I mention this because I’m not especially talkative, especially online.  If I have something useful to add, I will.  If I don’t think I have anything to say that is either a) useful or b) interesting I tend to spare my fingers the typing and everyone else’s eyes the reading.  If I were a comedian, I would definitely be one of those “Don’t think I’m nearly as funny as I am” people.

I’m sure there are dozens of topics I could talk about that people would find interesting, just as there are dozens of topics I could talk abut that I don’t generally because I think most people would find it terribly boring.  Like my fascination with nail polish.  See?  I bet your eyes are already glazing over.

(suffer the sparkles!)

And yet there are blogs on nailpolish.  I’ve visited them.  To me, they are interesting because they are things I don’t already know.  However, this is not a website about nailpolish, it’s a website about customizing.  Therefore, to most people reading this, the nailpolish is not so interesting.

See the problem? I don’t blog for myself, because I already know everything I put in the articles and tutorials.  To me, most of the things I could write about are less interesting than reading an article on how to wet-marble nailpolish, because I don’t know how to do that and I already figured out how to do whatever it is I would be blogging about.

What’s the point of all this?  Feedback.  Specifically, if you all want to see more posts in the future, tell me what you want to see more of. Pictures of customs?  Random dissertations of the evolution of the pullip bust line?  The story of the time I accidentally shrunk a doll head?  Leave a comment here (or in whatever blogpost is most recent if that’s easier)or shoot me an email.

OH NO! Yes, I hear the protests. I understand. Mind you, I’m not planning huge changes, mostly here and there I look at a doll and go “since I figured out how to do ______, I could do that so much better now…”

The first doll on this list is one of my first customs, Saturn. She was made from an Arietta, and I kind of liked her lips so I kept them, but over time they started to annoy me. I also did her faceup before I found her perfect wig, and I always thought her eyebrows could be a little lighter and maybe a touch more purple to go with her wig. Small things, mostly.

“Oh no you don’t…”

Normally when I redo a doll, I just redo the doll. But because I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to change on Saturn, I mostly redid her face on a second doll so that I could fiddle around and compare without risking damaging her. This is a picture of early-on in the process, before I decided on the new lips:

And here’s the finished product:

Not so different, really, except for the lips! Mostly she’s just been refined. The original Saturn had glittery purple eyelids, Saturn 2.0 also has glittery eyelids, but also a slender line of glitter on the inside eyelids to bring it all together and make her pop a little more. The chips are different, but the original Saturn had sanded down blythe chips which just aren’t as shiny as for-pullip chips. (I have a color match for the original chips coming in the mail)

Who else is on the list? Himemiya. Ravish. Who’s already had work done? Eric, Ash, Valentine.

Chapter 172: Candle-lit Kidnap is up!

Chapter 171 is up in All My Pullips!

Ash Nero (the doll type being Nero) was my first doll.  I did order her at the same time as Panda, but I had been staring at Pullips for around 6 months before I could convince myself that I, an adult, wanted a doll when I was never a doll person even when I was a kid. The doll I knew I wanted the moment I saw her was Nero.  My second choice was Moon, but she was incredibly hard to find and as expensive as a Noir at that time, so I settled on my third choice, Panda–and then managed to get my hands on a Moon from a shop in Korea a week later!  EMS got her there the day after Ash and Panda arrived, and so those three have been my top girls ever since.

She’s been through 4 bodies, one of the screws in her head was stripped so I had to take a drill to it and I was so horrified that I might have broken her that I ordered a backup Nero immediately.  Which I still have, just in case anything catastrophic were to happen to her so that I’d have a backup for spare parts.  She’s the only doll I do that with.  She doesn’t get a lot of photoshoots because she isn’t very flashy and is extremely hard to dress in the land of Barbie, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t my #1.

Unfortunately, she shows it.  Or did.  Early matte-faced dolls went shiny very easily with handling, and Ash was no exception.  The only customization to her face was the removal of her interior painted eyelashes, and I’ve had to re-fill in the void with pastel every couple of years.  But most recently when I compared her to ‘backup Ash’ I noticed that her makeup had begun to fade too.  Her usual cleaning/retouching wasn’t going to do it.

Therefore, Ash has gotten a more heavy-duty makeover.  I didn’t change much.  She got a cleaning, then got a new coat of matte UV protecting sealant applied, got her eyeshadow and blush retouched to bring her back to her original vibrancy, new lip gloss, and was sealed a second time.  Hopefully this will keep Ash in tip-top shape longer than her usual beauty treatments.

Being favorite has its perks.

Since All My Pullips beat out Customizing, the newest chapter can now be read here.  Or, if you need to refresh the storyline, go to the main chapter index, here.

Enjoy!

How awesome? This awesome:

Obviously words alone cannot describe the awesome, so go check it out!

Please remember the size restrictions and image formatting. If possible, it’s also good to have your dolls’ sash somewhere in the photo if not on the doll. Try not to procrastinate; I actually had another plan in mind for the ‘reminder’ photo that was a lot more evil, but the supplies I bought for the picture didn’t work so I had to go with an alternate plan. Let that be a warning to your contestants to always have a good backup plan!

Also, remember we have almost 30 contestants. If your doll wants to sabotage another doll, that’s fine, but she might not get evil bonus points unless it’s clear that she’s the one who did the sabotaging.

Once I get all the rounds in I will update the pictures with the scores given by each judge. You won’t get to see the comments the judges make or if any bribes were used until the picfic for the whole contest is done though. I don’t want someone discovering the ‘right’ bribe and then everyone who has a bribe chance left using it in the next round.

And as always, have fun!

Miss World Domination is a doll’s twist on the standard beauty pageant. It’s a contest held by my dolls, who are mostly evil, and don’t make very impartial judges. Though they’re all corrupt, they’re generally corrupt in different ways, which sort of equals out in the long term. The challenges themselves focus more on the different skill sets most doll owners will hone over time (sewing, visual storytelling, photography). And there’s a good bit of strategy, too.

Think you (or, rather, your dolls) have what it takes to pose, improvise, and claw to the top? Check out the new Contests tab on the left-hand column, and sign up for Miss World Domination 2010

Read Chapter 169: Mr. Nice Guy, in which Eric visits Himemiya and brings her candy.