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House Rainbow Barf upgrades complete!

House Rainbow Barf upgrades complete! published on No Comments on House Rainbow Barf upgrades complete!

House Rainbow Barf is alive and back together at last! I was waiting on some parts before I could put together Jujube. Earlier I moved Honorine over to an Obitsu 11cm/Paraboccle hybrid. Just now I finally got all the pieces to do the same with Jujube. Head is 14cm Elfdoll tiny. Bust is Obitsu 11m. Everything else is Obitsu Paraboccle. Continue reading House Rainbow Barf upgrades complete!

Recent projects: Honorine’s new body, BBQ grill, arm improvements

Recent projects: Honorine’s new body, BBQ grill, arm improvements published on No Comments on Recent projects: Honorine’s new body, BBQ grill, arm improvements

Again pulled from crappy phone camera.Continue reading Recent projects: Honorine’s new body, BBQ grill, arm improvements

House Rainbow Barf moves! And other rearrangements…

House Rainbow Barf moves! And other rearrangements… published on No Comments on House Rainbow Barf moves! And other rearrangements…

I decided to disembarrass myself of House Rainbow Barf’s heavy, ungainly roomboxes. As an alternative, House Rainbow Barf and inhabitants have moved to an open-plan apartment on the bottom shelf of a bookcase in my bedroom. I also got rid of most of the furniture that went with the roomboxes, so Jujube, Jeff, Dorothy, Honorine, and Ishi are furnishing their loft with a combination of boxes and Rements mostly.Continue reading House Rainbow Barf moves! And other rearrangements…

Exhibit of miniatures at Fleming Museum, 03/31/2019

Exhibit of miniatures at Fleming Museum, 03/31/2019 published on No Comments on Exhibit of miniatures at Fleming Museum, 03/31/2019

Went to an exhibit of miniatures at the Fleming Museum in Burlington, VT on March 31st. I couldn’t take pictures of the items on loan from other places, but I did take some pics of things from the Fleming’s collection. Ishi came along to provide scale. Continue reading Exhibit of miniatures at Fleming Museum, 03/31/2019

House Rainbow Barf thrift shop turns into an arcade!

House Rainbow Barf thrift shop turns into an arcade! published on No Comments on House Rainbow Barf thrift shop turns into an arcade!

I have been amassing miniature arcade cabinets to make a game room for my 1:6 [and 1:7.333333333] scale dolls. However, the games I have so far also work perfectly in 1:12 scale, that is, for House Rainbow Barf denizens. Proof below. Continue reading House Rainbow Barf thrift shop turns into an arcade!

The newest resident of House Rainbow Barf — Ishi!!

The newest resident of House Rainbow Barf — Ishi!! published on 1 Comment on The newest resident of House Rainbow Barf — Ishi!!

I got one of the mini Disney Princess dolls representing Tiana in casual clothes, as she appears in Wreck It Ralph Breaks the Internet. All of the princesses are surprisingly adorable, thanks in large part to their extremely expressive, exaggerated headsculpts and their clever outfits that make reference to their stories with modern styling. They also have ball-jointed shoulders and hips, along with jointed elbows and wire in their legs. Their limbs each have 90 degrees of flexion! With rooted hair, fully tailored outfits with shoes for some, and accessories for certain ones, they represent a high quality that I haven’t seen in playline dolls for a long time. Tiana, however, is objectively the adorablest, with her expression of great jubilation, asymmetrical eyebrows, and one winking eye.

Anyway, I was very distressed when I first got Tiana — renamed Ishi — because she didn’t seem to be in the same scale as any of my other dolls. Was she doomed to be lonely, friendless, and unloved? Continue reading The newest resident of House Rainbow Barf — Ishi!!

