… and the lack of it, lol. Went on a photography trip with local doll friends and the weather was a bit indecisive, so the colors and the light in these is all over the place. Also have to take some more Saya photos later.
We were a spectacle for local fishermen cause we drove to a marina for some peaceful photography (beaches way too full). Whenever we go out, at least one of us ends up explaining about dolls to random people, lol. xD
Went to explore my near by foresty areas with Prisca, since I’ve moved. My new place isn’t nearly as remote as my old one was, so it’s a bit more work to get to a forest but it seems to be doable. Although there are quite a lot of people around. Compared to how I could just be alone in the forest for hours without running into anyone at my old place. But oh well. I made Prisca a new outfit the other day and wanted to take some photos of it before I get lazy again. Not many poses but I’m rusty.
Ohh yes, had inspiration to design an outfit for Yami and since I bought myself a new sewing machine, I was also able to add some decorative stitches to the hem (and the back flap but I messed that up, so we will not talk about it) and it was just so nice to sew. Well, most of it was made with the old machine, but I waited to finish it until I got the new one. :D I should’ve wired her arms for the shoot, though because the thick sleeves prevented her from bending her arms properly. There were a few poses I wanted to do but her arms just would not stay. So, I may re-shoot her if the weather keeps being nice, but other than that, yay, went outside for photos!
Also the outfit is actually meant to just be worn with the pants but since there is no way she would stand in the snow on her own, I made the fake underskirt (it snaps into place in front and back) to cover her stand, lol.
I re-painted Llyr (finally, he was hanging out headless for a few months) and made him new eyes. They’re still one of my first tries and I know where there are mistakes, so I’ll re-do them eventually when I feel like trying my hand at eyemaking again. (Cin’s eyes are more of a priority but their color is really hard to get right). Even though they’re not perfect, they’re so much better than the Soom eyes he’s had for years. Those were never perfect but I wasn’t ever able to find another pair to replace them -thus went for the “make it yourself” option.
And since he looks new, and borrowed Demyan’s wig, I took him outside for a few simple photos. Didn’t go on for too long cause he did two snow dives and broke his other antler. >_>
Cin has very slowly been coming together. I’m waiting for (hopefully better) eyes for him and wanted to take photos afterwards, but the postal service is being ridiculous and holding them hostage now that they finally arrived to the country after over two weeks on the way from across the ocean. >:/ I’ve also re-painted his face, a few times -sort of. I mentioned in the review that the headback broke. Well, I contacted Soom about that to complain about the design flaw pretty much (hoping that they’d improve on it) and they sent me a new head as an apology. I painted that one with my fairly crappy bottle of army painter to counter the tone difference MSC does on tan resin. But it ended up pretty shiny AND the head is quite a bit yellower in tone than his body or the original head. Which was annoying. And then it took me a while to re-paint his original head using a mix of the shiny army painter and MSC to get something decent. Unfortunately I didn’t do as good a job with the face up itself as on the extra head but well, I’ll swap them around a bit and re-paint them until I’m happy. Once/if that happens, I might wanna try and do something completely different with the extra head, don’t know yet.
He’s also slowly been building his wardrobe. In these photos he’s wearing the second version of straight pants and the prototype dress shirt (oh god, the fabric is so horrible, and absorbs like every since dust spec and cat hair in a 5 mile radius). And I’ll sew more for him when I feel like it. I have trouble giving him the kind of loose home-clothes he would wear cause he’s too good-looking for them. I have many other things I want to sew as well, but have a really hard time getting started and finishing projects these days. I’m not feeling very well, haven’t all year, so things take a long time.
Anyway, took some very simple backyard shots of him today until I got sick of his stupid torso flailing all over the place and refusing to pose.
Naenia is totally my muse, lol. Been two years since I’ve done a proper water shoot with her though, cause I missed my chances last year. I wanted to be a bit more ambitious with this, but unfortunately I forgot a few tools home and the sun came out in the middle. I’m really only happy with one of the photos, but the others that I bothered editing are decent enough to be posted. Still, I want to practise more. :/ In the end I couldn’t even take photos from above water cause the weather turned windy and started making such strong waves that she wouldn’t stay still (and I got cold).
Spotted these fluffy hays while walking my cat and thought they’d make a lovely doll backdrop for an evening shoot. Well, more like night shoot. I forgot to stalk the sun and only realized after 10PM that the sun was no longer giving a nice warm glow to that spot (not sure what time of the evening would be the best for that anyway). Well, I did make use of the sunset sky with some backlit photos but… yeah.
