Market Aftermath

Markets are evil, evil things.

Two years ago, a lovely Blythe collector set up a modern doll market for Barbies, Blythes and BJDs (plus any other modern dolls which are bypassed by the other doll markets). I have been to every one since then and most of the time have kept myself to simply purchasing BJD clothing.

The final market of last year I started looking at some of the Blythes. I joined up with a few Blythe forums and started to price them. I had a good look at custom Blythes and have pretty much decided that if I got a Blythe that I would get a customised one.

I went to the first Market of the year yesterday and spotted a Very Vicky for sale.

... she's now mine.

I haven't decided on a name yet, although Magnolia is the name which keeps going through my mind, so that may be what she is called later. But I have already started to consider how I will customise her.

I would love to have her hair re-rooted with mohair, but having had a search for people to re-root her (since I'm unsure how to do it myself) it seems like I might have to wait, since there aren't that many who do it. So I'm now considering saran highlights.

She will most definitely get a new face up which will be matte - being able to see myself in her face is not a good thing, especially not when taking photos! The other thing she needs is some new eye chips. I have to decide on which ones and from where and how I will change them... etc. etc. etc.

And I have to pick a customiser to help me! I would prefer an Australian for the first one, so I have to do some more digging around!

Confusion follow up... Delivery!

So he arrived today!

I found the Mega Gem sized box to fit the feet in amusing... though they are UBER feet.

Beast hands... extra height with extra leg and checking out the specs.

The wings propped together (still debating on super glue and blutack) and the toggles for his back

Rasmus!

The outfit... that cape is heavy!

Of website errors and confusion

So I have been mired in confusion since Thursday. On Thursday I went into the SOOM website to pay the next instalment on my Arkose. I followed all the instructions and had got to the last bit when it informed me that there was an error with Paypal. It suggested that the payment hadn't gone through.

So I paid it again, and it went through fine. I refreshed the page, to make sure that the payment had gone through this time... and it came up with "Left to pay: -$1.00".

So even though I hadn't MEANT to pay Rasmus off he suddenly was paid off.

Later that day - roughly lunchtime, I got an email stating that they had changed the status of the order that I had. I immediately thought "Surely they haven't shipped him already!" - they hadn't, they'd just changed him to "before shipping."

The next day I was randomly checking the status of my orders on the SOOM website, when I noticed a blue note next to Rasmus... "on shipping." I hadn't received an emailed shipping notice, so I clicked into the invoice to see the EMS tracking number. No number was listed.

I checked later on Friday - no number. Saturday... no number. Sunday... no number. Monday (this morning)... no number. So at roughly 3pm, I put a question on the board about the lack of tracking number and querying the lack of a number - had he really been shipped or had they stuffed up like the paypal notice stuffed up earlier?

I was out for dinner when I got the email "SOOM has updated the status of the order"... My thought was that SOOM had corrected an error and placed Rasmus back on "before shipping".

I logged on, expecting to see a green notice... instead it was blue! I looked into the invoice, and there was a tracking number. I checked it...

Rasmus made to Australia yesterday and made it into Melbourne this morning... it is likely that he'll be delivered tomorrow (since today was a Public Holiday).

....! So confusing!

Her Royal Highness, Vesna

So if you're not a follower of my flickr stream, you might unaware of the arrival of Vesna, my SOOM Clozel.

She actually arrived on Friday, but although I asked my brothers about parcel arrivals - neither of them had seen a delivery man. Frequently I am advised by a card when delivery men haven't found me and have left a parcel at my local post office. When I got home, there was no card, so I was a little disappointed.

When the tracking finally updated at about 6:30 to show that there had been an attempted delivery and my package was residing at a post office, it was too late to go out and get it. This immediately caused a problem - not all post offices open on Saturdays. Those which are run by the Postal Service - Australia Post, are never open on Saturdays and are almost always closed by 4:30 Monday to Friday. The other type of post office, those which are franchises, can be open on Saturdays and often set their own hours.