Honorine’s body upgrade

Honorine’s body upgrade published on No Comments on Honorine’s body upgrade

I recently purchased an 11cm Obitsu body with the thought that I would articulate one of my 1:6 scale younger kids. Well, when I discovered how floppy Honorine’s resin body was today, I decided to experiment. I enlarged the neck hole in Honorine’s head and popped her on the 11cm Obitsu body. She now has much more articulation than she ever did on her resin body, as the 11cm Obitsu has ball-jointed neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, torso, hips, knees, and ankles. It’s even got double-jointed knees, a tripartite torso, and an amazingly tight set of joints. Anyway, she’s now nearly a head shorter than the other inhabitants of House Rainbow Barf, but I’m okay with that.  Pics below. Continue reading Honorine’s body upgrade

House Rainbow Barf now has a ground floor: the accessories shop!

House Rainbow Barf now has a ground floor: the accessories shop! published on 1 Comment on House Rainbow Barf now has a ground floor: the accessories shop!

When I acquired House Rainbow Barf, an American Girl AG Minis Groovy Room roombox, back in early 2013, the same seller also had the Petite Boutique available for another $50.00. However, I did not purchase it and promptly regretted it. A complete Petite Boutique, with roombox and accessories, recently appeared on Ebay, so I got it for just under $90.00 shipped. House Rainbow Barf, I have decided, is in a building with the Petite Boutique on the ground floor and residential quarters above. Since I have 4 Elfdoll 14cms that do not all fit in one roombox, 2 can hang out in the store, and 2 can hang out in the house!

Picture from auction below cut. Continue reading House Rainbow Barf now has a ground floor: the accessories shop!

Otakuthon Dollathon, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 08/04/2017-08/06/2017

Otakuthon Dollathon, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 08/04/2017-08/06/2017 published on No Comments on Otakuthon Dollathon, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 08/04/2017-08/06/2017

Lyrajean, Bittersweet Blue, and I drove up to the Palais de Congres in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, for Otakuthon, 08/04/2017-08/06/2017. Well, we mostly attended for the small amount of BJD programming, otherwise known as Dollathon.

Continue reading Otakuthon Dollathon, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 08/04/2017-08/06/2017

Vermont Doll Lovers meetup, 6/17/2017

Vermont Doll Lovers meetup, 6/17/2017 published on No Comments on Vermont Doll Lovers meetup, 6/17/2017

Doll lovers from Montreal came to the BEACH PARTY themed meetup! The gang from house Rainbow Barf [Jujube, Jeff, Dorothy, and Honorine] represented my small populations. Pics on official blog.

The Vainglorious Man Who Wanted to Rule: a tale of reality distortion and resistance

