Pullips and Junk

Japan Doll Show- Pullip Prototypes

Posted on November 23, 2009 by Klein

Pictures taken from Pullip.net. I am not exactly sure who is responsible from the photography while I am grateful for the pictures, the photographer could probably benefit from a better camera ^^;.

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The November/December/January releases- Nothing earth-shattering here. I am personally very excited Naomi and Edge are currently in the mail at the moment and I simply must have Richt when funds become available.

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The January/ February/ Possible March releases- I am really looking forward to Feb’s, the more pictures I see the more I want all three. This picture seems to be confirming Dal Pinocchio, Byul Dumbo and another Audrey pullip for March. I am not sure if this Audrey is based on her portrayal of the title character from Sabrina or not as I am not familiar with the film, but there was a rumor floating around that a pullip based on her portrayal of that character was going to be the March release so I am kind of assuming it is ^^; . I still hate Byul but I so want the Dumbo Byul’s stock as I love elephants and Dumbo was one of my favorite movies as a kid.

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Prototypes- A bunch of byul prototypes in the front some that I haven’t seen before, some that I have. I’ve noticed a lot of the byul prototype stock is nicer than some of the dals recently ^^; I think they may be trying to entice people over to the byul side. The Egyptian dal seems to be joined by an Egyptian pullip prototype, it’s kind of an interesting concept. I am not exactly sure what the other pullip prototype is at this point, is it supposed to be a Gypsy or something?

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Doll Carnival Limiteds- Jouet, Isolde and newcomer Chantilly who is being released at this year’s doll carnival.

Posted in Dal, Doll, Doll Show, Pullip, Taeyang/ Namu | Tagged audrey hepburn, chelsea, Dal, disney, dumbo, edge, elisabeth, ende, groove inc, japan doll show, kain, naomi, nosefaruto, phoebe, pinocchio, prototype, Pullip, richt, taeyang | Leave a comment

365 Day Challenge- Day 1

Posted on November 23, 2009 by Klein

I decided that since I really seem to lack inspiration lately that perhaps committing myself to a 365 day challenge would get my creative juices flowing. I will blog my photos daily, they will be of my toy collection. I will try and photograph a good variety of items, not just my dolls but anime figures and other toys as well. I also have enough of a variety of stuff so that I won’t photograph anything more than once, it will definitely make me focus on some of my less photographed stuff.

Photo 1/365- BJD- Little Fee- Ante

I took all of my bjds (true bjds, I am doing a DD outing later in the week) out for a shoot today and I decided while I was taking this picture that I would start this project up.

Posted in 365 Photo Project, BJD, Doll | Leave a comment

I <3 VOTD

Posted on November 21, 2009 by Klein

The Valley of the Dolls is awesome. Although I don’t order from them as often as pullipstyle, I have never had a problem with or any complaints about them. The service there is phenomenal if you ever have the cause to email/call them, Scot (the owner) is very nice and will work with you. He is really good at tracking down older/rare dolls. They have a sales section on their site that normally has some pretty decent deals but they also have these awesome OOB (Out of Box) sales where they sell old display models/returned dolls at rock bottom prices. These sales are kind of irregular and will just be posted at random points during on their somewhat quiet forum and normally all the dolls get snatched up pretty quickly. Some of the dolls are just opened/out of box others might have been used for harvest parts (missing arms etc) but all that is clearly noted (no pictures though) and the worse condition the better the price and well my attitude is I can always find spare bodies or obitsus, hell I even have a few parts only bodies hanging around. I’ve bought from these sales in the past (a Cornice head, Tweety and J-doll Church St probably a couple of others too) without complaint but one hasn’t been posted in a while so I was kind of checking the forum at random intervals. I hadn’t logged in a few days, then I decided to log-in last night and seen all the insane deals I missed out on ($55 Street T_T), I tried in vain to get a second Magical Pink-chan for myself but Scot said that while she was sold out he was going to list more dolls soon. When I checked my email this morning I noticed he had already posted up the new dolls. After a rapid flurry of emails I secured four new dolls (two taeyangs/one pullip/one dal) for myself all for $164.50 shipped.

