Colorless

Even though I've mostly been posting about Azone dolls and Dollfie Dreams recently, I do still have my BJDs hahah X'D I've been planning to take some photos of Katherine (Iplehouse SID Grace), since I (finally) finished her dress and she also got a nifty handbag from the mail~ Poor gal has been waiting for over a week that I'd have the time to photograph her when there's some natural light and yesterday I was able to take a short break from work to take the photos!

Kat might look like a model, but she actually works as an engineer, specializing in robotics and mechanical battle gear :D Men at work often underestimate her intelligence and abilities, just because she's woman, but always end up regretting it... Kat is one of the best in her field.

This girl doesn't have a lot of color in her wardrobe - she only wears black, white and grey shades... Her accessories and everything are just as colorless XD Kat's personality is anything but colorless though - she's very sweet and caring, but also has a temper. If her partner and close friends were to choose a color to describe her personality, they'd probably say peachy pastel pink :)

Dem shoess~~ ♥♥ I love this style so much and luckily it fits even the huge Iple feet ;3; I have the same shoes in golden color for Zinnia and I'd love a black&red variation for Carmen! Totally addicted to pretty doll shoes, hahah X'D

I got a few packages today that I was supposed to post about, but wanted to get these photos posted first... I'll be making a post about the packages (one from Big In Japan containing figures and one from Taobao containing doll stuff) tomorrow if I have the time, or during the weekend at the latest :3

Lady and the Tramp

An update on Katherine and Renate~

After receiving our new girls, we wanted to get started on their faceups as soon as possible! We were curious and excited to see if these two sculpts really are suitable for our characters, especially my Grace, since she was a bit of an impulse buy and not what I had originally planned. We were supposed to go to the doll & teddy bear fair on Sunday, but ended up feeling a bit lazy and just stayed at home to faceup these two X''D 

I had some issues with my first try at Katherine's faceup, but Sarg helped me by giving some tips and also borrowed better brushes :) I've usually used watercolor pencils for the eyelashes, but with Sarg's help I managed to get them done with acrylic paint this time! The technique was quite challenging, but maybe with more practice I get better at it. It would be nice to re-paint some of my older dolls at some point and give them painted eyelashes too~

Sarg took a WIP photo of me working on Kat's faceup~ I wanted her to have quite dark lips and eye makeup, so it took many layers and a lot patience to get the colors dark enough, without the colors smudging all over her face ^^; (Also, Pusheen pants <3)

Then here are some pictures of her with the finished faceup:

Despite the trouble and worries that I had, the faceup succeeded in the end and I'm really happy with the result ^3^ Now I can finally see for sure that Grace is the perfect sculpt for my character! ♥ I don't know if it's just me, but I think that somehow she no longer looks that much like Grace D: Or at least she seems so different compared to other photos that I've seen of this sculpt before... I kind of get a "baby Carina" feeling from the way Kat looks XD

Since Kat has no own clothes (nor eyes) yet, we made her a jewellery set so that she has at least something of her own XD I have some ideas for her clothes too, but we'll see when I have the time and inspiration for getting started on sewing them...

We also took one picture of our lovely couple~

Kat and Ren look so different, they actually remind us of Disney's Lady and the Tramp XD But difference like this makes the couple interesting, both in their appearances and the story~ Their personalities are different as well - Kat is more elegant and a bit reserved, while Ren is quite relaxed and outgoing.

Sarg took some pictures of Renate, so let's take a better look at Renren~ (Renren is the nickname that K often uses for Renate)

Since Rena's Bibiane form had freckles, Sarg realized that they made her look a bit younger than she should be, so this time Sarg left them out and gave her some scars instead. The face doesn't look too pale or blank even though the blushing is lighter and there's not so much texture. Sarg also likes thick eyebrows because they give even very beautiful sculpts some attitude and masculinity. Raffine would make a great male doll as well, so the androgynous look is quite successful!

Actually the scars suit the character well, because Ren is working at military service and it's the kind of job were you might get some bruises. Sarg gave her some slight scars/bruises on the hands as well and blushed them to match the Iple NS better. These jointed hands are actually quite yellow-ish shade, but with the blushing the color difference is less obvious.

Ren has a piercing on her lower lip and Sarg has plans to make her some tattoos later, as well as a blushed six pack :DD

Overall, we both are extremely satisfied and happy with our girls~ They inspire us a lot and hopefully we come up with some nice photoshoot ideas for them :3 We're also going to send a thank you picture to Iplehouse, since without their work we wouldn't get to enjoy seeing our characters as dolls like this ♥ I think it's great to show the companies how much their work is appreciated and how the dolls they make have the power to bring so much happiness to their owners ^^

Double box opening - Iplehouse Grace & Raffine

My and Sarg's Iplehouse girls arrived this morning ♥ It was quite a surprise to receive the shipping notice just one day after we had finished our layaway... And we placed our order on October 9th, so it only took one month for them to make our girls ^^ Iplehouse is such a fast company, yet their dolls are great quality!

So, the dolls we got are SID Grace in real skin (mine) and EID Raffine in normal skin (Sarg's). I rambled more about the sculpts and characters last month in this post, so now I'll just share the box opening pictures we have :) We had actually planned to do a video box opening, but ended up being too lazy and just took a few pictures... Maybe someday 8'D

Without further ado, let's get started with the box opening!

