Before I begin, I wanted to let you know that I am planning another round of ebay auctions. I've cleaned my closets and am now going through the "look up everything on ebay and find out what it's going for" stage. Unfortunately, most of what I want to sell isn't going for very much. Here's a breakdown of the items in my ebay pile:

Anime Crap: About 80 percent of my pile consists of anime posters for 5-year old series and expired Inu-Yasha calendars. Some of these were gifts from friends, but most of the posters I bought at anime conventions because they were from series that I liked (and because they were cheap. Now I realize why they were cheap--because you can't get rid of the damn things! They'll actually start multiplying if you leave them alone long enough. I swear I only started my collection with ten posters, and now I've got enough to cover three full walls of my living room. Not that I've ever tried hanging them up, mind you. A 37-year old woman with a visible anime poster collection is only slightly less creepy than a single, male, 50-year old Harry Potter fan.) Oh, a friend of mine also gave me about a million NEWTYPE magazines and a Naruto Artbook with some slight catbite damage on the cover. (Oh boy. THOSE are gonna get a ton of bids, I'm sure.) The time it would take to list all of this stuff for sale on ebay would never be worth the amount of money that I would get for them. And yet I'd just hate to give it all away. Maybe I could cut all of the figures out of the magazines and posters and use them to create the illustrations for some insanely obtuse but widely acclaimed outsider fantasy novel a la Henry Darger. Sounds like a great way to spend the next 50 years of my life, right?

Electronic Crap: Consisting of a plastic attachment that will turn your Wiimote into a laser gun (exactly like the 1,248,200 other Wiimote attachment thingies that are ALREADY for sale on ebay) and a graphics tablet that I bought off of www.woot.com for 40 bucks. (The reason why I want to sell it is because it works EXACTLY as well as you'd expect a 40-dollar graphics tablet to work, meaning that it's basically a pen-shaped mouse with no pressure sensitivity.) Again, I'd just hate to chuck these or give them to the thrift shop since I paid a LOT for them. (And yet, they're worthless. Go figure.)

A Wolf Costume Designed to fit a Four Year Old: That's it. That's all it is. I originally bought it thinking I could use the costume's silvery fur to make doll wigs, but the costume is so well put together that I haven't the heart to chop it up. With Halloween coming up, I at least have SOME hope of selling this item, as well as:

An Inu-Yasha Costume: Which I made for myself awhile back. It has the wig and necklace and everything. And the black ribbon that passes through holes in the sleeves? I used a buttonholer to make those holes, dammit! That's right. Every. Single. One. (I also have a quartz orb that I tried to turn into a Shikon no Tama, only I didn't have the heart to put a hole into the nice pretty stone. And since no one WANTS a Shikon no Tama that DOESN'T have a string hole in it, my previous attempts to sell it have been as effective as my many attempts to become a millionairess by buying Powerball tickets.)

Some Bondage-Kimono-Dress-Thingy-I-Made-To-Wear-At-Kakkoicon-Last-Year: It looks a lot better than it sounds, and is really comfy despite all of the straps and buckles. I misplaced the leather obi so I'll have to locate that before I can take any pictures.

A Styrofoam Box that can be used to Ship Cold Things: Like chocolate in the middle of summer. Or some frozen kidneys that you swiped from some guy that you met at a party who invited you to his---uhhh....forget I said that...

Well, I do have other stuff that I want to list, but it's getting late. If you're interested in any of the above-mentioned stuff (or know someone who might be) please let me know as I could really use some cash about now.

And now, as a reward for being so patient, here's some dolly scenery porn:











So red....So warm....

I haven't done much in the way of ball-joint doll clothing in a long while. That's because I've been focusing all of my energies this past year into the cast resin doll that I've been making and seemingly can never finish because I'm continuously tweaking it. (Seriously. It's becoming the Duke Nukem Forever of homemade dolldom. -_-)

Anyway, at some point this summer, I did decide to make some new Renaissance-themed costumes for my existing dolls as part of a little side project to keep me sane. (I wanted to make sure I got the costumes finished while Munsinger Gardens remained nice and photogenic. That's where I took the following pictures at...)


Behold: Fire Elf Lord Crimson!



This is Firefly, my Bobobie Weylin. I made his armor out of leather. (I bought a bag o'scraps from Tandy Leather and found some nice embossed leather pieces inside. Unfortunately, the embossed pattern on the leather was too big for use in making regular doll clothing, but I found that when I cut the pattern up and hotglued the pieces together, it made a nice firey/leafy themed armor.) I painted over the armor with gold acrylic and slapped some belts and a cape over the whole thing. I made the wig using hair extensions which I sewed over a homemade wig cap. The hardest part of the costume were the boots. (Boots are Satan's way of telling a doll costumer that they have waaay too much time on their hands...)

Athena, the Busty Wench!