Tantus Another King

Another Clock Rabbit Another Alice

The four dolls I ended up with ranged from $35 to $45 in price. All are OOB and come with most or all of their stock, Another Alice is the only damaged one. One of her arms is missing and the other one has a broken wrist. There are no body matches for the Another series -yet- but I decided to take a chance on Requiemart’s amazing paint matching skills and since she has a Another Queen with a broken wrist I know it is on her list of things to do so my second Another Alice will eventually have a whole body until then when I photograph her I will have to borrow arms from Another Queen ^^; . I emailed Requiem and alerted her to the sale and she got a couple of the dolls she had been after as well and I discussed Another Alice with her then and she said the paint match is on her to do list. Of the four I originally asked for, I got two immediately (Another Clock Rabbit and Tantus) then about five minutes later I got a second email saying one of the other dolls (Another King) I asked about had become available and then I decided to take chance on a second Another Alice. Tantus and Another King had been on my wishlist for a while, I had been considering duplicates of Another Alice and Another Clock Rabbit as well so I was really glad I was able to get the dolls I did. I was shocked I was able to get such low prices on the Another set as it was, they are limited to 500 and for a while ACR was selling for a quite bit on the secondary market before VOTD restocked her.

Wasn’t I just saying I was slowing down in buying pullips/dals/taeyangs in the last entry…

Posted in Dal, Doll, Pullip, purchase, Taeyang/ Namu | Tagged another alice, another clock rabbit, another king, Dal, Pullip, taeyang, tantus, votd | Leave a comment

Arrival- Angelic Pretty Maretti Dal- All caught with pullips and dals

Posted on November 21, 2009 by Klein

I have actually had Maretti for a while now, I picked her up at Animadness Pullip Party but never got around to blogging her until now. I decided earlier in the year that all dals were getting alcohol names (or they could their stock names, customs are exempt from this rule) so her actual name is Pink Squirrel. I decided to nickname her P.Q. after the character from Knights of Ramunes because during the pullip party when I was kind of checking out Animadness-the store out I noticed they had the OST of Knights of Ramunes which I thought was hilariously random. Ironically, I am now kind of regretting not picking up the OST as I love the theme song.

Maretti was always my favorite of the announced Angelic Pretty collaborations, the little details like the silverware on her hairband kill me. Her stock while very lolita-ish isn’t overly frilly like Sfoglia’s and isn’t quite as over the top despite the silverware. Her face up is also really cute. Her wig is surprisingly good quality and I love the color, it suits her well. Her shoes are probably my favorite dal shoes ever, they are just so delicate and feminine looking.

Now that I have Maretti, I am all caught up on owning all of the pullips/dals again I always seem to get caught up around this time year (October/November). I the November releases- Naomi and Edge are on the way from Pullipstyle I had preordered Naomi but I was just able to scrape together the cash and order Edge last night. I already have a wig on hand intended to replace Edge’s stock wig (and a back up wig if I decide I don’t like the replacement wig on her) as I can’t stand her stock wig.

I remember earlier in the year I had set the goal of not going over 200 pullips(/dals/taeyangs) this year and well I have already exceeded and am currently at 206 with two more actively in the mail, another dal on layaway and more likely. Maybe my new goal is not to match last year’s overall number purchased which was like 116, I’m at less than 50 now so I think I am in pretty good shape for that goal. Starting to collect other dolls like bjds, blythes and dollfie dreams has slowed down my pullip collecting a bit, so although I bought less pullips this year my overall doll costs probably remained about the same ^^; . Ideally now, I just try and purchase the new releases as they come out and customs but I ended up buying a few more Papins and some boys ^^;.

Posted in Dal, Doll | Tagged animadness, Dal, knights of ramunes, maretti, p.q., pink squirrel | Leave a comment

Taking Photo Requests/ Suggestions

Posted on November 17, 2009 by Klein

So here’s the situation- I have sexy new camera, tons of stuff to photograph but lately I have no idea what is is I want to photograph besides my Little Fee Ante, Marie who has recently become a bit of a camera whore. As much as I love photographing my little camera whore I need some variety and I bet my flickr contacts are getting pretty bored with seeing Marie so much. I hate being this stumped when it comes to inspiration so I thought I would open the floor up for suggestions.. can be dolls or anime stuff this list will give you a pretty decent idea of what I have. The side tabs on this blog have a better/ more detailed information on my dolls. Please note while most of the stuff is on hand, some of the figures that have fallen out of favor are currently at my storage unit and I do have a handful of dolls out on loan at the moment some are with Requiemart and a few are down in Texas to help a friend out with a panel on dolls at a local anime convention. Things I won’t do- ultra loli naughty shots, I have had requests in the past for upskirt shots on Lucky Star figures while I am not really prudish about doing upskirt shots in general I reserve the right not to photograph certain figures in certain ways.

the little camera whore

The first person who suggests a picture of my entire collection will be shot 😛

Posted in anime figure, Doll, Off-topic | Leave a comment

Bad Hina no more playing with bjds..

