Mod Talent Show - Progress Journals

Dezarii. Your photos. They speak to me. Directly to my soul. And my astigmatism.

I am just not interested in sequencing this video. I hate my voice so I don't want to do a voiceover, but the subtitling looks stupid. BLAH. >_< There is no alluring je ne sais quoi going on in this video, and I find myself going "You know, maybe I CAN sculpt a tiny Cthulu in a week."

 

Oh, dang...esoteric photography of the modernist sort AND an elephant? Why do I even try to fool myself??

Tonight, all I have on my side is a tiny black dog wearing a striped buttoned down shirt with the collar popped. And he's more interested in grooming his feet than helping me out with this writeup. Ugh!!!

 

That is so willfully lyrical. Now that I've listened to your photo with my soul I can hear so much better....what you're singing. I mean, saying. I mean, showing. You know, because you are so soulful.

 

Day 7: After a few days of doing nothing, Saturday morning needed to be photoshoot time. The weekend was looking to be very busy, and the weather was also threatening to be summer stormy wonderful&#8230;I love summer storms, but not the idea of having dolls out in them.

Saturday was warm and sunny in the morning, and the grass in the park was dewy and extremely wet to be knelt upon. The park I went to is really pretty, though this was the first time this summer that I&#8217;d been there. Trucking around a little (always fun with a bag full of doll, stand, outfit pieces, and the added joy of a copper spear just waiting to be impaled in my arm should I slip going up or down a moistly grassy hill) found me a good area with a variety of sun and shade, grass and wood. The morning also proved to be breezy. Good thing I had a trusty assistant along! Poor John Barleycorn did have one good facedown tumble into the wet grass. He was fine, though my nerves were almost shot. The thick grass is very forgiving, though. I almost swore never to mow mine again in gratitude. Nevertheless, I didn&#8217;t use a stand because it just looked like&#8230;well, a doll in a stand. Any realism was just gone.



Me, bribing the wind. The humidity, wreaking havoc on my straightened hair.

Using the DSLR is always very challenging for me. This was one of those times I wish I could beg Dezarii for help. I really did stick with one setting for this photoshoot, playing around a little bit with focus as my only change once a good setting was settled. I was terrified to see the pictures when I got home. Sure they look good on the little screen, but does that actually mean they won&#8217;t be blurry little blobs of Celtic fur on my computer?

I&#8217;m pretty satisfied with the results, however. &#61514; My one regret is that it was only on the way home (and I won&#8217;t have a chance to get back there before the end of the contest) that I had a fantastic idea for one of the pictures, but I would have needed to have another doll along to act as &#8216;shadow model.’ Bah!

John Barleycorn is sitting on the piano, now, all done up in his warrior gear, looking rather pleased to have survived my experiment. Or maybe his side-glancing eyes are mistrusting? So hard to tell at this distance&#8230;

 

Wait .........!? Dez's Valouria is out of focus?

In moth news: There is a lesson here. If you're not particularly fussed when something arrives, it will get to you so quickly, your faith in systems postal will be fully restored. However, if you're anxiously awaiting a package that has a time constraint, you can be sure it will take 10 times longer than you'd hoped. Still no package from England. And, thinking the package would be here in plenty of time, I sent the lead for my other idea out for a new faceup.

Speedy recovery wishes for Kiya. I'm utterly mad for John Barleycorn, about whom I have sung and whistled for years!

 

This is so clearly in violation of the unspoken but never misunderstood rules of artistic ownership and intellectual property copyright....and I won't even mention the veiled but obvious insult that the rest of us are reminiscent of the summer-worshiping, violin-playing, devil-may-care grasshopper whilst D toils like the worker ant.

*returns to the solitary life of the true artiste - cat-free*

 

Indeed they are words that I- a little birdie- most often live by and express to the world. For what is worth doing if it is not a challenge upon our minds, our talent, and our soul? To create to live to move mountains as you so exquisitely put! But even a grasshopper with such potential should still fear the sharp beak of a little birdie.

 

omg - is that haiku?????

*impressed, grasshopper*

 

Bigger eyes, indeed.

 

Kiya: Wishing you a speedy recovery.

Seeing all the progress with spiders, elephants, grasshoppers, and sexy tartan shots, I confess I've been a comparatively lazy virtue. I got a bit distracted by my new fish Steely for the last two days. He tried to get amorous with his temporary neighbor. Doesn't look like he was successful. Instead of chasing my coworker's female fish she chased him around.

