Girl · and · Dolls

I had a rather startling revelation the other day. My end of year review doesn’t mean jack shit. They can't even put me on academic probation. Ha... It's a really bizarre feeling to know that so long as I have passed my classes I will have passed just fine... The end of year review is just so they can talk to me about my work (and quite frankly who gives a shit, if they aren't the ones passing out my grades). And here I was all stressed out about it. It’s sort of like realizing that colleges don’t care how many times you got detention in High School. The really weird thing is that I think my reviews will be with profs I've never had for classes before (ok so I had Bob for a lecture class once, but so did everyone else in my grade, it's not like he knows who I am). I seriously doubt that I will get the kind of feedback I want from Larry, Bob, and Brooke. Dangit I wanna have my review with Gary, Steve, and Ben. (o.k. so I don't know for a fact that I won't, but I have my review upstairs and that just makes me think I'll be in the Bob group as I almost never see him downstairs). Anyway the review is Wednesday morning, and I have barely even looked at my work. That's what tomorrow is for right? That and signing up for that art history summer class at the community college.

As for the kids, got some 14mm eyes at the dollmeet that were free to a good home. I like the size a lot better for Tristan (doubleplus so in the tender head), but I need them in his pretty green (they are a sort of violet blue that just kinda falls flat for me...).
I've been knitting up a lot of little sweater bits that I haven't sewn together (I always seem to loose motivation at that point...).
Found out that my swap partner for the sci-fi themed swap on DoA got her half of my swap. I'm doing the antsy dance waiting to see pictures. (I have a picture I took, but I kinda wanna let her be the one to post pictures of it first, even though it wasn't a secret swap, cause I'm nerdy like that.)
Took them out to the movies with my friends the other night. (we saw American Dreamz. It was kinda cool but it ended most crapily...)

I have officially bought my tickets to New York, New York. Will be visiting cousin Niki from May 12 to May 15. And I ask you, how does a nonstop flight from Detroit to New York take 2 hours? How? I know I'm flying economy in a pack of gum with wings (AirBus), but 2 hours? That seems long. But on the upside it is an excuse to buy more wooden knitting needles ( <3 ).

Finished my P.O.S. fake as hell demo reel for 3-D. The walk cycle still looks like hell... damnit I can make people walk fine in 2-D. Why must 3-D be so difficult?!? Any way that brings me down to two final projects. One of which is due later today... I've been angsting over one of them... (its long and complex, but the short of it is that group projects suck when you don't mesh with your group well). But all I can do now is hope for the best. I had a ton of fun at the meetup over the weekend. Only finished one sweater though... And then forgot to bring it... DOH! Also forgot my camera doubleplusDOH! While I was there Nolavon let me do a faceup on her sleeping El head (which was supper incredibly nice of her) My first face-up attempt came out pretty cool, I just wish I had a picture of it. Also someone brought a MNF Lishe to the meetup and I can now say with reasonable certainty that she is the perfect doll for Alex. Might need to sand down the tops of her breasts though... They are a really unnatural shape as they are. Anyway... WANT! Made some plans to do some BJD type stop motion films with Lady Atriel over the summer. That should be fun.

It was so nice out yesterday!! So I took the kids outside to play about in the backyard.

I cut all my hair off Saturday. I've gotten a buch of complements on it too (best self done haircut ever!). I feel so much better, but now that I'm in the freezy school computer lab, my head is cold!

Decided to bring Miriel to class with me last Thursday. She looks a lot like the doll in the animation I'm working on. (meant to be rather creepy and play of two of my bigger fears, dolls and clowns, but is ending up just being silly). Went fairly well. Most people just ignored her. A few were creped out. (The best reaction "She looks like she's dead!" x.X; ) The stop motion focus/sculpture minor dude was really interested in the customizability and posing. I ended up pulling her head cap off and taking her eyes out, pulling on various joints, ect... while showing her off to him. He also took a few pictures of her and has promised to e-mail them to me. In return I'm gonna send him links to a few of the stop motion animations I've seen people make with BJDs.

Anywho... been trying to figure out why most dolls scare the crap out of me, but I love BJDs so... no real conclusive ideas yet... I think part of it is that none of them blink, have voice boxes, or stitched on eyebrows (my big three creep out factors in dolls).

Decided to experiment with knitting with the cotton crochet thread. It's the only fingering weight yarn I can readily find. It knits up fine and lacy even on my 000 needles.... so I guess its gonna be over shirts and shawls.

