This Friday was my last Friday going to my current therapist.
I’ve been going to her, and taking anti-depressants, since September 2011…when the low of the 3/11 Tohoku quake / Fukushima aftermath just never left me.
I could barely get through a day without crying. I was erratic. I couldn’t fathom what would happen when my seasonal depression kicked in. I’d been scrambling each winter, for 13 winters, to manage my symptoms with journaling, working out, eating healthy, light boxes, yoga on top of working out…and even then it was rough.
My therapist’s father has fallen ill and she’s moving to help her family. She’s set me up. I’ve made reservations for my next regular prescriptions and such. I have letters from her detailing my years with her for my next doctor.
In light of this, when I saw I’d be able to leave work a little early and be in Tokyo an hour before my appointment time…I punched train destinations and times into my train app.
There’d be time for dolls!
Dollyteria!
Specifically a side trip to Dollyterria in Ikebukuro. Dollyteria is a used doll resale shop. It has locations in Shinjuku and Yokohama but Ikebukuro is its largest location.
It’s large by Tokyo standards. It’s taken over two floors, each floor about the size of a dormroom/ budget business hotel….packed with doll parts, doll accessories and dolls in all levels of condition.
Photography, alas, is not allowed.
This trip’s haul:
Naked Pullip doll in a bag! 2,000¥
Original outfit? Gone! Original wig? Gone!
Original lipstick is gone but the rest of the original face paint remains.
That’s how I was able to figure out it is a type 3 body and was originally Holly, a Pullip dressed like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Japan has a soft spot for that movie….Despite it having one of America’s historically gawdafful yellow face depictions of a Japanese character. Audrey and her Tiffany’s look isn’t just beloved, there’s also Moon River. The song is often used as closing music in stores and is inexplicably the “the train doors are open for boarding” cue music at my local train station.
My baggy doll is missing her wink bars (for lowering her eyelids). When I opened her head I realized her eyelids are in there but the modifications done to her eyes prevent her lids from closing. Previous owner just solved that by deciding she wouldn’t wink or blink…and removed the bars.
It seems like the modifications may have put extra stress on the eye-mech, some parts that shouldn’t be extra came out when I opened her skull but that’s ok because… I scored an extra eye mech for 300¥
And an extra Obitsu body for 1000¥
All the bodies in my craft room were legally bought and paid for. There are no bodies in my crawl space.
Last purchase on my spree was…used Blythe wig!
I have a factory Blythe I haven’t customized yet. Blue/green wig seems like a jumping off spot.
I also finished my first Blythe and need to document how Blythe became Aggretsuko soon.
Until then:
See a therapist if you think you might need it
End pill shaming
May all your surprised encounters with headless bodies be dolls or mannequin
Ok, catching up on two months of crafting is showing me how godddamned much stuff I make. A Japanese bellydancer I’m friends with on FB JUST posted a photo of a Pullip Nah-Atto she saw in a Book-Off and I replied with a picture of my before and after…and was going to send her the link to my blog when I realized I’d NEVER finished documenting this.
Recap: I’m a belly dancer. In late April I bought a used Pullip “Nah-Atto” on the cheap. I gave her a new MTM Barbie body, sewed a more accurate costume, and started repainting her face. All the construction detail can be found here. An additional post I made about getting MTM Barbie bodies for this project and one other is here.
Then life got in the way of blogging and I didn’t keep you up-to-date!
When in my hometown last March I was given a stash of doll clothing, some dolls, and a few doll wigs from my unnamed source. In this stash was a brunette doll wig with a TON of waxy glue in it. I decided it was a little late 70’s/80’s looking and perfect for the dancer look I was going for….and perhaps not totally unlike my own hair.
Over weeks I froze the wig and chipped away at the glue many many times. This is midway through the process.
A pair of eyes I’d ordered from ByByBlytheCo on Etsy arrived. I inserted her new eyes into her eye-mech, inserted new earrings into her existing ear holes, and screwed her head onto her new body.
If you want to know more about the process of creating a hybrid (Pullip head on a MTM Barbie body) I found this well documented blog entry by Sutura Workshop for you.
WIG TIME!
