Why i'm broke

After Christmas I had a lot of money, which went... fast due to my poor impulse control.

After finally putting in my order for Impldoll back in October, I also put in an order for 2 Resinsoul dolls in December (just after christmas).
I joked that they'd all turn up at once but... well, that's kinda exactly what happened.

On top of that, I also was gifted another doll by an extremely generous lady.

So well, let's start at the beginning shall we?




In October I finally got the money together and the nerves to place a big order with Impldoll. I'd been waiting for their event which is usually in September but they delayed it for some reason, so I was kinda chewing my hands while I waited to see if they'd do an event this year so I could finally justify getting Trista.

Back when I first got into BJDs she went on my wishlist. She's a freaking awesome taur thing man! But her price tag hurt a little too much. Twice I saved up enough for her, but both times I talked myself out of spending so much on a single doll and bought multiple cheaper things instead.

Finally I decided it was time, but I couldn't justify it still, unless there was an event on. Impldoll do a birthday event every year and it's usually really generous with discounts or free dolls.
So when their event finally hit it did make the guilt of purchasing a little less scary because they threw in a free 1/6 scale doll. Yes, that's right, totally free. SWEET.

I picked Abby

Because she's adorable.

She's YOSD/1/6 scale which means she's about the same height as a Bratz doll.
I ordered mine in dark tan because I couldn't resist the super dark resin in sample images. I am a sucker for dark skinned dolls almost as much as I can't resist fantasy coloured ones.

Anyway, Impldoll's standard wait time is about 3 months to make the dolls and ship them out. Add to that the fact they had a huge event on and got a shed load of orders to get through, AND that I ordered via the UK dealer Angelesque so I could avoid the uncertainty of customs fees, I was in for a long wait.

So come December I came into some more money. Yay lazy present ideas! Money is always the best present lol.

So well.. I SHOULD have probably put that money toward wigs and eyes and all the stuff i'd need for  the new ones but I didn't... because i'm dumb.

Instead I elected to order the last two Resinsoul dolls I had been eying up for ages.
One of them had strolled into my head as a fairly well formed character and refused to leave so I knew he'd demand to be made into a doll first (curse my brain) but I don't like paying twice for shipping and I had the cash and then resinsoul put an offer on where you got a free pair of jointed hands with every order and arghh, it was the last push.

So I placed an order for Rong on a hooved body in red and Yao on a boy body in purple.

Here's Rong hiding her beautiful ears

And here's Yao looking totally done with it all.

I had about a month wait apparently, which I know from previous orders actually means closer to 6 weeks. So I settled in for the long wait again.

This time though, I had no money till new year.

New Year rolled around and of course I realized I really SHOULD order wigs and stuff.
So I bought a couple of wigs, comissioned another few and then ran out of cash for anything else. Not even eyes. Errrrp.

In the meantime I struck up a conversation with a lovely lady on a forum. Well, she struck up the conversation. She was looking to rehome a doll that was one of my grail dolls, my number one "omg I wish I could have afforded this when it was available, one day i'll own you" doll.
We struck a deal that I would paint one of her dolls for her (my first resin commission eeeeeee) and in return i'd get a doll (Amazing deal for me, no way is my art worth that much but I was too busy squealing in disbelief at that generosity to do much else).

I scarcely dared believe it, till a box came.

Oo mystereous box.

With so much bubblewrap.

I have no idea what & sheets is but they sure make sturdy boxes.

Seriously this box weighs a tonne.

Aaand here she is!

It's Xaviera! The Doll Chateau doll I was pining over last year. She was a limited release and obscenely expensive but oh I fell in love with her.
She's a freaking spider thing! I LOVE SPIDERS, rather more than I think is healthy tbh.

She came with a fabulous skirt and some wonderfully quirky knitted socks with bells on the ends.

That spider body is just extraordinary.

I spent a fair while just sitting on my floor shaking and sobbing in amazement at what an incredible gift this was.

Of course I had to get to work on her face and body paint.

I even made her some red eyes for added creepy factor.

I'm still working on her full body blushing but now I have to finish her up and restring her and somewhere during the point she embedded an S hook in my hand and I put my paints and stuff away my brushes have gone AWOL. Which means I can't do any more work easily as the only brush I have is a giant one and the rest are gone ARGHHH.

I still have to paint this other doll for this lovely lady and I feel bad that it's taken me so long to get to it! But I want her to be PERFECT so i'm probably gonna agonise over it even after I find my brushes.

And then I got a shipping notice from Resinsoul.

