Very special doll arrival!

Today I'm going to share a box opening of a very special doll~ ♥ Some time ago I bought a doll from the DoA marketplace without telling about it to Sarg or anyone else >:3 I wanted to keep it as a complete secret to surprise Sarg, since this was her holy grail doll and I actually bought it for her... I know her so well that I was sure without asking that she would pay me back eventually. Sarg hadn't even noticed this doll on sale at DoA - which was great since that way this was even more of a surprise to her and she had no idea at all about my master plan.

The package arrived already last week on November 18th, but we didn't want to share the news before the faceups are ready :)

The box! (On the left you can see a glimpse of the cabinet where we keep our smaller dolls :3)

When the doorbell rang in the morning, I even made Sarg to open the door and she was so confused when she dragged the huge box inside saying "Have we ordered something?" At first she thought that some company had sent a doll to a wrong address, but when she noticed that the package came from United States, she got even more confused XD I tried to act like I don't know anything about it...

You should've seen Sarg's face when she opened the box and realized what there was XD

Here she is in all her glory, grey Soom Onyx! ♥

This was like the deal of a lifetime, since I never would've thought that I'd see grey Onyx for sale for less than $1000, especially with both heads and in such perfect condition. We even got the default wig and a Cuprit outfit + crown as a gift, plus the seller offered to pay for the shipping since I had been the only one who contacted her about the doll.

Since this Onyx came with both heads and I knew that Sarg was mainly after the romantic head, I thought it'd be fun to create twin sisters! So when I decided to buy the doll I hoped that Sarg would not strangle me once she finds out that I'd like to keep the OE head X''D Luckily she was okay with it and actually quite excited about the twin idea, so I'm still alive, yay~

One of the twins is evil and the other is more innocent and good-willing, a bit like the original concept of Soom's Onyx - light and dark. We thought that it would be nice if the evil one disguises herself in light colors, while our "good" girl is the one wearing dark clothes XD So there's a bit of a twist, but I think it's fun to play around with things and not always go with the most obvious choices.

Sarg's character, snake demon Hydra, was actually created back in 2009, before she got into the BJD hobby. She knew that eventually Hydra would join the crew, so she hunted down the Angelheim medusa snakes and just kept them in storage waiting for Hydra. Sarg's first plan was Souldoll Shiva, but it had felt a bit like a replacement / consolation since grey Romantic Onyx is so rare. She had also thought about some girl from Iplehouse after they started offering grey skin in their Doll Choice system, but there was no other doll that could have such perfect cunning and seductive face than R.Onyx. But now after all these years, Sarg finally has Hydra in the shell that she has always dreamed of! ♥

Unpainted snakes x)

Here is Hydra with her finished faceup! It's quite bare and doesn't have a lot of color, but there are some silvery scale-like details to create some snake feeling x) Her expression is supposed to be arrogant, evil and also a little bit tired since she's thousands of years old...

The plan was that Sarg would get the original body and I'd search for another body for the OE head, but as we discussed different options she got excited about the possibility to get a 70cm Impldoll body for Hydra - which didn't surprise me as she loves very tall dolls XD We had some grey parts from the company already and noticed that they matched Soom's old grey resin almost perfectly, but since Impldoll offers custom resin color service we decided to send them an ankle ball from Onyx to ensure a 100% resin match. We have admired the Impldoll Idol female body ever since it was released, but none of the face sculpts really appealed to us so this was a great turn of events ^^

Once the body arrives, we'll post some comparison photos and tell more about the experience!

Then what about my girl? I got the inspiration for Spectra from a League of Legends character Diana (Lunar Goddess skin) :D She might not look so much like her, but that's what got me started on creating her character... Even though I've played the game, I've never tried playing as Diana, but I've always loved her character design very much. I had thought that Spectra would be a grey Cuprit if Soom ever decides to release her in such color, but after I saw the sales thread for Onyx it actually hit me that the open-eyed head could work for Spectra a lot better...

Compared to her sister Hydra, Spectra is a lot younger and her expression should look a bit insecure, even though she wears dark makeup. Spectra is actually a good friend of Sarg's Torukia, they have a lot in common XD

We wanted the girls to have self-made fantasy parts as well, so Sarg mixed some polymer clay colors together and made a few horns that attach to the heads with magnets, just like parts made by companies would :)

Here's a picture of Sarg's Hydra wearing her horns, they're huuge!

