6/16/2011

Using Fill Flash and Mattel's Gustave Klimt Barbie Doll

I love the Klimt doll! She's very pretty, the clothing is removable, her hair is cute and her arms and wrists are articulated. Unfortunately from the waist down she has no articulation and instead they opted to give us the "pose." Also, I practically slit my wrists getting her out of her box and removing all the sharp shards of clear vinyl holding her down and stuck in her head. The best price outside of using a BC.Com coupon that I could find was at shoprockcandy.com for $34.95. Of course I had to pay New York state tax but by comparison, it was the lowest price for me after the shipping ($5.95) and tax ($3.58) was added.


This doll deserves some real studio time but I took some point & shoot pics of her outside yesterday. It was a bright, sunny day as you can see. I put her on a portion of my deck railing where there is bright shade. 

Compare these identical pictures.
Flash turned off
Flash turned on
They're identical in that I did not move the doll. All I did was turn the flash on. Using flash when your background is very bright is an important technique to pick out details. Most people use an evaluative exposure setting to determine how light or dark their photo will be. I'm not going to get into that technical discussion but no matter what your exposure setting, the use of fill flash will brighten your subject, bring out the details and make it stand out against a bright background. Do not be afraid of the flash!



6/14/2011

SALE ALERT! Radio City Rockette Trunk and The Doll Market's Weekly Web Specials

I'm signed up to receive weekly lists of specials from The Doll Market. Most of the time their prices are not all that good or the merchandise is of no interest to me.  I do love my 10" Madame Alexander Cissettes so when I saw the Radio City Rockette Trunk set offered for $99.97 the juices started flowing. What I do when presented with that type of sale is I search the internet for comparable prices. Right off the bat, Amazon.Com came up with the same doll set for $99.95 and free shipping. Doll Market loses due to the shipping differrence but I know that some of you are boycotting Amazon so, there you go.
The list price is $279.95.

Madame  Alexander Radio City Rockette Trunk Set feat. Cissette
I love trunk sets because of all the outfits and the storage trunk is usually cute as well.
Description:

10 inch vinyl fully articulated "Radio City Rockette" Cissette doll has red hair, blue eyes; she comes wearing a blue satin leotard that has crystal embellishments and fur on trim of leotard and opera gloves. A matching white hat, white choker, pantyhose and silver shoes completes this Rockettes look. This Cissette has three different outfits that come in a keepsake trunk; the other two are: a green velveteen pleated dress that has puffed sleeves, silver and crystal accents, fur trimmed hemlines and a matching festive hat. The other outfit is a slick leotard that has a flesh colored and gold laced bust attached at the bottom to the bodice that has red vertical stripes and has red tights attached. The final touches for this outfit are the gold leather shoes and a straw hat with a large white feather attached. 
Get ready for Christmas early! It's a good price and with the free shipping, it's sweeter.

Links:
 Doll Market

Amazon. Com

Couture Doll Design Challenge III Winner, Huckleberry Jackson


Faced with plenty of stiff competition by contestants in the US, Canada, Poland, Philippines, Russia and the Ukraine, the only entrant from Germany, Huckleberry Jackson,  swept several of the challenges completely. He is one seriously talented designer!


The final overall scores are presented in this chart:


  It is apparent that Jackson's muse is the FR2 doll as most of his entries used these dolls as models. 



Congratulations to Huck on this achievement.  

Watch this excellent video by Huckleberry featuring music from Star Wars and his doll fashions:

 



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