One o'clock exam

I took two photoshoots last weekend, but IRL duties have kept me busy again so I didn't have time to edit the photos earlier ^^; Since school is one of these duties that I have, I thought it'd be just perfect to start with this school-themed photoshoot! My school is luckily more practical training than theoretic studying and we don't have written exams, like these girls do...

Hotaru (my Chisa) and Nanami (Sarg's Nina) are taking an exam under Janna's (my Minami-sensei) supervision. Nanami is really good at school and often gets excellent grades, while Hotaru is not so good and always has hard time focusing on what she should... You'll see how their exam goes XD

This classroom setting was put together really quickly, since the whole idea was quite a spur of a moment thing. Some of the props are self-made... For example, the clock is made of Volks eye putty box and pencils are made of toothpicks :''D At some point I definitely want to create a better classroom with more props and little details!

Hotaru: "Good luck, Nanami! :3"

Nanami: "T-thank you, you too~! ^^;"

Janna: "Here are the questions, you can start answering right away :)"

Janna: "Here's for you too~"

Nanami: "Thank you, teacher!"

Janna: "You have time to answer until two o'clock. Good luck, girls!!"

Nanami & Hotaru: "Thank you!"

Hotaru: "I'm ready!"

Nanami: "I'm ready in a second too!"

Janna: "Thank you, Hotaru"

Hotaru: "This was easy! :3"

Nanami: "Here's mine... Hope I understood everything correctly ;___;"

Janna: "Thank you! Oh don't worry, dear, I'm sure it went well :)"

After Nanami and Hotaru have left the class...

Janna: "Hmm, let's see... Nanami answered everything and looks like her answers are correct too..."

Janna: "... And Hotaru didn't answer everything and spent most of the time on drawing, it seems..."

Janna: "Oh my... What am I gonna do with this girl... u_u;;;"

Also, have a few extra photos since the girls wanted to show off their new cute outfits! Me and Sarg both got one of these sets in different colors and swapped some of the pieces to get unique combinations X'D The girls seem quite happy now~

Hope you enjoyed the photoshoot! ♥ I'm hoping that I'll have time to edit the photos of the other shoot and post them before the weekend, so that this blog won't get too backlogged ^^; 

Unexpected admirer

In my previous post I was talking about taking some BJD photos during the weekend, but I was occupied with other things and didn't have the time for photography in the end u_u However, I did manage to snag a few photos on Monday, when I got home from school a bit earlier than expected... Thanks to the teacher that didn't arrive for our last class of the day after we'd waited for him for over 20 minutes ^^;

First I was just planning to take portraits of Carmen (Iplehouse EID Doria), but then I got the idea of a cute series of photos featuring one of Sarg's dolls, Ronya (Iplehouse EID Rebecca)! These two have quite an interesting background... Carmen is happily married with her husband Kenzo and Rony is in a relationship as well, but for some reason she can't stop thinking about Carmen and is obsessed with her, even in a bit unhealthy way ^^;; Rony tends to stalk Carmen and collect any stuff she leaves behind, like used napkins or a lipstick she may have dropped. At home she has this scary-looking little shrine for her "Carmen collection" XD All this might sound like straight from a horror story, but Rony is actually not evil or anything, just a little bit weird and hard to understand... Once you get past her creepiness, you'll find out that she's actually a very good friend :) She doesn't want anything bad to happen to Carmen, she's sort of like a guardian angel... With a twist, hahah :'D

Oh and yes, Rony is a she X''D

*thumbs up* Mission completed! ♥ (Carmen doesn't seem to appreciate though XD)

Also, here are the portrait shots that I took of Carmen!

I've been wanting to do more tattoos on Carmen... She has a full sleeve on her right arm, but I'd love her to have even more ^^;; Maybe on her stomach and/or chest? I need to come up with some ideas for pictures that would suit her character~

On another note, I've changed the colors of the blog layout (background and navigation bar) a little bit, since I was getting bored with the blue. Hope these new purple/pink-ish shades look okay on everyone's screen and are not too bright or anything :3

How to be a hamster~!

Here's a fun little photoshoot / story from today~

Susumi and Sarg's Miyuki have one thing in common - they both really love hamsters! ♥ Miyu wanted to get to know the newest resident in the house and ended up teaching Susumi how to do her favorite pose - the hamster hands XD Scroll down to find out how their first meeting went~

By the way, I changed Susu's wig and really like how this two-toned For My Doll wig looks on her~ ;3; It was not supposed to be hers, but I think she kinda stole it... I don't really have any carefully thought character for Susu (at least for now), she's just my pretty baby that can wear any kind of wigs, clothes and accessories I find cute, but I think she's mostly going to wear sweet lolita, mori kei and combination of the two~ Brown is definitely my favorite wig color for her, but I'm sure I won't be able to resist trying out some cute pastel wigs as well ♥♥

Without any further rambling, here's the photoshoot!