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Once there was a vainglorious and mediocre man who wanted to rule the land. So he used his talents for trickery and promised the people that he would make their country great and powerful, if only they would let him lead. He’d defend the land from foreigners without and suppress the influence of evil woman within. He scared people enough that they chose him as their leader.
The vainglorious man set himself up in the capital city. He made his home in a opulent mansion with servants at his beck and call. He postured and blustered at them, and they scurried to obey his whims. His lackeys could not recognize the man’s insecure bullying for what it was, for he had the power of appearing strong.
Realizing that he couldn’t fool everyone by intimidation alone, the vainglorious man used different tactics on the capital city’s inhabitants. He developed reality distortion fields and forced everyone to use them. Through these devices, the capital denizens perceived the world as rich, prosperous, safe, and successful — all thanks to the vainglorious man. He had surrounded himself with unquestioning adulation, and life was good.
Then he began to hear reports of the girl. They started as whispers, but soon gained momentum; soon news of her exploits was on everyone’s tongue. Even among his most fervent admirers, gossip surfaced about the young woman and her agenda of democracy, transparency, and honesty in government. She was on the road straight to the capital city and the vainglorious man’s door.
No one really knew where the kid had come from. The first news of her appeared in a remote rural district that had, until lately, been under the authoritarian rule of one of those nasty women that the vainglorious man so despised. Citizens of that district claimed that the girl had pulled a deus ex machina and neutralized the dictator, but the vainglorious man couldn’t believe the word of such credulous people. The girl was probably the mascot of an underground terrorist cell that had chosen that particular moment to demonstrate its might. The formerly oppressed citizens mistook her for an assassin just because she happened to be nearby. Surely she could have done nothing.
But other incredible stories joined that one, and a picture soon emerged. Despite [or perhaps because of] the calamity that had left with pretty much nothing left to lose, the girl was fearless. Nothing stopped her. A lion menaced her pet, so she yelled at it and punched it in the nose. She entered an opium den, the ambient drugs of which felled even the fiercest of beasts, but somehow she, a mere kid, emerged unscathed. The vainglorious man was forced to revise his opinion. She was no mere figurehead, but a frighteningly competent agent, perhaps even the leader of the resistance herself.
Later stories confirmed the young woman’s disturbing militancy. In yet another district, yet another nasty woman had brutalized her way into command and compelled the once-free inhabitants to serve her. This second autocrat kidnapped the young woman in an effort to gain the terrorist’s strength for herself. I mean, who wouldn’t? the vainglorious man thought. The kid clearly had an almost magical invulnerability.
But then, something happened; the vainglorious man was not sure what, as intelligence was unclear on this point. In any event, the young woman spoke truth to power, and the second autocrat essentially shriveled up and melted away. No longer under her tyranny, the citizens of the second autocrat’s district enthusiastically supported the girl. They sponsored a flight for her and her friends that brought them even closer to their target: the capital city.
There was the real problem with the kid, the vainglorious man mused. –Her friends. With a combination of charisma, kindness, and straightforward friendliness, this death-dealing terrorist charmed suckers effortlessly. He could sort of understand how all those bumpkins, sick of being under the thumb of their respective nasty women, easily transferred their affections over to their savior. Less comprehensible was the rumor that non-human animals [besides the dog] now followed her, and even inanimate objects [?!] supported her grassroots democratic movement.
Now the vainglorious man had grown up in Tornado Alley, and he knew well those whirling storms for which his region was named. Intense in their focus, relentless in their pursuit, they swept up everything with irresistible force and destroyed all obstacles in their path.
In a skin-tightening clutch of terror, the vainglorious man knew then that there was a tornado bearing down upon him now. It would shatter his sphere of fawning flatterers, lay waste to his reality distortion devices, and destroy his illusions. In short, it would reveal him for the trumped-up humbug that he was.
And the Wizard of Oz feared that tornado, for her name was Dorothy Gale, and she had the power of truth.

To the Bat Fax VII: haranguing government officials on…recent activism and Senate confirmation hearings

To the Bat Fax VII: haranguing government officials on…recent activism and Senate confirmation hearings published on No Comments on To the Bat Fax VII: haranguing government officials on…recent activism and Senate confirmation hearings

With information handily provided on Kara’s “We’re His Problem Now” calling sheet, I left a message for Senator Bernie Sanders thanking him for speaking out against Bannon and other Prez-Elect-appointed appointed bigots. Reminded him to oppose the following at Senate confirmation hearings this week: Jeff Sessions as Attorney General because he’s a racist and bigot, Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State because of his COIs with Exxon, and Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education because of her lack of experience.

Left a message for Representative Peter Welch thanking him for speaking out against Bannon and other Prez-Elect-appointed bigots.

The sort of film criticism I can get behind

The sort of film criticism I can get behind published on No Comments on The sort of film criticism I can get behind

After recently taking a swipe at straight white cis bourgeois dude off-gassing disguised as movie reviews, I’m happy to report that I’ve found someone whose film crit I can indeed endorse: Kaye Toal. Specifically, Toal’s commentary on toxic masculinity in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Harry Potter, the Prequel, Part 1 of N, Where N is an Exhaustingly Large Number cheers me up with its down-to-earth tone, intersectional considerations of masculinity, misogyny, and race, and its overall good writing.

Oh, who am I kidding? I was prompted to write this entry because the author describes the antagonist Grindewald as “played by longtime alleged domestic abuser Johnny Depp in styling and makeup that looks like somebody’s high school OC from a bad Harry Potter Livejournal roleplaying community.” That’s the most perfect burn on an overacted, self-consciously theatrical weirdo that I’m still chuckling. Since there was another movie review, which I can’t find a link to, sadly, that compared Depp’s portrayal to David Bowie for some reason, I assume there’s heavy face painting, dramatic intonation, and general scenery chewing involved. Too bad I can’t stand Rowling, Depp, and the entire Harry Potter media juggernaut, or else I might actually watch the movie for said scenery chewing.