And Parcelforce misplaced my parcel and tracking wasn't updating and they told me over the phone I wasn't getting my parcel that day, so when i checked my tracking later on I was pretty pissed to see it had changed to "delivered" when nobody had knocked on our damn door! ARGHHHH

I had to ring them to find out where the hell they'd left it. Thankfully not over our fence (i'd have lost it with them seriously) but with the bemused neighbour. Oh thank goodness. 

The box didn't seem big enough at all for two 1/4 sized dolls but it was deceptive. Two boxes taped together to make one larger box. Clever.

Still, much smaller boxes than my last order.

Each box contains a neatly packed little cream coloured leatherette case. My previous boy doll orders had oversized cases so these look more reasonable and compact.

I completely forgot that by ordering the Yao head i'd get the horns. Oops.

Also included are some feet/hands and a pair of grey jointed hands for husband (freebie hands, I asked them to be cast in a different colour for one of his dolls)

These are new cushiony blankets, the old ones were gold, these ones are white. Very swish.

My first look at my new boy!

I think his name is Silas.

He was shipped without hands or feet, poor boy!

"Stop taking bleedin' pictures and give me a hand.. or two.. would ya?"

Even without a faceup he looks annoyed

I got this doll on the "Tang" body, which is a bit taller and a bit beefier than the standard boy body.

Nhar was pretty eager to strip naked to show off the differences.

My four armed boy Cree is on the same muscular body but with dragon/bird feet instead of human feet.

Just about every piece is ever so slightly different. There's double joints but they're not peanut joints, they're these strange double sided cups. They work okay, certainly better than the single cups of the standard double jointed body but they're more slippery and inclined to "jump" into specific poses than peanut joints.

His torso joint is pretty useless, it's not curved much so it doesn't really work as a joint, maybe it just makes casting the body easier if it's in three bits? I dunno.

This boy was a slightly complicated order, because all my resinsoul orders are.

He is a Yao head on a Tang body with Sui hands in their "lilac" or "purple" tone. It's a wonderful purple, a sort of greyish desaturated purple colour that I think is really pretty.

His hip sockets are bizarre in that they aren't shaped so his leg can actually bend in that socket at all. In order to sit his legs come forward leaving a big ol' gap around his butt. It's strange. Dressed you'll never see it but it's still an odd choice not to fix that.

I love the Sui hands. Cree has them too, they're beautiful with these long claws and quite an elegant pose I think.

Pretty.

As he's a horned sculpt he has an unusual head cap. There's a plate that slots in and two compartments holding a strong magnet each.
The magnets just float about in these compartments, which means they're quite versatile. It works well and the magnets are omg STRONG.

I pried his head open to get a good look at the inside and also to remove the magnets because they weigh a lot and make the doll much heavier. He wasn't going to wear horns, i'd forgotten he came with them, so they're getting sold on to someone who'll use em.

He came with pretty grey-blue eyes but he's not keeping em. As soon as I have money again he's getting a red eye and a damaged blind one.

Also a face, he'll get a face when I get through my backlog.

And here's the girl. Again, no hands or feet. Poor thing.
She looks kinda resigned.

I also had forgotten that I asked them to cast her feet and horns in dark tan lol.

She's in their standard "red" tone which is a sort of brick colour, in fact, it's EXACTLY the same colour as the stamps in the back of all the Resinsoul doll's heads!
Like all Resinsoul colours it's a little desaturated but looks quite beautifully natural. A sort of reddish tan color that could with the right blushing look quite human, or quite alien.

She came with jointed hands and regular hands but I wanted to play with the jointed hands.

They're fun.
Though they do ping about a bit and the fingers can be a bit tricky to make pose just right. They're tiny and strung though so it's not really a surprise they're a bit finicky. Still, she can hold stuff which is awesome. And make obscene gestures hahaha *mature me*

She is a Rong head with Ming horns and the Yao body (so this is the body the boy's head should have come with lol)

Interestingly, unlike my Ming doll, she can actually stand in her "beast mode" with her legs bent. She can't be as top heavy or something.

I looked inside her headcap and found this. The purple is the regular horned sculpt cap with the plate, the red is Rong's cap where they've just drilled little holes and glued the magnets instead.
She must have a very differently shaped head to Ming and Yao for them to have to mod this rather than just cast one of those two caps with the insert.

Some quick clothing to preserve modesty.

I think her name is Rowan.

She came with brown eyes which are very pretty, but she's getting yellow eyes when I can afford to order em. And an awesome dreadlock wig hehe.

Meanwhile wigs arrived.

Lidara got a new wig at long last. What a difference!

For comparison, this is her with her crappy Liv wig which was totally the wrong color and you know, a crappy liv wig.

And here she is with her lovely new Monique wig.

It's SUCH A NICE WIG omg. It's soooo soft and I can't stop touching it.

I found finding 5-6 sized wigs that weren't super babyish really hard and the cost of shipping was more than a wig cost from the US (UK supply is crap for wigs) but I noticed Facets were having a "we have too many wigs omg so many wigs" sale. I jumped on that baby and ordered 3 wigs. One for Lidara and the other two for my Impldolls when they finally arrived.

FEET!

ahem.

And sure enough, only a few days later I got confirmation from the dealer that my Impldoll order had arrived in the UK.

Then the courier lost it...

but only for a day.

somehow UPS managed to misplace my parcel, put it on the wrong truck and send it on a lovely little exodus goodness knows where. Going by tracking, I like to believe they took some time out to go to Blackpool for the afternoon.

Anyway, finally I got my parcel. A nice BIG parcel. oooo exciting.

Inside the sturdy box is some weird loooong bubble wrap and ooo look, you can just see the centaur body!

I ordered Trista in white and regular to differentiate her two halves. She's going to be a Bariaur (they're like goat taurs) so i wanted her goaty body to look well, suitably goat/sheep-like.

Inside the box were two dolls. Trista and Abby. Or Sigrun and Zynfi as i've named em.

Oh my goodness that dark tan is DARK. It is stunning. It's also very very shiny but some matte sealant will fix that right up.

You can see she has a fair few sanding marks but that's to be expected for such a deep colour, and a faceup should cover almost all of them.

Unlike Resinsoul Impldoll don't ship dolls with eyes. Which makes them sorta... especially creepy coming out the box.

They do however come with these gorgeous certificates.

Oddly I had THREE in my parcel. Apparently I got someone elses' certificate by mistake?

The actual certificates are transparent plastic with a code which presumably links to.. something. The dealer tells me they're not specific to the individual dolls which I find kinda odd because what's to stop unscrupulous people just selling these and tacking them onto bootlegs?
Maybe the code is somewhere on the doll? But I couldn't find it.
So.. I dunno. Weird.

Resinsoul's all have the doll's head sculpt and resin colour along with the date on them. Doll Chateau's are specific to the individual doll with a picture of that scupt on them and the date.

Sadly very few actually link to a specific doll which I feel kinda... defeats the point of the certificate as an anti fraud thing. Maybe they should start printing a code somewhere inside the doll, nice and hidden like in the torso cavity or like, engraved on each and every piece of the body and head on the inside.

The other bit of the certificate is actually a catalogue.

I found some temporary eyes for Trista so she'd look less spooky and put her wig on her.

She came with a magnetic tail and um... crotch.. fuzz that sticks on... yeah I dunno. she also came with antlers which aren't what I ordered, I ordered the spiral horns the boy version of her comes with. The dealer is apparently going to sort this out.
They also failed to send me any magnets with which to attach said antlers to her head anyway. It's WEIRD. It strikes me as very strange that they don't just glue some magnets to the head cap like resinsoul do but I suppose it drives home how much extra resinsoul really do put in. Their dolls are pretty much ready to dress out of box, while a lot of other companies need a little bit of work, eyes installing, magnets installing, that sort of thing.
It's always interesting to see how other companies do things.

Sigrun stands like a freaking ROCK. Her body has pretty damn good posing as well, though she does look quite short alongside a regular msd sized doll. Once she'd dressed she shouldn't look quite as stumpy in the lower body.

Her skin tone is quite yellowy and the white is paper white. The fur detail on the hooves is incredible.
There's no way that's a deer body as their promo images like to claim, but it's dang cool regardless.

And then little Zynfi, who got her wig and eyes. I happened to have some blue eyes laying around.

She's supposed to be a Gnome, and according to D&D that means light hair, dark skin and blue eyes. Of course, she's dark even for a Gnome but I loooove it.

She looks spooky without her face though, the shiny resin does her no favors.

This is the point I learned I had lost my brushes. When I got her and the commission head out to paint.

I had to soldier on with a really big brush and nothing else. ARGHH.

Suffice to say, not having the appropriate tools made it needlessly difficult and I was reluctant to continue with commission if I couldn't do it properly. So that is on hold till i find the brushes or buy some new ones.

Anyway, sealant really helped with the sanding marks and the shine. She still photographs a bit shiny but that's because the new purity seal (munitorium varnish as it's now called) is a satin finish not matt. I dunno why. It's not that noticable in person but my flash picks it up so I might have to save my last little dribble of purity seal to do a final matt layer on everything to dull it down.
Or it might just be that dark resin is a pain in the butt to photograph.

