DAMMIT JANET.

Now that I have made my solemn vow to myself not to get any more dolls until next summer, the temptations are cropping up.

1. There's a grey Soom Faery Legend Auber on the DOA marketplace for a very reasonable price. I have really liked this little dude from the moment he debuted in 2011, because he reminds me of Jareth. ["It looks like Jareth" is sufficient justification for anything in my book.]

2. Someone is soliciting participation in a group order for a custom BJD head from Nobility Doll ["press papilla good feel!"]. She wants to commission a sculpt of DAVID BOWIE from the Ziggy Stardust era.

EDIT: Never mind...she's commissioning it from DIM's MiniMee service. From what I've seen, DIM tends to make their headsculpts way too big, so I'm not sure if I would want to pursue such an order.

Well, anyway, now that I'm thinking about it, I see that I could use Nobility Doll's custom sculpting service my own self and get a doll that looks like my version of Jareth. Reference pictures below:

May 26, 2009: From mind to pen: did it work?

May 26, 2009: "Print to action figure."

June 17, 2009: Some guy I know.

Sigh...I've been pursuing the Ultimate Jareth Doll [TM] for years now. I will probably never quit this quest, in part because my version of Jareth does not have a fully fixed physical appearance.

EDIT: I no longer have the particular morph of Jareth linked in those three entries above, as it expired in the Great Hard Drive Expiration of 2010. But I do have Daz on my old compooper. Should fire it up and try to recreate that morph, then actually get it rendered in resin [at some point in the future]...

Adventures in scientific publishing, part 4

Corresponding author: Here is a submission that we hope will be published in your journal.

Me: No thanks. [supplies rejection letter]

[Ten months go by.]

Same corresponding author: Here is a new submission that we hope will be published in your journal.

Me: No thanks. This is the exact same thing that you gave us [some time] ago. We actually rejected this before, under [date] and [manuscript number], so we cannot consider it again.

Sometimes authors submit the exact same thing again because they forgot that they submitted it the first time. And sometimes authors try to sneak stuff by us. >_>

Aww, that's kind of cute: a chibi Araminthe?

Araminthe, as my loyal readers [all 2 of them!], know, is a 60cm Boy and Girl [B&G] Doll Burrysa snarling in grey resin. I noticed recently that B&G Doll updated its Web site with a 25cm version of Burrysa. She most closely resembles the 60cm Burrysa with a closed mouth. Even their outfits are similar. It's like an extra-portable Araminthe! :p

B&G Dolls do not seem very popular on DOA. I only know of 2 other users with Burrysas, and I think they both use the closed-mouth head, which is a pity because it's not that exciting. I'm the only one who has posted pictures of my Burrysa snarling on the boards.

Tonight I'm going to work on Lura...and Araminthe as well. I want to try the 14mm eyes in Lura's head and get rid of those O_O eyes. Since they glow so nicely, I think I'll put the O_O eyes in Araminthe's sockets, substituting for her current murky red ones. I also want to put Lura's head on Araminthe's body to see resin matching and proportionality.

Wink + smirk x 2: August and Jujube

~_^
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Return of the Eyes That Can See Forever: now with added vampire!

Lura's Eyes That Can See Forever have moved on to Araminthe, where they have become the Eyes That Freak You Out. Observe how they catch light!

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The Lura Project: testing body, eyes, wig

Just for the heck of it, I stuck Lura's head on Araminthe's body. Araminthe is a Boy and Girl [B&G] Doll Burrysa snarling. She is a 60cm doll in grey resin. As far as resin matches go, B&G is on the paler side of grey, so it doesn't look that bad with Lura's rose grey head. She would definitely need a longer neck if she were to use this body, though!
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My Jareth: initial rendering

After getting all excited about commissioning a BJD that looks like my version of Jareth, I decided to recreate, to the best of my ability, the Daz render I did about 3 years ago that looked as much like my version of Jareth as I could get.

To do this, I had to go back to my old compooper where Daz Studio still lives. Then I had to download Michael 3 [the Daz male base figure], all his Daz morphs [so I could change his shape], plus Capsces Digital Ink's super awesome custom morphs for M3 called Brom. I have probably previously sung the praises of these morph packages, which she releases for every major Daz base figure, but I'll sing them again. Capsces' morphs add so much more customizability to the models, and they come with handy-dandy face and body presets that fit my preferred aesthetic: stylized, exaggerated and full of character.

Anyway, I dumped all that onto my compooper and slowly fired up Daz. When I last modeled my Jareth, I worked off a preset Brom face, which is the digital equivalent to a headsculpt. If you'd like to see what I started with, you can go to the Brom page and click the first thumbnail under the main product picture. I started with the pink elf guy in the center of the second row, though, of course, he had a different texture when I was using him.

I futzed around for a few hours, pushing sliders to distort specific areas of the digital model in specific ways; in essence, I was digitally sculpting. Here's my rough draft. The hair and complexion are just placeholders; they don't really matter for sculpting purposes. It will be further futzed with later to increase its accuracy [to the character in my head]. Wheeee!


( Read more... )

My Jareth: initial rendering

After getting all excited about commissioning a BJD that looks like my version of Jareth, I decided to recreate, to the best of my ability, the Daz render I did about 3 years ago that looked as much like my version of Jareth as I could get.

To do this, I had to go back to my old compooper where Daz Studio still lives. Then I had to download Michael 3 [the Daz male base figure], all his Daz morphs [so I could change his shape], plus Capsces Digital Ink's super awesome custom morphs for M3 called Brom. I have probably previously sung the praises of these morph packages, which she releases for every major Daz base figure, but I'll sing them again. Capsces' morphs add so much more customizability to the models, and they come with handy-dandy face and body presets that fit my preferred aesthetic: stylized, exaggerated and full of character.

Anyway, I dumped all that onto my compooper and slowly fired up Daz. When I last modeled my Jareth, I worked off a preset Brom face, which is the digital equivalent to a headsculpt. If you'd like to see what I started with, you can go to the Brom page and click the first thumbnail under the main product picture. I started with the pink elf guy in the center of the second row, though, of course, he had a different texture when I was using him.

I futzed around for a few hours, pushing sliders to distort specific areas of the digital model in specific ways; in essence, I was digitally sculpting. Here's my rough draft. The hair and complexion are just placeholders; they don't really matter for sculpting purposes. It will be further futzed with later to increase its accuracy [to the character in my head]. Wheeee!


( Read more... )