Nothing like working on a scientific journal...

...to get a person accustomed to a looooooooong view of scheduling. I just slated an article for publication in January, 2014! 

The award for the article I have scheduled furthest from its pub date, though, goes to one that I designated in October, 2012 for publication in October, 2013.

I guess I'm really hard on my shoes.

I got a pair of Keen sandals last summer, and they're already going smooth on the soles, but I expect that, as I wear them about 3.25 seasons out of 4. I did not, however, expect the casing on one of the laces to wear out, leaving the narrow elastic exposed.

At first I thought, Goddamn, I'll have to get another pair of shoes. I then realized that I really only needed to replace the lace, if I could just figure out how to do so.

Fortunately, the Internet has the answers! Either I could request a replacement set of laces from Keen, or I could follow the instructions and attempt it on my own. I have some BJD elastic that should be the correct diameter. I suppose that, if all else fails, I can just restring my shoe with doll elastic and tie it off, removing the adjustability.

Jareth gets handsy.

I have really disliked Jareth's default hands. As much as I find the sculpts elegant, they have wrist balls separate from the actual hands, and the hands frequently popped out of joint from the wrists.

I therefore thought that some substitutes with integrated wrist balls were in order. I really wanted a set of exaggeratedly elongated, slender hands to go along with the stalklike shape of the Doll Chateau adult male body. The fantasy hands that Soom issues with some of its female Monthly Dolls appeal to me, as they often have extra-long fingers and nails, but they are hard to find, given their limited editions.

Anyway, I found a set of Soom Breccia's Foxie [=fantasy] hands on the DOA marketplace and snapped 'em up. At first I wasn't sure about the brownish pink blushing on the fingertips, but it goes with Mr. Demandypants' style.

As a bonus, they're posed in a perfect position to facilitate nefarious plotting!

I also remembered how to create my own speech bubbles and how to make them automatically white with a thick black outline and a drop shadow.

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The awesomeness of Magical Angel, part II

As I mentioned last October, the Chinese BJD company Magical Angel combines low prices with extremely responsive customer service, a rarity in the BJD world, where language barriers and time differences regularly contribute to sporadic, frustrating communication with doll makers. Though I have none of their dolls, I really like them because they seem ready to do all sorts of custom things that most companies either don't do or charge exorbitant amounts for, like sculpting custom heads or making custom resin matches.

Anyway, I'm just making some notes for myself based on PMs that have been hanging around in my DOA inbox for a while.

• For custom sculpting, MA accepts .obj files, and it is okay if the .obj files do not show eyewells, neck hole and headcap. One can specify head circumference, neck circumference and eye size. They would do a truly 1:6 scale head for Juniper [8mm eyes, 10cm head circumference and 4cm neck circumference] for $800.00.
• For resin matching, MA will either match a photo [not recommended] or a body part, such as a headcap. For example, I'm thinking of getting an MA 60cm girl body with custom resin color for Yamarrah.  The custom color would add just $30.00 to the base price. As Yamarrah's head is a semi-translucent resin, I may go for a semi-translucent body, which would also jack up the cost maybe $20.00. Still amazingly cheap, though...