Siobhán only arrived yesterday but she’s not losing any time settling in. Today she made friends with Arpakasso-kun!
Siobhán and Arpakasso-kun
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Welcome Home Dollfie Dream Saber Extra & Dollfie Dream Alter
Last fall I pre-ordered 2 beautiful new dolls from Volks – Saber Extra and Saber Alter (v.2) It’s been a long wait for these girls to arrive, with production and shipping delays from Volks adding hiccups along the way. Folks who pre-ordered from Volks Japan have been receiving their Sabers since February but since I ordered from VolksUSA I had to be patient.
After many months, I’m delighted to introduce these girls as part of my growing Dollfie Dream family! I have decided that having 3 “Sabers” in the family would just get very confusing, so I’ve decided to rename Saber Alter to Siobhán and Saber Extra to Sidonie. Siobhán is pronounced “Shi-VAWn” and I’ll be calling her “Shiv” for short. It’s a beautiful Gaelic name that means “White Fairy,” which I only found out after I had chosen the name so I think it’s rather serendipitous. Sidonie (“See-don-EE”) is a lovely French name, but I’ll refer to her as Sid for short – Sid & Shiv ^__^”
Here is the box opening for these 2 lovely girls! Let me warn you now – there will be lots of pictures! 😀
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Dollfie Dream Picnic on Ward’s Island, Toronto
Last weekend, I met up with a few Dollfie Dream owners and we took the ferry from downtown Toronto to Ward’s Island for a potluck picnic and a lovely afternoon in the sun. The weather was perfect and we found a beautiful spot on the island with a gorgeous view of the Toronto skyline and a little piece of beach nearby.
We originally had the dolls sitting underneath parasols to protect them from UV exposure, but as the afternoon wore on the shade shifted. Here are all of the beautiful dolls relaxing in the shade.
Here are PlasticFantastic’s Amber, and Machiko’s little resin girls Lareine and Delilah. The UV sunlight exposure isn’t a huge issue with the vinyl Dollfie Dream girls, but it was important to keep the little resin dolls out of direct sunlight since it can cause yellowing of the resin over time. Continue reading
Culture Japan Night in Tokyo – May 11, 2012
While I was in Tokyo last month Danny Choo announced that he would be hosting a Culture Japan Night at the Good Smile Café in Akihabara, Tokyo. It just happened that our group of friends had decided to extend our trip by one more night so that my sister and Bosu could go to a live by Golden Bomber – and the rest of us were just going to do some last minute shopping so it worked out well for PlasticFantastic, Sam, Kevin and I to stop by the CJN event.
I’m sure DannyChoo.com readers will recognize some of his girls dressed up in various Mirai costumes (meido-Mirai, Mirai Millenium and the Winter Uniform). My newest girl, Hinata, a DD Shino is sitting at the front of the table.
Since KOS-MOS was already packed up, it was easy to bring her along.
Photo by: Haduki_fff on Flickr
How to Remove & Change Eyes for a Dollfie Dream (with video!)
When I was in Tokyo last month, I adopted a beautiful Dollfie Dream Shino (that I’ve renamed Hinata). While I was taking photos of her, I noticed that one of her eyes was misaligned, so when I came home I decided to remove her default eyes and install some different ones just for fun. Changing a doll’s eyes is a very quick and easy way to personalize her and give them a whole new look.
I’ve since become quite comfortable with changing DD eyes, but I still remember the first time I did it for Aerie and how nervous I was.I decided to take step-by-step photos of the process of removing default eyes in case any of you decide you would like to do it.
Here’s Hinata still wearing her default eyes. Notice how the one on the left is dark and doesn’t catch the light? It’s actually positioned 2mm lower the the one on the right so that pretty honey colour in the iris doesn’t even show, and it’s angled downwards!
Little Lolita in the Garden
It was nice and sunny today so I took Médée out for a quick photo session today to take advantage of some of the flora in my back yard. I think she looks so sweet and adorable!