I used the rest of my scraps from my leather grab bag to make the bodice for this costume. The undershirt was made from real linen fabric and I used cotton fabric scraps to make the skirts. Athena has a dagger and a mug hanging from her waist belt, and I'd like to get a miniature mirror and fan for her if I can find any that are small enough. Athena's extra large bust was provided courtesy of The Junky Spot. The nice thing about vinyl Obitsu dolls is that you can swap out their regular size chest plate for (--Warning! NSFW vinyl nudity ahead--) one with mondo hooters. It looked ridiculously large when I first got it onto the doll, but after I had made the clothing and slapped it over her, it didn't look so bad. The clothing thickens her waist a bit so now she looks more like she has the proportions of a normal girl, not some impossibly skinny aneorexo-model.

Anyway, you can view all of the pictures that I took of the dolls at the following links:

LORD CRIMSON FIRE ELF GALLERY

ATHENA THE BUSTY WENCH GALLERY

I do have another doll -Rufus-- but I accidentally smeared his face with epoxy when I was trying to build a plug attachment for his head and I wrecked his faceup when I tried cleaning it. (The plug thingie didn't even work so now his head is off again and I have to try and figure out how to attach it again without it bobbling all over the place. Sigh.) A project for another time.

I've got more project pics to post one of these days and some more e-mail to answer. (Thanks everyone who helped me with the el wire problem I had the other day! ^_^)

I have got to stop going to the TV Tropes Wiki Page. Not only is it a purposeless timesink, it also makes me burn angrily with the fire of a thousand supernovas. I can think of few things more annoying than taking a sizable chunk of your time to carefully craft an example, an annotation, or an addition to an existing entry and then finding it gone the next time you visit. (If you're lucky, the douchenozzle who deleted it might bother to tell you why on the entry's Discussion Page, but just as often, it will simply vanish into the ether for no good reason at all.) Why would people do this kind of thing to you? Many reasons, I suppose--perhaps they thought you were injecting too much of your personal opinion into an example and they wanted to keep the entry "clean" and "sterile"; perhaps you disparaged a book or a TV show that they liked; perhaps they just like deleting random passages because it makes their penis feel 3/4ths of an inch longer, perhaps they didn't like a passage's grammatical structure, perhaps they're just cockdribbling morons who completely misinterpreted your words and decided that deleting them would just be a whole hell of a lot simpler than thinking about them. All I know is that TV Tropes is a lot like working at a job where every other co-worker is "that guy who knows everything and who will wage a passive-aggressive campaign to make you miserable if you disagree with him in any way." (Not all Tropers are like this, of course, but I've seen enough disagreeable changes to my work to suspect that a fair amount of them are first class a-tards. And yeah, I'm not exactly a paragon of internet etiquette either, but I generally don't delete another person's work even when I feel I have a good reason to. It's just rude.)

Rufus (my Obitsu boy) finally has a finished formal suit to wear. I went with a friend and her dolls to Munsinger Gardens to snap some pics, which I edited into a montage:



Yes, more grainy photos of my dolls set to creepy music! That ought to get my page count up!

I'm going out of town for a couple of days. (I want to hit a couple of fabric warehouses down in the Cities and try to find some materials that I can't locate locally.) I should have e-mail capability and will answer any inquiries as soon as I can.


In the meantime, I'm leaving Garden Athena in charge of the shop. She'll be watching you if you misbehave...

I finally got the chance to go to Munsinger gardens today and take some pictures of my 60cm Obitsu in her new outfit.




To spare you any more picspam, here is the online folder containing all of my garden photos:

http://www.amethyst-angel.com/dollpics/athenagarden/

I made a video montage of my gallery set to some suitably pretentious artsy music:



Most of the pics got fuzzed out after being Youtube-ized, so if you want to see the clear versions, visit the folder I linked to above.

I based the design for the dress on Meredith Dillman's Diamond ACEO. Go visit her site for more watercolor-y goodness...

Don't know if I'll be able to make any more dresses anytime soon. I've got a lot of projects and side projects that need my attention now. (And I still need to finish those movable wings I'm working on. Will get back to you on those as soon as I can...)

She too, shops at Hot Topic:



She gets along well with Rufus, although all he wants to talk about are video games and Youtube videos that are about video games.



She thinks he should get a job.



Rufus counters that she doesn't have a job either, but Athena insists that being a part-time college student IS a job. Rufus isn't buying it....


(By the way, I made everything that Athena is wearing, except for the boots, which came from www.mimiwoo.com. I made the wig too. The pantyhose were the hardest thing to make since my fingertips were all torn up from a recent embroidery project and the fabric snagged everytime I touched it.)