Susumi: "H-hey... D: So small..."

Miyuki: "Hi~ My name is Miyuki, nice to meet you :3"

Susumi: "Nice to meet you too ; . ; That's a cute hamster you have..."

Miyuki: "Would you like to learn how to pose like a cute hamster? :3"

Susumi: "H-how? o.o"

Miyuki: "You just need to put your hands like this :3"

Susumi: "L-like this? o////o"

Susumi: "Am I doing it right? ; //// ;"

Looks like Lettie the hamster approves XD

Miyuki: "You did great, good job! :3 *pat pat*"

Susumi: "T-thank you~ ; //// ; *holds tightly*"

Miyuki: "Can we be friends? :3"

Susumi: "I-if you'd like ;___; My first friend..."

Hamster overload X''D Greetings and hugs to all hamster fans! ♥

Azones and now Susu have pretty much stolen my attention, so sadly I've been kinda neglecting my BJDs for a while now, but I'm planning to take some photos of them this weekend ^3^ There are many sewing and crafting projects to do as well~

Hope you enjoyed these photos and have a great weekend! ♥

Susu-chan / DDS Mariko arrival~

Yaay, my first Dollfie Dream and grail doll Mariko is home at last~ ♥ I noticed that she was already in the customs on Saturday, while usually the tracking doesn't update at all on weekends D: Looks like even the post office knew how special this doll is to me and how anxious I was to get her home, as they were really fast with forwarding her after I'd paid the custom fees and all :D

Since we'd had problems with the EMS deliveries (the person who brings the packages doesn't know the code to the front door), we put a huuuge note on the door telling to call me so I can come to open the door. To our surprise our doorbell rang in the morning and after chatting a while with the lady, she told me that she'd been on parental leave for a while and didn't know our door code after getting back to work (these are new buildings), but now she knows and can deliver our packages from now on! :3 Great news!

Anyway, here comes the box opening of Susumi alias Susu-chan! ^o^

The outer box, which hadn't taken any damage during the shipping!

Seagull Jaanatar is my assistant here and helping with opening the box :'D

The inner box!

There are a few cute pictures of Mariko on the box ;3;

Waaah, I can already see her face a bit *O*

Lol, cyber age?? XD

Out of the box~ She was packed very safely :3

;____; ♥ That face, love at first sight~~ 

From the promo pictures her eyes seemed brown (at least on my screen), but in person they actually have a green/olive tint! Not what I had expected, but still really pretty for default eyes :) And it's fun that my eyes are actually the same; sometimes they seem brown, sometimes they look more green-ish XD

Hahah she looks like a baby wrapped in a blanket like this XDD

The outfit and other accessories she came with ♥

A lovely thank you rose ;___; I saw a picture of these roses on Twitter, but didn't realize that Volks is going to send them with the dolls! Such a lovely gesture, I think~ I might remember wrong, but I think the roses in the Twitter picture where actually dark red D: I really love this pink one though, I generally prefer pink roses over red ones, hahah...

Two leaflets, one with photos of Mariko and "instructions" on how to put on her outfit, the other has general DD information, like photos of all the different bodies (+ measurements), hand and other extra parts, eyes, etc.

Inside the Mariko leaflet

Back of the Mariko leaflet

A funny comparison, my hair color matches pretty much 100% with Mariko's wig :''D

After dressing Susu up, I thought I would take just one quick test photo, but she's so damn adorable and inspires me so I went quite photo happy ^^;

It's a bit hard to explain and might sound weird, but I really see myself in this doll... Her hair and eyes are like mine, and she has this very insecure, anxious and even a bit sad expression on her face. I see so much when I look at her ;__; To me she's not just an ordinary doll, even the word "grail" doesn't quite explain how much she means to me... She symbolizes myself, who I am, what I've been through and how despite everything, I've always been a dreamer and believed that there's a way to achieve your dreams. A few years ago I would've never thought that I'd one day hold this doll in my arms ♥

Susu really likes the cute pouch that matches her yukata~ ♥

Shoes and cute toes! ♥♥

That was the photo spam, for now >:3  I've ordered Susumi a pair of eyes, as well as some clothes and shoes from Taobao, but those will still take a while to arrive, so for now she'll be wearing her pretty default gear~ Though I might try on some of the wigs that I have and see how she looks with them! I also need to order some extra hands from Volks, since she only came with one pair and I want to have more for a variety of poses :3

I'd love to do a custom faceup on Susu at some point, but her default looks pretty so I'm in no hurry. I also want to be extra cautious with her and find out what products are 100% safe to use and won't stain her pretty face ;___; Vinyl is such a scary material compared to resin and I really don't want anything to happen to my Mariko...

Okay, I guess I'll go now and finally eat some breakfast... It's almost noon and I still haven't eaten anything, I've been so excited about this girl ^^;; But I'm really, really happy to have her home at last, the whole morning I've been smiling ear to ear~ ♥