(Apologizes profusely for the really really bad phone photo )

 

What big eyes you have,
But I do not fear the sight-
Little birdies fly.​

 

Have finally settled on a greatly scaled down silver piece that is related to the piece I actually wanted to do. We'll call it a preparatory drawing. Have done all of the wretchedly noisy cold forging and most of the noxious torching in the last hour. Taking a break from breaking fingernails to make dinner. If I don't make this piece from start to finish tonight, it ain't happenin'.

 

Hope your recovery is quick, Kiya! And I agree on the thread; it's really helped me keep working to see other people trucking along and being able to track my own progress.

Day 8: Okay. Pictures up and in order (haha, well, we&#8217;ll see if I numbered them correctly). Write up, finished and edited. Tragically elephantless, but this will have to do! I&#8217;m so glad I did this&#8230;while other people probably would have done this super easily, for me, almost everything was new and done from scratch. Makes me consider other costumes, set ups, and photoshoots with a new eye. And I even finished early! Talk about first times!

 

Going to post my progress a bit backwards.

Today I finally finished Princess' (Mii-chan)faceup decided to do some extra gloss work and gave her two sets of lashes so here she is with not the best lighting setup to show her off. I commissioned these really cute felt flowers.


Princess would like them in her hair somehow. These two match her eyeshadow


I had gotten this trim that I thought would look nice as if pieced together to give an armour like look


Aristheus is not to sure about this look. He thinks he looks like he's wearing a tube top and a necklace...


Sewed the top last Friday and attached it at the back to the pauldrons, but I think it's missing something so I had put it aside to figure what it is missing.

 

I do love this thread! It's exactly what I had in mind to instigate when I started the Customizing Chat thread.

Uh, dumb question, but is there an entry form or something? Where to we post final projects?

 

Fail Whale strikes me again- not only does my hand feel like it's on fire from the flat tire escapades of yesterday, but I go to rubber cement in the legs only to find out my rubber cement tin is mysteriously empty!
I went from being set for making the first dead line to struggling to finish for the new one and it's frustrating.
I'll have to pray that I can work with my hand tomorrow and go fetch some rubber cement!

(And I love this thread also. I work best with deadlines/marked progress.)

EDIT:
I know this has been posted before, but I want to emphasis this thread:
What you need to know about respiratory protection!
It's a very important read and in addition to resin dust and MSC I want to add pastel dust as dangerous. Profession pastel artists will often eventually suffer from inhalation of pastel dust.

As I MSC my puki parts tonight I also want to emphasis something to my fellow suffers of heat and humidity. When you live in a place like I do where even at night it's in the 90's and almost 50% humidity, it's near impossible to spray outside so I want to go over some points if you MUST spray inside. Best place to spray is often the bathroom- it has a fan for ventilation that you MUST keep on while and after spraying. Don't just spray out on the middle of the bathroom! Spray inside a cardboard box, in a corner. Move all items away and take anything that goes near or in your eyes, moth, or ears out of the bathroom or put it in a cabinet. Also block the bottom of the door with a towel when you leave- keep those fumes inside the bathroom to into the fan. Also get a box or floor fan that you set outside the door to blow towards to it! There are always gaps- keep the air flow to the ventilation inside the bathroom! If you have a window in the bathroom open that also. If you have pets keep them away from the area as much as possible. And obviously- listen to the linked thread for a mask!

Obviously if there is ANY way to spray outside, please please do so. If you have to spray inside, take every precaution you can think of and then some!

 

(I love this thread, just not as gifted in being as witty as the rest of you guys. Today's antics had me ROFL. Um, saving the hidden elephant(s) as a last resort. Bird of Hermes I hope your hand feels better and are able to find some fresh rubber cement.)

Today was bit more productive than I expected. I have the basic hairstyling I was looking to give her (messy birds nest with flowers) now I need to just neaten it up and add the rest of the ornamentation and figure out how to attach the flowers.

 

You are all insane. :P I tried to start a "What are you working on?" thread like this in Customizing a few years ago, but no one wanted to interact with anyone else... it just became a meme.

I haven't worked on my video at all. IT WILL BE SUBTITLED. I am resolute. I started working on a voice-overed "How to use the advanced search" video... and I got made fun of for talking too fast. I tried slowing down, but I still said individual words quickly; I just put longer pauses between them. >_< Ugh. We talk fast here. But anyway, when I'm not being instructional and I'm actually really into what I'm narrating, I just know I won't be able to speak at an acceptable speed... so subtitles are go. I also need to select music. Maybe I'll just slap a classical track from the selection available on Youtube.