I haven't got any lashes right now either, I need to buy some more. But having a face helps immensely reduce Zynfi's weird stare.

She's adorable.

I made her some clothing too. Skirt, petticoat, blouse and the waistcoat I pilfered from my spare stuff box. 

Lidara looks SO mad in this photo for some reason lol.

Commission head peeking out at me, telling me "hurry up and paint me damnit!"
and I will! I've got her all sealed and ready to go, i'm gonna search for brushes tomorrow and  then hopefully I can get her done and looking perfect and beautiful.

But till then she's staring at me making me feel guilty and forcing me to hurry the heck up. I darn't put her back in her box because then I won't have the motivation staring at me from my desk top.

Anyway, Zynfi is substantially shorter than Lidara. Though both 1.6 sized dolls, Lidara stands a good head above Zynfi.
Technically this is the wrong away around for Gnomes and Halflings, Gnomes are supposed to be the slender ones with Halflings being kinda pudgier but eh. I already decided Lidara's a "Tallfellow" which means she's tall for a halfling and skinny. (in D&D most races have three subclasses. the "human" like one, the "elf" like one and the "dwarf" like one lol)
Also, it's my fantasy world and I can do whatever I want hah.

Anyhoo.

Despite being from different companies the Resinsoul and Impldoll dolls do seem to blend quite nicely together, especially the 1.4 scale dolls who have similarly sized heads and are of similar height and build.

Mixing brands like this was something that concerned me, but I decided I wouldn't really be able to judge till I had the dolls in hand and goodness me, finding pictures of Trista alongside Resinsoul dolls isn't easy. Finding pictures of trista in general was hard. There don't seem to be that many of her out there "in the wild" so to speak. From the photos I could find, I thought it'd work and i'm pleased to say that I think it does. I'll know more when they all have faces.

And so that's my backlog of dolls and the reason why i'm broke this month and shall continue to be broke for a while. I have 3 more dolls to dress completely, 5 dolls to paint and eyes to order. Eeep, so much to do!

So my list for the time being is:

Find brushes
if you can't find brushes, go buy new brushes
Finish commission
Send commission back to USA and fret till it arrives safe and sound back in her owners hands.
paint resinsoul pair and trista
make armor for Silas our of worbla and curse my life decisions.
Make tunic and leggings etc for Rowan, curse terrible sewing ability.
Make complicated viking outfit for Sigrun, cry a lot over terrible sewing ability and over ambition.
Get mum to knit some fake chainmail
Hope like heck everything comes together.
Oh and buy some shoes for Silas too.

Of course, being broke never stops me does it?

Because I have no impulse control.

So the last thing before I sign off for the night...

Sitting at my desk a few days ago I overheard the tv talking about Shpock, you know, it's kinda like gumtree? I'm already a member and periodically search it (it's where I got my Nosy Bear) but this reminded me "hey, you haven't searched that in a while, you should go do that."

Now, maybe it's fate that I decided to do this, I don't know, but I logged in and typed "dolls" into the search bar, searching by distance to see what random stuff people were trying to flog (it's usually disney princesses, barbies and a few monster high dolls).

And what came up?

A VERY familiar yellow box.

Listed as "doll", she'd been sitting unsold for months upon months.
Could the seller still have her?
She was a dang good price and I had to ask.

So I made an offer and tried to forget about it. "she's probably sold" I told myself "or been donated to charity or something. No way does she still have this doll after all this time"
But sure enough, the seller got back to me. "she's yours!"
Only caveat, I had to go pick her up in person.

EEEEEEEEK.

Now, oddly enough I have in all my years never actually met with a stranger to purchase something. Either they post it to me, drop it off at my place or well.. yeah that's pretty much it. Aside from cats i've never gone to meet a random stranger to exchange money for goods.
And never on my own.

So this was going to be a bit scary.

thankfully the lady seemed very nice and wasn't that far away by public transport. About half an hour or so. So we arranged to meet in a nice busy place (because crazy people won't try to kidnap or murder you in a crowded public place right?) and husband laughed and told me not to listen when they said they had dolls in the basement.
-_-

Anyway,

Again I scarcely could believe my luck here. The odds of finding this doll when she was listed as "doll" and had so little information was just incredible. Bless those random "let's look at everything" searches. they pay off.

I went and picked her up today, in the rain and cold and rail disruption hahaha.

