I just realised that Tiyana's name, with an extra k, (aka Tiyanak) is actually a mythical creature. Lol.

1. Tiyanak

   Mythical creature
2. The Tiyanak is a vampiric creature in Philippine mythology that imitates the form of a child. It usually takes the form of a newborn baby and cries like one in the jungle to attract unwary travelers.

Huhhh. Okay, I guess Tiyana shall be mostly called Tee now. Haha.

The truth: I have to hold his arm with my hand in order for him to touch his face. His elbows aren't very double-jointed despite the extra arm peanut in it, eh. And although his faceup could be neater (when seen irl), it looks pretty fine on camera, which is good, I guess? Haha. Sion reminds me that I like some of my dolls to have piercings and stuff. I've been doing the natural look for some of the other dolls, and I forgot how fun it is to have a dark faceup/pierced/scene-ish?? kinda doll. So yeahhhh.

Not sure if Hew (his twin) is more normal or edgy too, lol.

Guess what, I've suddenly had a spurt of doll motivation. Haha. Or more like, I finally saw a doll that I'm getting *excited* about. Like really. And I have no money. Hahahaha. Maybe part of the reason why I'm excited is also because I know I have to work/save/sell things to get it. And it's something different from getting bodies for floating heads, which seem to be pretty much all I've been doing (though Freddie still needs a body... but she can share for now)

5stardoll Jadite has such an adorable face. The blank face looks like a mischevious boy to me, but my boyfriend thinks the doll looks more like a girl. Haha. Difference in opinion, I guess.

Oh yeah, anyway, an update on Elly. The 100% acetone I borrowed from my friend worked! Removed the rest of what could be removed (some of the deeper parts of the eyes still has a bit of colour but I figured it'll be covered by the new faceup). I need to check her over for random black specks (not sure why but some of them can't be removed and I'm pretty sure they appeared while I removed the faceup...:/) before I seal her. But it's been raining so I've not had the time to seal her. Soon! I can't wait to start on her because I think a new faceup would probably make her more in character than the sweet default faceup. :>

Gahhh. So today I finally decided that I would remove Elly's default faceup from Volks and redo it myself. And I (quite excitedly) did so, with the usual 70% isopropyl alcohol I use to remove faceups (though in hindsight I don't think I've removed ANY default faceups with it, mostly my own and some other faceups done by other owners - not really professionals? or at least people who probably don't use airbrush and stuff...anyway...).

Turns out isopropyl alcohol isn't really strong enough for me to remove the faceup without creating smudges from the paints used. I tried my usual dip a clean toothbrush into the alcohol and gently scrub on her right eye (left in photo). Didn't really work properly, her cheek has a bit of red (see the first photo :/).

Tried again on her lips, same method. Huge ass smudge, probably because of the gloss on it too, making the faceup harder to remove.

So by this time, I'm getting annoyed, and I got some clean tissues to dip in the alcohol to wipe the left eye off (what I did with my first few faceup removals until I realised toothbrushes are faster and leaves less soggy tissues)...a bad idea, still. Tried to wipe it such that I pick the paints off the face, rather than smudge it around (as the toothbrush inadvertably did), but roughly the same results, if not worse, since I couldn't get into the inner eye corner with the tissue as I could with the toothbrush.

So yes, this is what she looked like at this point:

You can probably see the smudges. The lip one annoyed me the most, since it made her look like she has a moustache going on, which is NOT her. And would be a pain to cover up (eyes are easy since she's going to have dark eyeshadow anyway, but I did want to remove it as well as I could).

Then after posting that, my friend (non doll friend) offered to lend me some 100% acetone tomorrow. Gonna have to try that on her headcap or something to see if anything funny happens first. Hopefully all goes well and it'll remove whatever is left on her face...the inner eye bits, if nothing else. And because I really couldn't stand the smudge/stain, I got to work with a magic eraser. I think there's still the smudge going on around her mouth, and I probably would give it another round with the magic eraser, but for now, I'm taking a break until I get the acetone tomorrow.

And the thing is, I'm annoyed right now with this, but I can just imagine how horrified I would be if this happened to me when I was newer in the hobby and with the faceup thing. I mean, I'm still like, damn shit why did this have to happen, and to a Volks Tae head, whyyyyyyyy, but at least I'm not going insane with worry. Maturity, maturity. Haha.

Tiyana's new faceup

Photos of Tee's new faceup! I'm quite happy with how similar (but better) it is to her old one, and the blue lowerliner is...well, It's not that noticeable but when she wears blue toned stuff, it does set it off quite well :D

Look at her all nice in better photos :D







That little gape in her fringe annoys me...Ughh fibre wigs are so much harder to style than fur wigs. Also, the first photo there makes it look like she's wearing dangly earrings, which makes me think it might go quite well with her bohemian style of dressing. Gonna think about that.

Wooo. It's been a while since I made jewelry for dolls but I just finished taking and editing the photos of the jewelry I made and updated them on doa and dA. I forgot how long the process of taking photos, editing, then uploading them and writing the description (and oh, the names. I hate coming up with the names) is. But there is quite a bit of satisfaction in seeing the pieces done. And also since I try not to edit my jewelry photos too much, it's a very different kind of experience, seeing my actual photography skills without the benefit of editing eh... haha.

And I think Dennis needs restringing. His torso keeps snapping back and his knees are kinda loose. I mean, the strange thing is he still stands pretty okay, but it's kind of a precarious position (and if he shifts out of that, he may fall), so I probably should do that. I think as time goes by, it's more and more certain that he's really my favourite doll. Haha. And I used to think it was Sion, but nope, Dennis, especially with this SD13 body (he used to be on a AA body which I didn't like as much).

Ah yes. And I'm in the process of redoing Tee's faceup. Blue eyeliner this time. The colours aren't as light as I hope for the blue watercolour pencils I'm using, but I'll see what I can do another day. The photos took up most of my doll energy today, lol. Probably would be reading Naruto for the rest of the afternoon.