70/365- Sunshine Holiday Blythe and some thoughts on Blythe

Posted on January 31, 2010 by Klein

It was all of 12 degrees out yesterday so I was trying to think warm thoughts and decided to do another beach photo, this time of one of my blythes. Yesterday’s picture of the day is  Summer Breeze,  my Sunshine Holiday.
70/365- Summer Breeze
I have been collecting blythes for just about a year now. I am still trying to stick to my goal of only owning twenty six ideally each one’s name would start with a different letter of the alphabet. I now own fifteen blythes and I just bought another yesterday, to my credit I have been pretty good about periodically thinning the ranks and have actually sold or traded an additional seven blythes. To be honest, I don’t really play with my blythes all that much I just like having them; I don’t photograph them as much as the pullips and I tend not to get as emotionally attached to them (I have a much easier time selling/trading them than pullip).  There are a lot of blythes that I really like but I really want to keep my overall number down and manageable while still having a nice selection of girls.

I just bought Cassiopeia Spice via HLJ a few days ago, I had always liked her but I thought I had missed the preorder period but for once HLJ didn’t sell out immediately so I was able to order one from their site. I am hoping to preorder Simply Guava and Simply Mango when they go on HLJ or Hobbysearch. That will put me up to nineteen blythes and I am still hoping to get a Ribonetta Wish eventually, oh dear!

Posted in 365 Photo Project, Blythe, Doll | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

69/365- Tiger Lily custom Pullip

Posted on January 30, 2010 by Klein

If I had more forethought I wouldn’t have chose her as my picture of the day yesterday but went for something a bit naughtier, what’s done is done though (maybe I will do a naughty figure photo to make up for it tomorrow). I had always loved Tiger Lily’s character and was a bit disappointed when  Groove Inc. decided to release her as a byul as I wanted her as a doll but I dislike byul quite a bit. I managed to split her with someone for her stock with the eventual idea of a Tiger Lily pullip.
69/365- Tiger Lily

Tiger Lily was customized by Requiemart, she was originally a not so great Nahh-ato custom by unknown customizer that had a few flaws.  Standard procedure when you use blythe chips on a pullip is to sand the blythe chips to make them the mech as they are a tad large but apparently the previous unknown customizer decided to go a different route and carved the eye mech to make it accommodate the chips (the chips literally cost like a $1, mechs are hard to come by and normally sell for $30 or so). A couple of other curiosities came up while she was being customized whatever sealant was used bleached her skintone out and required severe sanding to get it all out and one of her eye sockets had been expertly reshaped but the other had remained untouched making her appear somewhat like a RBL blythe (they have slightly different sized eye sockets). I’m glad Requiemart was able to work her customizing magic and turn Manjula into the super lovely Tiger Lily, I can’t wait to take pictures of her with my Peter Pan pullip.
Tiger Lily

Type 3 pullips have been frustrating me a bit lately, it’s the wrist hinges that are doing it. I had a really hard time getting her to hold her bow and arrow. I don’t plan on obitsuing all of my type 3 pullips but I am planning on swapping out a few of my favorites soon, Cheshire for example is one of the ones on my shortlist to rebody.

Posted in 365 Photo Project, Doll, Pullip | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

68/365- A/V Set up

Posted on January 29, 2010 by Klein

Since everything is hooked back up again in the “new” living room aka. my old dining room (what was my living room is now my doll room) I decided that my picture of the day should be my TV rig. It’s probably the most unfeminine part of my apartment but I combat it with my pink headphones and under TV shoe storage (keep in mind the 14 pairs of shoes seen there is just the tip of the iceberg, I own over 200 pairs ) my preferred 360 controller is also pink although all of my controllers and most of my remotes are actually put away in this photo which is a rare occurrence.
68/365

What all is hooked up to the TV you ask?
– Most importantly I have two switches which most of the video game systems are hooked to the TV through, I actually need a third one but haven’t picked one up yet ^^;
– Sony Playstation 1
– Sony Playstation 2 with hard drive (I have a second PS2 hooked up in my bedroom)
– Sony Playstation 3 60 gig Japanese Version with 500 gig laptop hard drive dropped in
– Nintendo 64
– Nintendo Game Cube with Game Boy reader
– Nintendo Wii (actually got it on launch day)
– Xbox
– Xbox 360 elite Halo 3 edition
– Xbox 360 HDD drive
– JVC region-free DVD player
– Sony 5 disc dvd changer (great for blitz watching anime)
– Atari
and you can’t see them because they are on the bottom shelf but..
– Laserdisc player
– CED player

I still need a Dreamcast to be completely happy but I am fairly pleased with my current rig although I need to replace my receiver still as I never bothered to after my bunny chewed through the wires I just opted to run everything through my Sony 51-cd stereo which actually sounds pretty damn good.

