stuff for every pocket.

Negatives:
➳ The location was easy to find, but once inside the hotel you had to ask where it was because unless you had been there before there weren’t any signs anywhere to know where to go.
➳ The room was big, but being the basement it was dark, no windows, felt a bit trapping in there.
➳ Because there was no windows it felt a bit pointless to take pictures in the doll booths they had since the artificial light was not that bright and they were in pretty dark areas.
➳ I expected it to be an event more centred in BJD but about at least half of the stands were more Blythe, Pullip and similar. Also there was not that much for 1/3 size dolls. This is not really a fault of the event organisation, though.
➳ Even though you needed a few rounds to see everything there was not much else to do, there was only like one activity (alpaca wig making, although I heard people saying it ended up being more like an explanation than a workshop activity), so you would run out of stuff to do pretty quickly and you had to wait for raffles and announcements (somewhere throughout the day, but the raffles were around half past five, so you had to wait most of the day). As I said I had only slept two hours, so this time waiting was like ten times longer for me. If you go with friends or family it’s probably a lot better. I went alone, so that added to the boredom.
➳ I think raffle boxes should be better mixed when picking the numbers. Some of the people picking the numbers did, others didn’t.
➳ Online raffle is a joke, I have to agree with one comment made in their Facebook page, sorry. Pretty unprofessionally picked. When I was in the event there was this girl from the staff that said she never participates in the online raffles, when asked why and if the picking was done weirdly she didn’t say no, she just said something like “you know, many people participating and the like” in a casual way. Whatever she meant I personally got my own conclusions now after seeing how it has gone.

Days before going I was torn between getting a doll there or not. I decided not to because I thought about getting other stuff I need, like clothes and shoes and etc. However when I got the event there wasn’t that many stuff that appealed to me, or more like, that went with my girls’ styles, so I didn’t buy much in the end. I tried to finally get the doll I wanted but it was gone already (I wanted her without faceup, only the ones with faceup were left). I regretted it so much, but then about two weeks later I could get that other doll I’m waiting for now, so I guess it was destiny (or something).

Generally, to sum it up, would I go to the event again? It depends, if I go with someone I would, if I go alone I would only go if I want a specific doll, I wouldn’t participate in raffles or anything and I wouldn’t stay all day there because it gets pretty boring. That is, unless it evolves in future editions and more activities or other stuff is added. I imagine this is likely to happen at some point, but for now that’s how I see it.
I’m forgetting some stuff to mention here, just because I think this is pretty unpopular opinion already so I’m going to leave it there.

Stuff that came in the Welcome Pack:
The bag of the event in green this time. Inside there were a lot of different business cards, event map, leaflet and name tag, those balloons for 1/6 scale (maybe they look a bit small on yosd size? I haven’t tried them yet). This paper cut-out of a Blythe in its box that I haven’t made yet. Brown eyelashes (I needed some so this was perfect for me). And then there were a couple more things in there, a ticket for the raffle that I used, and this capsule that had a paper inside and if it had something written you won some stuff. The tiny capsule was delicate and mine got all squished and I had to throw it out once I got home.

Things I got:
Starting from top left: Set for Blythe, Ravenclaw tights for MSD size (wanted these ones since a long time ago), yo-sd sized overalls (they’re big on my yo-sd sized dolls, weird :S). Bottom left: Overalls for Blythe and similar sizes, Totoro socks for Blythe size and similar, SD sized boots, headband for Blythe size. I picked some cards in Merry Doll Round’s stand, my favourite!! hahaha I know people picked everywhere but I only picked from her. It was also such a pleasure to meet her, she’s so nice and kind and I’m a big fan of her dolls.

Thanks for reading 🙂

Coming back

It’s been quite a long time since the last time I posted. To be completely honest I wasn’t too happy with the blog and I thought about changing platform. I tried passing the blog to Tumblr, but I wasn’t satisfied either. So long story short I decided to change things around here and finally leave my Tumblr as a side blog to this one for smaller stuff and more randomness (still doll related, but less structured than in here). Let’s see how it goes this way. You can find my Tumblr clicking on the T icon in the right, you can also find icons for my Flickr and Instagram accounts.

To sum up this time since I last posted in here not much has changed in my family. At the beginning of this year I received the Petrichor body for my Olathe head, so she’s finally complete!
I was surprised to find out that the head had lost a bit the pinkish tone over this two years, what I find pretty weird taking into consideration that she had been in a box all this time… It’s not noticeable now that I did a faceup for her.

I need to sew clothes for her (she’s just using some random stuff I have around here). I had to go back to my home-country for personal reasons and I only took her, Keina, Alani and Brynn with me, so that’s also the reason why I haven’t been taking pictures of the others recently. I’m not used to the sewing machine my mother has here, so I need to practice a bit before sewing something and I don’t have many fabrics here either, so we’ll see what I can do.

On the other hand, BIG NEWS! A new girl is coming to my doll family! She’ll take a longish time coming, so I’ll be slowly introducing her. I need to start looking for a name for her (I take ages in deciding my doll names), and I have a vague idea about what colour eyes and what type of wig I want for her.

And to finish this post, just a reminder that I post weekly on Flickr and Instagram since I still follow my 52 weeks challenge. I post same stuff in both (sometimes I post some extra pictures on Flickr), so feel free to follow me in one or the other or both!

Hope you have a great weekend!

Bodies

Today I was taking pictures to two of my dolls when I thought that since the light today wasn’t horrible I could take pictures of all my dolls naked in a line so you can see the bodies comparison. I’ve tried for the colour to be as close to the real one as possible, but even though I tried there are a couple of them that are not exactly as they are in real life (and then it also depends on your screen too).

Time flew by so fast!

It’s been a long time that I don’t post anything here, especially because I’ve been quite busy and time flew by so fast!, it seems it was yesterday that we were in January!!!!??
As you already know I strictly follow the weekly picture challenge that I upload on Flickr (and a lot of times I do on instagram as well, but not all of them).

Happy New Year!

♣ I’m a bit late but I hope you all had great Christmas holidays and that this new year goes wonderfully well for you in everything you want to achieve. Happy New Year!