Posted on November 16, 2009 by Klein

Playing with my Little Fee Ante, Marie has it’s downsides apparently. I had kind of forgotten how much I really love Little Fees, playing with Marie reminded me of just how much fun they are to handle. Playing with her, really made me realize that I would really fancy another one in addition to Marie eventually. I was not intending to get Marie a friend immediately and was just kind of looking at Denver Doll trying to choose who (very hard as I like a lot of the releases) would eventually be joining my bjd family. My shortlist was Ante Elf! and Bisou (girl), I already have a first edition Ante but I really love her so I can justify wanting an Ante Elf! in addition to my normal release Ante. I noticed a note on denver doll next to Bisou (girl) stating that only a few more of the full sets were available to preorder. Of course this moved her to the top of my wanted list as I panicked at the prospect of not being able to get her.

There is only one thing to do when I go into doll panic mode, and that is to acquire doll like yesterday. I hastily set up a layaway plan on Denver Doll for her. I would have preferred to pay her off in one payment but Christmas is around the corner and zilla is going to get spoiled. This also means I am in the process of paying off two bjds at the same time through denver doll as I put a down payment on a Fairyland Puki PongPong (I think I neglected to mention her here) last month to finish off my Power Puff Girls Puki trio.

Coincidentally if anyone wants to know what to get me for Christmas I love denver doll gift cards ❤

Posted in BJD, Doll | Tagged bisou, bisou (girl), fairyland, little fee, littlefee | Leave a comment

Some thoughts on Bjds…

Posted on November 13, 2009 by Klein

I haven’t actually been collecting bjds that long, I just started collecting January of this year. At that point, I was firmly under the belief that my full set Little Fee Ante, Marie by Fairyland would be my one and only. Then I decided a puki couldn’t hurt especially if I did a layaway from Denver Doll in the meantime I ended up trading one of my dals for a puki. I bought another tiny bjd by a different company but couldn’t bond with her so I sold her and used the money from her sale (as well as the sale of a few blythes) to fund my grail bjd Volks Yo-SD Hina Ichigo. Then just recently I traded for Volks Super Dollfie Mimi which honestly surprised me as I had attended a bjd meet very early on in my collecting and promptly decided although they are gorgeous, they are not for me.. my heart (for larger dolls) belonged to dollfie dream. I decided that in order for Mimi to stay and for me to actually have a shot at bonding with her, she was going to have to become more dollfie dream-like and be modeled after an anime character in this case Utena. I think it is safe to say the only owning one bjd theory has been given up, I already have another on layaway which I am honestly hoping is my third and final fairyland puki. I didn’t even try that particular theory with dollfie dreams, my first two arrived on the first day. For reference’s sake I do not consider dollfie dreams to be bjds, I prefer dollfie dreams over bjds but I consider them to kind of be there own thing that is also why that have separate pages here. I am not sure how many more I will eventually acquire, I am trying to only buy dolls that I am absolutely in love with. I really love Fairyland Little Fees (they are my favorite size and I love their sculpts) so I think it is safe to assume after I finish paying off the puki, I will start working on another one of them although I love so many of the releases I am having a hard time choosing which one.

I do love my bjds but I feel guilty because I tend to neglect them. With the exception of Marie, I just don’t photograph them as much as my other dolls, their wardrobes are pathetic and it takes me forever to actually work up the will to actually buy them something they need. I just now bought an alternate wig for my Marie (Little Fee- Ante) although I had been wanting one for her, for when she dresses more casually (her stock wig is kind of formal) since like March. I am going to try and make an effort to expand their wardrobes a bit but I have a hard time finding stuff I actually like ^^; I might have to step up my game with sewing but I haven’t had the time lately. I am also going to make a concerted effort to photograph my girls more.