Posted in 365 Photo Project, klein's personal life, Off-topic | Tagged , | 6 Comments

67/365- Vampires arrive

Posted on January 27, 2010 by Klein

I was a bit surprised this morning when my package arrived from Pullipstyle. The package was too large so I knew something was up immediately as I was expecting Ende and maybe a free mini and the box just seemed too large just for them. I did actually buy Ende the dal and Nosferatu the taeyang but I had purchased Nosferatu for Requiemart in exchange for custom work, when I ordered Nosferatu way back in October I triple-checked my paypal and the pullipstyle order sheet to make sure everything was addressed to her and still somehow he shows up here :/ . I rechecked everything today and sure enough he was still supposed to be sent to her. I just ordered Ende a few weeks back I specified that she was to be shipped to me apparently that somehow overrode the previous directive of shipping Nosferatu to Requiemart. This is the first little hiccup I have ever had with ordering with pullipstyle so it is kind of funny. I already worked things out with Requiem who was starting to fear him lost in the mail (she was just glad to know he showed up somewhere) I am going to drop him off when I go to Animadness to go pick up the Vampire pullip when she comes in stock (she sold out on PS and well I wanted an excuse to go back to Animadness next month). In further hilarious news, we did actually get a free mini each I figured chances were pretty good that at least one of them would be one I didn’t have boy was I wrong. Seeing how I had both of them, I gave Requiem first choice of the two and she selected Cat so I am in the process of trying to trade away Sea Police Marilyn for one of the other newer mini pullips/dals at the moment. I literally got Sea Police Marilyn from PS last month as a free promotional mini so it is kind of annoying. I did send Pullipstyle an email basically saying hey this could have been really bad, please try and be more careful in the future but I have yet to receive a response.
68/365

I haven’t opened up the dal yet, I am not sure when I will get around to it I still haven’t even opened up Rei who arrived last week. I have decided to continue with the 2010 theme of naming dals after places after some initial discussion of oh her name should be Transylvania which was rejected on the grounds of the possibility of her nickname being tranny it was decided that her name should be Salem. Not really after Salem, MA although that is the most infamous Salem but Salem, CT which is pretty close to where I grew up which had it’s own little somewhat fascinating history.

I am kind of anxious to get my hands on the pullip, she was the most striking of the three for me unfortunately she sold out too soon. I already have a name picked out for her Hecate. I was kind of surprised by Groove Inc’s level of detail they actually included several sets of the little stick on fangs with the dolls, I personally think they are pretty stupid (^^;) but at least it is a step in the right direction quality-wise all the previous dolls with stick-ons just came with one set and if you screwed those up you were sol.

Edit: I just received an email back from Pullipstyle and it seriously made me laugh out loud ^^; (all is forgiven). They were apologetic but it boils down to the fact that I order so many dolls that they know my address by heart, when they seen my name when they were going down the list they automatically shipped it to me.

Posted in 365 Photo Project, Doll, Pullip, Taeyang/ Namu | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Arrival- Illya Mini Dollfie Dream

Posted on January 27, 2010 by Klein

This is a bit overdue, as Illya has been home with me for just about a week now. I managed to take her out last week, a few days after her arrival for a photo shoot. I am still having issues adjusting to the MDD body, I still have a really hard time getting her to stand on her own. Her body is such a pain, I ended up deciding that my Komugi custom which I had planned on putting on a MDD is now going to be a hybrid and is going to be put on a 50cm obitsu.
Illya
This picture is probably my favorite of the pictures I have taken of her so far, it also kind of freaks me out a bit because this photo makes her look the most real out of probably all my doll photos ^^;
Tsuki
It surprisingly turned out to be pretty popular on Myfigurecollection.net and ended up being one of the pictures of the day, it was the first time any of my photos were selected so I thought that was pretty neat.
Illya
This one of the few shots I got of her standing and she was basically propping herself up against the wall in it.
Illya
I have a bizarre fascination with putting my dollfies in trees (Rin and Yoko (alpha) were previously tree climbers as well). Don’t worry she is not up nearly as far as she looks, she is up approximately 6-7 ft in the air and the rest is camera/angle tricks it of course helps that I am pretty short to begin with for these types of photos ^^; .
Illya
Here’s a close up of her posed in the tree, I needed a slight boost for this shot ^^; Curse my short stature which ironically makes me want to bond with her more as a MDD.
Illya
I don’t regret getting her as I do adore her I just wish her MDD body was a bit more complian, it is definitely making me hesitate on the other MDDs on my wish list.

