Dolls n' Crafts
I was more than shocked today to find that my Sona arrived! Her tracking number still didn’t seem to be working on the EMS site, so I thought for sure that her progress must have been slow and I truly wasn’t expecting her until next week. As it is she must have been on an airplane that landed in Chicago for her to get to me so soon. Anyway I was totally excited and I am more than pleased with her. Box opening pics follow behind the cut!
I’ve added more clay and have done more modeling to Cookie’s torso. I think her torso is really starting to come along and by working on the torso first I think it is helping me get a feel for the La-Doll clay. I also started sanding and shaping the legs a little bit. The left leg can totally stand on it’s own, which was a happy moment for me, but her other leg cannot since I realized that somehow the foot got cocked in an odd direction, so I’m going to have a big repair job there. Pretty soon I’d like to find a ball form to get the hips joints done so I can better shape the hip joint sockets. I’d like to do as much as I can with the styrofoam core still in the body, because La-Doll is so light, it makes me fear that I might crush it when sanding if the core wasn’t in there. I’m probably being ridiculous though. Afterall Yoshida’s dolls are all OOAK BJDs made from La-Doll, and are not cast, so obviously they can hold up!
In a bit of other news, I got notification that my Dollmore Kid Sona shipped! Still waiting for the tracking number to work, but I am excited that she is on her way! 🙂
I made some more progress on Cookie today. I’ve been sanding and carving into the base layer of clay, and I came up with a pretty good starting shape to add more clay to, to begin shaping out her bosom, behind and etc….. I had a sorta accident and ended up sanding into her foam core, but, because I plan on pretty much adding her bust anew with fresh clay, I am not too worried about it. After I carve out her foam core I can also add some extra clay on the inside to sure up any thin areas.
I haven’t begun working on her face yet….the head always seems so darned hard, and I’d like to get a better feel for the La-Doll clay before I work on something that has so many small details. I am going to have to put my Japanese classes to good use and actually try to read the sections on sculpting the face in the Yoshida book. I’m pretty sure I just need to get the right tools in order.
It’s not the best picture because it’s overcast and rainy today, and well I didn’t put much effort into the picture, but my mohair wigs from Kemper Dolls finally showed up today. I bought this little 6-7 carrot mohair wig in a cute bob style to try on my AE Yara, and I bought another one in black in a 7-8 for my Dollmore Sona when she arrives. I think the shorter hair style makes makes my Yara look older, which was the goal. When I first put it on I wasn’t really so sure about the wig, but it’s growing on me and I think with some more styling it could be pretty cute. I didn’t bother taking the black one out of the bag yet because I figure I’ll wait until my Sona arrives.
Anyway overall I think the quality of Kemper Dolls mohair wigs are very good, and I can definitely recommend their wigs for that, especially since I got the carrot wig on sale for only $7.00! However their customer service left a little to be desired frankly. I ordered the wigs a little over a week ago and they have a order tracking section on their website which strangely they never updated, so I was left thinking that my order was still in “processing” all week. Finding this odd for items that were supposed to be in stock, I decided to email them, but they didn’t get back to me very quickly, and after sending them another email today, finally something got kicked out and I was finally given my UPS tracking number. Apparently the order had been shipped on the 7th, but they just neglected to tell me or give my tracking number. As it is I got my tracking number literally a few hours before the package showed up.
In the end I received good quality wigs, and within a reasonable amount of time, but it irritated me that their communication was poor, since most other sellers I have dealt with have been prompt and good communicators. Perhaps I shouldn’t be so fussy, but well, that was my experience so you can take it for what it’s worth.
So I finally decided to go ahead and get started on Cookie. I am using La-Doll and Premier clay, so I decided I would go ahead and follow Ryo Yoshida’s doll making methods from the Yoshida Style Ball Jointed Doll Making Guide. In the guide you cut your cores/armatures out of styrofoam based off of your drawings. I’ll get more to the method later, but in the picture above was my first attempt at carving the body core using the blue polystyrene insulation foam board. As you can see the core turned out terrible with way too many pock marks. Naturally I was displeased and I tried to figure out whether or not it was my tools that were the problem or whether you just shouldn’t carve out with the blue insulation foam. I’ve seen other people use the blue foam before to good effect, but it just wasn’t working for me with what tools I had so I decided to go out and get myself a sheet of the white styrofoam.