It has been awhile since I properly updated Softskin Tales. Many things have happened since I last updated and I would like to bring all those who read this back up to date with the developments in my resin family.

I last explored the wonderful feeling of “on shipping” with my Soom Silt, Cassius having his status changed. Cassius has since arrived (and I did mean to post about it), along with my friend’s Soom Keny.



The Soom family - Aurelius (Keny), Magnus, Cassius (Silt), Dorian and Lalana.



But what has brought me here is two other developments – I discovered earlier this week that DDE had received my Pipos Dark Alice, Violet, and I paid her shipping (she is currently flying somewhere above the Pacific on her way home); and the Dollzone order which includes Arum and Li Na is also on shipping, somewhere out of China.

I crossed my fingers to receive Violet before the weekend, but since she hasn’t landed yet, that might not be a possibility. I keep randomly checking the tracking and nothing has updated yet...

I don't think they travel on strength of will unfortunately.

So that's all so far...

well, except for some more changes to the Planned doll list and Dollzone releasing something ELSE that looks good...

On Shipping

Are there any better words in the doll community? When the script or email tells you that your long wait for your doll has ended? As most in the doll community know, a wait for a doll can be anywhere from 2 months – for the quickest; to 6 months – on the rare occasions. You never forget how many dolls you have incoming – most doll collectors will be able to reel off the dolls that they are waiting for.

I am waiting for:

·         Cassius – a SOOM Silt

·         Arum (Mk II) – A Dollzone Clovera

·         Li Na – A female Dragon Event baby

·         Vulcan’s body - FL MNF A-line muscular

·         Veja’s face – PukiPuki Sugar

·         Theia’s body - Pukipuki

·         Seth – PKF Ante

·         Nepthys – PKF Luna

·         Violet – Pipos Dark Alice

·         Corvinus – SOOM Tuff

And I got the beautiful news just yesterday that my Soom Silt, Cassius, was on SHIPPING!

I almost squealed. I didn’t (I’m not really that kind of person), but it’s that kind of feeling when you get a shipping notice. A squee moment.

You can also have the same type of Squee moments for other doll owners... especially when its dolls that you are getting or want to get. SOOM MD waiting threads (once the shipping notices come out) are endless squee sessions, especially for that first doll!

A girl on DoA has eagerly announced that her PKF Luna, one of the first Lunas out, has shipped. Everyone wants to know what the new Luna looks like in owner pics (one of the true measures of a dolls sculpt...).

Shipping simply is the best moment for anyone... knowing that your doll is flying on its way home...

I will however confess that I have never been (so far) a victim of the dreaded customs invoice monster that so many are. None of my dolls have ever sat in Customs at the Melbourne airport for longer than an hour. Quite often they only stay in there for about 20 minutes. (I love the fact that we are super strict on customs, and they don't charge for anything that is listed as costing as less than $1000... but then my Chalco didn't incur customs charges either.)

Watch this space... Cassius is in the air and could be home before the end of the week!

New arrivals and other things...

So first things first - new arrivals.

I originally wasn't going to purchase a Chic-line during the release event period, even though they had a Lishe there and she was added to my list... (for more information about my Lishe... issues... check out Lished) but that was before I found out about the Event items.

As I have talked about before in a previous blog post, I have a small addiction to Fairyland's Breakaways and of course Fairyland had to release a Little Fee or L-line Breakaway faceplate for the new Chic line Event. I attempted to buy one second hand and placed a want to buy in the DoA Marketplace and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

It came towards the end of the Event time and no one was selling the Event faceplates. Especially not the Breakaway. That made me a little worried and my new character - Hades, peeved off. So, in order to get a Breakaway, I took down my Want To Buy and instead placed a fullset El on layaway at DDE.

(Of course if you read the other post, you would know I managed to pick up two more Breakaway faceplates in the mean time).

However, I got a shipping notice for my El over a week ago, which of course was exciting, Janus and Hades were on their way home! They buzzed around for a while on a plane and landed on Monday, and were delivered yesterday morning.

I have had a few problems with Janus however.