Well, since spring and summer have officially been canceled for Minnesota this year, it looks as though I'll have to make coats for these two before I can take them outside. Bugger.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like you to meet Rufus:











Who is he? He's a 55cm Obitsu male that I bought MONTHS ago. I never mentioned getting him because I wasn't able to do anything with him for the longest time. I was too busy with my work projects, and the weather was too crappy to allow me to apply any color or sealant to him. Once I had managed to do his body blush and faceup (during a very brief window of nice weather) , I had to make him some clothing. (This last step didn't take me nearly as long as the "waiting for the nice weather" part.) I based his outfit on some clothing designs I found at the Hot Topic website. Rufus' persona is that of a disaffected teenager with a penchant for video games and also for whimsical expressions of faux, corporation-approved individuality (ie: "Clothing from Hot Topic.")

I did buy a female 60cm Obitsu awhile back (as you'll remember, and I mentioned her once I think.) I've done the faceup and body blushing for her as well, but nothing else. I can only work on these dolls on rare occasions and I'm afraid even to mention them in this blog since I know at least one person is going to write in and give me the "why are you working on dolls when you you have so many other projects to finish?" spiel. To which I say: the dolls keep me sane. I ALREADY work 8-10 hours (or more) a day, six days a week on my business projects. I think I deserve a LITTLE time for my own projects here and there, don't you think?

I think Rufus would agree:



Oh. He's too busy working on his erotic furry fanart....



Relax kid... I wasn't looking at it...sheesh......

I GOT THE BOOK.


I got my Federal tax rebate yesterday, with a correction that added 50 dollars to my check. Hmmm. The book was 50 dollars, and now an extra 50 dollars mysteriously appears out of the ether and falls into my lap.

I could come to only one conclusion: the Federal Gub'mint wanted me to buy this book. Who was I to argue with such a profound and powerful authority? So I placed an order for it. The book may be on backorder, so I expect it will take a number of weeks to get it in the mail. If I get it before AnimeDetour, I'll be sure to bring it to the convention and show it around to anyone who's interested. (That is, IF I can manage to avoid getting another Evil Death Flu seconds after I walk through the hotel doors....)

I'm still planning on selling my old costumes. I have a Master Kyoshi outfit and a Leon Belmont outfit for sale. If you're interested in them, please e-mail me at dietzt@cloudnet.com. (I also have my old Ifurita costume sitting in the back of my closet--if you're one of those old skool anime fans who loved El Hazard and want to show your appreciation for this vastly underrated anime.)

I got my Obitsu Gretel Head in the mail today and figured out how to use putty to set the eyes. It freaks out my cat, Moonie, with its peering gaze and disembodiedness. (Of course, Moonie also freaked out the time I put a headband with furry cat ears on my head. She completely forgot who I was and started rearing and hissing. Weird cat.)

Please see the entry below this one if you want to see the finished construction notes on my Hikaru Sword...


Okay, here's something I hinted at yesterday. A new arrival:



I've been wanting to get myself one of these for awhile. It's an Obitsu 60cm vinyl doll. (Yes, I opted for a vinyl one. Now, if you're one of those "true dollfie fans" who sniffle at any doll that isn't made from magical mystical fairy resin and sold in an extreme exclusive limited edition for a price equivalent to the annual GNP of a small European country, then may I politely invite you to eat a heaping bowl of shut the fuck up? I live in the real world and don't have several hundred dollars to blow on this hobby---and wouldn't even if I were rich, I dare say. I think my doll is beautiful, and would think so even if she were made out of compressed horse flop, so there..)



I opted for the white-skin, two-part model because I thought it the most aesthetically pleasing. I opted for the ball-joint knees as well for the same reasons. I bought it from Donna's Art Dolls for $164 plus 11 dollars shipping (which is an incredible deal for this particular doll.)



Now I have to head over to the Junky Spot and get some additional hands and a head with eyeholes. I'm torn between the Gretel and the Haruka. (I like the eye shape of the Haruka but I think her nose is a little biggish.) Then I'll have to get acrylic eyes, eyelashes, wigs, shoes. Heck, I'll probably lay down an additional hundred or so dollars before I'm through.

Oh well, it is my birthday coming up at the end of the month after all. (My first real birthday in four years.) And then there's my tax refund coming in, so I think I can justify this. And I look at it as an investment, too-- I can make costumes and armor for dollfies as well as big-sized human people....

Well, anyway, I'm probably not going to be able to do anything with my new Obitsu for a long while--I've got AnimeDetour coming up and the extra work that entails. I also have to save up enough money to afford the extra doll parts that I need, and a can of Mr. Super Clear--a magical dolly coating substance that's apparently made of angel dust and manufactured in a factory on the moon. (That's the only explanation I can think of for how expensive and hard to get ahold of it is.) If anyone out there knows of good face-up and body blushing tutorials for VINYL dolls (as well as ways to remove dried acrylic paint from the surface of a vinyl doll) I'd appreciate it.



(BTW, I'm still working on my homemade BJD that I was attempting to make using an artist's mannequin. I'll have to start over with a new mannequin since I botched up my first design so badly, but I can cannibalize the old mannequin and use its hard-to-find springs for the new version. I'll keep you posted on how that goes...)