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! - Bug-Eyed Weirdos

 Despite what Mom always used to joke about whenever she walked by and caught me watching anime, I've never actually been a fan of things with extra-huge eyes.  To date there's really only been one doll of that particular type I actually wanted.

But I've been following some bad, bad influences for some years now, and in particular more recently.  So as I threatened on her post, this is largely Moon's fault, lol.

I finally caved, went to Aliexpress and got a DBS Blythe.  Yes she's an offbrand, on an unbranded Azone-style body.  But she's cute in her own way.

Barbie clothes, Real Littles sneakers.

As such she's one of the extremely few girls in my collection to have a full name - meet Honey Fauxbrand.  I thought I'd ordered a whole set of the extra ears but they only sent me the pointy elf ones, which is fine.  The seller sent along some extra hands...in the default white skin tone.  Hooray for extra hands for Sim I suppose, but that meant I had to go find tan hands elsewhere.  So I went to BeBeBlythe on Etsy for those as well as some eyechips.  She has a new neck joint on the way as well.

My second favorite pair of the eye chips.  They go well with that Mona Lisa smile of hers.

Not my faves, but it seems to be tradition that all Blythes must come with at least one scary pair.  These in particular go perfectly with the weird sign by the front door, lol.

And of course bling, because I have quite the found object/beading stash.  I'd made some attachments for my glasses last year when I got a new pair, so out came the pliers and jump rings, and now Honey has semi-matching ones for her pull string.

I'm not sure I'd get a whole nother Blythe?  But maybe a face plate with the smiley face if I find one.  Possibly a scalp with a wig, though I like her hair now, it suits her like the ears do.  I also had a random kitbash idea involving the eye mech that I might act on later.

ToyMuchInformation! - Year of the Dragon

 

Adou (Street Series, Dance Battle), meet Adou (Loong Fantasia, Qing Yao)

Apparently Penny's Box is having a whole "fantasy creatures" series blowout.  When I came across the Antu mermaids, I also happened to notice these Adou anthro dragons.  I knew immediately what I had to do. (This site has better details and translations, by the way).  I'm not sure exactly how her name goes, aside from how to pronounce 'Qing' and that surnames usually go first?  So for the sake of this post I'm calling this girl Yao.

and a set-specific "how to" pamphlet page.

I expected her to come in a larger box, given her size, but she wasn't packaged stretched out.  This had to be a relief for Mail Man since he could just leave said box in the mailbox instead of getting all the way up to the porch.  I'm not blaming Mail Man for the broken horn issue.  Pretty sure that happened before the whole shebang was swaddled in bubble wrap.  I'm not mad - I just glued the broken bits back on.  They're like the unicorn horns on the Antus; separate cast but not meant to be removed.  Yao seems to be unique among the rest of the set in that her horns are asymmetrical.  I also find it interesting that her wings are elastic strung like the rest of her, and not a detachable ball and socket peg attachment.  On the one hand this is great since they can't fall off, but they are a little on the floppy side.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Like Shimmer, she comes with this neat character card, a dress, and extra hands.  The second link I posted says they all have "accessories", and you can see from the images most of them do seem to - either a kiseru (I have one of these in real life, actually, and someone please tell me what they're called in Chinese if you know) or some little spectacles.  A few of them apparently don't, and Yao is one of them.  This is whatever, she can interact with most anything in the right scale.  The dress is easy to get on and off - even over her special hand - and has velcro all the way up the back.

I like her many many joints, and her construction is solid, but not quite as hefty as Shimmer's, probably because of how long Yao is.  She doesn't have much body blushing aside from on that one special hand, just a little bit on the molded scales at her waist, but there is some neat molded detail on her dragony bits.

She stands pretty well on her little lizard feet but will get top-heavy if you're not careful.  I didn't experiment overly much with poses yet.

The pouty face and smaller eyes seem to be an Adou characteristic; I couldn't find much else similar between her and Dance Battle.  The only thing that kind of bothers me about her is her eye chips.  They're so very pale they kind of disappear, but I could probably make my own pair one of these days and swap them out if I tried.

Let me hold that for you.

ToyMuchInformation! - Under The Sea

 Damn my eyes, I got sucked down the Amazon rabbit hole again.  Penny's Box has been busy (there's a new Dreamlike Tea Party set, someone save me).  I have a couple other things coming, but the first one to arrive is this little lady:

Tidal Secret Language meets Dreamlike Tea Party

She's another Antu collaboration doll, as you can see from the facial screening and general style.  She's elastic-strung like the rest of her type, but I think for the sake of these anthro dolls, I can put up with that.  They're just so cool.

Imagine my surprise when she arrived in a box about the size of a standard Barbie.  I'm used to these being much smaller.  It still had the convenient rip-strip opening at the top and surprisingly no sticky tape anywhere.