EDIT: Ah, here we go. Jeffrey Bloomer, in an article about gay not-so-subtexts in the movie, writes [emphasis added], “Alas, the end of Fantastic Beasts will not put an end to the speculation about Grindelwald’s sexuality. When the real man is finally revealed, he’s played by a snarling Johnny Depp, his hair dyed platinum and his manner suggesting a deeply alarming cross of David Bowie and Milo Yiannopoulos. We get only a few moments of his giddy Aryan flamboyance, but the performance so far certainly seems … suggestive.”

Okay, never mind. Given that Milo Yiannopoulos’ insufferable smugness provokes violent rage inside me, I think I’ll pass on investigating the scenery chewing further.

“When logic [beat] and proportion [beat] / Have fallen [beat] sloppy dead [beat]…”

“When logic [beat] and proportion [beat] / Have fallen [beat] sloppy dead [beat]…” published on No Comments on “When logic [beat] and proportion [beat] / Have fallen [beat] sloppy dead [beat]…”

I’ve been listening to Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit because it was on Says You last weekend [in a round about songs that people know by informal titles that aren’t their actual titles — I guess people know it as Go Ask Alice]. Also for some reason I ended up at a trailer for Alice Through the Looking Glass, a sequel nobody wanted for a movie nobody liked. Pink was covering it with an interesting raw, rocky edge, but I was much too distracted by Johnny Depp’s whingeing and Sacha Baron Cohen’s scenery chewing. I have therefore been listening to the album original and then the version done live at Woodstock. In the latter, one can watch Grace Slick in all her barefoot, fringe-bedecked, frizzy-haired glory, plugging one ear with a finger, grasping the microphone tight enough to strangle it, and singing with an intensity both joyful and piercingly focused. She is the personification of groovy — she has a groove, and she’s grooving in it, and she’s amazing. [For further illustration of Grace groovin’ in her groovy groove, check her — and the whole Airplane crew — doing Somebody to Love! Wow!]

Wait…that was supposed to be a smart sci-fi film? or, Ex Machina and Smug White People Feminism

Wait…that was supposed to be a smart sci-fi film? or, Ex Machina and Smug White People Feminism published on No Comments on Wait…that was supposed to be a smart sci-fi film? or, Ex Machina and Smug White People Feminism

I have no idea where all the reviewers of Ex Machina get off, thinking that it’s some novel, philosophical, highly intelligent piece of sci-fi movie making. It’s not. The first two thirds contain the insufferable misogynist bloviation of two straight cis dudes, objectifying all the female characters in the most blatant, unoriginal, and uninteresting ways possible. I mean, seriously — one of the robots, Kiyoko, is so objectified that she has no language, thus making her the ultimate silent, submissive, docile Asian woman stereotype. The last third of the movie contains the supposedly narratively inevitable consequences of their assholery, in which the women become scary and murder the dudes. Then all the women of color either die or sacrifice themselves so that the white woman can escape to her dreams of white-collar big-city life, and it’s all so tedious and sludgy and dull…except for the hotel where it was filmed. That was pretty. But aesthetically pleasing scenery cannot compensate for raging misogyny and racism.

This enraged critique of Ex Machina owes much to Sharon Chang’s incisive analysis, which goes into much more depth.

EDIT: And here’s a perfect example of someone analyzing queer subtexts in Ex Machina and completely failing to call out the racism and sexism. Sorry, Jeffrey Bloomer. I really don’t think that a white woman reconstituting herself from the bodies of women of color is merely a moment of queer transformation that should be celebrated. It’s also a reification of an ongoing colonialist project that should be acknowledged and critiqued.

BJDs old and new

BJDs old and new published on No Comments on BJDs old and new

Just out of curiosity, I ran through the current list of BJDs who bug me [that is, BJDs that live in my universe, as opposed to fictional universes like Me and my Muses or Zombieville] to see who was oldest and who was newest. Judgment of their ages is complicated by the fact that several of them were inresinated in other forms before their current ones. Thus the characters may be old, though the doll forms representing them may be younger. This comparison of my BJDs’ ages calculates from their current inresinations only, though information about past forms is included in brackets.