Tonight I got all the entries for the Triathlon part 2 up for voting... and that was the evening. I also wiped two heads, including one with an LE faceup. Yes, I wiped a Sairin faceup. I am going to hell. But I am so totally in love with this head! SQUEE! I might skip the video tomorrow and paint this head just out of sheer joy.

If I can't make myself do the video, maybe I'll just finally do a photoshoot of Sherlock. He's been here for months now and I haven't taken a single pic.

Here it is 12:20 and I need to go to bed. I am not doing very well at this whole adulthood thing lately.

 

Here's a shot of what I'm no longer doing, taken a couple of hours ago. Note to self: anything made out of .001 brass sheet needs to stay far away from the butane torch.

I decided that this idea was too blurry and decided to set it aside in favor of another idea, which failed because it quickly became apparent that a complete start over would be necessary for success, and thus was then replaced by yet another idea. At this point I have an hour left in the time I can steal for this contest and this has sort of become just an ordinary piece of jewelry that I happen to be posting about here. But I did just melt a perfect arc into my left index fingerprint!

 

It was updated in the other thread... new deadline is Sunday at 11pm.

 

(St. James sad about the torch those pieces look interesting.
Kiya hope you can participate afterall)

 

Well- plowing ahead! Basically I have to finish all of the construction tonight with my current schedule of life. But with my thumb I can only do a bit at a time.
The worst part to get done was the head- all 8 eyes are now drilled. It needs a bit of sanding on the edges, but it's good to have eyes. I'll use the puki eyes I have for his humanly located two main eyes. I'll sculpt, paint, and gloss some eyes for the other holes. I hate eye opening, to be perfectly honest, so glad to have it done. Entomologist- please forgive me for the artist take on the eye placement. I took a basic burrower eye lay out (since Cobalts are burrowers) and then shifted it a bit to work best with the space I had and the general look of the face.
For those of you who haven't handled pukis much, I put in a penny for reference. There was barely any room for me to even hold onto it. I was sure I was going to get myself with the dremel but for once I stayed really lucky.



(Thanks AreeElf!)

 

Well, I'm sure I can do something interesting with the idea of setting brass sheet on fire...eventually. I did finish on time last night, so I will have an entry! The process was pretty much typical, really. It takes a few days of experimenting and eventually something gets made that may or may not have any relation to the original idea. That's why it's so frustrating to have so little time to experiment and develop ideas!

I love multi-eyed Puki!! If that face was on the spiders that I invariably crash into face-first in the basement I would have less of an issue with them!

 

Gah, everyone's so much more ambitious and skilled than I . . . but I got in the last of the photoshoots last night. I'm not sure I got any genuinely good shots, but I should be able to get the photostory done without having to retake any, which is good because I'm now housesitting on the opposite side of town. Of this, about the only thing I'm really proud of so far is how the helmet turned out. It looks cool. And I'm reminded of how ridiculous a Williams is.

*Sniffs* The blurriness of my photography is a deliberate challenge to orthodox mainstream constructions of image and a breaking away from the traditional constraints of composition, lighting, and being able to identify what the objects in the picture actually are. *Ducks*

 

Thank you, t, for hiding that cut-up poem in your post - I found it. This thread has become a bit of a bohemian wonder....and I wouldn't want the others (you know who they are) to think you were merely talking about your photostory....



I am busy doing busy things. Industrious, diligent, assiduous, sedulous things that may or may not have a thing to do with my Talent Show entry. For one thing...I am rewriting other competitors posts....and that is taking time.

 

Tallie, I love the eye placement. I have such a weakness for round, wide-set eyes. No idea where it comes from, but the Pukiface slays me.

I, meantime, am flagrantly ignoring my video. I started the evening by starting two faceups, and I am currently MUDing and processing the DoA Survey results. It's sort of idyllic, really. The front door is open and there is a perfect breeze as I kill text-based peasants and sift through Excel.