With After and Before photos. Please note that she’s not lighter-skinned in the after face photo, that’s just lighting.
Ebony and I visited Dollyterria again during one of our Ikebukuro meet ups in July. Again, I came home with a new friend.
Dal Lipoca is a 2008 Groove doll release. She retails new/mint condition for about 100USD/10,000¥. My Lipoca was around 3,000. Dolly in a baggie deals! She was FILTHY. She obviously lived with a smoker. Her white jumpsuit was brown. Her hands were stained. She smelled. She was missing her pitchfork.
New VS. Baggie Deal
Who amongst us hasn’t seen some rough times in the last ten years? Some of us just hide it better than others. MINE!
I hand washed everything. The jumpsuit will never be 100% white again. I’ve tried. Her wings molted a bit but they’re good enough for now or until I feel like replicating them. When I eventually copy them, expect that half my doll crew will be sporting wings.
The original wig suited her so I pried it off and washed it (shampoo) and conditioned it (fabric softener) and let it dry on my makeshift wig head (styrofoam ball from 100¥ shop of a plastic bottle. I liked her face and eyes as is, no repainting.
Then it was time to scrub the body. I had some leftover arms from when I replaced Monomono/Bedhead’s body that I swapped in because her hands were permanently tabacco stained.
Here’s a photo of the face with just a quick localized soapy wipe on one cheek.
I disassembled her and washed everything. EVERYTHING.
I’m not against doll nudity but I feel better if the dolls in my room have some sort of clothing prior to their final outfits. You can just tell she has no love for the extra Barbie Gear in my stash. Dal dolls are petulant 24/7.
I found some black fabric with a. red and white lipstick motif…left overs from making to Moana Wrap Dresses. I stitched her a quick skirt to replace the jumpsuit she’d word. I then returned her original outfit to her, minus jumper, and plus a skull hair ribbon. I do love her devil hat…but the others are taking turns with it…and I was drafting some new headwear based on it.
She’s now joined the crew and can usually be found with a coffee mug and one of the many coffee tables I’ve set up.
A friend recently remarked on how she never expected to envy the clothing of dolls…she’d always thought them too…something….but that it did make sense that my dolls would reflect style.
They do, they reflect my style and my life. Which is why I now have a collection of coffee mugs, a few beer glasses, and chairs and tables for my growing collection.
If you’re vaguely obsessive like me…and I’m assuming you’re a little like me…and you skip blogging for two months it can be daunting to return.
Instead of looking at the overwhelming amount of stuff I have to present to you I’m going take comfort in the fact that I’m NOT lacking subject matter. Ill just look back to see where I left off and what I haven’t shared.
Last I regularly wrote, I’d hit upon the idea of making doll trunks/doll boxes out of 100¥ shop goods.
Starting at the 100¥ shop helps me feel like I’m keeping everything under budget and being responsible. That is a feeling, not a truth. The 100¥ shop presents the challenge of how to flourish with outside limitations. I can’t possibly get all the supplies I would ideally want work with there, but I might stumble over solutions I hadn’t thought of.
Some limitations are worth exploring: if the wooden boxes I find aren’t quite large enough for a traditional trunk, but I’ve purchased them anyway, how shall I move forward?
Some limitations aren’t worth enduring : 100¥ wood cutting tools feed off human blood and tears. Invest in better.
I’d sawed some wood and boxes apart and rejoined them to form her home. I’d made a drawer for her extra items. These small Picco Nemo bodies come with extra hands in various positions that can be swapped in. I thought it’d be nice to have those hands stored with her along with any props or extra dresses I might make.
I’d decoupaged the interior of her room.
Now it was time to give Alice a chair.
I sawed apart a business card holder to make the frame of the chair. This was how I learned about the blood sacrifices and invectives required by cheap tools.
I sewed tiny cushions, stuffed them, and joined them awkwardly together. I now know that I’d be better off shaping sponges or another dense but soft substrate for furniture cushions and then covering them with fabric.
Miniature construction videos on you tube, like repaint videos, are soothing. I wish crafters could get some special versions of a smoke break. Like “hey, give me five minutes to watch something on my screen or knit a few rows…I promise I’ll be a better co-worker/human afterwards”
Chair deemed good enough.