She’s so tiny! It’s nice having a little sister for my bigger Dollfie Dream girls. Continue reading
Photos from Doll North at Anime North 2012
As promised, here are more photos from Doll North at Anime North last weekend!
PlasticFantastic, myself, T-Rho and Meo were the only ones that had picked up our passes early on Thursday so it was only our Dollfie Dreams at the start – although a few more attendees arrived later on.
This was the most dolls I’ve ever had out with me at one time and it was quite challenging to transport them all! Continue reading
Anime North 2012: Doll North & Café Delish!
Another Anime North has come and gone. It’s amazing how fast those three days whirl by but it’s always a lot of fun!
On Friday evening PlasticFantastic and I hosted 2 panels as part of Doll North – which is Anime North’s programming division dedicated to ABJD’s and other related import dolls. We had a nice turnout for our panels, despite the fact that quite a few people missed it because they were still in line trying to pick up their per-registered passes! The first panel we presented was an “Introduction to Dollfie Dreams.” This had been at the request of the Doll North co-coordinators because there had been requests for more info about DD’s and vinyl dolls from members of the community in the past few months. PlasticFantastic was also on hand before our panel to offer some general DD Doctor care. I brought Hinata, Gabrielle, Mélisande, Médée and KOS-MOS with me – which is the most I’ve ever had out of the house in one outing!
The second panel “How to Survive a Dolpa” which was based on our recent adventures at the Volks Dolpa 27. We dedicated it to our friend D.ark Dollhouse who passed away earlier this month. Her Dolpa For Dummies guide proved extremely useful to us when we were preparing for our trip and was an invaluable tool.
Thank you to everyone that came, and to everyone that brought their Dollfie Dreams with them! I hope you found our panels informative! And if you weren’t able to make it, Meo was awesome enough to video the panels so hopefully we’ll have them online at some point so that we can share our knowledge!
Here are some of the awesome DD’s that were on display at our panel. Special guest is the DD custom of Momiji, Anime North’s mascot!
And a funny photo of us during the DD panel –
I’ll have some more photos from Doll North up in the next couple of days.
On Saturday, it was get-up and go to start setting up for Café Delish – Anime North’s maid café. The lineup started really early and con-ops had to weave the line outside and it wove it’s way along the front of the hotel and around the corner before we even started selling tickets! We sold out all of our seatings within a couple of hours – apologies to those who couldn’t make it in! I hope that you at least stopped by the PuriMeido photo booth in the TCC to take a photo with your favourite maid!
I had lots of people asking me – what exactly IS the PuriMeido booth? It’s our own photobooth (yup, our staff built it from scratch!) in the style of the fun purikura booths that you find at arcades in Japan. You get to chose which maid you’d like a photo with, and then you and a friend get to take 4 fun photos, and then your maid hand decorates the photo for you. Here are Susu, Misa and Akane looking adorable at the PuriMeido booth –
Photo by Derwin Mak
If you had a ticket for a seating at the café, it was also a voucher for free photo set at the PuriMeido booth ^__^”
The café went very smoothly this year – there was only 1 behind-the-scenes hiccup regarding catering from the hotel, but overall I think we created a nice, fun oasis from the crazy of the convention for our guests to relax in. Here are Momoko, Misa, Susu, Yumi, Keiko, Chiyou and Akane dancing one of their routines.
Photo by Derwin Mak
Thank you to every for coming to the café and supporting the Hospital for Sick Children. I look forward to seeing you next year!
♥ Archangeli
Remembering D.ark
I am still in shock after receiving very sad news while I was in Tokyo that a wonderful friend that I met through the Dollfie Dream and resin BJD community has passed away earlier this week. It was even more of a shock since I had just met up with D.ark Dollhouse and her husband, Robert, at the Tokyo Dolpa last Sunday.
