Diary of a Mad Plastic Surgeon
Ulquiorra is finally done! Well, technically he was done around 2 weeks ago, except I only just had the time to put together a photography setup that allows for his bloody 28″ wingspan. Read more »
Posted: September 4th, 2010 under Customizing, Mad Science, Pullips.
Tags: Bleach, Cifer, custom, customized, demon, espada, hollow, namu, pullip, resculpted, Schifer, tail, ulquiorra, villain, wings
Comments: 1
I thought ‘chores’ would make it hard to do an original entry, and then ‘breakfast’ came along!
When the challenge for this round was issued, I sat there and made a mental list that went something like this: Breakfast. Healthy breakfast, unhealthy breakfast. Breakfast being made, breakfast being eaten…at the table, on the go, in bed…?
I figured half the contest would involve people eating cake for breakfast. I was wrong. I debated doing some kind of hoop-skirt type dress made out of pancakes with syrup, jam, and whipped cream as the decorations, but I really didn’t feel like washing sticky off. Plus, when you put a doll on a life-sized dish, there are more complications, like backdrop. All in all, I decided real food was probably out… though I did debate Pajelle swimming in a giant bowl of cookie crunch, since it’s a bunch of doll-sized cookies. If I hadn’t already done the one swimming pool shot, I probably would have.
My first plan was to have Rex, ‘Boo, and ‘Bun all eating breakfast together, with a breakfast that suited each of their personalities. Pajelle would have to have her ‘Paja’ mug, ‘Boo would have panda toast, and ‘Bun would have something unhealthy but sweet. Crowding 3 dals in my dollhouse kitchen did not work out so well. I did get a nice solo shot of ‘Boo with her panda toast though:
I hate leaving things to the last minute, so I checked the other entries that were already up so that I could do a backup shot that wasn’t already overused theme-wise. While there was making breakfast, eating breakfast (at the table), unhealthy breakfast, and breakfast on the go, there was no breakfast in bed, so I went with that. I wanted to have Pajelle in her little maid outfit serving Princessa breakfast in bed, except after the last shot I knew how overpowering it was to have Princessa in a photo where the focus isn’t supposed to be on her, so I wanted to avoid it if possible.
It’s nice. Good attention to detail, good colors, good composition. Doesn’t really *sparkle* though. It’s like the picture from the previous round, which is true to theme, nice, but not really memorable. I’m not that great at photography, and I suck at photoshop–as in, I can use no more than 12 of the basic functions. I’m to the point where I take good pictures, but pure quality-wise, there are tons of people far, far better than me. I make up for my lack of skill with cameras by being creative and usually a bit witty with my composition…but so far, haven’t really had much of a chance to shine in that department. Must try harder the next rounds.
Posted: August 3rd, 2010 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none
I wouldn’t normally post a second round of pictures for a month’s release, but these shots come from Groove, and so are a bit less photoshopped than all of the ones done by various fans.
The bad news is they’re all tiny pictures, and I haven’t been able to find any bigger ones. Choose an icon below to see the ‘full’ size.
Although I fell in love with the Lunatic Queen at first sight, convention photos taken of her since then have made me wary, especially after Lilith turned out to be so underwhelming in person. Lunatic Queen’s makeup looks a lot less contrasted and striking in Groove’s and the convention photos, much like Lilith’s did. If pullips still cost $55 to preorder, I’d take the chance, however, at a preorder price of $115, I’d like to get what I paid for. Simple economics.
Posted: August 2nd, 2010 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none
It didn’t take me long to pull out the customizing supplies on Lilith. My thoughts were basically: If the doll looked better in promotional pictures because it looked like she had pink lips and dark eyeshadow… well I can do that. Why not try?
So now I’m pretty happy with Lilith. I fixed her hair, face, and tweaked her clothes (I still need to do a full resewing for them to fit her *well*) and now I feel I have the doll I thought I was getting when I paid for her, much like the whole problem with Eos and needing to fix her face, wig, and stock right out of the box. This is an unpleasant trend, and I hope it changes soon.
Posted: August 1st, 2010 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 1
I tend to neglect the blog, mostly because I assume I’m a lot less interesting than I am. I think that’s a more forgivable sin than thinking I’m way more interesting than I am (so, so many of THOSE blogs out there), but it’s still a problem. I try to make sure every post has something useful or funny in it. If the write-ups of my thought process for Dalicious fall in the ‘eh’ category, let me know…
Ok, so for Round 2 the theme was Chores. My first thought was “Rex spends all her time getting ‘Boo and ‘Bun out of trouble” except I’ve already done that quite a bit in photos, like the Gumball Incident:
….and really, can you beat that? It’s pretty hard.
