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Cookie – Sketch Revision

I posted the sketches of Cookie on The Joint, and I had one person make a comment and based on her comments I revised Cookie a little. Basically I redrew her hip piece so it would be easier for joint construction and wouldn’t be quite so thin, and in the process I think she comes out looking more attractive. It was also suggested that I would need to widen her head a little bit or not have her eyes so widely spaced since it would be difficult to get eyes to fit in her head. This sketch also reflects her slightly widened head around the eye area. I still think the original sketch of her head looks cuter, but maybe if I tweak the edged of the jawline a bit it might help out.

I’ve still been waffling on whether or not to start the project in clay. It’s exciting to come up with a doll idea and sketch her out and part of me would love to just jump in and get sculpting, but another part of me reminds me that sculpting is tough and things may not always turn out as you like them. :p I guess though, in the end it really doesn’t matter what I do because even if I start this project and decide part-way through that I don’t like where things are headed, I can leave it unfinished. There are no unfinished project police out there ready to arrest me and send me to rehab for flighty procrastinators who just do as they like. This being said though I think there is probably a small sense of guilt in knowing I already have one unfinished doll project. :p

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Possible Doll Project – Cookie

Because I already have some Premier clay stowed away, and I had a gift card and a 50% off coupon to go get some LaDoll clay this week at Michaels, I am pondering the possibility of starting another doll making project. Yeah….I realize I never finished my first one, but I just ended up so unhappy with it, some of which I felt was due in part to the nature of super sculpey.

To be honest I’m still not completely satisfied with my sculpting abilities, but neither am I ever satisfied with my drawing or painting skills despite having gone to art school for X number of years. XP Anyhow I thought I might give it a try again. As they say, nothing ventured nothing gained, or in this case nothing sculpted no skills gained, lol.

So, this all being said, I originally thought I might try to make a slender tiny that was around 6 inches tall, but I wasn’t too pleased with the sketches I had done, so I just started another random doll head sketch that eventually turned into a roughly 12 inch/30cm doll with a mature body that looks like a “Cookie” to me. 🙂 I’m not terribly satisfied with the profile view of the doll, so I think I may post the sketches on the forums at The Joint to get some feedback on her before I start committing anything to clay.

I know her torso is a little short and I think perhaps I like it that way, but I think she would probably look nice with an elongated torso as well, but I think her proportions right now make her a little more child-like which I think adds to her cuteness. If I did elongate her torso I’d probably have to try to turn her into something closer to a 40cm doll though. The beef I have with the profile is that her head is looking too large now, and I think in my effort to remove her belly ponch and fat butt, I’ve ended up making her too think now….*sigh* I dunno. I don’t want her to have a big butt, however being a less shapely no-butt is also out of the question.

Gotta keep working…..

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Ddung!

I usually come late to the party in discovering new things, but here I’ll go ahead and gush over the cuteness of the mini Ddung dolls! Ddung is basically a young girl who is not yet school age and has aspirations of being Miss Korea when she gets older. She spends the majority of time at home with her mother who is an underwear designer and her father who is a doll designer.

The Ddung dolls come in two different sizes, mini and, er, regular size…heh. Mini dolls are tiny and about 3.5-4in tall. They work really well with re-ment and some sets even come with their own special miniatures! The mini Ddung also makes a nice sized baby sister doll to Pullip and Blythe as well.Another great thing about these dolls are the price. You can get a mini Ddung with miniature set for aroun $19-$22 so she is very affordable!

Anyway I find the minis so adorably cute that I think she will make it onto my Xmas list this year! If you want to find out more about Ddung you can visit the official English site for Ddung where there is also an online store….though perhaps with a little less merchandise than you can find on ebay. Here is the link:

http://www.ddung.ca/index.asp

On the site too are some cute flash animations featuring Ddung and her parents which are quite funny and worthwhile to check out as well. 🙂 One last thing I wanted to mention though is that after browsing around ebay for Ddung dolls I noticed quite a few bootleg copies of her coming out of China. In fact I really think there may be more bootlegs of her on ebay than licensed merch! Therefore you should probably do your homework before buying a Ddung off ebay, that and if a deal seems too good to be true or the sculpt doesn’t look quite right, then it’s probably a bootleg. I noticed though that a lot of the sellers with legit goods tend to hail from Korea and they like to put authentic in the title and have nice clear pics of the dolls in their original packaging.

Well that’s all for now, so happy hunting!

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Site Facelift

I felt that it was time for a new look, so I started tweaking this cute little girly theme I found online. There are still a few things that need to be tweaked, but I think I will stick with this new look….for a while anyway, lol. I also plan on cleaning up the categories and reorganizing things a I feel the current categories aren’t sufficient enough for easy browsing. Finally I am also considering giving this blog a little name change. I’ve been thinking of changing it to something that could also be a decent “brand name” for when I start making doll clothes again. Beyond that a name that is closer to, or can be easily combined with my domain name would also be a good idea.

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Who are we?

strangedolls

My mother and my aunt went to the thrift store this morning without me even though I wanted to go…such bad family! jk XD Anyhow my mother brought me home another random doll pack from there in which there were these two little pipsqueaks. These little girl’s are maybe 3.5-4 inches tall and have their original clothing. I looked on the backs of their heads and found an imprint stating that they were made by a U.D. Co. Inc. in 1977, in Hong Kong. I googled this information and the closest thing I can find are Uneeda’s Pee Wee dolls, which have the same body type, but the faces on these girls are very stylized and remind me of the popular stylized Asian doll faces from that era. The images I’ve seen of Uneeda’s Pee Wee dolls have more typical North American style doll faces.

I am going to keep searching to try to find out what kind of doll these little ones are. As it is their stylization and vintage feel about them appeals to me, so I cleaned them up a bit and have given them a spot on one of my shelves. In the same pack of dolls there was also a vintage looking tourist doll that looks like she is in German dress. She’s cute and has weighted sleeping eyes. She needs a little love though as some of the hair from her braids have come loose. I’ll fix her up and keep her too and if I get around to it I’ll be sure to snap a pic of her too.