This comparison also uses the date on which the doll arrived to me in the mail as its birthday, except in the case of hybrid dolls. For hybrids, I use the arrival date of the doll’s head as its birthday. The only exception to this is Polly, whose head, an Elfdoll Doona Kathlen faceplate, lay around, unused, until I saw Asleep Eidolon’s 1:6 scale mature mermaids and ordered one for her body. Because I made up the character only when I had the body, I count the arrival of the Asleep Eidolon body as Polly’s birthday.

So, from oldest to newest, here are the BJDs who bug me:

1. Sardonix: [Version 1 arrived January, 2005. Sold December, 2005.] Version 2 arrived January 24, 2007.

2. Araminthe: Arrived February 7, 2011.

3. Jujube: Arrived December, 2011.

4. Flower: Arrived March 19, 2012.

5. Mellifer: Arrived June 22, 2012.

6. Jareth: [Version 1 arrived February 9, 2006. Sold in summer, 2009.] Version 2 arrived October 15, 2012.

7. Timonium: Arrived February 27, 2013.

8. Yamarrah: Arrived July 13, 2013.

9. Polly: Arrived March, 2014.

10. Thalia: Arrived November 5, 2014.

11. Dorothy: [Version 1 arrived March, 2011. Sold August, 2012.] Version 2 arrived September 29, 2015.

12. Jeff: Arrived September 29, 2015.

13. Delmar: Arrived October 13, 2015.

14. Honorine: Arrived October, 2015.

15. Submit: [Version 1 arrived March, 2007. Sold May, 2007. Version 2 arrived November, 2007. Disassembled November, 2015.] Version 3 arrived November 9, 2015.

16. Never the Less: Arrived December, 2015.

17. Touralyn: Arrived December 12, 2015.

18. Fritillaria: Arrived December, 2015.

If calculated by age of characters, BJDs who bug me would be, in order from oldest to youngest: Jareth [of course!], Sardonix, Submit, Araminthe, Dorothy, Jujube, Flower, Mellifer, Timonium, Yamarrah, Polly, Thalia, Jeff, Delmar, Honorine, Never the Less, Touralyn, Fritillaria. If Jareth, a character who existed long before his BJD form, is excluded, the oldest character first inresinated as a BJD that bugs me is Sardonix. She’s also my oldest BJD by a long shot — soon approaching her 9th [!] birthday, while the next oldest, Araminthe, will only be 5 at the beginning of next year.

My current crop of BJDs who bug me does not reflect the entire length of my interest in this type of doll, though. I got my first, Zephque, a Customhouse Gene, in May, 2004 [and sold him in November, 2005]. My interest in BJDs thus goes back more than a decade.

Vermont Doll Lovers December meetup, 12/12/2015

Vermont Doll Lovers December meetup, 12/12/2015 published on No Comments on Vermont Doll Lovers December meetup, 12/12/2015

Araminthe, Honorine, Sardonix, and Submit went to VTDL today, along with a crapload of Christmas props. While there, I swapped a Lumedoll Arine for Touralyn, DragonGems’ second scratch-built BJD ever. Because I found a crack in her torso, Megan is redoing her body, so I actually came home with just her head. I did, however, get some photos of her hanging around Submit, the other 1:6 scale doll of mine in attendance. Pictures are on the VTDL blog, as usual.

Made Honorine a night cap tonight…

Made Honorine a night cap tonight… published on No Comments on Made Honorine a night cap tonight…

I stitched together 4 triangles, each measuring 0.5 inches along the base [plus seam allowance], as her head circumference is ~2 inches. I turned it inside out, added slits for her ears, and stuck it on her head with sticky tack. The waffle pattern on the fabric and the perky shape put me in mind of a hat made out of a leaf, although Honorine, along with her fellow denizens of 1 12th Street, is adamant that she’s not some cute little pixie. [That’s why she looks annoyed — too many 1:1 scale people have said, “Awwww, how precious!”]

