Farewell

Well, that titel sounds more dramatic as it is. Micah is getting a new face-up and so Ava needs to go as well. She would be the only one without a face-up by Navci and I want all my dolls to have a similar look.

I've been really unsatisfied with Micah's eyebrows for a while now. I'm looking forward to finally have him look less surprised. He did get an awesome new wig by Spite and Malice a few days ago, so here's one last picture of him in perpetual puzzlement:

It's hard to send Ava off as well. She was my first doll and despite the fact that I get mad at her for being stubborn at posing sometimes, the difficulty of making her hair right and her much too ginormous boobs, it is weird to ship her off and have her being redone. Rosalie was not happy about letting her go either, it seems. ^^

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"Noo, don't leave!"

I really should have redressed Rosalie before taking that picture. That tail made it nearly impossible to pose the two of them.

From my Workbench

I had some time today so I finally went ahead and fitted Dürrenmatt's headback using my dremel. On the left you can see the before pictures, on the right there are the after pictures.

I considered making the neck shorter as well but then decided that it would be much smarter to just make the headback shorter. Duh! It's hard to tell from the pictures but the head now sits lower as well, so his neck doesn't seem as long anymore.

While I was at it, I decided to also finally take some resin comparison pictures. Dürrenmatt is a modded Unoa B-el madoromi on an Angel of Dream MT boy body version 2 in normal yellow.

I love the proportions, the body poses pretty well (except for kneeling ;) - see below) and the resin match is actually quite good. He needs a body blushing tho, but that's for another weekend.
After showing him half-naked, I thought he deserved a nice picture as well. This is him with his new Spite and Malice wig:

I call that his "I could work as a model" pose. He really is the prototype of a person who gets by solely on his good looks. ^^

How Sprites come into Being

In that state between dreaming and waking most children are able to go to a secret place adults can no longer reach. The realm of faeries. If a child is particularly sad or lonely, he or she might dream something into existence.

おまけ

Just two Omake pictures from the last photo shoot.

Dürrenmatt doesn't like to kneel or crouch. So to get picture number 9, I had to use some things to prop him up the right way. 

"Clue" was within reach and my dog went by and dropped off his toy. If you look closely, you can even see it in the background sometimes. 

When I was done taking pictures I showed this picture to my brother and complained that I couldn't get Dürrenmatt to crouch. Then I went into the kitchen to get a glass of water and came back to find this:

My bro posing dolls "like a boss" - his reference, not mine. That's him on the left posing "like a boss" himself.

Homesick for a Time - not a Place

Well, I wanted to do a funny photostory with Micah and Ginny but I really need more props for that. So with Valentine's Day around I made something else instead. Even though I'm a hater. ^^

After that ending I would like to stress again that I am in fact a hater. I even hate raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. Anyways, happy Valentine's Day to all of you. ^^

The trouble with Custom House aka Aidolls

My friend Aniké and I ordered two Ange Ai Uris from Custom House aka Ainai aka Aidolls over 10 months ago. In hindside I can't believe how long we've waited to do this, but we decided to finally contact the Korean Police to file an official report. If you look at the timeline below, you can see how often they promised us that it would just be another 2-3 weeks - and we kept believing them. 

Together with a third friend we ordered 4 dolls from Customhouse. Our order contained
1 Little Junior "Meoroo" (plus a free event head - "Meoroo")
1 Little Junior extra body
1 Ange Ai "Uri" (plus a free event head - "Uri")
1 Ange Ai Uri extra body

Half of that order was sent out in August (the 2 Little Juniors) but the Ange Ai Uris (which belong to Aniké and me) never came.

Timeline:
April 04, 2010: We order 4 dolls via the website www.ainai.com/en and pay via paypal the same day.
April 05 or 06, 2010: The status is set to "preparing order".
September 02, 2010: The 2 Little Junior Meoroo arrive in good condition. We did not ask for this, nor do they explain where the other 2 dolls are. Inside is an order sheet with a circle around the Little Juniors. At that time are not worried as we find out on www.denofangels.com/forums that Ainai have sent out other people's orders incomplete as well.
September 30, 2010: We contact Aidolls via their message board and ask about the other dolls. No reply.
October 10, 2010: After contacting Ainai about the missing dolls again, they promise us that they will send out the missing dolls the same week.
October 31, 2010: After waiting for 20 more days we contact them again and remind them of their promise to send us the dolls. They reply they will send out the dolls that same day.
November 03, 2010: We ask Ainai if they have sent out the dolls and get no answer.
November 13, 2010: Another message from us doesn't get a reply .
December 06, 2010: A new website is launched (www.aidolls-en.com), Ainai now works under the name of Aidolls and solely answers on the message board on the new website.
December 24, 2010: We send Ainai (now Aidolls) an angry message requesting our dolls. They answer Dec 26 saying the dolls are made and will be sent to Korea but that they can not tell us when.
January 16, 2011: We inform Aidolls that it has been 3 weeks since they said that our dolls were made and that we still don't have a tracking number for the two missing dolls. No reply.
January 18, 2011: Another message goes unanswered.
January 20, 2011: We give them a deadline until January 24 to give us a working tracking number and that we would contact the police if they didn't.
January 24, 2011: We contact the KNPA Civil board and inform Aidolls of that. They answer that they will send the dolls in February.
January 27, 2011: We contact Aidolls via the 1:1 system and tell them to send us the dolls unassembled, if that would make shipping faster. We also repeat that we had contacted the KNPA Civil board. They reply that they will ship the dolls February 25.

Why we filed a report even though they did give us a shipping date in the end?
We no longer believe that they have produced our dolls already. It would not take two and a half months to pack them up and send them out. We spent $167 plus shipping on the second set of dolls and it seems we will never see them. If they haven't fulfilled our order so far, we don't think they will do it now. They have passed over our order several times now. People who ordered much later than us have gotten our dolls. We hope that having the pressure of an investigation by the Korean Police might help us to finally get their attention. So sad that there seems to be no other way. 

Edit: The dolls finally arrived on March 11, 2011.

Eyes like Juniper berries

Ginny hasn't gotten too much attention around here so far. I find it hard to capture her personality. And finding clothes that fit her is even more difficult. 

I've definately decided to give her blue eyes. She will get other ones eventually but blue is definately the color for her eyes. It also goes so great with her name as Ginny comes from Geneva (no "r") which in turn comes from the juniper tree. Juniper is also Ginny's true name, the name she chose for herself. 

Little things

The weather was sunny today so I rushed out and took a few pictures. I wanted to see, if I could catch all the details on Yanír and Siltár's hooves with my camera.

Turns out I can't. Hehe. They are pretty detailed and the camera doesn't do them justice. I'm glad to have them back home from tiffanyjbt. Now I the boys just need face-ups.

Also, this is Tint's temporary replacement:

"Don't pack up the Christmas stuff just yet! This is so sparkly."

 

Once Tint is back, this body will go toward another Puki I'm planning. For now, it's just laughing Tint though.