Growth of the 1:6 scale forest

My forest set has been months in the making.
 

Back in November, 2012, I planned to get appropriate backdrops, including a sky, a deciduous forest in spring/summer and a deciduous forest in fall.
 

At that time, I also decided that I needed some 3D foreground trees, to be played by actual sticks.

Not until March, 2013, though, did I get around to beginning its construction. At this time, the forest was an extremely simple deciduous backdrop with a ground made of moss glued to foamcore. Trees were sticks with stands made out of nails.
 

I soon added another color of moss and brown crinkle paper to the humus on the ground. My first underbrush made of plastic greenery also appeared.

Next I made Aves Apoxie Sculpt bases, covered with moss and crinkle paper, for my trees. I added a few stands of slender trunks to the thicker ones.

The forest still looked sparse, so I added some sprays of plastic leaves to pass as young trees.

I tried putting down loose green crinkle paper for additional ground cover, but it was the wrong shade.

However, I eventually discovered the right shade of green.

 

Then I added stands of plastic ferns.

I am probably not finished with this set. I'd like to have the option of a stump or log, a conifer or two and maybe a rock.

EDIT: The pictures were not hiding behind the cut, so I removed them. >:(

The only straight guy in Zombieville

I just scored a fullset Fashion Royalty London Calling Kyu for $75.00 shipped! He looks like this [picture by AddisonDewitt on the Doll Page]:

( Read more... )

Clearly, he desperately needs some help. That stupid hairstyle has to go, and he needs new eyebrows, wrinkles, bags under eyes, etc. I also hear that FR dudes aren't that poseable, so he may need some mods there, especially if he can't bend his elbows more than 90 degrees. Not sure about the outfit. I would like to see who else can fit into that jacket, though.

So this is Barrett Chao. He works in the morgue at Fletcher Allen, which is the common term for the area's largest hospital/medical school complex around here. Not sure what his exact position is -- have to research that a bit more -- but he is a Reaper, one of those abnormals who functions as part of a grey market network for PWS to get brains when legitimate supplies are scarce.

Barrett was going to be a nurse, but then he realized that he'd have to work with people to accomplish that, and such intense social situations actually give him hives, so he switched over to corpses instead. He has extreme difficulty reading body language and decoding social cues, so he's much more relaxed around dead people. He also has auditory processing problems, which leads him to speak in a very clear, deliberate, enunciated way [i.e., the way in which he would like people to speak to him]. He identifies as "neuroanomalous."

Barrett works the graveyard shift in the morgue, so he's basically nocturnal. No one ever sees him eat anything, though he does consume vast quantities of coffee and neon energy drinks. His night-time activity, job, liquid diet and pallor make him much more well-known as "that vampire dude up at the hospital" instead of by his name. Hah hah.

Barrett really likes ambient/trance techno in part because it drowns out "the breathing of the world." He's also really, really interested in Champ, about which he will talk your ear off if given the slightest chance. He is learning how to sail so he can go on solo expeditions looking for Champ.



Barrett is currently the only straight guy in Zombieville.

Forest will soon have vines!

I have collected a sample from the woods near my work. It is most likely some kind of grape vine. I'm either going to use the sample itself in the set or make smaller models from it. 

This 1909 pamphlet on the state's shrubs and woody vines might help me identify it.

Doll hip joints and gender-policing freak outs

 When manufacturers make articulated female dolls, they will often simplify the hip joints so that the hips can swing forward and backward and rotate within the socket, but they have very little lateral movement in the socket, usually impeded by a wide crotch. For example, the standard articulated Barbie body, shown here by Prunella before I Dremelled her, automatically makes the doll's thighs spread apart when she sits:
( Read more... )