A few of the Least-Expensive Legit BJDs Rosslyn Could Find

So we know this hobby is expensive. 

It's tough to want a beautiful doll and not be able to afford it.

 We don't want to buy stolen goods so a recast is right out.

Which are the completely least expensive but still beautiful resin ball jointed dolls?
Here's a few lovelies I have hunted up.

Even the famous Fairyland has Littlefees in Boy and Girl versions (the best posers, and YoSD being the most "fun" doll size in the hobby IMHO, so portable) which can run you under $300 and they're absolutely fantastic. If you made me choose one doll to keep out of my collection... I'd hate to pick but let's be honest, it'd be Stella, my Littlefee.

They also sell Pukifees, 18cm little pocket pals in that same choice A La Carte system. Someday we hope they will bring back Pukipukis, which used to go for around $180 each and were great little travel buddies. Mine has a little case I can slip into my purse, and she's been on trips with me like a little travel gnome. 

Fairyland offers their Tan Skin kind of periodically for different size categories, so if you're really set on it, don't fret! They often offer it for Events at Winter holidays, Spring festival, or Halloween. You can buy through dealer Denver Doll Emporium if you're in the USA and don't want to deal with the company, but Fairyland has always been professional with me.

If you like fantasy fairy type dolls, Charm Doll has a cute little succulent plant fairy for $140.


If you like little animal dolls, DollFamily A makes a whole handful of little critters for $100-$120 each, and many other cute dolls besides. Cocotribe's animals are about $135.
Impldoll makes a colorful lil' crocodile at  $145 that would be easy to add horns and wings to for a dragon.

Bobobie has several beautiful tiny dolls for under $100, and you can get them through Denver Doll Emporium or the company's own website.

Doll Leaves sells a lot of lovely tiny dolls for $88!!- $135

They've also got several gorgeous Yo-SD sized (about 12 inches tall) dolls for $160.
Only Doll makes some for $110.

Dollzone has many dolls in the middle size and smaller who cost under $300, down to $175

Dikadoll mid size Kids come with lots of face types including smiling or anime style faces!

Gem of Doll has Yo-SD sized dolls and Tiny sized dolls.

Impldoll has many little fae and fairy style YoSD sized dolls at $145. Their MSDs or 1/4 sized dolls are only $188-$208. They even make 1/3 sized dolls or SD size for less than $300!

Myou Doll has some really gorgeous faces on dolls in many sizes that come in a nice price range.

Asleep Eidolon does really high quality craftsmanship on their stunning dolls, and the mid size or anything smaller are often under $300. Beautiful faces too.

Angel of Dream makes 1/4 or MSD dolls for $165, and a lot of SD or 1/3 size dolls for under $300!

Some of Doll Chateau's etherial waifs go for less than $300

If you're into Chinese fantasy and more mature dolls, Granado's 30cm lads are marvelous little versions of their well known male dolls. 

Resinsoul has so many options and almost all of them are under $300! One of my prettiest dolls is a Resinsoul hybrid. Mature 1/3 SD size men, a Tiefling looking gal you can order in many resin colors, and a lady who can be your Blood or Night Elf from WoW, with a color you choose. THey have satyrs, centaurs, draconic MSDs, and elves galore. They've even been known to swap  heads and bodies for your custom choice, or do clear resin for some parts on request.

And that's just a sampling!

I want to make Food and Props for my Doll!

Polymer clay can have a translucency to it that mimics food really well, and there are some special tricks you can do to get very realistic food. 

I'd recommend youtube Miniatures tutorials by SugarCharmShop, as she does very clear simple tutorials with great results. Her stuff is dollhouse sized but if you do the same things slightly larger you can make treats and accessories for any size of doll.

Here's a link but it autoplays a video with sound so be aware of that.

(She also repaints vinyl dolls and does doll clothing tutorials you can probably use for your BJD.)

Here's her video of polymer clay basics. Here's one for her tools she uses. 

Here's a second channel where she had a lot of the food videos and they're still there. Sound!



She's just a fantastic resource for anyone who loves dolls.

New duds.

Shade, one of the Art Doll Crew, has finally gotten clothes to suit him. He's a bit of a clothes-horse or fashionista so he requires glamorous or interesting outfits. These were made by Nezumitoo on Etsy.

These are just phone pics, so they're not very good, but at least I now have a skylight in my hallway to add some natural light I can shoot quick snaps in.  (it used to be the shaft for a swamp cooler but I got central air so my Dad built it into a skylight for me)

Fayeth, one of my MSDs, also got into the Nezumitoo order and has appropriated this coat for herself even though it's SD sized.

Making Aspen the Dryad, part 2

This is a kind of post-dated post. A lot's been happening in my life and I've gone Pro as an artist so things have been rather hectic for 2017! But I did finish Aspen and she's such fun to play with!
Here's how it went.

After my thumb healed I was able to finally do her blushing. I went for a very simple and dramatic faceup, with greys and browns. He skin has been painted and blushed, with those little marks on it that birches and aspens get. I made those dimensional by using a little grainy acrylic texturing gel.