I am "lucky" enough to live between two post offices. One is a outlet, run by Australia Post, which closes by 4:30 Monday to Friday and isn't open on weekends. I am only able to get to this post office on certain days after work - Thursdays and Fridays, simply because they are the only two days a week that I finish before 4pm.

The other post office is a licensed franchise, which is usually open until 5:30pm Monday to Fridays and 9-12 on Saturdays. It depends on the courier to which post office my parcels go to. Without a slip, I have no way of knowing on Friday afternoon, where my parcel had gone.

So... either I can collect my parcel on Saturday morning at the licensed post office, or I have to wait until Thursday when I get out of work early enough.

Enter problem number 2. I make appointments well in advance and for this particular Saturday, I had made a 9 am appointment at my hairdresser (red/pink... woo!) and I often spend a couple of hours in the hairdresser and if its busy, it can be up to three hours. So I spent the morning stressing over whether or not I would have enough time to collect the parcel before going to the hairdresser or if I would finish before the post office shut and if I didn't then I'd have to wait until at least Wednesday to get my parcel.

Luckily the salon wasn't all that full and it didn't take as long as normal and I was able to get her! She doesn't have a faceup yet, since I took it off when I originally ordered her, and nor does she have her final eyes yet, they're still coming from the maker. But she has her wig and her magnificent outfit and those wings...

Unlike all of my other SOOMs, she isn't wearing her fantasy feet - I haven't really unwrapped them at all. I did unwrap one, and it wouldn't stand up on its own. So I think I'm going to consign them to the storage box and find another pair of feet for her. Currently I want to find a pair of CW Migma feet, they will better match those of the Arkose, and since Rasmus (my incoming Arkose) and Vesna are meant to be twins, they will match very well.

The other reason for this is that the Migma feet weren't all that popular, so there are a few pairs floating around on the MP. I haven't bought a pair yet, but I'm looking for both them and possible faceup artists for her head. I'll be looking for a slot for her in the near future.

Blog Challenge 24: Would you mod a doll?

Its been a while since I responded to one of the blog challenges. But here I am again, ready to blog. (For other breaking news, Vesna has been shipped.)

Question 24: Would you mod a doll?

I have nothing against mods. It is a bit of a given if you want a Vampire Elf (VE) from CP (Cerberus Project). All of CPs VEs are sleeping heads and given the popularity of Vampire dolls, to only do them in sleeping means that it becomes harder and hard to have one of these dolls in its original sleeping state. There are a few CP dolls who are vampires but are not sleeping - these are all older Delfs who don't have a sleeping head in that size. The ones I know for sure are just dreaming are the Lishe, the El and the Shiwoo. Lishe and El have particularly narrow dreaming eyes.

I have one doll who I have modded from sleeping to OE who is a VE and that is my VE Chloe, Pax. I don't particularly like sleeping dolls as a person in themselves, I can't quite see how a character would work sleeping all the time. I have been frequently tempted to mod my VE Lishe, Nemain, as I am not a fan of those slitted dreaming eyes, but I want to keep her original.

I also have a couple of dolls who were modded before they came to me - one for a good reason and one which seems silly. Sirona is my modded Dreaming Lishe and her eyes now look as if they are half open, which makes her character look good. The other is a Juri 2005 Limited edition who had her eyes opened further - which I don't think was a good idea. I'm not keeping her, but more people are looking for unmodded Juris rather than the modded ones.

The other doll that I am planning to mod is my SOOM Arkose, Rasmus. He hasn't been paid off yet and I am waiting until I have him in hand, but I am so far (based on production and owner images) going to open his eyes. For me they just look too narrow and I want them a touch wider - but I am being good and waiting until I get him in my hot little hands before I decide.

I would not, ever, pick up the dremel myself to mod them - I always use the experience of others to mod my dolls - I am not paritcularly artist and don't feel that I have the skills to successfully mod the dolls myself.

Doll Mags

I quite enjoy reading magazines and when I was a fresh new collector I was able to read HauteDoll. I somewhat enjoyed this, HauteDoll would have at least one article on my particular style of BJDs and it was usually fairly substantial and interesting.

I didn't like having to flip through all the pages of pictures of Tonners and Sybraties and at the time I wasn't particularly interested in articles on Blythes, although now I would probably like the inclusion more.

