New Photo Studio and Doll Room

Soon I will be back to taking pictures with a real camera. It's been so long. My studio is getting the finishing touches this week. It feels like forever. 
Here is a partial view of the room.

The big window is called an egress window. In PA all houses with basements built after a certain year have to be built with a way to exit other than using the staircase to go up.  I have another smaller window on the adjacent wall. Lots of light. My last studio was constructed as a darkroom - literally - and that's what it was. There was no light at all other than artificial. This will be interesting to see how and if I incorporate the light into my work.
Yes, the black and white floor was intentional as it is exactly how I did the flooring in my darkroom years ago.

Yesterday I finished redressing the last Fashion Royalty doll. They were the most time consuming of all dolls to redress and display. I did lots of body swapping as I'm tending to like the slimmer bodies of the Monogram dolls for some of my FR.

Here are some random display pics from last night.

My current crop of Eugenias.

Another gorgeous Vanessa.

She's been on display in our bedroom this past week.

Silkies are the best for displaying early Fashion Royalty fashions.

Poor thing is still naked. I'm not loving her.

Only a few Gene dolls left to dress.

The only Agnes (left) I have kept out of all of them.

In this and the next two photos are some of my older FR dolls. Several have been re-rooted and all have been re-bodied. Dress on the right is a Huckleberry Jackson.

The Kyori on the right is one of the very few dolls I own that has never been redressed. She was the last Atelier doll.

I love my Mini Avantguard dolls.

Somehow Liz doesn't belong.

What a serious waste of money this doll was. I hate her hair. Her outfit is cheap. Only the sculpt is nice.

She has been transferred to one of Angelic Dreamz demi-Jamieshow bodies. If I could, I'd put all my Silkstone dolls on these articulated, BJD bodies. They are fabulous.

Currently I have two Dynamite Dolls. That's more than I usually have. The girl dolls' clothes are from Clear Lan. Boots on left are Azone. Green handbag is Purse of the Month from a while back.

I purchased the outfit from the Kesenia "Your Kind of Model" doll after seeing IRL pictures. The doll's vampire mouth still doesn't appeal to me, but the outfit is wonderful.

The base dress is a pastel pink strappy cocktail sheath and will stand alone as a lovely garment. It's beautifully designed and constructed. The over dress is sheer black with silver and black embroidery.
The shoes are too small for FR2 feet but they are also nicely designed.

My model is a re-rooted True Royalty Vanessa who is sporting an FR2 body. I had to 'tie' the straps on the pink dress to make the bodice smaller for this body.

It comes with silver colored jewelry (earrings, bracelet and ring) an embroidered handbag with a magnetic closure and a faux fur jacket. That's a lot of fashion and well worth it. 

 And for a little comic relief:

Modern Reproduction Ginny dolls.

Huckleberry Jackson's 2012 Line

Huck announced the debut of his new line which goes on sale today at 9PM CET Central European Time. I believe that is a 6 hour difference from eastern time. They would be 6 hours ahead. So  9PM CET = 3 PM EST.
Here is a group shot showing some of the offerings.

Explaining that he is so happy to own these dolls now, he designed an outfit specifically for each doll as opposed to creating a thematic presentation.

http://www.huckleberryjackson.com/shop/

Sandy

Every time I see pictures of the destruction of Far Rockaway and Rockaway Beach I feel stunned.  My grandparents had a summer house on Beach 29th at Seagirt and I spent the best part of my childhood there. That house was razed years ago but is in my heart forever. Going to the beach during the day and the boardwalk at night. It never got any better.

The boardwalk is gone. 

As an adult I taught in a public school on Beach 5st St and I could see the ocean 2 blocks away through my classroom window. I wonder if the mosaic mural my art students created survived in the lobby of the building.

Another hurricane I remember...I was less than 10 years old. My mother drove to Rockaway from Brooklyn where we lived to 'rescue' my grandparents because the bay and the ocean had met. I remember all the earth worms on the sidewalks. There's no reason or rhyme as to what is important to a young child. That was very long ago. The water was thigh high in front of the house. I don't remember where my mother parked the car.

The Rockaways are situated between the Atlantic Ocean on one side and Jamaica Bay on the other.  


Please donate something to the American Red Cross.  Anything. This is the United States and we need each other. It happened here.

Progress in the New Doll Room

Unpacking and organizing the dolls has been more difficult than packing them. I did not keep all the dolls dressed. Some were only partly dressed and some nude. Anyway, it was time to record more progress and I have done so with a bunch of quick snaps taken during the hurricane yesterday afternoon. We're halfway there.

Here are a few more shots I took this afternoon after unpacking the rest of my FR and many of my Silkstones.

 The large showcase for my Tonner 16" dolls is elsewhere in the house.

The Best and the Worst of the Rest - Tropicalia

Four weeks after the Tropicalia convention ended, people who pre-ordered the convention collection began receiving their dolls. It was supposed to take only two weeks but the slow boat from China was extra slow this time.

The most popular of all the dolls were Eugenia and Agnes but they were not part of the convention collection. I loved Elyse more than any doll from the entire event. I liked the Vanessa but not her awful gown. I agree that Eugenia was gorgeous but her gown was a terrible fit. In fact, most of the clothes that had that particular bodice style were manufactured very poorly.

For me, the best doll out of the convention collection was Dasha.

Once I took off her trashy blue dress with its crooked velvet bow, combed out her hair and redressed her, she took on a new personna.

In my photo she is wearing an outfit by V John (dress and head wrap) and carrying an IT purse.

Adele is a beauty. But, again, the sewing of the bodice insert is very bad.

It was the same on Kyori's top. They pucker and don't lay right.

I also think that Natalia is gorgeous. Her hair color, skin and makeup are a fabulous combination.

But her outfit is a nightmare of color and texture. In my opinion it is unsophisticated and garish.

Poppy is cute but her outfits are 'ho-hum-where- have-we-seen-that-before?'

Let's just skip to the worst of the bunch - Veronique. Gone is the beautiful Veronique that enticed so many original Fashion Royalty fans to begin collecting these dolls.

What we have in this version is a paranoid-looking doll wearing a lab coat with a beaded belt over an ill-fitting pink and blue dress. This has to be the worst Vero ever produced - tasteless and laughable. Even Vero isn't smiling anymore.

What the heck happened to good taste and design? I can't understand how Jason would even want to be associated with most of this.

Perhaps if I take the attitude I used to have towards a roll of film, I can accept the degradation of the Fashion Royalty line. If you get one or two good pictures out of a roll of 36, you're doing well.

Update on Violet Eyes That Weren't

Mattel/Barbie Collector came through on this one. They sent me a return label and I sent the wonky-eyed Miss Liz back to them. Today I received a new one with properly screened eyes. I am pleased. It did not cost me anything additional,  except time, to get a good doll.

Much better!

Her eyes are still not violet but neither are the promo's eyes.
So, the moral of the story is, don't settle for a messed up doll