Update on my Doll Family

Finals week is very near, and I am deep into the busiest year of dental school. Procrastinating right now, to update my blog with the lives of my dolls!

I finally received a shipment from Luts yesterday after a 3 month wait Most of the items were for my lovely Senna, and I think she has at last achieved a fitting elegant look.  After three years of owning her, this is the first time I’ve bought her something to wear–she is happy to be out of my makeshift rags. XD

Making a BJD Sleeping Bag

It’s Christmastime!  What do you know, as soon as finals are over another kind of stress comes around (thank goodness, I passed all my classes with OK grades) and it is a time to be busy busy busy.  Although, I will admit I haven’t been doing all that much since being home because of continuing motivational issues I’ve had all semester.  A small exception to that has been the duty of sending a Christmas card from my dolls to other dolls through a Den of Angels xmas card exchange.

While Rye’s “secret santa” receiver is a tiny Puki who likes candy, all we know about Senna’s recipient is that he is a DZ Floy SD and his owner likes camping.  Alas, we decided that we should make a sleeping bag for him.

Here pictured are Rye (70 cm, 28″) and Senna (60 cm, 24″) and you can see that 45″ fabric is perfectly suitable for the 60 cm doll along the crosswise grain.  If I were to try to construct Rye his own sleeping bag… ehhh, that would be a very different, and bigger, story.

I first cut a half yard of quilted cotton which ended up being perfectly sized to encase Senna in.

I also cut half yard x 22″ pieces each of the lining and outer fabrics.

I first basted the fabrics to the quilted cotton along the edges, then sewed on those horizontal straight lines you commonly see patterning sleeping bags:

I then sewed the top and bottom edges of the casing, right sides together, and added the little elastic rings to the bottom (that allow you to keep the sleeping bag rolled).

The next and most mentally challenging step was sewing the bottom edge of the sleeping bag:

Finally, the zipper was added and I used a 22″ one, the longest type available at the sewing store.

Woo! Sleeping bag complete =)

We also made a little pillow of fleece to match – nothing complicated.

Double layered padding makes it warm~

Wouldn’t you rather be sleeping comfortably if you were a doll?  Buy one from my store here!  ^___^

Translating Doll Proportions – Barbie vs. BJD

Barbie– the monstrously popular doll of the 20th century!

As a child I owned a cabinet-full of them, but I could never really fall in love with her and I actually preferred to play with my animal toys.  Barbie was too… plastic, she didn’t have enough detail or value.  She’s preteen “corporate,” she’s “american,” barbie is “the woman.”

BJDs, on the other hand, are quickly becoming the new, modern beautiful doll in trend… and I must say that they are frankly a hundred times more stunning and well-made than Barbie ever was.  That, and they cost 25 times as much.  =/  Ball-jointed dolls are customizable, posable, more life-like, and larger.  They are also made by hundreds of artisans in all kinds of different molds!   Maybe I should add that they are Asian – and Asians are known for pushing achievements to the next level.

So out of curiosity, I’ve decided to do a bit of research to compare Barbie proportions with BJD proportions and normal people.  Barbies are approximately on a 1/6 scale, and the standard ball-jointed doll is about 1/3 the size of a real person. Using those proportions, here’s the estimated measurements in inches if the dolls were to be real:

BJD vs. Barbie proportions

Measurements:	Height	Bust	Waist	Hips
Avg American Woman	5′ 3″	35	27	38
Barbie	5′ 9″	36	18	33
female ball-jointed doll	5′ 9″	32	22	32

“avg american” data taken from this site

Pretty interesting, huh?  I see that Barbie’s chest-waist ratio is more extreme than a BJD’s; though the newer generation is still not exactly realistic in size.

Thoughts?  Introspection on culture, trends?

Sewing a Barbie Pattern to a BJD

This is something I’ve been waiting to do since BEFORE I acquired Senna! =)  My generous grandmother bought me Barbie clothes patterns back in July, and now I’m undertaking the transformation of pattern scaling to make Senna her first real girl clothes.   The blue dress she had before is now too big for her.

Scene Painting exercise

Well, I have been posting very sparsely lately; it’s definitely not because I haven’t been doing anything!  I think life has become so occupied that the actual posting takes more time than I have now!  =O

So, here’s something we did in my Stagecraft class this week – practice painting on a large scale. =)  everything we do in this class is 100% geared toward learning the ropes for setting up the play productions here, and we have required volunteer hours.  That’s where they get their labor! XD

Practice Assignment: 2 people paint a grayscale section of a face on a 4′ x 8′ board. You can see the scale was huge – fortunately we had a grid to work with in 2′ squares, on the inch-to-foot scale =)

Use of texture was highly encouraged with sponges and feathers!  Creating texture lends very well to the faraway effect and is easy to do.

Everything was completed in just an hour and a half–

Here’s the one I worked on.

And the final giant effect!  The face was well done.  I think as a whole it doesn’t look half bad for being quickly thrown together and 0% coordinated.  XD

Side note – Storytelling

I have so many hobbies!  with a small obligation to occasionally updating the lives of my dolls, Senna has updated the world with the happenings of October in her diary here. [and here is the story before that one]  Stay tuned for the more recent events of november! =)

pink with excitement!

ORDER # 20091102-55 FROM LUTS RECEIVED

Order date: 11-2-2009
arrived in just two weeks!! how amazing is that!

Total amount (including ship and a bunch of accessories): $550

Order result:

MISS Senaviretna in pink!

I’m so happy to finally have the final installment for my dolls!  This new body is awesome– first, the color matches pretty well despite what people warned me about ^___^

Secondly, although her head looks a little big proportionally – the body is very beautiful.  She’s a WOMAN!!

Third – and best of all — the poses she can strike with the extra joints are *awesome*.

Compared to her old body, she can now sit up straight and sit on the ground without her legs in the air!

So what does Rye think about all this?  You’ll have to wait for that one!   I have a cell bio exam tomorrow – but the good news is, interviews are done for the year. ^___^

no peeking!

farewell, outdated souldoll piece!                    ♥       ♥         ♥

Stop Motion Complete.

When I was in the editing room somebody asked me, “how did you video that?”  And all I could say is, well, I’m touched that you thought it was video. 

The assignment for Visual Arts this time was to make a 60 second film that shows something “falling apart,” and it’s finally finished!  I’ve been dying to do a bit of real stop motion so I set up a big challenge for myself on this one.  Thanks to Brandy (a magnificent writer friend) for helping me figure out a plot idea! ^___^  Though the storyboard was pretty much improv as I went along.

Of all things, trying to pose AND photograph them myself was the hardest.  The frustrating thing is that most of the time they won’t hold subtle movements, so with each frame you have to readjust them as they slide off the chair or swing their arm down and drop what they were holding.  They also really, really do not like to stand and have a tendency to fall over easily. Plus add in trying to hold the camera still in mid-air with your other hand, and you have… a very tough project.  I wouldn’t want to do it by myself again.

The original song was going to be Blue and Yellow by the Used, but the teacher told me I needed a fast tempo soundtrack to match the video.  Also, I found out the hard way that youtube nonsensically doesn’t like popular music soundtracks on your video submissions.  -___-  So instead I decided on Kingdom Hearts II Duet of the Keyblade Masters, OC remix which has a pace that matches the fast forward style. =)

Can you tell what’s going on?  I know it’s fast paced, but it had to fit within the time limit!  And hopefully most people know what the origami is and how it’s made?  [star instructions]

More fun trivia: