Wednesday 22 December 2010

Eos the Steampunk Pullip

The Steampunk Pullip I won in the Pinky St Gothic-Noir-Steampunk contest (warning: image heavy) is here! Well, actually she arrived about a week ago, but I hadn't been able to take photos due to the weather. It was unexpectedly fast shipping from Hawaii!

Photobucket

The box was so pretty and pristine I didn't want to damage it, but with so many of the doll accessories taped so strongly to the insides, I ended up tearing parts of the interior in order to get them out. Boo...

She's a limited edition of 2000 (that means she's really not all that limited :P) and the little slip of paper in her box informed me that I got no. 1181/2000.

Eos 01

My first Pullip ever! I've seen Pullips all over the internet and never really thought I'd own one. For one thing, I could never afford one (due to spending all my monies elsewhere cough *Sylvanians*cough*Pinky St*cough*clay* and the Pullip aesthetic never really appealed to me. I mean, I thought some of them looked very nice but I was thinking I'd get a blank obitsu head and body to customise and make my own doll with at some point instead of getting into Pullips.

Eos 02

Then Eos arrived, and I'm absolutely amazed by how ethereal her face up looks in person. I'd picked her mainly because her face up looked pretty in the pictures, but it's even more amazing in person. Now I'm tempted by other Pullips. I like Shinku... and a number of others...

Eos 03


Eos 04

Her steampunk gear is amazing too. She has a gun and a staff. The staff seems to be part iron rod and part shower head. The gun has faucets on it too. I love that attention to detail, it implies that everything's been bashed together from junk found in the trash heap into something useful.

All the clothing is extremely detailed, when I was taking off her clothes so I could wash and condition her hair, I kept looking for the velcro fastening her clothes, like with barbie clothes. She had no velcro, it was all nicely done metal clasps and hooks. She also comes with a pair of black gloves and some elbow guards, but they're not pictured as I don't like the gloves and the elbow guards don't look very good without them.

Photobucket

She also comes with a hat studded with random bits and bobs, an eye piece and wings. I don't actually like the way her wings fit onto Eos, it sticks straight out from her back. I would have preferred something that spread out more to the sides.

As lovely as this doll is, it suffers from some quality issues. Eos is notorious for having a bad, frizzy wig and having bits fall off her stock. Her wings are fragile and easily breakable, and her left arm tends to pop off.

I've washed and conditioned the wig for about two hours, but her hair's starting to get stiff and frizzy again. I think I may have to condition it some more. Or get her a new wig. This South Australian dry weather probably doesn't help much.

This is the bit that I'm quite annoyed about--after deboxing the Pullip and not having stock bits fall off her, I thought my dolly had escaped that particular fate. Then parts started to fall off her eye piece on the second day. Well, I'd been warned to expect that, so no biggie, I glued them back. Then I noticed this:

Photobucket

Two of the screw on thingys had disappeared!!! The bit at the top is what it's supposed to look like. I hadn't even noticed that they'd disappeared, so I have no idea when they dropped off. I don't even know if they were even there in the first place! I've looked everywhere for them and I'd only taken Eos to my room and the lounge room when I noticed they were missing, and they are no where to be seen.

I wonder if Groove can send replacement parts? I have no idea how to contact them though... :( I may have to just find something else to put on there.

I still think Eos is a gorgeous doll and I'm happy to have her though :) I'm also kinda tempted by the rest of the steampunk gang...

Tuesday 14 December 2010

Another post office building

This little thing just arrived today! I Ordered it from Sylvanian Heaven some weeks ago. I may have overpaid again -_- Anyway, I'm actually pretty happy with this one. The condition of the items in it were much, much better than I thought they'd be. I even found a surprise stack of mini postcards and letters in the mailbox!

Photobucket

This post office is definitely in a far better condition than the previous post office I got from them. I think I paid about the same price too -_-;; The downside is, while I'm perfectly willing to wreak nasty experimental modifications upon the other one, I'm a bit reluctant to touch this one. Guh...

Here's how the other post office looks like now. I've stripped off all the paper and stickers and am considering the best way to make roof shingles.

Photobucket

One of the window parts is missing from it, and some enterprising previous owner had decided to glue the remaining window part to the middle of the frame. =A=;;

Photobucket

I've yanked it out and am now trying to figure out the best thing to do for the window. Should I leave it as it is? Should I try and cast another window piece? Welp, I'll have to mull over it a bit.