Princessa is also working tirelessly behind the scenes to sabotage Rex so she can maintain her place as Queen of the Dals, so a la Cinderella, I came up with this shot:
Unfortunately, even with the camera focus on Pajelle, and Princessa slightly blurry in the foreground, this shot is still very much about Princessa. She just has the kind of presence that makes her the automatic focus of any picture she’s in, and because of that this shot doesn’t really say ‘chores.’
What it came down to, was ‘what do I have enough props of, that other people don’t, that I can make a chores picture that will look convincing and not be too unoriginal’ and the answer was laundry because of my customized laundry furniture:
In the end, ‘Chores’ was a pretty hard to do because anything that isn’t obviously a ‘chore’ is not going to rate as well, even if the picture is well composed and sticks to the theme (I put up the two pictures above for a vote on flickr, and the laundry one was chosen almost unanimously) and in modern times, there aren’t that many ‘chore’ classes. As a result, almost all of the entries for this round fell under ‘cleaning’ of one type or another.
Posted: July 31st, 2010 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 1
A while ago I posted about the San Diego Comic Con Exclusive Byul, Lilith:
Initially, I was pretty excited for this doll! She’s a Byul that manages to make the freaky work for her. Later on though, other promotional pictures were released, and I began to get suspicious that the doll had either been photoshopped a little too much in the initial pictures (darkened eyeshadow, reddened lips) or they had changed the doll slightly, which often happens with prototypes. My fears, unfortunately, were confirmed when she arrived.
Posted: July 25th, 2010 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 2
First, there was Fantastic Alice. Then, Mini Alice. Then, Another Alice. Then, mini Alice again, but slightly different, with both mini dal and pullip versions. Now, we have Lunatic Alice. Although there is the obligatory Alice, they did mix up the rest of the cast to Wonderland characters that haven’t been done before, such as the Red Queen:
Along with The Mad Hatter/White Rabbit (I guess Tae plays both):
Read more »
Posted: July 14th, 2010 under News, Pullips.
Comments: none
I was lured by the siren call of not one but 2 of KeelyVH’s custom outfits as prizes for the fourth installment of the Dalicious photo contest that I entered Pajelle. This caused all kinds of problems in the status quo: Princessa won the second Dalicious, and she is not the kind of doll that will ever give up her crown, especially not to another doll under the same roof.
The theme for Round 1 was Summertime. Pretty open-ended. I immediately thought of the Barbie Pool set I picked up on clearance a few years back that has been sitting in my basement with the other unused doll furniture I’ve collected. If the pool had been bigger (it’s about deep enough to come up to Barbie’s knees) I had dreams of Princessa with a fake shark fin, but…well things just didn’t work out that way. She’ll play her hand, just not this round.
This is the picture I ended up going with. It’s simple, and with the required contest size of 500×375 pixels, complicated pictures can backfire and look cluttered.
Runner-up was this shot. I almost went with this picture, but I felt it didn’t focus enough on Pajelle, who is supposed to be the contestant. And while it does a great job at saying ‘adorable’, not quite as good of a job at saying ’summer’
Zoomed out just a teensy bit more, and it becomes pretty obvious just how tiny the pool is. Still cute, but at this size, three is a crowd, and the pool’s at capacity
Posted: July 13th, 2010 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 3
Moxie Teens is the newest offering from MGA, maker of Bratz. I figured when I heard about them, that ‘teenz’ would imply a smaller doll, but it turns out they’re actually quite a bit larger. With all of the articulation, adult sized proportions, acrylic eyes and wigs, they reminded me a lot more of the mid-sized BJDs than anything else, and I had to get one to see just how articulated she was under all her clothes (that sounds so dirty…)
Posted: July 12th, 2010 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none
I <3 the flea market. I don’t do thrift stores, mostly because there aren’t any nearby, and I don’t do yard sales, because it’s a lot of driving, but there is a fairly large flea market not too far away every Sunday, and I rarely miss a day. It’s like going to the mall, but generally way cheaper, and you never know what you’re going to find. Like a WW2 era bazooka. Which my husband wouldn’t let me buy.
The flea market is an excellent source for old toys, as well as weird props. A couple of weekends ago I found the bratz purse-case, as well as an American Girls doll trunk.
…it doesn’t look like much. The interior is even more run-down: Read more »
Posted: July 3rd, 2010 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none
