Unfortunately my website was hacked, but thankfully it looks like I was able to recover many things, including this blog. After struggling to recover my files I decided to go ahead and upgrade to the latest version of wordpress for better security, which is why things are fairly plain around here for the time being. For now I am just going to stick with my modified twenty-ten theme since it’s easy to deal with. Eventually I’ll try to make things look less plain, but who knows when I’ll have time for that.
Littlest Petshop Blythe
Because it’s the Christmas shopping season I’ve been seeing a lot of adverts on TV for the Littlest PetShop toys featuring Blythe. After seeing a dozen or so of these ads I finally decided that I would look for them in the store the next time I went. I got lucky and there was one of the equestrian themed Blythe sets there, so I went ahead and purchased it. I am also pleased to say that I find them to be of pretty good quality! Now I don’t own a Petite Blythe, but I have seen them, and after reading up on the subject I think I can offer a decent comparison of the two.
The LPS Blythe are the same size as the Petite Blythe, and essentially are the same doll with just a few differences. The LPS Blythes have a ball joint in their neck so they are able to tilt their little heads in all sorts of coy or inquisitive poses, but on the other hand the LPS Blythes lack the closing eye mechanism that the Petite Blythe do. The LPS eyes are a acrylic eye, that whereas they are bright and clear, they are also a little funky with the stylized lines through the iris.
You can undress both, and near as I can tell, ALL LPS Blythes come with removable shoes, though I will say that the boots on my equestrian Blythe is a pain in the butt to remove, and I don’t plan on removing them anytime soon. The hair on the LPS Blythe is actually reall nice and soft and thick. To be honest I think the hair quality on the LPS Blythes is better than Takara Petite Blythes, but I probably haven’t seen enough Takara Petites to be a reliable judge on that.
In the end at only $14.99 at your local Toys R Us, I would say that these mini Blythe are worthwhile. I think having this mini Blythe might inspire me to do something more with my old 1:12 scale dollhouse. I know when a niche hobby like Blythes suddenly wheedles it’s way into the mainstream it alarms a lot of people. For me though, I welcome seeing Blythe become more mainstream, because then that means that she will be more readily available to me. I think some people guard their hobbies like it is something special and is what sets them apart from the “everybody else” and so when they see it become popular they become upset because suddenly they’ve lost their “special” or are in fear of losing their “special”. Those are often also the same people who will then ditch the hobby and move onto another because they want to remain cool or hip with their fringe hobbies. Often these people will then go on to belittle the newcomers to their abandoned hobby. I say nuts to that! A true hobbyist revels in any opportunity to share their hobby or have greater access to the goods of their hobby.
Well anyway I didn’t mean to rant on about cranky posers…this was supposed to be a post about Blythe. That reminds me, I put Nicky Lad on my Christmas wishlist this year. I am pessimistic about the possibility of getting her…..very pessimistic since she takes 1 to 2 weeks to ship and my family puts things off and puts things off….*sigh* so yeah, probably not getting a Blythe this year. 😛
Cookie’s Progress – Face Refining
I’ve made a little more progress on Cookie’s face sculpt. She’s really coming along now, but I still have some tweaking to do. I need to work on symmetry a little more and tweak her nose a bit and then sand and smooth her. I’m pretty happy with how things are going, but I also know that sculpting is the easy part. Creating all of the joints, now that is going to be the hard part!
Tomorrow I am hoping to get some more work done on her head. At this point I’d love to make the headcap cut and hollow out the eye wells and see what she would look like with eyes in, but I will wait until I get everything just so.
Cookie’s Progress – 1st Stage Face Sculpt
This is the first stage of sculpting cookie’s face. Obviously there is a lot more work that needs to be done, but the clay is just getting way too sticky at this point so I decided to give it a rest for the night. I’m going to let her air dry and sand and add more clay to her tomorrow. Hopefully she will come out looking as cute as my drawing. I think I’m on the right track, but boy, sculpting is hard work. :p
Barbie Chair Repaint
I was finally able to finish my Barbie chair repaint project after the humidity and storms broke a little bit yesterday. I’m not sure what set this chair came from, but it was imprinted with the date 1992. I was surprised to receive this chair in the bag of Barbie goods I got from my aunt, because I have never seen a Napoleon backed Barbie chairs before. I consider this one of my most successful repaints so far, and I think it will be a nice addition to the living room of the dollhouse.
After having a success with repainting, I’ve been considering repainting the sweet roses fridge I have since all of my “whitening” experiments have failed. I started by soaking the fridge in bleach, and after several hours with no change I decided to give up. Next I thought I would try the hydrogen peroxide and oxi-clean bath, but after soaking all day and night with no change in color I gave up and used the solution to clean the bathtub, lol. So after chemical lightening failed me I thought I would test sanding a small corner of the back side of the fridge, which actually lightened the fridge slightly. I decided against sanding to lighten the plastic however, because the amount of work that would be required to sand and buff the entire fridge was out of proportion with the results. I’ve figured out how to remove the pink shelves inside, but I still haven’t figured out how to remove the pink inside door shelves from the door. This presents a problem for repainting, thought I imagine I could just tape over the inside of the doors and not paint them. Anyway I’ll stop my rambling for now and just leave you with my before shot of the barbie chair before the repaint.
