My Iplehouse EID man Bane returned recently from having a new face-up done for him by BJD artist Angel Toast. The face-up model was the character "Bard" from the third "Hobbit" movie, as he has a similarly lean face, and I loved his sideburns. So naturally, I had to try and style him similarly for his grand debut on Flickr!
0 Comments
This is Iplehouse Stella (face-up by Angel Toast), with an EID "tattoo" body which has been painted by BJD face-up artist Vitta Vera; Stella has been posed and photographed by Lyanne. Stella's body originally belonged to Pamela, but I popped Stella on this body for a photo-shoot with my friend Lyanne, and she looked wonderful on it - so she got to keep it! The "carved" tattoos on the torso and thigh are picked out in peacock blue metallic thread and enhanced with tiny Swarovski crystals. Stella's hands and feet have been blushed by Vitta Vera and her feet enhanced with "barefoot sandals". The painting is incredibly delicate and beautiful. Here is a close-up of one foot (this is a flat foot - her heel feet have a different design - isn't her "pedicure" just perfect? And a peacock feather in bronze and blue has been added to her back; This top took me ages, and one reason was that I kept changing my mind about what I wanted to do. I'd just bought half a dozen Zhurnal Mod and Duplet crochet magazines, and was absolutely dazzled by the creativity and artistry of the new free-style crochet fashions. If you are unfamiliar with this, do an internet search on these magazines, and prepare to be amazed! So I spent the next few weeks trying out different mofits - roses, violets, butterflies. leaves - and getting myself thoroughly muddled about what I was actually trying to create. It was still a good exercise though, as some of the motifs I tried were really too big for the 1/3rd scale of the doll I was crocheting for. In the end, I put together what I thought was a rather nice layout on a black template - intending to duplicate it on net later. As it happens, when I re-fitted the template to Fantasia Vivian, I slimmed the top down so this arrangement didn't fit anymore. So the top eventually ended up looking like this; the motifs are sewn to the net, which is lined with crepe in a pretty lilac colour. The motifs continue around the back. The top is teamed with a flounced chiffon skirt in pretty Spring colours. Fantasia Sleepy Vivian can be seen in the background. And that's another thing I did over the Spring - I got an Iplehouse body for sleepy Vivian and rounded the top of the neck off with a hobby dremel, resulting in a pretty decent fit for her head. So now sleepy Vivian has her own body! As you can see, she really suits it - I love the curves and the long swan neck. Although the resin is pinker than that of Fantasia's normal skin, her face-up has plenty of blushing and the overall effect is a nice match between head and body. Her lovely face-up (like that of open-eyed Vivian) is by Angel Toast. I quickly knitted her a top in pretty pastel colours and matched them with silver earrings by Lyanne. Perfect! And now I really feel that Spring has arrived :) Yowser! Four months since my last update! How sad is that? Things have been a bit slow doll-wise, but some things have happened... for one, I sent my Carina off to Angel Toast for a fresh face-up and she came back looking lovelier than ever but still, quintessentially still my Lady B. Here she is with the Iplehouse face-up she had before she went off - beautiful... but I wanted something similar but a little more sophisticated. So, here she is back from Angel Toast looking somewhat more sultry and mysterious... and now of course I realize that I need to take more photos of her! I finally got a face-up for Doria that I really, really like! Here's Doria with a fresh new look from face-up artist Angel Toast; and I just love her soft, gentle expression; And here is her previous look - also a face-up by Angel Toast, a very striking 'elvish' look; Not quite as intense with the eyebrows partly covered; She looked extraordinarily like my Fairyland Feeple65 Angela in this incarnation - here's Angela here; And here is Doria's first incarnation from Iplehouse, a combination of two of her 'basic' face-ups, which was lovely, but not quite as I had imagined it; She's a human dreaming Siean, with eyes modded open and a face-up by Angel Toast. I now have eight Feeple65 face-plates and three bodies... it's a great way to ring the changes. Siean's stunning gown is by MonaeGlow. Her earrings are by me. Apparently, teenagers should be left to sleep in until 9 a.m... Mirwen gets to wear her sleepy-face; Her pretty face-up is by Angel Toast. I decided to put her on the SID body which I had hybrided for Elfdoll June. The top of the neck had been sanded down to a smaller dome, and I managed to swap the S-hook for the Fairyland neck connector without too much trouble - I simply removed the feet first, which then allowed me to pull out the tension elastic from the top of the neck. Attached the connector, re-attached the feet, and presto! Mirwen has a tall, elegant Iplehouse SID body! I think it suits her mature face much better than the Feeple60 body, which is cute but in a rather more anime style than the Iplehouse body. Well, it was going to be the end of the road for my old batik pants, much the worse the wear after having been demoted to gardening duty... I'd downloaded a BurdaStyle pattern for a blouse, and was making a test piece from the pants fabric, when I noticed that the placement of the sun motifs on one front piece and one sleeve looked really great - so I ended up creating a batik tunic instead of the blouse I intended. The pattern worked out really well - Burda #110, Euro size 36 reduced to 35% of original size (easy to do since the pattern is a pdf file), if anyone is interested. Angelika (Feeple65 Angela) is rather voluptuous so I did add a little more room to the front edge of the blouse to give it more overlap. This will also fit medium bust SID and EID Iplehouse girls. I really did like those pants... so I'm glad they're still around. Sort of. Angelika now has new 14mm glass eyes from HandCraft in green hazel. Her face-up is by Angel Toast. Somehow, those of us in the BJD hobby have a tendency to collect "spare parts" which haven't quite achieved the effect we wanted in our dolls. But eventually, the perfect doll comes along for those parts... or should that be - we find the perfect parts for our new dolls in our stash of spare parts? Mirwen is a Feeple60 sculpt from Fairyland, and I had her in a dark brown wig and lovely blue eyes when I first got her - and she did look lovely. But those of us in this hobby know that we can never leave it at that... Anyway, Mirwen has now found herself with lovely silvery gray eyes from Soom (Gray Eclipse) and curly hair (Monique wig Ellowyne-Rose in "Ginger Brown"). These had never looked quite right on other dolls. But now? Perfection. For now, anyway. I love her "dewy" new look... Mirwen's beautiful face-up is by Angel Toast.
What a doll! I just love the Fairyland Feeple65 sculpt Angela, and have been having lots of fun photographing her since she returned from Angel Toast with her new face-ups. So far, I have been photographing mostly "night-time" Angelika, but I'll do more photos of "day-time" Angelika once summer rolls around and I feel like doing photos of my girls in pretty summer frocks and sassy bikinis. Angelika wows and sizzles in new gowns by MonaeGlow. She sure is a beauty... Here is another MonaeGlow gown in glorious indigo. She is wearing wonderful platform shoes from DollHeart. There is no way she can stand on these on her own, so she is supported by an "invisible" stand from Alice's Collections. Click here to be taken to the sales page for the stand _ Her pretty earrings and necklace are by LyanneNZ. Angelika was partnered by Griffin (Soom Ender on Iplehouse SID body). He is wearing clothing by Iplehouse. I posted these photos on the Zone of Zen forum and Griffin got a lot of very nice compliments. Well, he is a handsome boy! |
About Ellen:Based in New Zealand, I've been a collector of ball-jointed dolls since 2011. Categories
All
Archives
January 2018
|