Famous face up...

Gosh.
Six months just passes like a thief in the night, stealing all the news and gossip that would have made for good blog posts!

The path-changing news that I last mentioned was getting a job at Makielab! I had just been for an interview the day I met Wendy and within a week or two I had left my local job of 16 years and was making videos, Vine's, faceups and photos for the awesome startup I had been following for well over a year!
How amazing!
I'm loving every second of it too and am blessed to work with lovely, friendly, talented people!

It's exciting at the moment because the ios game is about to launch any week now so that kids (or adults of course ;p ) can create their Makies fashions to play the game or make their things real with the technological magic we have via the lab! Digital to real. Or visa versa! How good is that!?

And in other doll news, Cessily has new eyes, My MSD's have a few new clothes to wear, I still haven't given my Unoa a faceup... or name... and I removed Judge and Fidgit's faceups to redo at some point. Ooh... and I bought a second body for Judge's other head but I'm undecided about keeping or selling #2.

I also have another Azone doll from my friend Georgie (aka Babytarragon in dolly circles) who I also introduced into Makielab and she now works with me :) Plus my Xmas treat to myself was a Hot Toys Midas Iron Man.

And it's Spring. I see sunshine!
Happy days!

Here's a little project I did before Xmas. James made and printed the earings and mic on a Makerbot and Elouise made the outfit. I designed and madeup the face and hair. Then Selfridges presented it to her slightly famous owner once she had turned on the Oxford Street lights!

Squeezing in a photoshoot...

Knowing that I was going on a little 2 day break with Mushroom-Makie to Glastonbury in Somerset, I thought I ought to mix things up a bit on Flickr with some photos other than Makies.

Honestly... I'm obsessed with my little digital character(s)!

So I unfurled the canvas-like backdrop that I've had for a month or so, and did a trial with Alice the Azone and, as I discovered, a matching companion for her; my Tokidoki Unicorno.

 

Cute couple! 

So I had a rummage in the bag of extras that I picked up from Robert and put together a little set for the Unoa. Unfortunately she can't stand unaided yet, so I had to put her in a pair of Judge's boots to strengthen her ankles. But with a default wig, Rose's old homemade socks and some Unoa bunny ears, I got her looking somewhat morning-after-ish and used a new strip light for a bit of up-lit atmosphere.

And... it came as quite a shock. My phone kept binging for half the night. 12 times in fact. Because when I got up early the next morning to go on my trip (and very bleary eyed with all the wakeups) it had transpired that my special little lady here had wound up on the Flickr Explore page and had been viewed by seven or eight hundred people. I guess it was perceived as a worthy photo. That's about 100 views an hour!
So that's a new dolly first for me. And maybe a little Karma taking a role in it.
Thank heavens I'd put her default faceup faceplate on! The rest are blank and awaiting my input :)

Oh... and Rob forwarded the missing default feet whilst I was away, so soon she'll be ready to evolve.

Many little Highs...

So... After the 100 subs video, my flatmate (or 'Jack') went a-travelling for a month and came back via Singapore with lovely Blythey/Makie-ey gifts from here, gawd bless 'im!:

Kimono, Dress hat & boot set and Azone shoes. :)

And if that wasn't enough, whilst he was away, I won a little prize from Duckie - to go with the little poncho draw I won from Poklfil. A cuuuute cape! (with some Plink and 'Birdy' stickers!). So thoughtful!

Most of my time was spent decorating my front hall whilst he was away as I wanted to utilise the afternoon light for doll work. So time for a bit of Cherry Blossom with sparkles:

(As I write, this desk is already a mess! lol)

And then, soon after finishing the hall, it was time to take Birdy out to her first 'completed' social. Did the fun London bits with Amy afterwards, like Cybercandy and Forbidden Planet, and managed to bag a Sakura (Cherry Blossom) Unicorno out of a Tokidoki blind-box!