Posted in acquistion, Doll, Dollfie Dream | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

66/365- Heavenly Belldandy

Posted on January 27, 2010 by Klein

As per usual, I am running a bit behind lately due to lack of enthusiasm on my part. Yesterday’s picture of the day was of Belldandy from Ah my Goddess and she was made by Happinet. I’ll skip rehashing the story of her arrival, I am still mad at HLJ (TL:DR – Shipped via EMS packaging was all destroyed due to HLJ’s carelessness in packaging) and focus on the fact that I have yet to find a Belldandy figure I am absolutely in love with. Belldandy isn’t my favorite character (I adore Skuld!) but it seems like despite the fact there is a fair number of figures of her I am never able to find the one perfect iteration of her. I own a fair number of Belldandy figures but something always seems off about them, the Kotobukiya figure link probably comes closest to my ideal but I am still not entirely happy with it.
66/365

Posted in 365 Photo Project, anime figure | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

65/365- Asuka Sega Prize figure

Posted on January 26, 2010 by Klein

I kind of had a bad day yesterday, so I didn’t actually get my 365 photo until very late. I chose my newly arrived Asuka figure of Neon Genesis Evangelion by Sega Prize. After seeing the Uplark version of Rei on a store shelf over the weekend at Animadness I was kind of unimpressed with the figure itself, the entry plug was amazing but Rei herself was kind of underwhelming. I was kind of worried about my then unopened seat of soul Sega Prize’s and their quality. Both of them are actually pretty good quality, I actually prefer the Rei figure itself over the Uplark version. I am primarily an Asuka fan though so I chose to use her as my picture of the day.
65/365

She’s not a bad little figure, if I had to guess at scale I would say 1:10 or 1:12 but the details on her are all pretty solid.

Posted in 365 Photo Project, anime figure | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

64/365- unzombuki custom pullip Cheshire

Posted on January 25, 2010 by Klein

Through various circumstances I seem to have come into possession of the only unzombuki in the world. First let me do a little bit of background, zombuki are colorful unconventional customs based on the idea of combining zombies and kabuki (originally inspired by America’s Next Top Model but has since moved above and beyond that) Pbrigitte is their creator. Opinions on zombukis within the pullip community are kind of split either people love them or hate them there is very little middle ground.  While I personally liked some of them I could never quite picture myself actually owning one as if  I am going to spend that amount of money on a doll I have to absolutely love everything about it.  I absolutely admire Brigette’s photography and her phenomenal marketing skills as well as her styling choices .

If anyone remembers back to when I attended the first Animadness Meet I mentioned seeing Cheshire the zombuki for the first time and how she was a bit underwhelming. I was a bit disappointed with her as at that point I was considering buying her from her owner as I am a bit of an Alice in Wonderland fanatic and she just fell a bit short of my expectations. Requiemart ended up talking to the owner and offered to do the unthinkable and recustomize a zombuki (for free too).
64/365
Here she is now, after she has been recustomized by requiemart. Due to various circumstances the original owner had to sell after all, and I had contacted her previously saying that if she decided that she couldn’t keep her for any reason to please contact me. I was contacted about a month back and we worked out a payment plan so I could take her home with me after the next Boston area meet (which was yesterday)- now you all know where my fun money has been going this month ^^; .
Cheshire

I personally love her now, she just looks a lot more complete to me now like the original was a sketch. I knew that even though she wasn’t truly a zombuki, she was the one that was truly meant for me I am so glad I was able to get my hands on her. For those of you who don’t remember what Cheshire looked like beforehand, I took this picture of Cheshire before she was taken away to be recustomized at the original Animadness meet.
IMG_0127
Since Cheshire has been recustomized she really isn’t a zombuki anymore, it has been decided that she is unzombuki (especially relevant because she is based of an Alice in Wonderland character ). The recustomization was pretty drastic, the only part of her that is original zombuki are the outer extended eyelashes although those have been tweaked a bit. Requiemart has gone on record saying she would never customize a zombuki again for love or money because of all the extensive work involved as it is a lot harder to recustomize a doll than to start from scratch. She worked approximately eleven hours over two days on her.

mosaicd566e0c80898e9a14a1b94aff1178ff5dc7c71c4

I am very happy to own such a unique girl, I can truly say I do not have another doll even remotely similiar to her so she will definitely stand out on a shelf once she leaves my desk and joins the rest of my fairly extensive Alice in Wonderland crew. Please understand, I bought her because I truly love her it is immaterial to me if anyone else really likes her and just to be really clear I also didn’t buy her to cause an excessive amount of drama in the pullip community, I wouldn’t spend that amount of money (she is my most expensive custom thus far) just to cause some petty drama.

Posted in 365 Photo Project, acquistion, Doll, Pullip | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

63/365- Animadness Pullip Meet (plus event report)

Posted on January 23, 2010 by Klein

The Meet
I attended the Winter Animadness Pullip meet today. First let me explain the madness involved with going to this meet, due to my insanely tight schedule this week I had basically packed all the dolls except the bjds this past Monday and then last night something came up and I thought I wouldn’t be able to attend the meet which of course meant I spent all last night unpacking the dolls, then this morning the situation changed and I could attend again so I had to repack everything in about a two hour time frame and I brought approximately 30 dolls with me. I brought a pretty good selection of dolls including pullips, dals, a couple of taeyangs, dollfie dreams, super dollfie, blythes and a little fee while it is primarily a pullip meet,  there is always someone curious about the other types of dolls and it is a good chance to see one in person if you are kind on the fence about trying a different type of doll especially with the more expensive dolls as that is a lot of money to spend just to find out you don’t like the doll.
63/365 Animadness Meet
In this picture all of the dolls on the lowest shelf and all of the ones sitting/standing on the ground with the exception of Big Pullip (who belongs to requiemart) are mine. There were about twenty collectors at the meet today and well over a 100 dolls there. The official picture of the day is one of most of the dolls lined up on the dvd shelves, there were other dolls at the meet but this was taken pretty early on before everyone arrived and a few dolls like my Jouet and Requiemart‘s Joel were off getting their pictures taken when I took this picture.

The meet there was still a bit chaotic, but it was better planned than last time and there was a bit more room this time too.
Swap stuff
There was eventually a swap, I managed to swap for a Mini Pullip Berry and sell a few items. Speaking of selling a few items, my money situation was kind of hilarious today I have a separate bank account for my fun money and I won’t let myself spend any of my other money on fun stuff. I had pretty steadily been splurging this month and I had literally just splurged on a Volks Yo-SD in the last few days and just paid her off and had just enough leftover to pay off a custom doll I had on layaway. When I heard I wasn’t going to be able to go to the meet it was like okay because I don’t really have funds to buy another doll right now anyway and I know I would want one if I went. Then I was told I could go again, I was basically on a mission to find funding. I dug around in my different hoody pockets, purses etc and managed to scrape together $60 further scraping once I got in the car got me up to around $75 made enough from sales to get me up to $86 and due to their sales special with 10% off I was just able to buy the doll I wanted (I did have to borrow a quarter from a friend >_< ).  Never let it be said I give up easily.

Of course that brings up the question of what I did buy as I did not buy a pullip, a dal or even a taeyang. I actually bought a Hestia, Hestia was a line of dolls put out by Jun Planning that was later discontinued they were seemingly replaced by J-doll. Hestia’s entire thing was that two dolls were released concurrently and the dolls were a set of twins Rib(b)on and Isora. Both dolls would have a similiar theme but the dolls themselves would kind of be opposites of each for example one month the releases were priestess outfits one appeared to be holy priestess dressed in white while the other appeared to be a priestess of the dark arts and was dressed all in black. I bought the first release of Rib(b)on, I didn’t take any pictures of her yet but I will tomorrow. I also got two nude hestias from requiemart as she bought them to harvest their clothes from.

And the photo ops
Quit climbing on the furniture
My Jouet, Gelato is a bit of a brat apparently and would not stop harassing her brother Joel. Joel is a requiemart custom taeyang made to resemble the dal Jouet, she also made a pullip Jouet named Joyette whom I own. Joyette was supposed to come to the meet today unfortunately while she was packed up on Monday, in all the rush today of trying to get all the other dolls together I was unable to locate her in time to bring her along.
Paja and Pajelle
I couldn’t resist taking a picture of my Paja, Raja and Requiemart’s custom Paja dal Pajelle. I do hope she eventually decides to rehome her..
Kaya and Nightfall's Tigerlilly hanging out
There was actually a byul at this meet :O It was my first time seeing one in person, I have to say they are still not really for me. I did decide to take a picture of Tigerlily with my Happy Birthday Pullip 2 Kaya though.
Little Fee Ante (s)
Catcraig also brought along her along Little Fee Ante so we decided to snap a picture of the two of them together, mine is the one with the acid green fur wig.

While I do like seeing everyone’s dolls at meets some of the mystique is kind of hampered by my having all the dolls for the most part ^^; Of course, I was super excited to see zombuki Cheshire’s new look (or as she is now known unzombuki) but more on that later..
Picture 1848

Posted in 365 Photo Project, BJD, Blythe, Dal, Doll, Dollfie Dream, event, Pullip, purchase, Taeyang/ Namu | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

62/365- Lucky Star OVA Figures

Posted on January 23, 2010 by Klein

I didn’t get a chance to post this yesterday due to being so busy and worn out but the picture for yesterday was my newly acquired Lucky Star OVA figures. I really have to say I am pretty impressed with the quality of these figures, they are also really cute well worth the $30 or so I paid for the set. It’s amazing how much the quality of Sega Prize figures have improved over the years, some of the older ones I have are not the best. When considering when they were released and such, they are still pretty decent but if some of the ones I have came out today I probably would have passed over them.
62/365

Posted in 365 Photo Project, anime figure | Tagged , | 2 Comments