I like these little buildings because they're small and take up so little space. I can make a little street of shops with these :D. I have another two on the way, and I think I'll stop with that. Won't have enough space on the shelf for more. I also really like the fact that the roofs come off, it'll be great for photographing the insides!

Photobucket

[Entering whinge mode]

In other non-toy related news, I feel so 'meh'. I've just realised that Christmas is next week. I don't want to celebrate it. I don't enjoy the santa reindeer etc atmosphere and I don't like the food. It's all alien. I want to go home, back to Brunei or Malaysia. I want to be fit again, with nice shady hills to climb and exercise on instead of these windy plains that are either too cold or too bright and sunny. There's no ozone layer here. No trees to shade me on my walking route either. I want to have friends I can go kai kai with, and have friends I can stay up all night watching reality tv and other crap with.

I have too many things I want to do now, and no motivation. My lack of motivation has to do in part with the fact that I don't know where to start. I keep feeling like I should be doing something else when I do something. There are things I want to do for other people, and many more that I want and need to do for myself. Should I start making my family's paper Christmas gifts? Or should I finally read that driving rules booklet that I've been putting off for so long? I'll need to drive in February. Hopefully. If I manage to get a job. I hate cars, gigantic trucks and highways. They scare me.

Bah...

[end whinging]

Sunday 5 December 2010

Speaking of wins...

I also won Okasaneko's 3rd Blog Anniversary Giveaway a few weeks ago. Okasaneko's a collector from the Philippines, and definitely a nice lady! Her son, Alphonse, is in hospital now for dengue fever and it's a tough time for him and his family. I've been reading updates on her blog and following her fb and praying for him to get better.

Here's a pic of the 25th Anniversary Baby Pair I got from Okasaneko:

Anniversary Baby Pair

So cute! My hubby says the little squirrel looks rather hairy chinned. The light marking around its mouth doesn't really help, it makes the baby look like it has beard stubble.

I also got some more Sylvanian stuff from the almighty intarwebs. Here's one of them, a 2nd hand post office from Sylvanian Heaven. I probably over paid for this, but I really wanted the building. I'm trying to create a street of shops and stuff on the shelf in my hobby room. Also, this means that my postman bear now has a place to live.

Photobucket

I'm going to repaint it, the bike, make some shelves and anything else that's needed. After taking this picture, I ripped off the paper on the roof, and I'm going to do that to the awning too. Nyohohoho!

Friday 3 December 2010

I won the Pinky St Contest!

Wow, I actually won the Pinky St Contest (link is really pic heavy and contains all the entries btw). My entry is no. 9, Wings aka The Flying Doohickey Contest. I really hadn't expected to win. I got really lightheaded when I saw the results...:P I really expected entry no. 11, The Printing Supply Thief to win, because I thought it was cool, had a clever story and the props were great!

I admit that I hadn't finished editing my entry in Photoshop to the extent that I was satisfied with it, but by then it was already 5 mins to the deadline... I did spend massive amounts of time and energy on the entry though, creating the props and looking for suitable textures and pictures to create backdrops with, etc. Even ended up with back pain from hunching over things for so long... but it was worth it! XD

I learned a few things from this contest. I learned that if you try to create nearly all the props and backdrops from scratch, it really takes a lot longer than you think it will take. A LOT LONGER. Like, if I think it'll take me X amount of time to finish, it'll really take X x5 amount of time or something silly. I've also learned that I'm apparently good at bashing up random objects out of paper and styrofoam if I stop thinking and let my hands do the work.

Anyway, enough rambling, here's the prize!

Steampunk Pullip Eos
Photobucket

She's gorgeously steampunk XD She's also apparently a limited edition release of about 2000, I think. And she retails on Pullip Style for USD 145, and even more on ebay. Whoa, I hadn't realised she was quite THAT expensive. Eos will be my first Pullip ever. I could never afford Pullips (mostly because I spend all my money on Sylvanian Families and Pinky St junk).