This one's name in particular is "Shimmer".  I'm not sure what exactly her theme is aside from pink, but her hair buns look like lotus flowers, so maybe that's it?  Her box is large because she's packaged "standing", in a plastic shell.  The little side fins are separate pieces on pegs, by the way.  Her main outfit is this two piece gauzy bubble underskirt, and then the slip dress that goes over it.  The velcro on the latter is a little hard to get closed.

Also included are this nifty transparent character card, a shell bra and some sticky pads to put it on with (working for walmart several times has me calling all adhesives in that format "rethtickable dot-th"...it's an inside joke), and several pairs of extra hands in this nifty double-stacked ziplock baggie.

The collector guide game has levelled up - there's this large foldout spread showing not only how the doll in question is strung and works, but the rest of the non-secret characters in her series, and what I think may be small ads for other series and accessories, and/or tips on how you can use the body parts together.  That's the same Adou doll I got, incidentally, center-left in the pink coveralls.

Shimmer does balance surprisingly well on her own, all things considered.  I haven't had a chance to play around with clothes-swapping yet, but in comparison to the Dreamlike Tea Party dolls, Shimmer here is just slightly larger in the torso and hands, and her arms are a little longer.  Honestly, she can probably wear Barbie/dollar store knockoff fashions, but don't quote me on that.

Speaking of fashions, in my occasional buying of Mini Fashion balls, I finally came across the current bane of Froggy's existence - the paint can purse.  For me it was the quilted green one and the shoe purse in the first two series, though multiples of the shoe aren't the worst thing - if you cut off the strap they actually do fit Rainbow High feet almost perfectly.

Having that purse made me want to pull together an outfit based around it, but I don't have a coverall that would work (rip), and am lacking a printer, so I can't go get a pattern and make one on the fly.  That particular purse came with a pair of sneakers, so no problem there... I went to Amazon and found this set for a decent price.  Honestly once they arrived I was pleasantly surprised - the clothing items look exactly like the photos and even have working side pockets!  Those little metal clutch purses actually hinge open, though like all clutch purses you'd be hard pressed to fit more than a single credit card in there.  I ended up using the lighter denim shortalls and pink shirt for this.

I can't remember where the watch comes from - I think it's a Barbie staple one, but the hat is Mini Brands Sneakers.  Nameless Style Friends hybrid doll gets a 'fit upgrade!

You got something to say about pink?  We can dance battle for your opinion.

The Unsuckening

 When Hot Pink Vinyl (tm) just isn't the color you need for the 'fit.

Some of these are based off of shoes I own/have owned, some are based off of video game equipment, and some are just enhanced versions of what they would normally look like.

These two were painted to match some Mini Fashions bags.

Red Chucks crew represent.  Featuring the Cozy Cute Tees lion doll, whom work friend has named Stevie (she's also wearing Snoop on the Stoop's t-shirt), and Fashionistas 138, who needs a much better name than Hairball.

Work-Related Project #2

 I have been making something of an investment into the MGA Miniverse kits.  The Series 2 ones are fun in that while you get a ton of the collector/recipe guides, those have little graphic pictures on the blank sections.  I noticed most of those would make for neat little doll sized posters.

One of the bosses at work has a mild obsession with cows, so I offered to send her one of these little posters just for funsies.

Cut the image section out of the collector guide, then trace around it to cut a matching piece of cardboard (a background from a Barbie fashion pack I think), and then a slightly larger piece of acetate.  I wanted this to look like the basic poster frames you can get at the big box store, so I thought of coffee stirs right off for the frame pieces.  Getting the angles right was kind of a hassle, but once they're cut, then flattened a little and slit down one side, they slide on just like the real thing...and are just as annoying, lol.

This one's reversible because of the backing I picked out.

Then I decided to go one better and make a one-day makeover out of one of the not!Chelseas from Five Below.  It's an objecthead based off said boss's custom Bitmoji character.

The milk carton head is fabricated from yet another Boxy Girls box.  I'm not sure how the recipient really feels about this, but I had fun doing it.

Work-Related Project #1

 

I woke up one morning with a vague lead on the one childhood doll I've been idly trying to find, and in the process of half-awake-ly scrolling through ebay...happened on this little guy in the listings.

The thumbnail is the best way to present this, because at this size he's an entire mood.  Of course I had to share this with the chat at work, and then send pictures (as one does when someone in the team is doll-phobic in the please-send-pictures kind of way).  And since he also made them giggle, and made several more appearances that day, I dared them to make me buy him and turn him into a boss baby.  The rest is history.

He's a 1988 Newborn Welcome Home doll by Playmates, and I clearly didn't pay enough attention to the description, because I fully expected him to be at least 12 inches long.  He's an 8-incher, actually.  This is Li'l Ike, namesake of the one guy on the team who was afraid of dolls but was 100% behind this idea.