Posted in BJD, Doll | Tagged ante, ball jointed doll, BJD, buttercup, butterscotch, fairyland, hina ichigo, hinaichigo, lily, little fee, littlefee, marie, mimi, piki, puki, sd, superdollfie, utena, volks, yo-sd, yosd | Leave a comment

Chu x Chu Idol- Chua Churam by Alter

Posted on November 11, 2009 by Klein

I was playing around with different camera settings and decided to photograph an anime figure, of all things today :O I bet you all were wondering if I was ever going to blog another anime figure at this point… She is Chua Churam from Chu x Chu Idol (which I learned was a hentai game apparently after a google image search :O )by Alter. I loved her character design so much as soon as she went up for preorder I ordered her, I have had her since she was released. This is actually one of my favorite figures and since her arrival, she has spent most of her time on my desk. Only my very favorite figures remain on my desk for any length of time, I tend to swap them out pretty frequently so it is saying a lot that she managed to stay for so long.

I don’t really write anime figure reviews I don’t really get any enjoyment out of it, so why bother? I am not going to arbitrarily rate figures, for me it is more of how I personally feel about the figure and whether I actually like it or wish I had spent my money on something else (like a pullip). If someone asks me about a figure I will give them my honest opinion about whether I think it will fit in with the rest of their collection (or stick out like a sore thumb) and my own feelings about it but I hesitate to put all of my feelings into words sometimes because what makes me happy may not necessarily work for someone else. I used to buy hundreds of anime figures per year and someone else might only be able to buy six per year, my circumstances didn’t really necessitate me being picky I could afford to take chances on unknown figure makers and on figures I stylistically liked even though I didn’t watch the show. I would hate for a person that may only be able to buy six figures they really love in a year to base their entire opinion on a figure on what a review says and end up being unhappy with the the figure. Everyone tastes are different what makes me happy, may not work for someone else like surrounding myself with 100s of dolls makes me happy but judging from the reactions I have got from family and friends who have not heeded my warning of “that is where the dolls sleep” and entered the computer nook anyway it may not work for everyone.

After all this time I still love her to death. Maybe it is because I play guitar myself and have a bit of weakness for girls who play guitar as well, maybe it is secret pink hair fetish, a fascination with her mismatched eyes or that she is vampire. It is a probably a combination of all those and the subtle little details Alter gives her. At the end of the day, when I look at her I smile and that is all that really matters to me.

Posted in Anime Swag | Tagged alter, anime figure, chu x chu idol, chua churam, the idol is a vampire | 5 Comments

Arrival- Pullip Papin the 11th

Posted on November 10, 2009 by Klein

I purchased Papin the 11th at Animadness during the pullip meet, last Saturday. I was looking at my original rainbow shoot photo and I noticed someone remarked that my Papins’ were colorful like Skittles, since I had already decided this one was going to be a colorful girl I decided to name her Skittles.

After some trial and error with different wigs, I decided to give her this pale blue one although I love the color on her it complicates my rainbow Papin ways. Lorelei’s wig color is kind of green/blue but I counted it as blue as I already had a 2nd Papin with green hair – Lacy so I am not sure where this leaves Skittles. Maybe I should count Skittles as my second blue Papin and Lorelei could exist outside the spectrum of the rainbow Papins? or maybe this just means I am already starting to work on the third arc of the rainbow before I have finished my second >_<

Posted in Doll, Pullip | Tagged jun planning, papin, Pullip, skittles | Leave a comment

Arrival- Dal Ciel Robin Version

Posted on November 9, 2009 by Klein

My dal Ciel Robin Version also arrived last week, unfortunately I kind of fell behind with blogging new things as they arrived hence why there are so many posts today when I have a little bit of free time. I purchased her from VOTD as they currently have her on sale. I wasn’t home when she arrived so she ended up in the rental office. When I went to fetch her the property manager, who has by now become wise that pretty much any packages addressed to me are more than likely dolls she insisted on seeing her before I spirited her out of the office. So I opened her right there in the office and hilariously tried to explain that it is a female doll, portraying a male character who is cross-dressing. I decided I didn’t need two dolls named Ciel so I decided to name the more feminine of the two Chartreuse (the only liquor so good they had to name a color after it).

I personally consider her to be female, as I am not a big fan of the anime (I don’t dislike it but I haven’t watched much of it and I don’t really have the desire to watch much more of it) so I am attached to his/her’s character in the anime like I am with the other anime pullips from Rozen Maiden and Neon Genesis Evangelion. Even though I am not as attached to the anime character, I still consider regular version Ciel to be male and I consider Ciel and Chartreuse to be twin brother and sister. Her face up is similiar to regular release Ciel’s but is more girly, her lips are more pink for example. I actually really prefer her over the original release, I love her stock and overall aesthetic a lot more than the original’s. Her stock was surprisingly well made.