I'm so full of glee now that the shock has worn off and I also feel quite embarrassed and undeserving actually ^^;; *runs around in circles squeeing anyway*

Monday 29 November 2010

Bread experiments

Bread experiments

I made some bread over the past few days to replace the awful, awful looking baked goods that came with my Sylvanian Village Bakery. I'm not sure I've been entirely successful. I don't really like the look of my bread, but I think that the short loaves in the middle with the little cuts in them look okay. I still haven't been able to make my bread look as realistic as I like. Also, on the right are my attempts at the 'flour dusted loaf'. Er... yeah... not quite a success yet. But I'll keep trying!

My baguettes are also too fat for their height. I admit, I really don't know bread. I grew up just eating supermarket white bread, and the occasional pandan flavoured loaf. Bread just wasn't a big part of my home food life. It wasn't until I came to Australia last year that I saw a bakery with flour dusted loaves. Maybe there were some in Brunei too, but I never really paid much attention, heh. To me bakeries were all about the curry puffs and yam basket pastries.

My chalk pastel tends to rub off the things I make. I had to seal the bread with varnish to make sure nothing would come off and stain the paper on my bakery shelves. I have no idea why, chalk pastel is supposed to bake into the clay and not come off. Someone suggested maybe it was cheap pastels? I don't think so though, because I know of two prominent artists who use the same brands of pastels that I do. I'm starting to wonder if my oven thermometer's lying to me and my oven's still not hot enough. -_- Aiyeeee... I guess for now I'll continue varnishing my minis. At least the pastel can't come off after that.

I posted a review of my Sylvanian School Master's set on the Sylvanian Families forums.

Photobucket

One of my favourite sets! I'm glad I managed to get it from the second round of BeHappy's budget items offer. I'd missed it during the first round.

My favourite items have got to be these:

Photobucket

I mean look at them! Mini flasks and test tubes *squees* I'm going to have to cast the test tubes in resin to see if I can make some with coloured 'chemicals' inside them.

My next favourite item is the chalk box with the individual pieces of chalk.

Photobucket

They fit perfectly on the blackboard of my little mini school XD That bottle on the far right is apparently a bunsen burner. I would have included it in the picture of the test tubes if I had realised. I thought it was ink or correction fluid or something.

Tuesday 16 November 2010

More loot

I'm greedy...

I bought some more toys when BeHappy added more things to their budget corner. Some of these are kinda rare, and to get them at the price I did, I'm really happy. These would have cost a lot more had I paid full price or ebay prices on them. I've been opening them slowly, a few ever other day so I don't get overwhelmed and it feels like I'm getting a present every few days XD It's an awesome feeling.

I'm glad I got that kitchen set on the upper left. I'd been having some problems fitting my existing kitchens in the house I repainted, and this new kitchen fitted perfectly. :) I wouldn't have bought that kitchen if it hadn't been on sale. I already have too many kitchens -_-

Photobucket

My husband also bought me the Sylvanian Village Bakery, something I've wanted since I first saw it a few years ago. We got it NRFB from within Australia and at below retail price, so I'm really happy. It's even more awesome than I thought it would be! I was so giddy with glee when I unboxed it. Granted, it does have its flaws, but I love it just the same.

Now that the Pinky St contest is over, I'll have more time for my other projects. I'm going to give the bakery a slight over haul and hopefully touch it up enough for it to look more realistic. I've already started remodelling some of the smaller items from the bakery like the cans, which were a bland matte plasticky gray. I just spray painted it chrome. I'm working on that jam jars now which have the same plasticky problem.

Photobucket

I haven't been in the best of moods lately, and one of the reasons is that a Sylvanian I bought recently turned out to be damaged. I didn't want to talk about this publicly as I didn't want to bring bad publicity to the seller as it really isn't their fault, but after thinking about it I doubt I'd do much if any damage at all.

I bought a Sylvanian dog teacher set which came with a little mini school house and a dog teacher figurine. There were three of them at the seller's shop and they were listed at a discount because of damaged packaging. You're allowed to choose exactly which box you want. Just my luck, I chose the one where the figurine had somehow had parts of its flocking melted off onto the packaging surrounding it. I think exposure to light and reactions with the plastic packaging did it. :(

Photobucket

Photobucket

I contacted the sellers about it and they were good enough to offer me a similar figurine as compensation. This figure is the maron dog mother, and they suggested that I could swap out the the dress she comes in for the dog teacher's clothing as the figures were 'the same'.