Warning for slight nudity in some photos!!

Huuuge box... Susu (~55cm) is here as a comparison to show how big the box actually is ^^;

This is all that there was inside - one SID box, one EID box, a beautiful "Iplehouse Artwork" box with one of Raffine's default outfits, a wig and a pair of sunglasses :)

Iplehouse has re-designed their SID box! This new one looks absolutely stunning *o* I haven't had time to browse through box openings lately, so I have no idea when this change happened? I got my previous SID girl only 4 months ago (her box opening can be found here) and she still had the old box design D: The EID box is still the same, but I wonder if Iple has plans to re-do the boxes for the other doll lines as well?

Here's a quick picture of the Raffine dress, which is stunning. This is actually not for us though, Sarg splitted it to our dear friend Rootedinvanity :3 Hopefully she'll like it! ♥

Opening the doll boxes...

Certificates~

Two pretty dolls + two foam humans XD

This is Renate, Sarg's Raffine ;3; I think the sculpt looks much nicer in person than I was expecting based on the photos! (Elsa Nendoroid photobombing on the background, ahem...)

The re-designed EID woman hands! ♥

And here is Katherine, my Grace x3 Now I know for sure that she was the perfect sculpt choice for my character, I absolutely love her! ♥ (Elsa again...)

She has the beautiful re-designed hands as well~ I need to do a comparison of the new vs. old hands (and feet) at some point. We were surprised to notice that the new feet actually fit in some shoes that were too small for the older feet!

Trying on her wig and some eyes~ I'm still waiting on her own ones from Makoeyes, but she can use these for now. The wig needs some customizing as well - I ordered some white clip-on hair extension pieces that I'll sew on for a more K style look :)

I love the way this sculpt smiles~ Most of my other Iple ladies have a more serious expression, so I love having this girl bring in some smile as well!

Here is Renate with her eyes, wig and jointed hands ♥ Me and Sarg both immediately agreed that this sculpt works for Renate's character much better than the previous sculpt (Bibiane), which looked more like her teenage version.

Attitude? Check. (Those sunglasses are from Iplehouse as well~)

Poor Katherine doesn't have any own clothes yet, but she stole borrowed this dress from Sarg's Nieve :D

Our love couple! ♥ They're just perfect together, I do love how expressive Iplehouse's sculpts are even blank.

We'll be quite busy this weekend, since we're going to see the new James Bond movie on Saturday and on Sunday we'll visit a local fair for dolls and teddybears :) Hopefully we'll still have some time to at least get started on the faceups for Renate and Katherine, can't wait to be able to take some proper photos of these two! ♥

New Iple girls on the way!

Me and Sarg placed a big order to Iplehouse yesterday - both of us ordered a new girl! ♥ I wasn't supposed to buy a big BJD now, but since Sarg was ordering we figured we'd kill two birds with one stone and get these both girls at once, saving in the shipping costs as well XD They're going to be a couple too, so it's quite fitting lol~

(All these pictures belong to Iplehouse!)

I ordered SID Grace in real skin, with large bust and no mobility joints or faceup :3 She's going to be my character named Katherine Danrow, also known as just K. As a random fact, her cousin is Alexiel Danrow who goes by the nickname X :'D

I wasn't particularly interested in the Grace sculpt before Iplehouse recently introduced her as a basic version with this stunning faceup option that made me realize she has a lot of potential of being the perfect K. I had planned to shell her as Carina, but Grace got me more inspired about the character, so I decided to alter my plans! I'm glad that I was able to get her on SID body as a basic doll instead of Custom Doll System, which I would've needed to use if I decided to go with Carina (since she's originally an EID). I obviously wanted Katherine and Renate to have that cute little height difference XD

Katherine is a talented engineer that specializes in robotics and mechanical battle gear. Most of the other people working in the same field are males and they never stop wondering how a female can work in such a job - and be more successful than them... K dresses quite formally most of the time - classy suits and dresses are her thing. Oh, and she never wears any other colors than black or white ^^;

Sarg ordered EID Raffine in normal skin, with medium bust and no mobility joints or faceup~ She's going to be Renate, or just Ren for short. Renate was first shelled as EID Bibiane, but Sarg thought it makes the character look a bit too childish and didn't really bond with the head, so she decided to sell it and re-shell Renate as Raffine :) Ren's style is also going to change a little bit - she's getting a bull skull tattoo (maybe some other tats as well) and some scars, inspired by Venom Snake from Metal Gear Solid. Renate has yellow eyes and brown hair :3

Personality-wise she's a good friend of Shagrilah and Ronya, and currently works as a soldier at Xymox Headquarters. She's quite an unisex person and sees herself as more of a male than a female, but we still talk about the character/doll as "she".

I also wanted to show the blank pictures of both sculpts:

Iplehouse is definitely the favorite company for both of us, so we're always thrilled to be able to bring more of their lovely sculpts home ;3; They are usually quite fast to get the dolls ready for shipping - in the best case we might get a shipping notice next month already! We ordered with 2-part layaway though, but Iplehouse starts making the dolls right after the first payment, which is great :3

Sarg already has the eyes and wig ready, but I need to order Katherine's grey eyes >3< The wig she's getting from Iplehouse as well, though we'll customize it a bit and add some highlights.