Also! Gasp! I knit something not for my dolls! There was this niffty "Thick and Thin" yarn on clearance at Jo Ann’s, so a bought a skein (for three bucks why not?) and knit it up into a little blazer scarf. Its quite nice and knubbly.

The meetup was awesome! There were something like 68 or 72 dolls total!!! I didn't get lost driving there (well there was some confusion when the directions told me to get off at the Telegraph exit but failed to say which one, as there are two, but logic prevailed and I figured it out). I managed to snag a good wig for Tristan to use if he does indeed end up cosplaying Simon Tam (with me as River XD). Also Wee_Little_Fairy took the cutest pictures of all the dolls. She gave the doll owners permission to use as desired, so I snaged Tristan's for my icon.

On a grumpy note: Why is it every time I have a little left over from my paycheck I seem to incur a new expence? (or why did my iPod cable mysteriously disappear?)

Edit: 68 Dolls Block the Stiars (from the meetup)

Yesterday was scary! Very scary!
I knocked Tristan's right eyelash out of his regular head while pulling off his sweater. All was ok though at first. No panic. Just take the head off. Replace it with the tender head. Then glue the eyelash back in. Right? Well, taking Tristan's head off proved quite the Augean task... Apparently I forgot the ordeal it was the first time. I did however manage to change his head after a scary moment of the string sucking back down his neck and accidentally putting a few gouges into the resin inside his neck with the wire I used to fish the elastic back out. (I now have a much better idea of how my kid is strung btw) However, task achieved, I realized that in the struggle I have lost the eyelash! This is about where the painc set in... (it's worth noting that the cable guy was over making lots of distressing banging noises in the basement at this point too) Not really fancying my chances of finding the eyelash in my abysmal pit of a bedroom (I am not a neat person by nature), I quickly pack up Tristan and run off to the local Beauty supply store. They sell false eyelashes right? Yes they do... lots of black ones... Black would just look silly with Tristan's brown makeup, so I run to another beauty supply store in the next town over and fortunately they have two styles of brown eyelashes. I bought both, unsure of which would work better. So I get home and after what felt like hours of fussing with them (eyelashes are hard to get into place and keep in place without getting glue on the face itself!) I get the eyelashes in... they were hugely too long, but I left it till today to cut them down to give the glue maximum cure time. I used one eyelash cut in half, so I still have the other one, and once I work up the courage I think I'll put it in the tender head, as these eyelashes are rather thicker than the default ones, and the eyelashes on the tender head got a bit mussed.
I have to say throughout the ordeal Tristan was really calm and trusting. Me, I was a nervous wreck...

On the upside, Miriel's new sweater is 90% done ( just have to weave in the ends... I hate weaving in the ends...) I'm also making one for Tristan that is big and bulky and has a cable! (just learned how to knit cables...) It's kinda funny, but when I brought the kids into JoAnn's the lady kept fussing over how I must have sooooo much patience to knit these little things... and honestly they take me less time then the simple stuff I do for people.

I also gave the kids their first bath with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser in prep for going to a meetup tomorrow. It was very soothing after the whole eyelash ordeal. Discovered that Miriel is really cute bald. She has a very elegantly shaped head.

Also nice is the fact that Bubby (Great-Grandma-in-Law from the old country) has knit me a sweater vest. I've never had a sweater vest before and the idea quite excites me. We went to see her in her new place today, and her reaction to the electric sweeper we gave her as a housewarming present was so cute. "Oh my goosness, they make everythink now!"

Damn! I keep telling myself no saving for new dolls, doll stuff, ect... until all the trip finances are covered (why did I promice to go to New York >.<;) And then I see him:

http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?t=54234

Graby hands of want! And so begins the mad scramble to figure out how to afford him... I already sold off all the old textbooks for Miriel... And I still want a Mini Fee Lishe to turn into my character Alex... crud...

Curse me and my expensive hobbies.

On the bright side I managed to get a set of 12 pastel pencils (Conte a Paris, the nice kind!) for only $12. Clarence is godly (these suckers usualy sell for $2.20 a pencil). I have been hankering for some for forever. No longer must detailed small format pastel work be just a dream for me.

Miriel came home yesterday around noon, which was about a half hour away from when I said I'd meet up with my friend in Ann Arbor, so after taking a few quick photos of opening the box, we were off. I took a few more pictures once I got home. She is quite awesome, so much more slender and delicate than Tristan. And oh so very stylish.