The figures are not the same though, the dog teacher is a darker colour, has a thinner head and is slightly smaller than the mother. Not very huge differences and many people wouldn't even notice, to be honest, but the differences would bother me, I think.

Photobucket

Also I already have an extra maron mother dog--I bought that the first time I got stuff from them. I've decided to ask them if I could get another different figure from their budget corner instead.

Photobucket

My dog teacher with accessories from another set that I'm gonna review in a few days. The damage is on the back and on the other side of his face.

I'm looking for ways to disguise the damage on the dog's face now, I was considering bandages :P

Sunday 7 November 2010

Okasaneko's Blog Giveaway



This post is for Okasaneko Chronicles's Blog Giveaway for the blog's 3rd anniversary. I've been reading her blog for the past few weeks, and it's cute, insightful and inspirational. I'm not really good at describing this, so why don't you head over and see for yourself :)

Wednesday 3 November 2010

Loot :P

I had intended on updating earlier, and now it's November :/ I've wallpapered the house, but I'm not really satisfied with the way it looks and am considering re-papering the kitchen. Wallpapering is amazingly time consuming. Making the initial templates with strips of paper, then using those to make sturdier templates with card stock. After that trimming the cutout wallpaper pieces in order to make them fit better. I'm sure there's a better way to do this, but I haven't thought of it yet...

The dollhouse project is on hold while I prepare for the Pinky St contest. I hope I get my entry done on time :s Deadline's the 11th.Too much procrastination from this person.

Anyway I wanted to blog about my recent acquisitions :D

My hubby got me some Re-Ment for my birthday from Angolz. I will never choose that site to shop from again. =_= Their customer service is HORRIBLE. They take days to answer enquiries or tell you something is out of stock, list things that are unavailable as being available, and then fail to give the correct refund amount back, and neglect to adjust shipping as required. They still owe the hubby $5 but he's sick of chasing them around so he's letting it go. Angolz is dodgy as hell.

Photobucket

I'm going to have to take better more detailed photos of the sets after the Pinky contest :P

I got the European Grandma and Cooking with Teddy sets! I'm really happy with the European Grandma set, it's awesome! I love all the little utensils, pots, cans and plates. My only complaint is that some of the items may be a little on the large side.

The Teddy set disappointed me a little. There seems to be less items per set, and some of the items on the bears are not removable.


Photobucket

I got a pile of Sylvanian stuff from the budget corner of BeHappy. This area of the store stocks items that have had their boxes damaged, items missing or the product itself damaged in some way at a discounted price. Some of the discounts are really good, and I chuck the boxes most of the time anyway. I didn't get everything I wanted, but I got quite a good chunk anyway.

The customer service at BeHappy's really good, they answer emails really fast and are polite and friendly. They are even sending me another Sylvanian polar bear because they sent me the wrong one. Honestly, I hadn't even noticed. They were identical damaged sets, and only the damaged spots were different. I love BeHappy!

All this stuff is making me feel really, really spoiled and greedy =_= I feel rather guilty for spending this much money and for asking for such an expensive present, even though the hubby says it's okay... :/ Actually, I feel best when I'm modifying or creating something and it turns out good. There's nothing like the satisfaction of completing a project and seeing the thing you've envisioned in your mind in good solid reality. I also don't feel so bad about the money I've spent when it's for a project. I feel like I'm really putting the money to good use. Just collecting makes me feel rather guilty. Looks like I'm gonna have to modify some of the things I just bought! JI wish I could find second hand cheap Sylvanian doll houses in Lincoln. Like in the op shop or in a garage sale or something. That would be awesome.

Monday 11 October 2010

Repaint done!

The main repainting portion of the house is done! I spent a good chunk of last night bashing the walls into the floor wit ha tent peg (I couldn't find a hammer). The roof is currently loosely balanced on the top of the house as I want to create wallpaper templates for the top floor of the house first.

Repaint front

Repaint front 2

Top
Repaint top

Side

Repaint side

Inside
It's really quite messy inside, with all the paint sloppily outside of the protruding bits. Good thing wallpaper will cover it up.

Repaint inside

It's also really quite dark. The hubby and I were talking about putting some led lights in there eventually.

Repaint inside 2

I'm really pleased with the way it came out. It actually almost looks like wood! The overall colour scheme came out rather on the dark side, but eh. I'm wondering if I should have left the railings white or painted them a lighter colour.

