Urethane eyes comparison

Just a video showing some of the different types and brands of urethane eyes, especially the sparkly crystal kind that are really popular lately. I have Oscardoll, Sproutydoll and Makoeyes (Mako is mostly just a side comparison though).

On that note, I really like how Cypher looks with his new Sproutydoll eyes, they're really really shiny, and the colour is just gorgeous :D The little roar face rocks her glitter teal/turquoise eyes too, but she needs a name, and a body, lol.

Alright! One of my youtube videos finished processing, so I can share what I've done on my Blythe so far. Side note about her name: she didn't take any of the names I thought of at first. Didn't really responded to Casey or Fern. (I know dolls are inanimate, but sometime it feels like certain names do suit them better and you *feel* like the doll likes it more. It's probably my own projection but yes, let's not delve into that, lol.) So because I was out of ideas, I went searching for grey names (yes I typed that), and found names for grey cats. Lol. Foggy was one of the names that stood out and worked. I jokingly told my bf that it also means foggy brain because she's probably a bit scatterbrained. We'll see if that's true, though. Haha.

Also, here's the full photo I used for the thumbnail. Really pretty girl :)

Edited videos and uploaded them to youtube, but now after using the editor to enhance the video (increasing brightness and contrast), the videos are stuck in processing. Argh. Whyyy. I really want to share these videos okay.

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I also edited a bunch of photos from the mini meet I had with Ching the other day, but I don't have the group shots yet. Still, I figure I should share these before I forget. I brought Pebbles, Hew and Joe there. Pebbles because we wanted to take photos of our Unoas together. Ching's Liese is a modded Latea. The indoor platform area was pretty nice and bright :)


Then we went out for photos on the roof. Pebbles looking generally sad. Lol.


Regarding the meet attendees, I took Hew out for photos cos he had a new faceup.


Joe was out cos he hardly gets photos. He's also wearing Caillen's wig (now his) because of that wig swap they had a long time back.




There should still be a group shot and one of Ching's dolls which I think I will update when I do edit those photos. At least I got a bunch of new photos of my dolls. I think next up will be Elly and Tiyana. They've not had proper photos for a while now.

In the meantime, I took a bunch of photos today, of Cypher, Jelly and my Blythe. The Blythe has a name now! She's called Foggy. I'll explain more when the youtube video actually finishes editing/processing.

More Blythe stuff!

I finally edited the video of her box opening! It's quite different from a BJD box opening. So much more packaging involved, which kind of reminds me of Barbie's packaging (from when I was a kid). Anyway, I'm thinking of naming her Casey, or Cas for short.

I also made her an outfit (the one on the left below). This is the first outfit done almost entirely on the sewing machine. Previously I have been hand-sewing what little doll clothes I do make. There's a lot of mistakes, but I think I have a better idea on how to use the machine now. Also, the top is a bit short on one side...oops. Well, the overall look seems fine enough. The right photo is the top I made with her stock pants/bloomers. Haha. And a necklace I made.

I really want to put her back, but I think it'll be wiser to wait until I get her eyes, paint them, change them, before putting her back together. I'm also asking a friend to help me get her a PureNeemo body, so it'll be better if I do all the changes together, before trying to put her different parts back together. It's so much work, so doing it just once would be better. It's not like putting her back now would let me play with her much, since school is starting soon.

She needs to be glossed as well. Which is at least something I can do tomorrow, unlike the eyes (my order hasn't even shipped because it's the New Years holiday) and the body swap.

Just a thought... it seems that Blythe customs don't always have as decently drawn eyebrows (by that I mean line work, they don't look very sharp, and if it's a BJD faceup would usually be regarded as a beginner's lines in watercolour pencils), and yet these customs are sometimes selling or being asked for a price of $300+. I just wonder if the line work of eyebrows are not as big a concern for Blythes than it is for BJDs. I do recognise the price as being justified, since their carving and such are usually quite good, but the faceups are not to my liking. Well, anyway, it doesn't really matter since I'm not buying.

Side note: I do tend to prefer Blythes without eyebrows though. It gives them a certain charm, since their stock look never has eyebrows anyway.

Also, I have a long way to go in learning how to carve.

Blythe learning curve

So I got a Blythe for a gift this birthday. I took a box opening video which I've not edited, but posted a bunch of customising-in-progress photo over on instagram, so I thought I'll do an update here as well.

Here's the girl in her stock outfit (minus the apron). She's a Neo Blythe, Dark Rabbit Hole. An RBL+ mold.

And I wanted to customise her so I took her apart, which required more effort than I thought. I also had to go out to buy a new screwdriver because none of the ones at home were small enough. The eye mechanism is scarily difficult to remove. I was super scared of scratching something. :/ Got her out fine though. (Putting her back would be another challenge...)

Her first layer of faceup. I sanded her face matt and carved her nose and lips a bit before the faceup. With just an exacto knife, it was a bit difficult to get anything too deep, so her nostrils aren't as deep as most customisers do them. I did managed to carve some tiny tiny teeth in her mouth, which I'm pretty proud of, although it's not visible from this angle.

And holding the faceplate with the scalp and eyes (without eyelids) to see how she might look like.

This is the latest photo, or basically how she looks like right now, waiting for good enough weather to seal her.

Blythes are pretty fun to play with, if only they're not so hard to unassemble. I also went and bought metallic paints and ordered some blank eye chips to paint her new eyes. I do kind of like the stock eyes, although I think it'll be fun to have some new ones. We'll see. I'm pretty happy with how she looks (faceup skills from bjds are transferable to Blythes after all) but the other blythe specific stuff like putting her back together, changing her eyechips, changing her body (I'm thinking of getting her a Pure Neemo one) etc are still pretty daunting/challenging. I think I'll just slowly get to it.

Hopefully I will get around to editing the video and upload it, haha.

The twins' faceups

I redid Sion and Hew's faceups at the start of December but was lazy to take photos. Haha. Well, I think my linework got a bit better although it is still shaky at some parts. I also decided to make Hew less angsty than before.

Sion:






Hew:






And another one of Hew looking warm and snuggly.