A while ago, HauteDoll shut down and merged with Doll Reader. It shrunk to a couple of pages at the back of the magazine and BJDs were shunted to perhaps once every second magazine, sometimes it was limited to a single page or a couple of words. Sometimes there was nothing on our style of BJDs.
Doll Reader itself was about bigger dolls and the more "European/American" BJDs - artist dolls and the like. Late last year after struggling to find Doll Reader in shops, I bought a digital membership.

Today I read that Doll Reader is closing and merging with another magazine called DOLLS. so I searched and found their website and had a look at their current issue... not a thing about BJDs and modern styled dolls such as Blythes (which didn't particularly get a look in with Doll Reader) were no where to be seen. All the BJDs that were covered were the big limbed, large faced young child type or the artist dolls (which I am not a fan of).

So in like two years the ability to read any articles of any sort on Asian BJDs has dried up.

Some might then point out the online offerings - I know of two which are BJD related, BJD Collectasy, whose articles are rarely updated and often simply don't interest me. The other was BJD Magazine, which has simply stopped being updated - it was mostly doing interviews of BJD artist doll makers, which I'm not massively interested in.

The other magazine that I was reading was TinyFeet - which has just announced a sabbatical and was mostly a photography magazine and had no real articles.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying any of these online offerings are terrible or anything like that, they're just not meeting my want of articles as well as nice photos.

One of the girls at work suggested that I write a magazine myself - which stuck in my mind and I was thinking about articles that I could write, things like 'Aesthetic v posability' or on a topic like the the growth of more realistic dolls - Iplehouse, SOOM, the Fairyland F65s. But I don't know, I don't honestly know if people are interested in that sort of thing and even I can't think up enough for a full magazine.

But I am sick of the LACK of stuff for collectors of our particular version of BJDs. So if you know of any good magazines which give BJDs more than a single page every so often and actually do an article or similar, please tell me, I really want to know!

Other dolls

I have always been a doll person - I had a vinyl Orange Blossom when I was little, I've had a collection of Barbies, porcelains and even for a little while some Bratz. I have had figurines, older dolls and kokeshi - and while some of my collections have gone (most of my Barbies and all of my Bratz and porcelains), I still have a number of dolls other than BJDs - which include my Kokeshi, two of my mother's dolls, a couple of Welsh dolls and a figurine or two.

Now, that collection also includes a Monster High doll. I have noticed the growth of Monster High ownership in adults around - Xhanthi customised one fairly recently - and LK has recently started collecting a few too.

I've seen them around and before now have been fairly happy with my other, extensive collection of BJDs. However, today, whilst wandering around and helping LK find a Torali and another Draculaura, I finally decided to buy into the craze.

I am now the owner of a Frankie Stein. The outfit she's wearing I'm not crazy about, but I love the shoes and the style - I also like the possibility, which white it is no wear near as good as a BJD, is pretty good since dolls of this style I am used to have no possibility whatsoever. I also love the styling and the details - the shoes in particular are a favourite of mine, Frankie's heels are bolts...

I was amused at the statement that these dolls do not stand on there own. I think it took me less time than some of my BJDs to get her standing on her own and she's been doing so for the last hour or so. Silly people who make these dolls don't realise that some of us have extensive experience in standing dolls - I think the hardest I've stood so far was missing a large section of thigh and has a habit of bending his knees the WRONG way when attempting to stand him. And I got him to stand for at least 30 minutes, if not more.

So what is in the wind for this particular start of a collection? I'm planning on getting a few more - I wouldn't mind a Lagoona Blue, a Ghoulia Yelps and a Draculaura. I am also definitely going to get a Nefera De Nile and especially I'm looking forward to getting my hands on an Operetta. Some of the styles are so cool - Operetta's shoes have treble clefs for heels and she's a 50s/rockabilly queen, especially with the classic hairstyle.

Not sure how long this particular collection will last, and I don't know about getting any customised ones, I think I am happy enough with the normal looking ones so far. And no, they won't take over from my BJD collection... I don't think anything can surpass that one now...