Blog Challenge 25: Faceups?

Ahhh, the faceup question. The simple answer is no. I will never do a faceup on one of my dolls. The more detailed answer is below, lol.

I can count the number of dolls I have bought blank on one hand. There was Ianthe and Isis at the start of my collecting history and now Vesna and Rasmus. The rest of my dolls who have non-default faceups either did not offer an option to have their head faceuped, or I bought them blank or already painted secondhand.

This is simply because usually I have no problems with the default - there are a few dolls that I will be buying later on that I am going to pick up blank because I'm not a fan of the default, but that rarely happens. Usually I consider getting the default a cheaper and more convenient option than finding a faceup artist and spending more money to get them painted. Three of my four dolls bought blank was because buying them blank was cheaper - Ianthe and Isis because at that time I believe the number of dolls I was buying at the same time was around 6 (it was a bit nuts in the early days) and Vesna because I was already buying a few extras and I thought I might as well knock off a little bit of the money. Originally I was planning on buying Vesna with a default. Rasmus is a little different, while I liked his body and fantasy parts well enough, I was never a real fan of his face, especially not his eyes. They were a bit too narrow and slit-like for me, so I was going to decide when I got him whether or not to mod his eyes. (in the beginning I was actually thinking about dumping his head and finding another... then I realised how few SOOM heads that were available in CW I actually liked... most of them I already have.) So Rasmus being blank is to allow me the option to mod his eyes if I really dislike them.

Ironically enough, those four previously mentioned as well as Persephone (who is a special case) are also the only dolls I had a choice whether or not to have/keep a default faceup, the rest are either event items where no faceup was given or secondhand and bought blank or already with a faceup. Persephone is a exception because while I bought her secondhand with a default faceup, her default started to peel and I then chose to give her a non-default to replace it.

Faceups have in some cases - most notably Isis - made the character of the doll. Isis' ability to glare at me even while blank and her successive goth faceups make her who she is - this is also the case with Sirona, although her sleepy expression also helped!

While this is a BJD blog challenge for the most part, I am now the proud owner of a number of Blythes (only one of which I have) and I can honestly say that for the first time I am considering customising my own dolls.

Blythes are a lot larger than BJDs and that might have something to do with the idea that it may be easier to customise them. I don't have as clear an idea of what I want my Blythes to look like and feel that there might not be a bad thing when it comes to me customising them myself. It also looks a little easier than faceuping a BJD...

I have a faceplate arriving that I will use to practise on. Here goes nothing...


Dolls with default faceups:

1. Marcheline (new)
2. Bellona Lua (SH)
3. Osiris (new)
4. Ma'at (new)
5. Icarus (new)
6. Ares (new)
7. Mati (SH)
8. Arawn (SH)
9. Magnus (new)
10. Caesair (SH)
11. Angelu (new)
12. Anubis (new)
13. Janus (new)
14. Cassius (new)
15. Violet (new)
16. Seth (new)
17. Nephthys (new)
18. Veja (new)
19. Corvinus (new)
20. Sol (SH)
21. Pallus (new)
22. Emmeline (SH)
23. Mithras (new)
24. Diana (SH)
25. Thyra (new)

Dolls with non-default faceups:

1. Sirona (nc) - LK
2. Persephone (choice) - bought SH with a default originally - Andreja
3. Ianthe (choice) - LK
4. Isis (choice) - LK
5. Morrigan (nc) - LK
6. Vulcan (nc) - LK
7. Nemain (nc) - AngelToast
8. Poseidon (nc) - incomplete LK
9. Zeus (nc) - incomplete LK
10. Hades (nc) - LK
11. Fea (nc) - AngelToast
12. Pax (nc) - AngelToast
13. Nox (nc) - AngelToast
14. Magna Dea ??
15. Vesna (choice)
16. Rasmus (choice)

Mini Blythe Explosion

So I've gone a little Blythe crazy for a couple of weeks here. Well, not completely - but enough to change my Blythe collection fairly rapidly.

I blogged about the market happening... Blythe count 1.

So while she has been sitting to one side - I'm not a fan of shinny faces and I think until she looses it, she might stay sitting around, I've been looking at customisers. I signed up for Blythe Kingdom quite a while ago now and I spend most of my time (when I'm not aimlessly scrolling through the MP threads - lucky I don't like Blythes THAT much... and most of them are sold on ebay anyway so even if I did like them, I never have that much money that quickly, lol.) looking through the customisers.

I always knew that if I had a Blythe that they would have be customised in order to keep them (my VV's occupation of her carrier is proving that theory). So I am always on the lookout for customisers. Most notably at the moment, those who do mohair reroots.

I really like mohair and much prefer it over the cling-to-everything effect of saran. Not a lot of people do mohair reroots and I don't think I have the guts to do it myself. (I might be coming around to customising my own in regards to face ups and the like, but not mohair.)

So I dug up my courage and messaged one of the two customisers I was considering - Moofala. (http://chantillylace1.blogspot.com.au/) I haven't got an email back yet, so that has stalled. But then the same day I went off to the Australia Blythe forum and started to aimlessly trawl their Sales thread.

Wrong idea...

I found a thread entitled "3 Day sale all Girls under $130 including registered post"... I thought "Oooh cheap stuff!" and had a look.

Blythe count 3.

Yes... This delightful person was selling a Simply Mango - a doll I had always been considering because one of the Moofala customs I love so much is the same face mold and that gives me half a chance to a have a good custom on a reasonably priced doll.

The other one that caught my eye was a Love Mission.  It's kind of hard to explain why this one caught my eye - I didn't even know that there was a Blythe called Love Mission before I went into this thread. The face mold is completely different to the dolls which first caught my eye (of which the Very Vicky is one) or of the customs I love (of which the Simply Mango is one). It was the name, it reminds me of one of my all time favourite sets of books.

This might sound slightly icky since the name is "Love Mission" well, its not. The books are rare fiction with almost a cult following by those who know about them. I read them when my local library had copies (and this is a MASSIVE rarity - ironically my local library's copies have since simply disappeared.) The author is Liz Berry and the books are Easy Connection, Easy Freedom and my personal favourite, Mel. The books are very hard to find - the author herself has no copies of Easy Freedom and second hand copies have gone for as much as $300 on amazon and other booksellers.

Anyway, the books star a number of rock stars, as well as three distinct bands that the author has created. One of those bands is called 'Night Mission'.

Very strange and uber misdirected way to come to a purchase of a Blythe doll, but there you go. She's the only one I have very firm ideas about a look and a name and the like. Her name is going to be Devlin (Dev for short) - and she is going to be in the style of a late 70s, early 80s rock star.

So I am tossing up between giving my Love Mission, Dev, a full mohair reroot with big curls or getting her saran highlights in like red and purples - any ideas?