ToyMuchInformation! - A Little Ray of Sunshine

 It finally rained, and without the need of a hurricane passing through. In fact, it was a mild cold front! That was the hottest October I can remember, tbh. It was consistently about 80 almost all month. 

After the drips and drops petered out but before the ground dried out, I treated myself to a redress sesh with Honey and took her outside for a little photoshoot.  Her neck joint never arrived (not the seller's fault, I blame the postal service) so it's hard to get really good pics of her still.

She's in full Mona Lisa judgement mode as usual. Storage has mussed her hair a little and I need to get some of the mini ponytail holders to replace those rubber bands.

I'm liking the contrast in this look. Full Rainbow High outfit, repainted MC2 belt, Mini Fashion bag, a repurposed human headband, some paper sunflowers from the dollar store, and I put on her goldfish charm for the occasion. 

ToyMuchInformation! - Shiny Things

 Both of these girls came pre-loved. Aurora needed a hair treatment (it's still kind of woolly) and some paint touchups, and her joints are crazy floppy. Spectra's had a bangs-chop - which seems common - and is missing a thumb. 

Aurora came with her original dress but it's pretty fragile, so she got a dollar store one that was pretty popular a few years back. She's also wearing Rainbow High shoes. Aaaaand... I gave her eyelashes, lol. I just made some wefts of mixed blonde and baby pink yarn to match her hair and glued them on. It gives her some sass, tbh. The hairstyle I have her in makes me want to turn her into a genie for some reason.

Spectra had a bruise on her chin because she's a scrappy interstellar mallrat. A swipe of acetone and a week in the blemish bag on my dashboard getting zit cream treatment took care of that, but I may touch up her face paint. She arrived in her birthday chrome and is currently wearing a Barbie jumpsuit, RH socks (I think), and Mini Brands shoes. They're the primo Skechers Twinkle Toes high tops with the wings, haha. Added a little jelly-esque jewelry and made a "ribbon" out of rainbow tulle for that side-ponytail and she's good to go. 

They make for a nice odd couple.

Who are you?
I'm you, but trendier! :D

You mean, "but tackier and missing a thumb". 

At least I have fingers, not flippers.

...at least we both have tragic hair and perfect shoes.  -__-;

ToyMuchInformation! - Patsy at the Park

 You probably don't remember Patsy.  It's been over a year since I got her parts and restrung them.  I got inspired the other day and dug through my clothing hoard to get the poor girl suited up a bit better for some glamour shots.

Stylin', Profilin'.

Generic tweedy fall two-piece and black turtleneck from Amazon, Mini Fashions purse and boots - yes Virginia, Dollikin fits Mini Fashions! - and a latte from Barbucks to match those Barbie leggings.  It's a bit thick in the shoulder/elbow area, so she has a bit of a  linebacker stance straight on :'D

Miss thing is definitely an autumn.

ToyMuchInformation! - Costume Season

 The last one about mermaids, I swear.  For now.  Froggy has a pattern for a tail I want to try, but this isn't the season.

 I hit up amazon for some teeny tiny clothes.

Libby looks even more adorable in this, somehow.  I suspect based on experiments that all my elastic-strung blind box gang wear OB11/Nendo size clothing.

Odile meanwhile got this little number.  Yes, I am in fact one of those weirdos who got the Odile-sculpt mermaid for the purposes of rebodying.  Her mermaid body now belongs to Lia (the MtM tennis player), and will be headed to a friend's house to make her kids happy.

You may be noticing, if you clicked the link, the dress in the picture here is a little different than the one in the listing.  You'd be correct because it doesn't match.  I suspect they're handmade, based on the stitching errors, but I'm not complaining.  I'm pretty sure I can just pick out the messy seams and restitch it anyway, or iron them flat in the case of the sleeves.

box hair, don't care~

This is as much of it as I could get to fit within the boundaries of my backdrop, lol.  The thing is the definition of voluminous.  I guess Odile is our resident fairy now XD

ToyMuchInformation! - Mermaids? MOREmaids.

 Listen, Shimmer wanted friends, okay?  It's hard to say no to that face.

 

One of these is a brand seen before - the Philosopher has a post about the LuckyDoll ones.  I'm including the brand she didn't get to - the Aiye Mermaid Island blind box dolls.  Since I seem to be getting into the habit of backtracing these companies, of course I looked into both brands shown on the packaging.  Koitake and Aiye both seem to be in the toy business; Koitake looks like they put out Nendoroid-style static figures based on Chinese series?  It appears they do a lot of collaborating (like I thought Penny's Box was doing).  So it makes sense they'd join up with Aiye (Insta page is all I could find for them and they only have two official released series?), whose specialty is BJDs.  The result is the Mermaid Island dolls.

 

Spoilers as to who I got in my box.  Translations seem to differ on the storyline blurb and I couldn't find one that made 100% sense, but SpaceStudioBJD comes to a soft rescue, batting cleanup for Google.  Apparently searching for the holy land of the pandas turns you into a mermaid.  I don't make the rules.

I got TianTian.  No frills packaging; it's a big box mostly because of her chair, and everything comes in plastic bags.  There are two copies of the instructions for some reason, so I get to show both sides.  He character art card is definitely cute.  Her bikini top is also a separate piece, but doesn't actually come off.  It is a little loose though and can ride up or down if you're not careful.

I'm less a fan of TianTian's stringing than I am of anyone else I have constructed this way - her arms are fiddly as hell and won't really hold a pose.  It's difficult to get her to stay in her little chair, too.  Partly because it's smooth plastic on smooth plastic and partly because of the stringing issue.  She has a lot of little molded details on her tail, but the transparency doesn't really add much.  If they'd just left it on the tail fin it would have been fine, imho.

My really big beef is with her hair.

Hold my scalp, please?

TianTian's unique among my crew in that her entire scalp comes off.  If you zoom in on the instructions you can see this, and the fact that her head also opens up for eyeball access.  The issue is the hairpiece itself feels aggressively, disagreeably rubbery.  It's rubbery in the way water slimes are wet - you feel it, your nerve endings are telling you this hair is sticking to your hands and attracting every stray hair and lint molecule in a two mile radius...but when you drop it, you're not sticky and it isn't covered in fuzz.  I kinda hate this, lol.

her eyes also go weirdly reflective from some angles.

Granted this does open up a lot of avenues with her.  The removable scalp means wigs are an option; I'd guess she would take whatever wig size an 11cm head does.  The removable eyes are a big help, too.  I could definitely repaint her tail, or con a friend into doing some 3d printing maybe.  She has a cheerful little face, so there's that.  It's mainly the hair and the stringing that kills it for me, I guess.

But that's not all!  We have a little scholar in the house as well, since I'd had these sitting in my wishlist for ages.

 

I got The Librarian from the LuckyDoll/"ChuChu" series, and honestly?  She's stinking adorable.  I love her goldfishy fins.  The ombre on her tail is well done, even if it's starting to show some friction rubs in the paint.  I had to experiment with some clothing options because that joint at the waist really is distracting in the anatomically worst way.

Hiiiiiiiiiiiii~

She can wear Nendo clothes!  So this little sailor suit is hers for now, I guess.  She's much easier to pose than TianTian is, since her fins actually are jointed and will help to hold her up.  Plus, I love the wide hipped proportions on these dolls.  It's worth noting Libby here doesn't match her character art - she's purple on paper and pink in person!

Stupid cute.  Her facial screening puts me in mind of another one we'll take  look at some other Tuesday.  For now, it's raining and I need to take the dog out.  We're supposed to become Hurricane Buddies with Moon Girl in a couple days.  The Cone currently covers both of us, haha.