When I unpacked him, his eyelashes looked strange... (I apologise for the blurriness of the image). One wasn't correctly stuck down and was plastered all over his eyebrows but the other seemed ok.

Unfortuantely his funny eyelash dropped off when I was dressing him, so I ripped the second off as well.  The other thing was his wig. I couldn't get it on! Now I've had small wigs before, both Osiris and Anubis have wigs that won't go over a wig cap and stretch on over their heads. I tried this with Janus, but his wig continued to simply "pop" off. There was not enough stretch in it to properly stretch over his head!

So my brand new boy is wigless for the moment until I find a suitable (and small enough) wig for him.

He did of course bring Hades with him, but that boy is still in his plastic bag until I take him out to take photos of him with his two brothers Zeus and Poseidon. Hades' wig still hasn't arrived, along with Magnus' and I'm more than slightly annoyed as two orders that I have made since I ordered Hades and Magnus' wigs (containing Poseidon and Faustus' wigs and one for a wig for Zeus) have arrived no problems!

The other things... well, I think a photo will explain it all...

And yes.... that is all of them, both mine and LillyKitten's! We'll of course be redoing it by the end of the year, as there are a number of incomings that aren't here yet... should be interesting to find the room to do it when everything is organised!

The new arrivals include - 3 SDs - my Dollzone Clovera, and Lilly's Resinsoul Ai and Dollzone Helen; 2 MNF - Vulcan and Gallagher; 3 Yos - my Soom Silt and Dark Alice, and Lilly's Soom Keny; 3 Pukifee - my Luna and Ante and Lilly's Luna; and 2 more Multihead pukis, one for each of us...

Plus there's always a possibilty (thanks Soom) for another MSD...

the Tale of Argus

When I first started collecting BJDs, I created a character called Argus. He was originally supposed to be encased in an Iplehouse Ryan and was to be my next purchase after my Pukifee Zoe.

I think this is best encapsulated in my DoA signature pics of the time. Argus features for the first couple of signatures as I saved for him... and he was placed further and further back in the line as other dolls popped to the top.



First DoA sig - Argus on the end...



2nd sig... Argus still there, but two more in front..



3rd sig and another two before Argus

4th sig and two more dolls... but no Argus

So it came to the end of 2009 and Argus was still on the wait list.

But by this time I had stopped liking Iplehouse so much (all of the sculpts disappeared off my want list) and I had instead discovered Angelheim and their affordable hoovies. A few Angelheims found their way onto my want list and Argus was reshelled into an Angelheim Luka. He then acquired hooves and horns into the bargain.

But he stilled remained fairly low on the list and other dolls were still being bought before him.

He came closer to being bought when Indollgence picked up Angelheim.

Suddenly Angelheim announced a sale... 30% off all dolls and resin parts... and I couldn’t resist. Argus was ordered along with Titus, LillyKitten’s Ciel through Indollgence.

Finally, Argus was ordered, coming home and was shifted onto the wait list.

I was told that a box had arrived from Angelheim two weeks ago, only to find out a few hours later that it was just clothes and a doll for another customer.... I was massively disappointed. Angelheim seems to ship its dolls separately!

But Argus arrived last night and was hurriedly unwrapped and looked at. He has been moved out with Titus to be some of the first dolls to be placed in the new place.

He is beautiful and looks to be a dark version of his brother Titus. From his beginnings it looks as if Argus and Titus will be involved in the protection of the King, either as his personal guard or guards of the palace gates.

Now I am awaiting Janus and Hades, for whom I now have a shipping notice...

 BONUS:

LillyKitten's Titus...

Dolly Plans... designed to be broken?

The Family... MkV

Is there such thing as a good dolly plan? One that is able to be adhered to and followed?

I made a lot of plans at the start of the year around how many dolls I would buy and how many I wouldn't, especially after buying and completing 10 dolls in the space of just short of a year... After all, I only just started collecting in 2009.

I was only meant to purchase one doll this year. That was the original grand plan. One single doll - other than of course the requirement to complete the heads which I already had, and I started 2010 with a number of finished dolls.