I then finished painting the exterior of the boxes with the decoupage Alice cover. I joined the two boxes together with hinges and a clasp.
Alice lives here now.
I only regret that it’s a little dark in there. Since construction I’ve been playing around with tiny led lights and plastic 100¥ tea lights.
Fliiiiicckering Alice.
Where it started.
Where it ends. The Professor is leaving before a game or croquette begins.
Ps. You really should watch the Royal Ballet doing Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
I haven’t written for a while but I sure as hell have been making things.
You see, my friends and I were hit with not one but two sociopaths this summer. We didn’t know about #summerofscammers until after the devastation. We’re petitioning that if there is a destructive human force NEXT summer that someone send us the hashtag memo earlier.
One total fucking horrible person is in my hometown and we’re awaiting his trial. I won’t get into details because they suck. Suffice to say these both came to a head within four days of each other in late May.What happened in my hometown affected many people, some of whom I will never meet, many of whom I know…and my friend Emily.
And, honest to fucking god, I asked myself: is there a doll I can make to help?
I meant it jokingly. As in “What the fuck can I even do in the face of this? I customize dolls. ”
In reality I’m coming to know what skills I can provide in these times: listening skills, trying to hold space for people’s feelings, gathering/sharing information and networking friends. I’m also learning some of my limits after the fact…I’m glad I had friends there for me at the times this summer that I broke down.
I, secretly, started making Emily a doll.
My hands need things to do. I need to be creating objects. It counter balances so much of the mental and physical energy I expend even in smooth times. When things get crazy, less essential ways of coping…like writing this blog…fall away but I still need to be making things.
I had a doll. I’d purchased it at Dollyteria in Ikebukuro on my birthday in April. It was naked, in a baggie, had already once been repainted, and needed a new body. You know I have extra bodies and dolls just laying around in my craft room.
I neglected to take a full body shot because sometimes when I need to make things I don’t slow down and document it all. I NEEDED to make this.
I spent a LOT of time feeling like Emily’s stalker. Looking at her Facebook photos over many years. REALLY LOOKING AT THEM. HI, EMILY CAN YOU FEEL ME STARING AT YOU?
Her make-up routine is generally very dramatic dark eyes with winged liner and a fairly light lip. Emily often has a pink of light blue/green hair streak. There was NO WAY I was going to try and transfer all her tattoos.
I went wig shopping online at Dollyteria again and found a black/pink wig that would work.
I removed the existing face with rubbing alcohol/ paint thinner. Then I primed it and set to work. I added some blush with chalk pastels. Set that. Then started the layers of watercolor pencils, acrylic, and more chalk pastels.
You probably noticed Emily’s eyes. If you don’t get those right you don’t have an Emily doll. I found a good match at BeBeBlytheCo on Etsy and ordered them.
Almost finished. Later I cleaned up the inner eye
By this time I also had planned a two-week trip to America in mid to late August. I haven’t been to see friends on the East coast in…um…18 years. I’d see friends in a few different cities and then Emily and I would meet up in Philadelphia. Philadelphia is neither my home town nor hers…we wanted a city so we could just be someplace together and hang out. Talk about things that needed to be talked about when they came up and just have fun when it was time to just have fun.
I had a deadline. I wanted to surprise her with the doll in America when I saw her.
That left the problem of clothing.
Emily’s aethetic is deeply Victorian Gothic….but it’s not how she dresses in daily life. She’s also been very rockabily styled but those items haven’t been in rotation for a while. Comfortable jeans and a pullover hoodie didn’t really suit the doll I was making.
I started looking turning to Gothic Victorian styled dolls, Tim Burton, and Helena Bonham Carter for inspiration. I talked to my friend Ebony about it as well. Ebony’s also heavily goth inspired and has come to know Emily a bit through me and FB. Ebony suggested I add Penny Dreadful to my inspiration files.
Fun Fact: I promptly watched the WHOLE three seasons while working on the doll. This means I’ve seen one episode more than Emily. Emily has, in a desire for the story not to end, abstained from watching the final episode.
Bonus; Penny Dreadful has a whole DOLL thing going on in the third season. I was on the RIGHT TRACK.