 

Bird of Hermes: Can't wait to see your spider eyes all. I'm awe-struck you can do mod work like that on such a small face

 

So this is going to be my big photo spam! And probably my last, or next to last, real post here.
I need to reglue in the legs.. again. But the spidertar is done! I ended up using little crystals for the spider eyes and had just the right sizes. Some problems with fighting the legs and then having to use smaller elastic for the body stringing. It's tension is shot now, but I didn't have the time or hand strength to fight the real elastic. I did it properly on the snailtar, so I know I can get it right in time. I also want to redo the blushing at some point- I feel it could of been planned better, but it's cute for now. It was done in pastel and I glossed over parts with a satin gloss. A tiny pit of acrylic was used to outline the eye holes. Once the new glue is set some and I bush his fur out (and get out dust), I can do my real photo shoot! First though time to take care of my thumb and eat something *stomach grumbles*






St. James: I think I would feel like I was in Zelda then!
Armeleia: The wider eyes seem to work for the puki face I think! Not my norm but one must obey the mold!
AreeElf: This is definitely the smallest face I've worked on! O_o

 

Spidertar is cute! I wasn't expecting to be able to say that.

Polished up my piece tonight and am very annoyed to discover that I scratched the stone while setting it. It was really hard to do, so I'm not surprised, but I should have thought about how tricky it would be to work around the flower petals and not switched to such a soft gemstone. Thinking it that far through when I'm that tired is asking a bit much of myself though.

I flubbed the deadline for the Silhouette contest, only got as far as coating a head for the Face-up contest, completely failed to muster the motivation to execute my Jungian Shadow photo idea, couldn't even contemplate finding the time for the Triathlon, and scraped my first Talent Show project, but dammit I made SOMETHING!

I'm gonna bake myself a .

 

Well, thank goodness you did, too . The poor thing would have languished unfound.

I have a photostory. I suppose I should let it sit for a day to see if I'm genuinely satisfied with it. I probably shouldn't have attempted to put it together in Photoshop Elements, a program I haven't used in years, on a laptop I got a week ago . . . but it is what it is. Maybe there's a found poem hidden in it somewhere as well :p.

As for talents it may display, I fear it's more to do with the ability to hoard props and elaborate LE outfits completely out of character for anybody in my collection, than anything else . Thank goodness for the deadline extension, obviously!

 

Talie, I love how he turned out! I can't wait to see him in his environment and in your field guide!
Jenn, I'm looking forward to seeing the piece. Bummer about scratching the cab. I've done that before, for sure... but I found some ways to minimize the chances. When I used to set stones in tight or awkward bezels, I used to put a glob of rubber cement on the part of the stone that would be exposed, then let it dry. It served two purposes - for one, I could poke the glue to position the stone if it turned, and it also provided just a little bit of protection. Then when it was set, you can just use a rubber cement pickup to clean off the glue. (I'm big on common materials in the jewelry studio - white out to prevent solder from re-melting when you torch another part, etc.)

I am in the throes of procrastination. I get like this. It's also why Starling isn't finished. I get to 95% done, and then I just can't get myself to finish. Today I will put the subtitles on my video and pick some sort of background music. I'm not really satisfied with it though. It's only a junk mold, so it's messy... and I should have cleaned the studio thoroughly before filiming. I hadn't been down there in months. Ah, well.

Thanks to my roommate, I also have to work the rest of the day with the song Marion the Librarian from the Music Man stuck in my head. >_< Graaaaah. (And randomly, have you noticed that the beginning of most relationships in musicals from that time period would be considered serious sexual harassment now?)

 

Wow! That spider is just amazing!!!

Hope to get my work done today...if not...I'm not going to make it. My mind is no longer part of my day-to-day thing. Kidling leaving for college...and all.

 

A robin nested in my bougainvillea this spring. I thought the used nest might make a good doll picture.

After making up my doll kits the excess leather was begging for a project.

The contest was announced so I rough sketched some ideas.

Got into my stash for some fabrics.

Started sewing and learned some lessons, sewing leather tiny is tough!

2 vests later, Gingers outfit is complete. She has an odd size head so I made her a wig. I was able to take pictures today.

Ginger wanted to be a junior birdman

NOTE - There are BUGS that live in brids nests!

Little teeny biting bugs. I hate bugs. One scalding shower later, Gingers outfit and wig is in the freezer

 

Today I took the dogs to the vet (which took hours, geez!), then finished up the two faceups I mentioned before. Maybe tomorrow I'll post a picture of Zuckermaus! He isn't at all what he'll look like later... I need all sorts of pale clothing for him. He's currently crazy retro in my favorite Dollheart outfit of all time - the Street Raider outfit from 2005 or 2006. It's too big for him, but he's looking okay. Very enthused about him! Anyway, then I invoiced all of the people who ordered Fers... and then I worked on putting the subtitles on this video! I only have about 2 minutes left to do (out of around 9 minutes). I didn't get as much information in as I wanted, but I guess it's sort of a starting point. I ended up cutting out the video tour of my basement studio, but it seemed really pointless without the voiceover because the subtitles couldn't keep up.