That was broken by Magnus and the plan (MkI), looked like this:

• Jan: Complete Bellona Lua, Sirona, Mati, Hyperion
• Feb: Magnus - 4mth layaway
• Mar: Magnus
• Apr: Magnus
• May: Magnus - final payment
• Jun: Vulcan's body
• Jul: Theia's body
• Aug: Argus (layaway)
• Sept: Argus
• Oct: Argus
• Nov: Argus
• Dec - NO DOLLS.

That didn't take long to change... I was trawlling the marketplace when I came across Nemain.... and Arawn. So the plan had to change too... (in Feburary...)

Plan (MkII)

• Jan: Complete Bellona Lua, Sirona, Mati, Hyperion
• Feb: Magnus - 4mth layaway; Nemain, Arawn
• Mar: Magnus, Nemain
• Apr: Magnus, Nemain
• May: Magnus - final payment
• Jun: Vulcan's body
• Jul: Theia's body
• Aug: Argus (layaway)
• Sept: Argus
• Oct: ---
• Nov: ---
• Dec - NO DOLLS.

I still wasn't getting much....
Still in Feb and something was released... a very cute, very tiny Pipos Baby Alice... and she was limited... what was I supposed to do? Well... that changed things again....

Plan MkIII

• Jan: Complete Bellona Lua, Sirona and Mati
• Feb: Magnus - 4mth layaway; Nemain, Arawn, Angelu
• Mar: Magnus, Nemain, Angelu
• Apr: Magnus (final Payment), Nemain, Angelu
• May: Angelu

Well, by this point my plans were completely out of whack and I didn't bother to attempt to try and document it again, I simply tried to keep up!

The Chic line event was in April...  and I only just caught that... In order to catch a birthday for a friend and have a legitimate reason for a parcel from Fairyland, that meant another doll... and of course now three faceplates.

Then Fairyland announced its summer Event... I admit, Fairyland is more than a little addicting. Fairyland have become more wise about Event items... now they don't easily double up and its much harder to get more than one.

All that means... to date, 17 more dolls this year - to date... This list includes dolls ordered, but not yet delivered...

I will have given bodies to six:

1. Mati
2. Hyperion
3. Bellona Lua
4. Sirona
5. Vulcan
6. Theia

And I have picked up 11 new dolls

1. Nemain
2. Magnus
3. Angelu
4. Argus
5. Janus
6. Cassius
7. Arum (reshelled)
8. Li Na
9. Seth
10. Nepthys
11. the Dark Alice

I have also picked up a number of floating heads...

1. Arawn
2. Caesair
3. Poseidon
4. Hades
5. Zeus
6. Veja

The most ironic thing is that I will have given bodies to all the dolls I collected last year... I have to count that as a plus.

But then... the year is not over. Fairyland still have another Event... Scary thought, isn't it??

Lost... or Found?

When Pipos announced that it was going to release a new Dark Alice, I was excited. I have one of the limited Alices, the Baby Alice in blue, and I quite liked the other Alices they had released previously, though I had been too late to pick them up.

I quite liked the gloomy gothy feel of the two preview pics of the Cheshire and Dali that they were also releasing, as a pic of the Alice wasn't available for a while. When they finally did release a pic of the Open Eye Alice, I loved it.

The time came for it to come up with the news that she would be a 20 doll limited set... 20 open eyes and 20 half closed eyes and she would be released at 11pm Australian time... Unfortunately I didn't manage to stay up that late and when a friend checked early the next morning, she was all sold out.

I accepted it. I knew that it would have been a close thing to get one since there were a lot of people that wanted her.

Then today I heard that DDE had some of her...

I have put in a layaway order for her, and hope that I get her... but I don't know - is she lost, or is she found?

Hades, Poseidon... and Zeus - a little BA addiction...

Over the past year, Fairyland had been talking about the release of a mature mini. When the Chic-line first came out, I was alright with not getting one. Then I saw what the Event items were and my mind was changed for me and fast.

Cerberus Project first released its Breakaway or BA sculpt as a limited Delf. When they split from Luts and created Fairyland, it became increasingly clear that the Delf line was now the property of Luts. When Fairyland released a Feeple BA, it caused a problem, as apparently Fairyland were thinking of making the BA a basic. I don’t pretend to know the details, but after that development, the Feeple Breakaway ceased to be sold and the sculpt returned to the limited and event head status.