 

Continue reading Made Honorine a night cap tonight…

Doll work and acquisitions this weekend: a little Honorine, mostly Christmas crap

Doll work and acquisitions this weekend: a little Honorine, mostly Christmas crap published on No Comments on Doll work and acquisitions this weekend: a little Honorine, mostly Christmas crap

Besides hosting the monthly VTDL meetup yesterday, I also worked a bit on dolls today. Honorine got wiring in her limbs, as well as a comfy outfit of pajamas and slippers.Continue reading Doll work and acquisitions this weekend: a little Honorine, mostly Christmas crap

Vermont Doll Lovers meetup, 11/14/2015

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Submit, along with Jujube, Dorothy, and Jeff, attended yesterday’s VTDL meetup. House Rainbow Barf made an appearance as well. Pictures on the VTDL blog.

Vermont Doll Lovers Halloween meetup, 10/24/2015

Vermont Doll Lovers Halloween meetup, 10/24/2015 published on No Comments on Vermont Doll Lovers Halloween meetup, 10/24/2015

Polly, Jujube, Thalia, and Sardonix had an early Halloween party along with the other dolls at the most recent VTDL meet.  Pictures are over on the official blog.

Welcome, Honorine!

Welcome, Honorine! published on No Comments on Welcome, Honorine!

I have acquired another Elfdoll 14cm tiny BJD. Unlike Dorothy [Dodo] and Jeff [Kai], I have not had an exemplar of this doll before. She is Olivia [link goes to archived sales page], the only sleeping headsculpt among the 14cm Elfdoll humanoids. [There are sleeping anthro Catsies, but I’m not interested in those.] I’ve decided that her name is Honorine. Here she is [at left] in a photo from the seller, hanging out with what looks to be a Soom Faery Legend Rose [at right].Continue reading Welcome, Honorine!

Delmar: cute, in need of much help

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Delmar arrived this evening! I took some photos of her current state, just so I have something to compare her future improved self to.

 

She needs more works than I expected, but nothing I can’t handle. As I previously stated, her orange and black color scheme works well on her, giving her a Gothy, zombie look, but it’s all gotta go. See that pale headcap? That represents the color of her resin beneath the grey blush. Faceup, body jewels, and grey blush are all being stripped.

 

As for the orange of her tail, an inspection inside her tail socket reveals even color all around, so I’m pretty sure her lower half is dyed. I’ll clean her tail up, for sure [no stick-on rhinestones, please!], but the orange remains.

 

So Delmar needs blushing, faceup, and rhinestone removal, along with an overall cleaning. She also needs disassembly and [something I was not expected] removal of the sueding in every single joint. Sueding — the insertion of some high-friction material, such as sand, moleskin, or dried hot glue in joint sockets to improve poseability — may work on large, heavy dolls, but it’s less effective on small dolls like Delmar. The sueding keeps her joints from fitting snugly together, and it makes visible layers between pieces that are really distracting. Sueding needs to go, to be replaced by wiring instead.

 

In another unexpected development, Delmar has no hooks at the ends of her arms or her tail. Both her hands and her tailfin are fully strung, which I think limits their articulation. On smaller dolls [like Jujube, Dorothy, and Jeff], stringing is an acceptable way to keep small hands and feets on, but it’s unnecessary on a doll Delmar’s size. I see that I’ll be making some S hooks soon.

 

Though I have to drastically improve Delmar, that doesn’t make me dislike her. In fact, I enjoy working on dolls to improve them; it gives me more time to build affection for them. Even though removal of sueding and exchange of string for S hooks don’t really constitute customizing, I do like such activities, as they are part of how I make dolls accord to my visions of what they should be like.

 

Anyway, now that I have Delmar in hand, I like her even more than in pictures. The official photos seem to emphasize her ungainly proportions and her tiny, puckered mouth, while the auction photos make her look messy, with yellowish undertones. In person, though, she looks more like an awkward kid, with a plump body and stubby limbs, while the extended lip lines make her mouth seem wider. I’m not really impressed with the stiff, simplistic sculpting on the mertail — hip fins aren’t articulated, and there’s no detailing on the main tail section — but her webbed fingers and matching fin-shaped ears are charming.