Then it was just a question of popping her wig on... and she was done! She's a ton of fun to photograph and her body takes some getting used to in the posing department but I love her expression.

I probably won't bother making clothes for her. Trees don't wear clothes! With Autumn coming up, I will need to finish her other wig- the golden Aspen in full glory!

Native Pair Project

Okay so I bought new dolls... but they're not for me! Not really anyway. I may end up long-term loaning them as an exhibit to our tribal culture museum.

This is a project I've meant to do for a long time but I've put off because I couldn't find anything realistic enough at a nice price and a small size. I've put down money on an AncientTales pair of male and female 1/6 scale mature dolls. I am going to modify and use them for diorama photos of my native tribe's history.

I am very excited to finally do this, later this year. I can make photos into illustrations for books if they're good enough.

Making Aspen the Dryad, part I

So I've wanted for ages to make one of the weird super-slim alien jointed bodies sold by Doll Chateau into a Dryad. I found the perfect body for this, the K-08 male, and while it is 52cm with a head on, in scale it counts as Mini sized. She'll just be awfully tall for a 1/4 doll.

I chose the boy version of that body for this project because the girl body has huge hips and almost no ribcage ....and i know it's weird but just looking at its frail and tiny torso makes it hard for me to breathe- it's a personal anatomy nitpick/phobia/involuntary reaction I can't get around. So I bought a boy doll and will be making it into a girl who could plausibly have organs and inhale or exhale.

Then I just needed to find a head. I wanted it to be more than just another pretty face. The right face for my dryad would need to be something special, striking, otherworldly. Armeleia of Seed Doll/Seed Arts made this little bird faced head called Wol, and I knew she'd be perfect. I snagged one as soon as the order went up.

In the months before Wol arrived, I spent a lot of time working out how I would make her into a dryad. I knew I wanted a very special kind of wig, not just a green hair wig. I wanted to give her leaves, and do four or more wigs that I could change seasonally to take her outside for photoshoots. I settled on hand dyeing a LOT of fringey lace.

So much lace. So much hand dyeing. Partly I used Dye-Na-Flow by Jacquard, and partly just fabric markers for the brown twiggy bits. Each piece of lace was laid out flat, then painted and marker'ed one.
strand.
 at a time.  ....Yikes. Sometimes I wonder about myself and my idea of fun.

 Then it was time to work on the body mods. I shaved off the boy bits on the hip piece, which was easy, but the chest was a little trickier. I wanted her to have some small breasts, so I had to sculpt some in. Luckily this body has wide, low, long pecs so there's plenty of room. Here's the first few cuts with the ceramic scraper knife, and you can see my pencil guidelines. Nothing too extreme, just an A-cup size.

 Making things symmetrical before I refine the shapes. A certain amount of symmetry is desired here.

 Then a LOT of sanding! So often the key to a good mod vs a kind of shoddy one is the amount of time you're willing to put in with the sandpaper and descending fineness of grits to get a good smooth finish.

 

 Even at this stage she's not quite done. I hurt my thumb with an S-Hook at this point, (you do NOT want to know, it was pretty bad) so sanding had to stop while my poor digit recovered. 

Luckily Wol arrived to distract me!

 

 Here she is! And with her genius little s-hook holder made in the shape of a cluster of crystals! It's super sparkly in person. Armeleia hand cast it herself to include the glittery bits, so unless a bigger company wants to go to that kind of trouble they might not steal the concept. (fingers crossed. it's such a nice detail) Wol herself was in a cute little printed cloth bag I will be keeping.

I spent some time with my bandaged thumb and engaged in an evening of wigmaking. I'm pretty pleased with the results.

 Here she is, starting to come together! I am so excited! Her eyes are some I'd already owned and used on a doll I had sold on, and I was hoping they'd work for her. I love her look!


What you're seeing here on the blog is the Summer Wig, but she'll have other seasons too. From similar lace I've made her an Autumn wig in full Aspen Gold. I want to make a Spring wig with budding leaves and flowers, and a Winter wig full of ice crystals and dusted with snow.

I plan to blush her like an Aspen Tree, with lots of little black bark texture marks, and greyish brown shading and faceup.

Dolly GOALS for 2017

- Launch the Shop!

- Finish making Aspen, my Wol dryad on a Doll Chateau body, and Shade, my dark starry art doll.

- Do lots more photoshoots. The Shop may kind of force me to do that.

-whip up a batch of petal pink dye and finally just gradient dye the tips of most of my dolls' fingers so their darn blushing will quit just wearing off the hands.

- Finish  "Project Noggin" and get resin duplicates made. Probably by Haru Casting, they seem to be wonderful.  It's a secret, you will see... Stay tuned!

-Give Lir, Donovan and Kitso the Hob their makeovers. Kevya too. My dolls have been neglected and I want to give them better faceups and new hardcap wigs. Lir hasn't had work done since 2009!

-keep making tunics and shoes. lots and lots of shoes. Possibly dabble is a few fancy fullsets, props and furniture pieces, but the demand is for fantasy basics and shoes!