There are still lots of things to be done, wallpapering, creating a bakery case, food, counter, mini tables (I really should have bougth those mini popsticks I saw in Adelaide), umbrellas, a pond, some shrubbery... And maybe I'll repaint that veggie patch bootleg that came with the house. And those Sylvanian books! I need to paint those too!

Sunday 10 October 2010

Remodelling a bootleg and wip phone charms

I've been in the process of remodeling a bootleg Sylvanian house on and off for about a year now. It's a bootleg of the JP Red Roofed House. I'm hoping to eventually make the bottom floor into a little cafe with an outdoor area and with living quarters on the upper floor.

sylvanian,bootleg,repaint

It comes as a kit you have to put together yourself, which makes it much easier if you want to repaint it.

sylvanian,bootleg,repaint

So far, I've repainted the floor, roof and doors with spray paint.

sylvanian,bootleg,repaint

I've forgotten to take a proper picture of all the walls together so that'll have to wait till tomorrow.

I've repainted the walls with acrylics and attempted to create some sort of faux wood texture :P Not really sure what kind of wood it would be though, it was more a combination of whatever browns I managed to get my hands on. The building looked to me like it would be some sort of log cabin, so that was the effect I was aiming for.

sylvanian,bootleg,repaint

I've since put on a clear coat of varnish over the pieces and hope to be able to put the house together and fix up any odds and ends tomorrow.

I actually like bootlegged furniture more sometimes, I can mess around with them without caring about potentially destroying them... And they're cheap. I'm hoping to do similar customisations to the new cheapo original but damaged awesome bargain stock of Sylvanian stuff I recently bought XD I can't wait till it arrives!

Lastly, some WIP turtle melon pan phone charms I'm making and hoping to sell on etsy once I manage to produce enough variety of stock to my satisfaction.

wip,clay

I have to come up with a nice, short and memorable etsy store name. I'm thinking of something to do with little slices of happiness or something, if that even makes any sense.

Tuesday 28 September 2010

Totoro puffs and house pieces

Mini Totoro cream puffs

I made these in August. I took so many pictures of them and was never satisfied with any. These are miniature Totoro cream puffs based on these life sized ones: http://www.shiro-hige.com/ Each Totoro is about 1cm tall. Ai Li says I should make them slightly cross eyed rather than staring up and to the side.

House in progress

Bits of the Sylvanian bootleg house repaint I've been working on for nearly a year now. So far it's coming along nicely.

Saturday 11 September 2010

1:3 turtle experiment

1-3 turtle pan

This is my first venture into the world of 1:3 scaled items. This melon bread turtle was made with the assumption that real melon bread might be 12cm across. I have no idea how big melon bread is, really... Learnt a few things and ran into some problems while making this. I've always worked on a tile, but I've found it easier to measure things using a cutting board. My desk lamp didn't reflect light into my eyes as much either, with the more matte surface of the cutting board. Unfortunately I had to go back to using the tile as green colour from the cutting board stuck to the clay :( I guess it's what I get for using one I bought from the cheap shop. I originally bought that last year to cut out papercraft models on. Maybe one of my more expensive bigger boards won't stain the clay...

You can see in the pic where the chalk pastels have rubbed off the clay :( I thought that once you baked the colour into the clay, it wouldn't come off. I did test it out by rubbing the head and none of the colour seemed to come off, but after I put the turtle into the paper bag, the colour rubbed off in there!

Anyway, I gave the turtle to a girl I met at Link n' Learn. She has a 1:3 BJD. Woot.

Wednesday 25 August 2010

Racketeer--I mean Recettear

I downloaded a demo for an indie Japanese game called Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale a few days ago. I just had to blog about it, I so loved the premise.

reccetear,racketeer
You are a young girl named Recette. Your father has run off somewhere, and has left you with a huge debt you have no means to repay. So what can you do? Turn your house into an item shop! You know, one of those ones that are everywhere in jrpgs. It's bound to be lucrative, what with hordes of adventurers rushing into danger all the time. Together with your fairy debt collector, you work to rack up enough profit to pay back your father's debt on time. Miss a payment and you might find your house foreclosed upon and end up having to live in a cardboard box!