I visited Shinjuku Okadaya (fabric and trims) for some fabrics…I still not was sure on what I would make. I also had a small supply of Ebony’s “spoooooky fabric scraps”.
At some point during all of this Emily and I had one of many a video chat session. At some point she had to turn off her camera to answer a call and I put one of my many dolls in front of the video screen to greet her when she returned. This lead to a tour of some of my dolls. The last time I saw her in person she’d been intensely curious about the dolls and when she got video introductions to some of them she was quite excited about their existance and my art…knowing nothing of the fact she’d be getting one. Another sign I was on the RIGHT TRACK.
Fun Fact: Emily used to be afraid of dolls.
I tried to draft my own doll corset but I soon found the deadline to America coming up too soon. I turned to my doll clothing pattern books. I have a fair collection now because JAPAN. I decided I’d modify the “Autumn” dress for my needs.
First up was the skirt. I love layering fabrics to make simple textiles look more lush. The skirt is a Halloween fabric layered over burgundy/wine silk. Spiders became my animal motif not unlike Vannesa in Penny Dreadful has scorpions as a leitmotif. I used an Obitsu body for her new body (her old body had floppy arms)
I decided she needed earrings. I asked Ebony if I could raid her stash knowing FULL WELL she stocks up on Halloween earrings and charms. Ebony came through when I visited her. The doll’s earrings are: Spider studs I added chains and web and cross charms to…all from Ebony’s stash.
But wait…there’s more!
I could have stopped but I decided to make a veil…
Which she can exchange for her clip on fascinator (which can also be clipped into the hair of her owner)…and I put a tiny spider clasp on the cloak.
She then was carefully wrapped and placed into a wooden wine box I’d also been given by Ebony. When I arrived in America I swapped the fleece wrapping fabric I’d used for some halloween fabric I bought at JoAnne’s
On August 25th my friend Rook (who I’ve made a doll for before) and I picked up Emily at the airport in Philedelphia. We went back to were we were staying (after a stop in which we actually bought more dolls…more on that later) and I told her I had a gift for her.
She had NO clue, the long wooden box did not tip her off.
I made a few trips to Ebony’s place. Taking the train from my area to Ebony’s means a transfer at Ikebukuro, Tokyo….where Dollyterria (my prime location for used dolls and accoutrements) has just expanded to two (tiny) floors of dolls.
While fixing up a Jack Skellington for Ebony, I purchased a used Little Pullip Alice who had seen better days. I can’t resist Alice.
This is what a pristine Alice looks like.
This is what my Alice looked like. She suited my mood perfectly. This is the Alice who, like me, had to explain to her therapist that her mid-month email about the insanity around her and her friends and why she might need emergency medication (full-time scammers/police raids/uncovered lies/ abuse/ torture/ confiscated crime scenes) wasn’t overblown…just accurate.
I removed her scarecrow wig and opened up her head. Her eyes are a little cloudy but someone hot glued them into her skull so I decided not to bother changing them.
In Akihabara I picked up a PiccoNemo body a wig and shoes.
I wanted a brunette Alice because I was
a selfish, brunette, only-child.
I made her a new dress without a pattern. It’s rough around the sleeves because TINY. I put a new front panel on her existing pinafore so it would correctly fit her new body. I embroidered it because I can. I’ll probably make her new white bloomers when I’m ready to work that small again.
That’s a 14cm/ 5.5 inch body.
And I thought I was done…but then I looked at Pinterest.
That’s how the craftsters get you.
And I saw one of Helen CW’s Blythe Doll Carry Cases.
And I posted it on Saturday morning. And my friends whispered, “you must….you just must.” And Ebony shouted “Seria has so many wooden boxes.” And I was shouting, “I can combine my love of making things with my love of being organized?!”
Before I knew it I was making a detour to a 100¥ shop before teaching my Saturday dance lessons.
I got two of the larger wooden boxes, some hinges, wood, and a closure.
Once home, I cut one of the boxes down and sanded it. I made a drawer. There was a lot of sanding and glue. I only have 100¥ cutting tools.
Now. I THOUGHT it was going to be a home for a Dal Doll, because I never measured anything.