Tomorrow morning is pretty full, but I think I can finish!

Bedtime!

 

It's great to see everyone finishing up! On the home stretch now! And thank you everyone~ I'm happy with how my little spider came out
I did his photoshoot yesterday and worked yesterday and today on the photostory ish.. thing. I am officially DONE! Well, I have to submit- but my work is done! I need to stop nitpicking anyways. Many many thanks to Dybbuk- who scanned entomology books for me and let me pester her with questions. Oh- and my spidertar has a name! Panop- short for Argos Panoptes- who was the many eyed servant of Hera.

 

Truffle, such focus and dedication and enthusiasm. You are a model of perseverance for us all (see below)!

I'd just like to reconfirm the bit about the moth ... it's very important to keep pet moths away from MSC. I know this from direct experience.

---

The wings are here!! They are amazing!! I have just under 11 hours to accomplish all photographing and editing. Fortunately I decided this wouldn't have accompanying text. Can I do it? I'm really not sure. But, like Truffle, I'm not giving up.

Grats to those finished! Egging-on cheers to those with their sights on the finish line.

 

I don't know, using a stand-in like that might set the bar too high for your faceup . . .

Er, how do we submit? Is there a form up that I've missed?

 

No form, just a thread:
[link removed - you can't see it yet!]

Looking forward to seeing everyone's entries! I just need to compress mine and upload it to Youtube... hopefully my computer will cooperate!

 

Not part of my entry but some other dolls crashed the photoshoot

(Truffle that was an adorable video thanks for sharing
Dez: I love your stand-in)

 

Super cute, Aree!

I uploaded my video tonight and got everything all set up... talk about going down to the wire. >_< I should list "procrastination" in the list of "skills displayed" on the entry form. Here is Zuckermaus... I painted him yesterday when I was heartily procrastinating. He needs new clothes and a better wig. I think everything should be cream and pale violet.

SO OLDSKOOL.

My DSLR is in for service so I am stuck with the point and shoot. I miss it. I wonder if it misses me.

Now that my video is done, I am not sure how I feel about it. I may take it down when the Talent Show is done. I am big on sharing information, but at the same time... there is also the concern that people will use the information for recasting. I am very vehemently opposed to bootlegging, so that would be really upsetting. That said, the information is already out there in various forms, so anyone who had already made up her mind to do it could already find fairly thorough instructions. I suppose I shouldn't worry.

 

All that messing around with candles and I ended up not using them. For one thing, they just turned the wings into reflectors, so you couldn't see how cool they are. For another, I still haven't figured out how to give candlelit pictures a crisp, dimensional feel. With 11 hours to go, I wasn't going to practice anymore. So I decided incandescent light would give the warm cast. Set the white balance to incandescent, though, because my camera never gets it right anyway.

However, as I'd set everything up in the only room without windows (the upstairs bathroom), I didn't bother reconstructing the set elsewhere. Aside from the fact I wanted a minimalistic setting, I also needed a way to disguise my son as he moved Ochiyo around like a puppet.



How did Ochiyo fly? We took two really long lengths of dental floss and looped them around Ochiyo's elastic at the shoulder joint on each side. The other ends we tied to a toothbrush. My son stood behind the black curtain (which we set a little higher). I set the camera to aperture-priority and dialed in the smallest aperture possible (f25). We set the timer, took half a bajillion pictures with Ochiyo doing all sorts of moving. About five of them looked okay.

That was fun.

 

I would like to apologize for my horrible slew of typos. I looked over the journal and I really made a mess of things u_u If you're still reading- thank you for sticking through it!

I forgot in my last update but I wanted to mention for anyone going "The newspaper says 1910 but there's color photos???" there was a decently reliable method for color photos in 1910 it turns out! It was called autochrome and there is some amazing stuff out there. Now, of course, I manipulated that fact to suit my will, not reality >_>;;

Post is up and submitted though and congrats to all my fellow staff who worked so hard to finish despite such busy lives! (and great to see Zuckermaus coming together Aimee!)

 

Bird of Hermes, your drider is amazing. I can't wait to see it finished. I want one so bad.