Spectra's horns look like babies compared to Hydra's XD

One last thing to mention: we're pairing Spectra with Sarg's Diaval (grey Hyperon), which is like the best doll couple ever, at least in our eyes! XD Both of these sculpts have such gorgeous side profiles~ ♥ This was just a quick picture that we took before I wiped Spectra's default faceup...

When Spectra and Hydra get some clothes (and Hydra gets her own body...), we will share more pictures of them and also tell more about their personalities and story ! I can't wait to take more photos with Diaval too ♥

#ProBJDArtists 2015

Last year Sunday, November 16th was the first ever "I support BJD Artist" day and this event is hold this year too, today on November 22nd!! The idea is to take a picture of your doll with a little message of support to show appreciation for the original BJD artists! You could post this photo anywhere on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, DeviantArt, Flickr) with the tag #proBjdArtists :) I took a picture for last year's event too, my blog post about it can be found here !

I thought for a while which doll I'd take the picture of and the decision was quite easy in the end - I chose my dream girl Gwynithia, Soom Cuprit in bronze skin, who I managed to get thanks to Soom releasing her in this beautiful skin color ♥ Getting her had been my dream for quite a while and I was absolutely thrilled when Soom responded to the demands and made her~ The idea of just buying a recast never even crossed my mind, I would never be able to enjoy my doll, if it was a recast >.< It wouldn't be the doll that I dreamed of. Even if Soom had never made her in tan skin, I would've rather been without the doll than bought it as a recast. No matter how much a person wants to own something, it doesn't justify turning to illegal copies as a solution. There are only excuses to buy recasts, not any good reasons.

With Sarg's permission, I'm also sharing the picture that she took. The doll in the photo is her grey Soom Hyperon, named Diaval, who is a similar doll to Sarg as Gwyn is to me - a holy grail doll ♥

Me and Sarg have often send thank you messages to the companies with photos of the dolls that we got from them. We always feel so grateful to them, since without their hard work none of these beautiful sculpts would exist. This recently got us wondering - what about recast owners? Would they have the heart to send a photo of their recast to the original sculptor and tell them why they felt like they have the right to buy an illegal recast and be happy about something that has been stolen? o_o

More photos submitted to this project can be found from ProBJDArtists Tumblr and of course under the #proBjdArtist tag on different websites and social media~

Wolf & Raven

I have some BJD photos from last Sunday :3

Sarg had her grey Soom Hyperon, Diaval with her on her visit, so we wanted to take photos of him with my Gwynithia (Soom Cuprit)~ These two are not actually a couple in our story, Gwyn is partnered with Sarg's Morgan, a white Hyperon hahah XD They're both wolves, Morgan being the alfa male of the pack ♥ Diaval is a raven and had a brief affair with Gwyn when they were younger, before Gwyn even met Morgan... Diaval was also the one that was there for Gwyn when she needed a shoulder, but in the end let her down by disappearing without saying a word ;__; Then after many years Diaval came back to find out that Gwyn had moved on and was happy with another man... I wonder if they can be "just friends" or do they still have feelings for each other ;3

At first we were hoping to do an outdoor shoot, but it turned out not to work so well.. It was really bright for once and Gwyn's new pretty winter coat was barely visible with all the white snow on the background :( We decided to just go inside to try again with a backdrop... Much better!

Some single shots of Gwyn :3

I made a simple braid for her~ This is definitely one of my favorite doll wigs ever, I adore this color and the length makes this just perfect for all kinds of hair-dos ♥ Though it also requires a lot of care and combing, so it doesn't get tangled XD

And last, some shots of Diaval ♥ (taken by Sarg)

I'm obsessed with this guy, isn't he just gorgeous ♥♥♥ Hyperon is one of my favorite male BJD sculpts ever, but I'm not good with creating male characters myself so I'm really happy that Sarg is so obsessed with Hyperons! That way I can keep admiring them at close distance without having to own them myself x3

I have the whole weekend off from work, so hopefully I'll at least get some sewing work done :)

Have a great weekend everyone! ♥