And I KNOW, I know I said 32 was a good number to stop on but come on, how could I resist a sweet faced girl who'd never been out her box and needed a loving forever home? It was fate! She came to me.
Or so I tell myself as I slip into my overdraft... ahem. 

 Apparently she came from Selfridges, as evidenced by her price sticker. £69 originally, an expensive toy to have never been used but sure enough, she'd never been untied from her backing card.
Poor girl, how many years had she sat in that box?

though this made me wonder what on earth Selfridges and Hamleys DID with all the made for you Makies they had. Back before I bought my first 3 Hamleys had a huuuuge display of them, literally a good hundred boxes all lined up 4 or 5 deep on shelves. They also had a display featuring the 4 special edition characters in a perspex box. I wonder what became of those dolls. Were they sent back to the labs? if so, what'd the lab do with them because the Made for you ones they sold in their online store can't have been all of them right? and the ebay guy who had all the back room stuff didn't have any in these boxes at all.
So there's all these premade yellow box makies out there somewhere, unsold shop stock, just.. somewhere.
I wonder about this.

I also noticed Argos have uncovered some of the Makie fashion packs they were sent ages ago and cocked up the selling of. They're selling them on ebay now. I wonder if they have any dolls, or ever had any dolls. Their numbers were so messed up in their catalogue that it was impossible to order anything and get what you ordered. I tried twice to order their Makie gift cards and both times they gave me fashion packs instead (yeah not paying £69 for a fucking fashion pack christ)
Still, them finding old stock was another thing that got me thinking about the old doll stock and where they all went to.
Poor dolls, I hope they're somewhere safe.

Anyway, back to the new girl

 She's a coffee skinned girl with amazing eyes and very long hair. Way too long hair in fact.

She's wearing an outfit exclusive to the made for you line, with cool yellow beaker leggings and a short sleeved version of the penguin top.

Standard version and variant.

Curiously, she has no shoes. A lot of the premade ones had no shoes. I think they were made before the lab started making those little black slip ons a default thing.

Given Selfridge stopped selling Makies before Hamleys did and Hamleys stopped selling them shortly after I got my first three, i'm gonna have to assume this girl is older than them, or at least of a similar age.
so many years in a box.

She has the cutest little face.

And a LOT of blush around her eyes. Which is interesting.

I like the leggings but I hate her wig. It's just too long and gets in the way.

Here is her little face without the wig hiding her features.

Goodness look at how impish she is!

This is one of the things I quite liked about the premade Makies. They were designed by the staff at the lab who maybe had a different idea of what was pretty or cute than you did, so you got some quite different looking dolls to the ones you'd design yourself. Combinations you maybe wouldn't have considered, features you wouldn't have put together but seeing them actually they totally work, that kinda thing.
Some of my favourite Makies in my collection are strangely enough ones I didn't design myself. I fell in love with them and that's why I bought them, but they weren't designed by me.
My only problem with the premade Makies is that they kinda defeated the point of the "make your own doll" thing. You could make a custom doll to your precise specifications for the same price, so why would you buy one off the shelf and miss that aspect of the gimmick? If you already have a few sure, but these were aimed at children and I dunno, as a kid the idea of being able to make it myself would have overridden any "instant gratification".
I always felt like maybe the premade ones should be slightly cheaper, because you weren't paying for the "custom service". Sure the same work and effort went into them, they cost the same to make, but they could have charged a little more for the custom bit right? "you can get a premade unique doll unlike any other OR you can pay a tenner more and get one YOU design" for instance.

Now that said, i'm glad the made for you dolls DO exist because this girl is omg adorable and so are my other made for you ones.

In my collection I have three groups. "designed by me" "designed by another customer" and "designed by Makielab staff"
I keep meaning to get them all down and take photos and see if you can tell which ones I designed vs the other two groups heh.

I'm naming this girl Lou.

She has pierced ears interestingly, so I gave her some earrings. And a shorter wig.

I don't have many 6-7 wigs in my stash any more, it was this or a teal one and I felt the blonde worked better. I think she's a bleach blonde personally, she has black eyebrows heh.

I didn't do too much with her faceup because I thought she was adorable as is. So she just got some lashes and tweaks to make her feel more finished.

Looking at her I was struck by how much her face reminded me of someone. So I got Ig down off the shelf.
I can see a family resemblance, can't you?

I gotta fish August and Cass out and take a big group shot.

Not sure if she's their sister or what, but she's related to em i'm pretty sure.

I really love her and i'm so pleased to have found her. It cheered me up on a day full of bad news.

So everyone say hi to Makie 33, Lou.