Alice fit. It would be Alice’s
I thought a while and decided it would become an homage to the sitting room Alice is in at the start of Through the Looking Glass.
I found some images online and resized them. I picked a cover I liked from an edition of Through the Looking Glass that appealed to me (if I weren’t making it for myself I’d get artist permission, make my own, or go for a version beyond copyright) and raided my stash of acrylic paints.
Sunday, I visited a Book-Off (used books and Magazines ) and bought a used catalogue for gothic Lolita looks (so many Alice references). I found some miniature inspiration at the adjoining Hobby-Off. I hit a fabric store for decoupage paste. At an art supply store I bought ornate origami for the wallpaper. It’d read a bit Asian influenced for England but I figured that with the right surroundings it would just read “Orientalist Inspired”
I also realized that if you put Alice in a doll stand too tall for her, she levitates with great menace.
It’s now Wednesday and the decoupage is nearly done.
I’ll soon be figuring out how to upholster a chair for Alice…but not tonight or tomorrow, as I have relaxing and teaching to do. Expect a final installation early next week.
I haven’t knit for at least eight years. In fact I’d cleaned out my knitting yarn stash a few years back (keeping all my needles and supplies, just letting go of the odd yarn) in a Kon-Mari spree.
My stash was a reasonable size because I knit small things….and my friend (above) knew my knitting history in Japan as he is the happy owner of my knitted Yoda.
I figured out how to knit in the round with multiple double pointed needles and started making my own creatures. For some I took detailed notes that I still have in a notebook, although with years of not knitting it at first reads like the diary of a madwoman.
Nope, no patterns. Those just flowed from my brains through my fingers. I seem to like multiple heads and solitary eyes.
Yet I never thought I’d knit doll clothing. It’s silly to say that now. No one who knows me and my crafts would think that I’d have a weird block about knitting doll clothing..but I did.
Knitted Doll Clothing? That’s a grandma thing. That’s, specifically, a Grandma Leah thing.
Grandma Leah knit doll clothing for my Barbies. The dresses were nice, the sweaters were maddening (Barbies hands would catch in the sleeves and they had the tiniest of buttons) and the underwear ungainly. She also watched bowling, called the dog Stink Ass and could sigh and complain in a passive aggressive manner that will never be forgotten.
My Grandmothers were two very different women.
Grandma Christine was educated and strong-willed, able to extricate herself from tough situations and start out on her own power and brains and find the skills to do whatever it was she needed to do to survive and raise two kids…time and time again in her life. She could also sew anything.
Grandma Leah was never in charge of her own destiny and I have no idea if she could read much beyond patterns and catalogues. Life sort of happened to her and existing family helped her. That’s how she came to live with my father and step-mother when I was young. But…she could knit and crochet. She could sit down, follow a pattern, and make a thing. The thing wasn’t usually artful but it was executed with precision… Her sense of color, texture, and grace was lacking: cheap acrylic yarns, the worst colors, bulky scratchy things. Things she made served a purpose…often that purpose was to be sold at a craft meet so she could make some money.
I have her knitting and crochet supplies now. I even have three oddly written pages someone sent her explaining how to make an infamous pair of slipper booties. EVERY family member got these booties. She was always crocheting these booties. They were warm and ugly.
Someday I will have to make sense the notes I have of hers… if only to make my father and step-mother a pair of booties each…out of the worst acrylic yarn colors I can find. You know, for family traditions to be remembered. I’m not tackling it just yet because it’s crochet, which makes far less sense to me than knitting. I can do it but it’s never become an automatic skill I can easily freestyle in.
How did I get to knitting a sweater?
I made my Monomono doll a pair of pajama bottoms and thought…”She needs a comfy sweater for bad days.”…I guess it is time to knit for a doll.
I found a Blythe sweater pattern on Knitty and picked up a substitute yarn, figuring I had all the supplies at home. I looked at some black yarn and thought “No, your home lounging sweater isn’t your out-and-about sweater. It’s the odd one that is more about comfort than looks. It’s how you hug yourself when no one is there.
Then, once home, I learned I didn’t have a pair of size zero needles.
You don’t understand how shocking that was…. THIS is my needle collection.