Then I found my missing girl (or at least the sculpt that had originally vanished in the post). She's much older than the one I lost, but equally adorable, of course... (she is currently pending a new faceup as I unstrung and cleaned her recently)

*Breathe*

...And then, after only a month from ordering (during which time I finally ordered some boy-jeans!), I received the rosybrown body for my second Withdoll Juwel head. It was the first thing I'd ordered after receiving the overdue refund from the two lost dolls. I'm still unsure whether I'll be keeping both boys, but here they are before I cleaned and prepped Judge (sitting) for his new faceup too:

 

It was around this time that I managed to find an end of line, last of stock, display model of an overlocker/serger which, in the end, only cost me £25! Should be okay so long as I mainly work in straight lines and never need any replacement parts! lol. For the money, it's pretty darn good!

And then, also around this time, I sent the clapped out old Ziggy Makie head (minus eyebrows) to Poklfil for a dye bath so that she could send him back to me for experiments before working on her Cosma Diva commission. He suffered a bit where I modded him and sanded away his colour, but I'm now colour-matching him to Cosma and, along with the majority of my other doll heads, he's prepped and ready to go. If he is successful, and Fil likes 'him' (I say him when he was actually a her to start with, so that's how 'she'll' end up) I'll go ahead with Cosma.

Box 'o' [MSC-prepared] Heads

...and that's not everything yet! There'll be more catching up to come!

Vindication!

I couldn't put it off. I had to share her...

I'm in love with Lovett!

"I can feel a presence..." Birdy Lovett, my first Blythe custom :)

They're only photos from my phone, but as I say, I couldn't wait! I'm thrilled at how her hair turned out!

I finished re-rooting on Thursday night in the small hours and then washed her hair last night after work. But I never got around to using the hair dryer because the rest of the evening was pretty much... combing.

So much combing that it was virtually dry by the time I'd finished! I just left the scalp on her stand (on top of a mug - see pic, top right) to dry out the roots completely and then 'finished' it off today with my indispensable bristle toothbrush (that thing has proved to be soooo useful in the doll hobby).

So I head bedwards tonight happy in the knowledge that, for now, I have a complete Blythe. Proper photos pending.

I hope she doesn't have a seance with the other dolls tonight. That reminds me. I need to get hold of a scale ouija board for her now. Hmmm...

Progressing nicely...

Happy New Year to everyone reading this!

After all the obligatory socialising over Xmas and the New Year (and the odd thing here and there that just takes time - like ALL the internet dolly doings... of which there seems to be an ever increasing amount!), I thought I'd show the progress I've made, to date, on Birdy's alpaca re-root (and a quick little instagram pic of Magpie's current 'look' with her new wig).

I've done a kind-of-tutorial if you're interested in re-rooting a Blythe doll, although it's got a few other chains-of-thought running through it as I treat YouTube as a Vlog in itself. But I think it contains a lot of stuff that can be used or improved upon regardless. 20 mins in length.  :)

Just a quarter left to do!

Magpie looking light and airy!

 

...in my twosies! ...no shame :p
Alpaca supplies from: knitwit originals

Hollywood Glam

Something unexpected happened on the Makie forums recently after Kyomiyavi posted a 'Get the Hollywood look' draw/competition. It was rather a nice coincidence that Mushroom had been getting allusions of grandeur recently so I thought it would be fun to enter as the glitz and glam of red carpets would be right up her metaphoric street at the moment.

And I won! Lol.

Amazing!

So I was really exited yesterday when a little package came in the post...

What a treat! 

I didn't get home until late, and I recorded an update for youtube too so by the time I got her all glammed up it was about 3am!

I even found a pair of crazy goth heels for her, but after wearing DM's for so long, she had to sit down for the photo ><

I think we were both a little blurry by the end of it, but thank you so much to Kyomiyavi and her Makie, Toadstool. Mushroom is absolutely made up! 

It's a shame they're both girls really, otherwise I'd be reeling off all the gags about them being FunGuy(s) ><