 

I think she’s a zombie.  Pictures below. Continue reading Delmar: cute, in need of much help

Jujube, Jeff, Dorothy, and some stuff

Jujube, Jeff, Dorothy, and some stuff published on No Comments on Jujube, Jeff, Dorothy, and some stuff

I made Jeff a wig from some of my versicolor faux fur that looks mostly pink from the front, but contains orange streaks on the sides and back. Continue reading Jujube, Jeff, Dorothy, and some stuff

Creative projects #2: welcoming the new denizens of 1 12th Street

Creative projects #2: welcoming the new denizens of 1 12th Street published on No Comments on Creative projects #2: welcoming the new denizens of 1 12th Street

Dorothy and Jeff joined Jujube today as the latest inhabitants of 1 12th Street! They neither starved nor froze on their flight from Great Britain to the US, as Sam, my trade partner, packed them with an unexpectedly large wardrobe of clothing and a significant amount of Rement. Though I did order some 1:12 scale clothing for them from Tabloach Productions, it has yet to arrive, so I found outfits for everyone from the goodies that Sam so generously included.

 

Dorothy and Jeff required some work before dressing, of course. First I wired Dorothy’s limbs with soft brass 22 gauge wire. While doing so, I got an intimate look at her default hair and faceup. Though her glued-on brown mohair ponytails have flattened with time and frizzed slightly, I decided that she was so danged cute that I didn’t want to redo either her hair or her faceup.

I then tried to wire Jeff similarly, but failed. The staff at Elfdoll originally strung her with overkill elastic in her arms that completely filled her tiny arm channels. I have no idea how they wedged such [comparatively] oversize elastic through such small holes. Anyway, while I succeeded with wiring her legs, I couldn’t do her arms.

I finally got rid of Jeff’s original arm elastic and restrung her upper limbs with 1mm beading elastic. Though I always operate under the assumption that working with tiny dolls differs radically from working with, say, 1:3 scale dolls, my experience tonight proved yet again that all of the techniques that I have learned with larger dolls may be applied to smaller dolls. Smaller dolls differ only in that their smaller size. In other words, stringing a 1:12 scale 14cm Elfdoll tiny is the same as stringing a 60cm B&G Dolls BJD like Araminthe. The only difference is that the difficulty increases as the size decreases. Anyway, the 1mm beading elastic provided enough spare space in Jeff’s arm channels for me to wire her arms — hooray!

 

After several hours of work, the roommates finally felt ready to pose for their first photo. While Jujube ultimately needs a 1:12 scale power wheelchair and Jeff needs hair, everyone is now in much better condition [and much better clothing] than they were before Dorothy and Jeff came in! Continue reading Creative projects #2: welcoming the new denizens of 1 12th Street

1 12th Street: where Jujube, Dorothy, and Jeff live

1 12th Street: where Jujube, Dorothy, and Jeff live published on No Comments on 1 12th Street: where Jujube, Dorothy, and Jeff live

I’ve decided that my growing interest in 1:12th scale requires a new universe for Jujube, Dorothy, Jeff, and anyone else with decides to join them. This universe, naturally, centers around the trio’s apartment on 1 12th Street, also known as House Rainbow Barf. As this universe’s main drag, 12th Street also contains any other sets I wish to add, such as the forest, the cemetery [which is the forest with gravestones], the diner, etc. Jujube, Dorothy, and Jeff will most likely appear in some photostories, especially if I ever get that diner set up and running…

1:12 scale stuff I already have

1:12 scale stuff I already have published on No Comments on 1:12 scale stuff I already have

As much as I like acquiring new miniature things, I just realized that I can use many of my 1:6 scale sets and accessories for 1:12 scale. Forthwith, a list of what I have in sets and medium-size things that can work in 1:12 scale:

 