I had everything BUT. And I mean EVERYTHING. That baggies is full of 4-5 double sided needles from 1-7. There’s a whole ROLL of hooks under that baggie you can’t even see. I have at LEAST 3 of each size of single sided needles.
I figured out the gauge and managed to knit up the sweater on size 1 needles. A gauge swatch being slightly off on large projects means HUGE difference but for a tiny project? not so much.
I knit for a day, relearning what knitting abbreviations mean, and had a doll sweater.
Your new favorite synthpop band.
Your new favorite Golden Girls remake.
I think she needs a pair of bunny slippers, or skull slippers, or bunny skull slippers next.
I’m a belly dancer. I teach and perform and study belly dance. I also make belly dance costumes.
There was no doubt that I’d combine dolls with dance. As soon as I saw a used Pullip Nah-atto doll I had to have it.
But let’s be honest, Nahh-ato is all Orientalist tropes.
Genie lamp, harem pants, odd collar with a ring, lounging couch, a not included in this photo but totally included in the outfit face veil….
That’s not to say that I, as a Western white woman involved in the dance, am not guilty of appropriation and Orientalism. I try to educate myself. I listen. I make mistakes and hopefully I have and will continue to correct myself when called out.
My Nahh-Ato has arms that have grown loose and floppy over time. So, she’s getting a new body. The closest skin match I could find for her was the MTM Soccer barbie.
This Barbie can easily fit in every part of the outfit except the bra-top. So, while repainting the face and awaiting new eyes, I made a dance costume modeled after 1960’s/1970’s belly dance albums and fashions…all from leftovers in my stash.
I serged/roll hemmed four half circles (two larger, two smaller) to make the skirt. Then I sewed the remaining serger tail into the serged area and beaded the edge.
I then made harem pants with side slits that close at the ankles and are open on one side at the hips.
I stitched the pants onto a Barbie bikini bottom that closes on the side (you can see my basting stitches). I then attached the skirt to the panty-harem pants combo. In human-sized belly dance these would be three separate items you could mix and match but a doll can’t afford that many rolls of elastic and fabric bulking up her form.
All of these layers were eventually attached to her belt so her waist-down outfit snaps at the side and the ankles.
I used interfacing to start making the belt form.
If I were costuming for a human the form and back of the belt would be two separate pieces that overlapped at the sides… makes altering costumes when dealing with weight changes easier, you just unstitch the joined side and the hooked side and adjust symmetrically. But dolls don’t change size and don’t appreciate the extra layers.
The fray check stained the satin but that wouldn’t be an issue as I was adding another layer of fabric, silver lace.
I started using chains and decorations from some cannibalized jewelry I have in my stash for decorating dance costumes…
I made a top based loosely off her original one using the same techniques. It snaps at the back and neck.
The ribcage articulation reads a little like underboob from this angle.
This is her face, waiting for eyes and a few finishing touches.
Enter a caption
….and I found Nahh-Ato’s lounging couch at my local Hobby-Off….so she’s ready for her eyes, wig, and the sort of “lounging bellydance” photos that bring ALL the haters and shamers to the yards.
I am nursing a flare-up in tendonitis in one of my ankles so I’ll be at home for a few days during the national holidays icing and resting and probably catching up. I could explain why it’s been a while but it’s not interesting: work and life.
I’m waiting for some eye chips to arrive. If they were here that’s what I’d be up to.
I realized that in talking about the new bodies and old sewing machine I brought back with me from the homeland…I hadn’t told you about the DOLL CLOTHING.
Let’s just say I have a source who cannot be named. My dealer sometimes has baggies and baggies of doll clothing. She laughed and laughed at seeing a full-grown me (as a girl I hadn’t been much into dress-up doll play and she’s known me since my youth) sitting on the floor surrounded by weee clothing.
Below are dark photos of much of my stash…RIGHT?
And if you’re looking at those groovy blue paisley pants and thinking “Wow”…I’m about to blow your mind. That paisley and the two items under it (psychedelic and anchors)…are…
PANTSUITS! You didn’t think they could get better and yet they did.
the MTM Barbie showing off one of then new dresses
Not everything fits. Alterations are in process. but I’ve spotted some of these on vintage Barbies and Blythes online and pumped my fists shouting “Scooooore”
Whaaaaat? Vintage Francie, Barbie’s mod friend? I know that dress!