There are two parts to the game, one half revolves around buying and selling items (at a profit of course, the more profit the better!) to various townsfolk and adventurers

reccetear,racketeer
The other bit involves hiring some adventurers to go dungeon crawling together with to find more awesome items to sell at an awesomer profit. The more you progress through the game, the more options you unlock.

reccetear,racketeer
Finally! A game that appeals to my money hoarding instincts! I've always enjoyed racking up $$$ in jrpgs, there's something so satisfying about seeing those numbers go up and up. It's also interesting to play a game from the perspective of an item shopkeeper, a persona that essentially not even a background character in most games, but a kind of game prop.

reccetear,racketeer
As much as I love the premise, I find the main character's personality immensely tiresome. I also don't like the tutorials, they assume you don't have a working brain. The good thing about all this is that you can press the escape button to skip tutorials and entire in-game events. Yay!

Monday 23 August 2010

Oyumaru review and lousy toaster ovens

Here's the Oyumaru write up that was supposed to be here two weeks ago ^^;;

Oyumaru is a cheap, reusable molding material from Japan. (Now that Ai Li's said it, the sticks remind me of agar-agar and I wanna chew on them...) I bought a 7 stick pack for USD3.50 from ebay seller hinodewashi. Each stick is roughly 1.5cm wide and 6cm long.


oyumaru

I decided to start out using the orange stick because I don't like orange and thus wouldn't feel as bad about using one of those cute, chewy looking sticks :p. The Oyumaru feels a bit rubbery and is somewhat flexible.


oyumaru

I wanted to make a cupcake mold, so I used the end of this pen.


oyumaru

To become pliable, the Oyumaru needs to be placed in boiling water, so into the pot! It's recommended in the instructions that it sits in a temperature of 80 degrees celsius for 3 mins.The material went soft fairly quickly and I pulled it out with a pair of skewers.


oyumaru

As you can see, it's really soft and malleable in this picture. The material itself is not at all hot out of the boiling water, just warm. Be sure to shake off all the water from the piece though, THAT is hot. I didn't and burned my fingers :( The material goes stiff quickly out of water, so you have to work fast.


oyumaru

Making a mold of the pen end. Don't mind the homemade pop stick tools :P I just wanted my mold to be more even is all.


oyumaru

Ta-dah! A nice shiny new cupcake mold! Wait, there's something weird in the middle. Pif, I forgot to plug up that hole in the pen. Since Oyumaru is reusable, the material did not go to waste. I simply threw it back into the hot water again and repeated the process.


oyumaru

Here are some finished molds. The molds are not very flexible, but if you dust some talc powder or cornstarch into it, you clay should pop out all right. There might be some distortion during the process though.

I've not tried this material with resin but I will when I gather up enough courage to stop putting it off :/

Despite its limitations, Oyumaru seems like an okay molding material. It works if you're too poor or cheap (like me) to buy silicone and are willing to work around its limitations. I do like that I can reuse it if I made mistakes but the biggest downside for me is that baking with it is probably unadvisable, considering it turns all gooey and soft in hot water... I might try a workaround by boiling smaller clay pieces in it till they're hard enough to pop out of the mold without distortion and then baking them.

I'll definitely give silicone a go one day when I have more money :P

---


Toaster oven rant:

I've found out that my toaster oven is a lousy piece of crap. I put my shiny new oven thermometer in it and it shows me that my oven likes to heat up and up and continue heating up. I even turned the toaster oven dial to like 50 degrees, but the temperature kept rising after it hit the 50 degree mark. I turned off the oven after the temperature hit 140. Well, this explains why I burn my stuff and why people talk about baking things like those cookies I made earlier for 20 mins or so, where my test cookies burned after I left them in for more than 50 SECONDS.

I've also found out after doing some research that if the temperature is too high, the outside cooks faster than the inside, and may even burn while the clay inside remains raw. This can cause the plasticizers from the raw clay to eventually leech into the outer clay layer and cause it to break down eventually. Also I've noticed that lemon canes cooked in that higher heat tended to be more brittle than ones baked at the right temperatures.

Since I don't want to spend money to get another oven at the moment, I've been sitting in front of the oven and turning the oven off when the thermometer hits 140 degrees and turning it on again when it falls to 130.

Anyway, enough oven rants. I'll be posting up photos of my Totoro cream puffs soon, hopefully tomorrow. I've been trying to get a decent picture of them for days >_<