Vulcan - Minifee

I received my first BA as a part of a Fairyland Event in 2009. Fairyland had produced a second scar head to be released as an Event item with their Scar Shiwoo and a newly designed Scar arm – the ‘Lightning’ version. (A Fire arm was released as an event item later in the year).

As I was participating in a GO at the time (specifically targeted to get the Event items as well as the three Little Fee ordered) and my friend and I had enough with our Little Fee to qualify for both Scar heads and two scar arms, I got to choose which of the two heads I wanted. It was a little bit of a non-choice, my friend is a well-known Shiwoo collector (her exploits can be found here: shiwooed.blogspot.com) but I’m sure if I had liked the Scar Shiwoo better she would have given him up for me.

Luckily for both of us, I liked the Scar Breakaway better. I soon discovered that this BA was a little bit... pushy. His name is Vulcan, and along with his lightening arm, he also possesses a fire arm and will soon also received a scarred chest (from the current Event) – he has turned out to be pushy, annoying and generally over the top. (and ironically has an on-going fight with the Scar Shiwoo, known as Gallagher).

So I had one BA. I liked the face a lot and when the head of a sleeping BA popped up on the marketplace – a feeple, I snapped it up and Arawn was born. Arawn, in comparison to Vulcan, didn’t talk much, if at all. He just sat in my black box of heads and said nothing. I kept my eyes out for a Open-eyed head, since I didn’t like the prospect of having to find someone to mod Arawn’s eyes open.

Arawn - Feeple

I got lucky... an Open Eye BA head with a Midnight Blue Feeple faceup popped up on the MP and it didn’t take much for me to grab it. But even with open eyes, Arawn still didn’t say anything. This changed recently when he DEMANDED his own Scar Arm from the most recently Fairyland Event...

And this takes us to Hades... Poseidon and yes, Zeus.

When Fairyland released the Chicline, they also released a L-line or Little Fee BA faceplate. I considered it, and since I had a mini collection of Fairyland BAs, I decided I would get one. This faceplate rapidly named itself Hades, and proceeded to tell me how things were GOING to be.

I placed up a Want-to-buy on the Marketplace to get Hades, but none was selling the faceplates. I was a little disappointed, but Hades was apoplectic. I was ORDERED to buy a Chic-line fullset boy so that Hades could come home. Since I wasn’t all adverse to that, I did.

Hades will come home with a Chic line El known as Janus.

A week or two after I had ordered Janus to get Hades, I saw a notice on the MP selling a WS L-line BA... I capitulated fairly quickly, after all, LTF BA twins was a cute idea... well, perhaps a bit of a worry was more like it, since Hades had been ordering me around to get wigs and the like and he hadn’t even been made...

Poseidon - LTF (with his wig!)

The new BA was quickly christened Poseidon – I saw a certain amusement factor in this since Hades and Poseidon were brothers according to Greek mythology. I reflected to my friend that if I ever got a third one (and it was a vague idea in the back of my head), I would name it after the third son of Kronos... Zeus.

Poseidon was not as much as a handful as Hades... I ordered his wig from Leekeworld a week or so after I had ordered Hades’ (same style, different colours). I thought I had two different types of BAs – pushy, overbearing ones like Vulcan and Hades, and quieter, nicer ones like Arawn and Poseidon.

Then I got a delivery notice from Leekeworld. It wasn’t for the wigs that I had ordered for Magnus and Hades (to this date I have not received a delivery notice for those wigs), but instead for Poseidon’s wig, which I had ordered a LOT later. I think Poseidon simply wanted his wig NOW rather than waiting until Hades’ had come. This was a little warning that I might have someone who wasn’t quite as quiet as I thought they would be.

Two days ago, I saw a notice for an NS BA L-line on the Market place... I pounced, and yesterday I paid for the third brother. Zeus.

I’m not quite sure what I have gotten myself in for.... three of them. Hades, Poseidon and Zeus.... (plus Arawn and Vulcan.... just hoping that Fairyland will not release a non-scarred MNF Breakaway).