Who wore it better?
Francie
We’re working on stockings and shoes.
Another look now in rotation is a jacket I got from my hook-up.
That’s actually the inside. It’s got an extra layer of stiff fabric to give the skirt more shape. It fit the dolls in the arms and shoulders but didn’t close. So I added lace, trim and a closing ribbon…
And Reggie is ready to hit the GothLoli clubs..as long and she doesn’t get her laces caught in an escalator.
From March 16th to march 27th I was in my hometown of Madison…so it was time to buy a few things not readily available in Japan: Hair texturizer product for my limp hair, cheap bras in my size, NYX make-up (But they are coming back to Japan SOOOOOON), Urban Decay make-up, fun clothing from Zip-Dang on Monroe street, and some Barbie Made-to-move bodies.
Sidebar: Special shout-out to the heart-printed 1654 Retrolicious Be Mine Bombshell Dress. It wears so easy…it’s nearly sold out in most sizes but they have this cut in other prints.
This is right before removing make-up after two dance sets. Sweaty GLOW!
Why did I buy Barbies?
There’s something now called the Made to Move body Barbies. HIGHLY articulated bodies. I needed one to use as a replacement body for a Pullip “Nah-tou” belly dancer I’m going to start fixing up. Most replacement bodies in Japan don’t have the right skin color, they come in WHITE and LESS WHITE. This MTM Barbie has a less curvy build than the iconic Barbie and is a close match. I’m going to have to hit her face with a little bronzer to make it work when I repaint…more on her in future posts.
But…when stalking the Walmarts/Targets/Toy-soon-to-be-not-R’s I saw the MTM CURVY body at TARGET. And I HAD TO BUY HER. Barbie Fashionista line has had a variety of bodies, including this curvy one, for a few years but this is the first release of it as a MTM.
I’d seen people on-line in a Pullip group talk about this body, excited at the idea of having more curvy options for their existing dolls. There was brief talk from a few commenters about how we should write to Mattel asking for LIGHTER skin colors (as Pullips are notorious PALE-AF) but a bunch of us were all OMG NO! NOT A GOOD LOOK! PLEASE DON’T.
I promptly took photos of her once back at my mom’s place.
She was a hit with friends back home and I subsequently brought her to a few meet-ups with female buddies. We’re adults, yo.
I didn’t know what I was going to do with her. She’s not a skin-color match for anything I had. I looked online and noticed that some other industrious Pullip customizer has been taking pictures to figure out possible skin matching. I wish I could find it now but it showed that the Curvy MTM matches well with the Tiger Lily Byul.
WHAT is BYUL?
Well, Byul is the Pullip doll I had theretofore found seriously creepy. She’s just too jowely.
And Byul Tigerlily? Um. So Pullip did a Peter Pan series….
Yeah. Um. Racist Stereotype Tigerlilly.
And at the Ikebukuro Dollyteria that Byul is in a plastic baggie, fully dressed up, no alterations. I always am terrified and upset when I see it. Nope. I can’t justify that used purchase, even for a Curvy body.
But DollyTerria ALSO had a Byul head on some other too-pale body that I’d remembered seeing online. When I returned to Japan I ordered it and it was delivered the next day.
Then I got an Inspiration. CATY! The MUA who did an inspiration look from one of my faceups.
Caty’s curvy and STYLISH BEYOND WORDS! So, I’m going to do a Caty inspired look.
But first I had to get the body ready:
Off with her awesome head, sorry.
Shave down the neck peg thingie
But the curvy neck turns out to be TOO wide at the top to attach the head. So I filed and sanded until it fit.
Here’s the head on the new body, the outfit, the makeup, those eyes and hair are temporary…just to show Caty why I think this doll is gonna kill one of her looks.
If you’ve got a favorite Catysuewho look you think I should be looking to…lemme know!
A friend recently remarked on how she never expected to envy the clothing of dolls…she’d always thought them too…something….but that it did make sense that my dolls would reflect style.
until then….obey.
Do It Yourself: WFU 