Iria also doesn’t have any new clothes, so I layered a bunch of her and Sigrun’s skirts together with Ye Rin’s shirt and got this outfit put together. I rather like it as a set. :3
Slightly repetitive because I had a hard time narrowing these down. xD
Ookay, it’s been ages since I’ve done anything with my dolls. Have had some bad times and health problems and just lacked any motivation. But well, this is the only time of the year I can use this location and I’ve been thinking about it for years, so I finally actually got out and went there. I’m so out of shape though that the stream yoga killed my legs. xD Also these could be better but I’m very happy with a few shots at least. :D Love water as an element.
Trying to keep myself even a little bit active with my dolls. It’s All Saint’s Day today and I went for some witchy halloweeny photos (mostly cause it was easy, lol). I wish I could get back the vigor I used to have for all those photo ideas. xD
Alright. Yes, I finally got my adult!Cin! Only took 6 years and another 9 months of waiting. =__= That is 6 years from when I realized that bronze York would work for the character. 3 years after my realization I came close to getting him, but Soom absolutely refused to add bronze as a skin color option and tawny just doesn’t do it for me. Would’ve been nice because they had the unassembled kit for sale that December and it would’ve made the purchase cheaper. Then finally, last December they offered York again and this time there was a bronze, so I had to jump on it in order to not have to wait another 3 years for a new release. I bought him with a 4month layaway and he was finished in April, but thanks to the current situation, Korean post will not send EMS packages to Finland. I waited until this month to pay the extra fee for EMS premium to have them ship him to me. And here he is, after massive customs taxes I finally have him. And he is huuge. :D
I got to working on him right away and he’s pretty much done, but I just don’t have eyes for him (also his shoes are still stuck in Korea). Thus I also don’t really have good photos of him finished. But I did take some shots of him when he arrived and did a small review of the body. I have pliver sueded him (so that’s what’s in his joints) but other than that, the photos are of him as he came to me.
Sorry about the shoddy editing. I have no excuse, I was lazy. :D Also the shoot got cut short cause it started raining, but it did give some nice droplets into her hair.
Took Kilbas out into the forest yesterday. He’s still missing the companion I planned for him years ago, but I can never afford to order it so here we are… I went across a stream that in the spring is pretty much impassable cause there’s so much water, but now it was pretty dry. So yeah, there I was getting stuck in every branch and trying to get some photos taken. I never thought I’d wish I was even smaller than I am, but it was really hard to move out there. xD
Oookay, some more Nae again. But I really love shooting her and I had to go check out this stream before stuff starts growing. It’s going to be a jungle later on, and it wasn’t very easy to travel even now.
Unfortunately it also seems like Nae’s face up is pretty much dead. Lots of flaking on the coating from her repeated lake shoots. Well, I might see if it can survive a little longer and I get to try some more underwater stuff. I’d rather not re-paint her and then submerge her again. Not even sure I will be able to re-do her in a satisfactory manner. xD
Also so sorry this is even more repetitive than usual. I didn’t really have a good day this time, but I commend myself for actually biking there (3,8km), trecking through the budding jungle and spending a few hours on location after scouting the best spots. It took everything I had physically.. by the end my legs were shaking so much (from photography yoga) that I just couldn’t keep the camera stable anymore. Once I got back home I lost all strenght in my legs. xD
I also had Naenia with me on my trip yesterday. Larissa was in an element she didn’t belong to, but that’s not the case for Nae. She’s eagerly waiting for things to get warm so that she can again become what she is supposed to be.
Okay, my spring ritual is officially broken. After 8 years of doing it every spring. :/ They’re cutting down trees in the area this year and my photo location is… gone. Nothing left. They were supposed to pretty much cut down the forest behind my backyard too but the work has been delayed and they can’t do it before summer now. But they’ll continue in the fall. So, I have this summer to make use of it before probably my favorite spots are completely destroyed forever. I’m honestly very upset about it but there’s nothing I can do. I’ve left feedback and complained, but they’re gonna do what they’re gonna do. Most of my forest photo locations are going to be completely gone and it’s going to be a general mess. So, I’ve been walking in the forest now that I still can (and because they’ve already cut down paths I take on my walks and it makes me super angry) and looked for new locations for photos. I follow a swampy path next to a stream that led me here. So, this year this was a replacement for my spring ritual spot and it’s pretty nice. I hope I’ll be able to make use of it next spring as well. During summer it’s going to be an impassable jungle.
Previous 8 years of my ritual:
Hibernation (Hexia, 2019), Cold Spring (2018, Sigrun), Only Death (2017, Sigrun), Magical Green (2016, Iria), All Dead Here (2015, Prisca), Jorougumo (2014, Yami), Entangled (2013, Sigrun), Death Wood (2012, Prisca)
This time Larissa got to be my subject in her new dress.
