June Roundup!

Another month, another roundup of how i've been keeping busy in lockdown.

Olmec and Hasbro - Imani prototypes and more.

For weeks, if not longer, I kept seeing a really interesting listing on Ebay. A bunch of Imani (a black doll made by Olmec and later distributed by Hasbro under the Sindy brand) dolls with, the seller said, prototype Hasbro heads.

Super curious I kept watching the auction but it never sold. The seller wouldn't split the bundle and so I watched it, wishing I could justify the price because two of those dang prototype heads were freaking gorgeous.

As it turned out, finally the seller merged two of their bundles together.

The prototypes AND three mint in box Imani dolls to go with it. For the same price as they were asking for just the prototypes.

It was still a lot of money but damnit, i'm weak. And I knew i'd forever regret it if I passed it up.

So I put in a bid, half expecting to be outbid at the very end.

turns out, I was the only bidder.

go figure.

Perhaps I was the only one willing to shell out that much money in one transaction. I rationalised it that I could sell the mint boxed dolls to recoup some of the cost you know?

The arrived today. A HUGE box of goodies to enjoy bwhahah.

3d printing, thingieverse and dolls

So, my father happens to own 3 3d printers. Why you ask? Because he has poor impulse control and insatiable gadget lust.

His first printer was a cheap small one that he wanted to play around with. He discovered he really had a lot of fun with it so he ended up getting a second one with a larger bed so he could print bigger things and then bought another one because it was "a great deal"

I just laugh.

His gadget lust has always resulted in us having random things around. As a kid I remember him coming home jumping in delight because they're FINALLY worked out how to make blue LEDs and he wanted to play with them.

My dad is basically a giant child and it makes me smile.

Anyway,

since he got his first printer he's always offered to print me things if I have the files. Thingieverse has SO MUCH STUFF you can download and print for free and yeah, it's pretty tempting.

The first things he printed for me was a Braq dragon in teensy tiny scale and then a full scale one in gold.

They're strung with elastic just like a resin bjd, though being 3d printed they're a little rough in places and my bigger dragon has lost a wing spike which sheared off at some point.

Whoops?

They don't really stand up too well, they're quite top heavy so ideally some wire in the limbs would help them pose.

You can download your own Braq Here

The next thing my father printed for me was a full doll, only scaled down 60% because at the time he didn't have a BIG printer and she was fricken massive.

This is Polaris, a fully jointed bjd available here

She was printed in grey PLA because my father reasoned it was a good neutral tone to go for and he had nothing vuagely fleshtone.

I sanded the crap out of her and primed her with grey primer anyway. You could probably use a flesh toned primer or paint but I didn't want to risk it.

She isn't totally smooth and being 3d printed there will always be little defects in the print (her hands show this especially with little dents and indents) but hey, she was basically free so whatever lol.

It did however take me several days of work to get her to this state, so be aware of that if you've never done any 3d printing stuff before, they need quite a lot of work after they come off the plate.

My Polaris was printed at 60% so she stands around 38cm.. ish..

She's quite petite. Her head is only 5-6inches around so she fits liv wigs perfectly.

She's wearing 14mm eyes from Lemonjelly Eye Shop, they're B grade eyes from a mystery bundle. I feel like their imperfect nature works for a doll who is, in herself, imperfect.

now I will say this is NOT a style of doll I usually pay any attention to them. I'd call this head somewhat anime styled, rather Dolfie inspired and it's not really to my personal taste. I prefer more detail in my doll heads. However, she is quite cute despite not being a style i'd usually look at.

She has a HUGE bust and it was something my father brought up when he emailed me. He was all "this doll has huge boobs!" and I laughed and he was all "She's gonna have such back ache! and forget being able to sit at a desk and type! they'll get in the way!"

lol.

Poor Polaris.

She's got pretty decent jointing. Her arms have a double joint peanut that's not overly attractive but does the trick. Her legs have a peanut and she also has a mobility joint though one of her legs doesn't like to stay straight and tends to collapse under her. I'm not sure why.

Still, she makes a cute little flowerchild.

I didn't have S hooks small enough so I had to make some out of wire and paperclips. They seem to do the trick.

Now since then my father has bought a third printer, a bigger one. So next up was a full scale 1/3 or "SD" boy.

Dad said he had the most blue filiment so we elected to print him blue as it meant two printers could work on him simultaniously.

it took a couple of days to print regardless.

This blue is pretty, it shimmers like the gold filiment does.

Though like the gold you can see every layer resulting in striations across the whole surface.

A whole mess of parts to play with bwhahahah.

I removed their rafts and supports already.

Now they need sanding.

He's around 60cm tall and I don't currently have any elastic suitable for stringing him up.

Drat. I'll have to order some.

I also can't find my 18mm eyes which i'm fairly sure he takes.

His wig is 8-9 inches.

You can get your own here

This print also had my father amusing the heck out of me when he started to print the torso and exclaimed via email "He's rather well endowed isn't he?" and then elaborated that he had a scrotum and was "uncicumcised" and then I told my father about bjd companies making hinged penises and detatchable parts and he apparently spat his gin across the garden laughing so hard.

So yep.

Sometimes i'm too much like my dad lol.

I'm totally sending him photos of the snake part one company did (was it doll family?) because it's too hilarious NOT to share.

Anyway, big blue boy (or 3B as i'm calling him right now) is sitting in pieces waiting for me to find my sandpaper again and get to work.

I don't really know if i'll prime him or just leave him shimmery. I kinda like the shimmer and primer would remove that.

Dunno, we'll see.