Words can’t express the sadness that I feel. D.ark Dollhouse, Anja – I will miss you very much. I’m so grateful that I was able to know you, even if it was only for a little while. You were always eager to share your knowledge with me, and I respected you a lot. I will miss your smiling face and kind heart. ♥
Photo by Robert Tolton (GabrielVH)
Dollfie Dream Meetup in Toronto – April 28, 2012
Last weekend a few Dollfie Dream owners got together at Café Princess in Toronto for our monthly meet. Unfortunately a few of our regulars couldn’t make it, but we were glad to welcome some new faces to our merry band of DD parents! Here’s a group shot of all the DD girls –
We have Nanoha, Aoife, Rina, Asuka and Rei in the back row; Meo’s Obitsu twins, Ryoko, Delilahm, Médée and Maeve in the middle; Tai, Lareine and Haruka are sitting in front – with Woody taking a group photo of them!
The KOS-MOS Project – Part V
If you’ve been reading the progress on my KOS-MOS Dollfie Dream custom project, you’ll know that it’s been a long process but after over a year of planning and work she’s finally done!
If you haven’t already browsed these pages, here are my other entries about KOS-MOS –
Part 1: Introduction, Head & Wig, Faceup, Body Image
Part 2: Head Gear, Boots and Armour
Part 3: Bodysuit
Part 4: Weapon
Without any further ado, I’d like to present KOS-MOS!
The KOS-MOS Project- Part IV
Previous entries for the KOS-MOS Custom DD Project:
Part 1: Introduction, Head & Wig, Faceup, Body Image
Part 2: Head Gear, Boots and Armour
Part 3: Bodysuit
Weapon
KOS-MOS wields several iconic weapons through the games – gattling guns, her scythe, handguns, and swords. Kevin and I discussed this early on and decided that if we were going to do this project, it had to be visually impressive so a little handgun wasn’t going to cut it. Kevin really loved her blue sword, and I’m sure many others do too since it’s the weapon that is shown with many of her Ep. 3 version 4 figures.
The sword was Kevin’s project from the beginning, and it took a lot of trial and error, many late nights, tons of frustration but in the end it turned out looking really cool.
The KOS-MOS Project – Part III
So KOS-MOS has her armour, boots and headgear – what’s next?
Bodysuit
I had given permission for Machiko to sew Makoto into the costume if necessary, but would ideally prefer if it were removable. Keeping that in mind, Machiko designed the dress so that it can actually come off – and is attached using some very thin doll Velcro along the side seam.
The KOS-MOS Project – Part II
If you read Part I, you’ll know that having finally acquired the head and body that I wanted for Makoto, the serious job of creating her costume and her weapon was about to begin!
We started with the more straight-forward portions first, so in this entry will be descriptions of the Headgear, Boots and Armour.
The KOS-MOS Project – Part I
Introduction
For a long time I’ve been a huge fan of the character of KOS-MOS from the Xenosaga games. Kevin (my hubby) and I have collected practically every figure every released of KOS-MOS, and have been planning to make a custom DD of KOS-MOS for the last… 15 months or so. It’s been a long process, with lots of trial and error, but it’s been worth it to see my lovely Makoto finally become the doll she was intended to be.
My original plan was to complete KOS-MOS to unveil at a Volks Dolpa in New York in 2011, but after the devastating tsunami hit Japan last Spring, any plans of a Dolpa happening that year in North America were quickly put aside to much more important matters. So my KOS-MOS project was shelved for a while. Kevin never gave up on the project, and decided to set an even bigger goal for unveiling our KOS-MOS Dollfie Dream – Tokyo Dolpa 27! I thought he was crazy (since we had just been to Tokyo in autumn of 2011), but with the enthusiasm and interest of some other friends who wanted to make this a group trip, Project X gained momentum again. This will be a diary of this project, and tutorial of how Project X came into being.
Here are a few of my KOS-MOS and Xenosaga figures. Yes, I have the stunning Volks statue too! My thanks to TokyoHunter for helping me acquire her. As you can see, I have lots of reference materials! ^__~”
archangeli 