He came with that fabulous puffy coat, which is fashion doll sized and someday I'll find out where it comes from, and a simple diaper which was probably original.  Both items and Ike himself got a bath.  Ike then spent a few days wrapped up in a yellow washcloth (and hated it), and when I finally got my sewing stuff together...a prototype dress shirt (and hated that as well, even more).  But I finally got everything settled from the move and spread all his bits and pieces out on the kitchen island.

Fabric hot glue is my new love, by the way.  The shirt, pants and dress jacket are all the usual Fashion Doll Stylist Kenswear, tweaked to fit Ike better.  The shoes are from a doll shoe pattern I'd found ages ago, with craft foam soles and painted details.  The newspaper is a collection of several I got from Printmini, printed on parchment paper, and folded.  The cup is LOL Surprise, and the pen comes from a dollhouse stationery set I think I grabbed either at Michaels or Hobby Lobby.

It's a little slapdash - I did almost all of this on Thanksgiving Day while avoiding showing up at David's kitchen warzone as long as possible.  He looks better from a distance, but I will also note he looks infinitely happier in his little business suit than he ever did before.  Li'l Ike's found his place in the world after 35 years.

Happy Halloween!

 I LIVE!  It's been a month and things are finally settling down.  Granted I only moved across town, but that also means going back and forth on my days off and retrieving things.  It takes time and gas and makes me tired, haha.

I did finally get a day all to myself yesterday.  Went to the post office (a whole other adventure since the easiest route to take was shut down for utility work they refuse to do at night), treated myself to ramen and a hot sake at the good ramen place, and then betook my fog of goodwill toward the world over to the greenway for some pictures.

I'll have to redo her outfit, or at least retool it some.  Sim's current (and I hope final) body is meatier than its predecessors.  But it still works as long as you can't see the back, so...

Build Time - Photo Backdrop PLUS

AKA, let's see how far we can stretch the concept of slapdash...

Modular walls round 2.  I have a small hoard of backdrop-viable materials anyway and have been putting off making more of them for some unknown reason, but something in the bargain bins at Target caught my eye a few weeks ago.

iirc these were about $3 each, so not too bad.

I already had the silicone molds for the bricks and a few other things, and an idea popped into my head on how to make decent use of them.  Does anyone else remember a few years back when the craft stores were trying to make hot-glue casting a whole thing?  Did I imagine it??

gotta love how even the promo image admits the texture doesn't tile.

Got this at the Dollar Tree - it's supposed to be a wall decal, but it works just as well as a floor.  It's 3d, of course.  I might go over it with some matte varnish, since those stones are awfully shiny.

Our usual Rogues' Gallery of materials, this time involving the addition of toilet paper rolls, scrap felt and some Christmas village grass (still pressed out and flattening as of this post).  I cut the foamcore (also scraps) to fit the foliage mats, so they're about 12" wide, give or take, and 24" long.

not the final product. variations from packaging may occur.

So the end result should look something like this, but much better since y'know...the bricks will be painted.  RIP my hot glue stash at this point, because I made ten of these panels of bricks and there wasn't much wastage.  Even not glopping it into the molds it still ate almost all my sticks.

So I got to work gluing the bricks on - each panel only needed four on the front.  The extras were for the sides and what would be the centerpiece, because....

Obviously at this size, they either won't meet in the corner, or will leave the edges wide open to break the immersion.  I opted to cover the center's sins.  Also added that faux ledge across the top to balance things out.

It's just some scrap foamcore wrapped in felt and glued on.  The method behind this madness will become apparent eventually, I promise.

This is just four rolls glued together, shored up with craft sticks, and covered in more felt.  I banded the ends with more of the hot glue bricks.

99% of the paint colors used.  Not pictured is the English Ivy Green, Licorice, or Country Grey used later.  Leave it to the store to not have either burnt umber or brick red in stock when I appear.

base coat acquired.

A base of 50/50 terracotta and tuscan red, for starters.

my eyes!!

A sort of whitewash with vanilla, for the grout. It's blinding.

much better.

I went over this with a sort of dark wash of the tuscan red and a little of the dark brown, then asked my roommate to get me some spouncers while he was out (I was at work).  Spouncer is such a silly word.  Anyway, I then spounced on some tuscan red, and drybrushed with the terracotta to bring out the texture.

General consensus being that the grout was still way too bright, it also got another wash, this time with just the dark brown.  Roommate approved, we were ready to go on.  The felt parts for painted over with a mix of the vanilla toned down with the country grey, because to my mind painted felt looks a lot like a smooth stucco or molded concrete.  Tacked on the foliage mats and...

should do something about the wall brackets, lol.

Voila!  These are not the most stable things on earth, but the center pillar helps to hold the walls up, so I call it good.

I think it works, more or less.  How about you?  I'm planning to do something similar on the opposite sides of the wall pieces, but not right this minute.  I need a break.