  • everything in House Rainbow Barf
  • entire forest set, with the exception of the pine trees
  • Dellamorte tombstone magnets
  • Rement yellow dresser with lamp on top
  • Rement Beauty Counter
  • shojo screen
  • potted cacti and bonsai
  • some yellow and blue crockery
  • globe [pencil sharpener]
  • many of my Rements and smaller items in the lidded plastic trays, notably including jukebox, coffee maker, dish drainer, swing lid trash can, metal cash register, grey laptop, Rement toys, Rement office supplies, Rement food and kitchen utensils, most books, most decor

 

I see that I’m pretty well stocked with accessories, but I really need some basic furniture in 1:12 scale: a table, some chairs, a counter, a full bookshelf, an empty set of shelves for stuff, a bed…

 

Or I could eschew those pieces that I already have in 1:6 scale and go for a set I’ve always wanted: a diner! Sure, I have my Barbie Coke Soda Fountain in 1:6 scale, but I want booth seating and greasy food! What I really want is the AG Minis set Lil’s Diner by American Girl, makers of Groovy Room House Rainbow Barf. Of all AG Minis, though, Lil’s Diner proved the most popular, so it sells for disgusting amounts on Ebay, which means I’m not going to acquire it.

 

As I think about what I really want in a diner set, I come up with the following:

  • booth seating [vinyl benches with backs]
  • table with rounded corners and chrome accents
  • bright decor with chrome, checkerboard flooring, and neo-retro posters
  • jukebox
  • greasy food
  • condiments, napkin dispenser, menus, etc.
  • window with slatted blinds

I’ve got the jukebox, the greasy food, and the condiments etc. I can print out menus and neo-retro posters with no problem. I’m just missing the booth and the table. Hmmmm…

Doll recycling: welcome back, Dorothy and Jeff!

Doll recycling: welcome back, Dorothy and Jeff! published on No Comments on Doll recycling: welcome back, Dorothy and Jeff!

In the past, I had an Elfdoll 14cm tiny Dodo and an Elfdoll 14cm Kai. Dodo, called Dorothy, was the BJD of one of my previous 1:3 scale BJDs, Sarah. Kai, called Waverley, was a minor character in LHF. I sold both of them in summer, 2012, then spent the next three years regretting it. Jujube, my remaining 1:12 scale BJD, had no friends and hung out in her Operation Rainbow Barf house all by herself, much to my dismay.Continue reading Doll recycling: welcome back, Dorothy and Jeff!

Results of Operation Rainbow Barf!

Results of Operation Rainbow Barf! published on No Comments on Results of Operation Rainbow Barf!

I got my AG Minis Groovy Room today. Here is Jujube hanging out in her new house, which is as tastefully decorated from the available pieces as I could manage.

NB: I was wrong in my earlier speculation that AG Minis room boxes are smaller than 1:12 scale. They are 1:12 scale, so Jujube fits perfectly! ^_^   Continue reading Results of Operation Rainbow Barf!

The mystery of AG Minis

The mystery of AG Minis published on No Comments on The mystery of AG Minis

I am here to report that there is apparently very little information online about the AG Minis room box sets, previously mentioned in my Operation Rainbow Barf entry. The fan site American Girl Playthings, which covers a range of AG toys, has a page about AG Minis, detailing the names, contents, prices and appearances of various sets, but there’s no information about scale, issue date, variations or any of that sort of stuff that enthusiasts like to geek out over. The American Girl Wikia wiki has even less information and no pictures at all. Sure, there are some detailed photos on Flickr and Ebay, but there’s no central collection of minutiae and photos. It’s very disappointing. 🙁

This entry was originally posted at http://modernwizard.dreamwidth.org/1472112.html. You can comment here, but I’d prefer it if you’d comment on my DW using OpenID.

This weekend: Operation Rainbow Barf!

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While I was on Craigslist last night, posting my DVDs for sale, I made the mistake of searching for "barbie" and then "doll" in the sale section. I came across an AG Minis Groovy Room room box, used, but in great condition and well-furnished. Seller’s picture is below.

Continue reading This weekend: Operation Rainbow Barf!

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