davidd's A DOLL A DAY 2022:

She looks pretty smug there, that she gets to enjoy a Nice Warm Beach.

...pride goeth before a fall, eh?

Alliecat wrote:
...pride goeth before a fall, eh?

Never turn your back on the ocean!

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30 November - A Doll A Day 2022:


Because I'm busy and lazy and that's what was near at hand.

I think I could easily use both of those excuses too.

Oooh, that looks nice. Even when I go to the beach it's almost always the Pacific Ocean and COLD.

facepalm for sure!

3 December - A Doll A Day 2022:


I'm attempting to make a photo story. The "screenplay" ended up being much longer than I expected or intended, so it's gonna be an enormous project. I'm hoping to get it done this weekend, or by early next week, but considering it's already Saturday night....

Fun to see behind the scenes!
I wish I had time to do more dolly pix these days. And, well, a nice place to do it.

Alliecat wrote:And, well, a nice place to do it.

A "nice place" would be... nice. I'm set up on the kitchen table at the moment, and the project is threatening to overflow on to the counters and even the stove top.

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4 December - A Doll A Day 2022:


Body: TBLeague S26A
Head: from TBLeague S34
Clothing: assorted Barbie, Bratz, and miscellaneous

I am having so much trouble achieving proper exposure in my "high contrast" (i.e. poorly illuminated) photo story settings that I may need to resort to trying the DSLR camera. This is one of my first dozen test snaps. Now, the pic didn't look like this straight out of the camera. I ran it through a couple of iPad filters and tweaked the contrast and saturation a bit to get the final image. However, the DSLR camera has some fairly easy to operate exposure lock and focus controls, so the overall image from which this pic was cropped worked out much better, with considerably lower "digital noise," than the previous pix I was getting from my usually trusty point-n-shoot. Learning to use a different camera will slow down the process initially, but it should ultimately save considerable time in post-shoot editing.

The higher resolution of the DSLR lens means I will need to pay much closer attention to stray hairs on the dolls and figures.

davidd wrote: I'm set up on the kitchen table at the moment, and the project is threatening to overflow on to the counters and even the stove top..

Ahh, the best kind of hobby project, an all-consuming one. All over the place perhaps, but isn't it lovely to have something to do that is so absorbing and fun??

Alliecat wrote:
Ahh, the best kind of hobby project, an all-consuming one.  All over the place perhaps, but isn't it lovely to have something to do that is so absorbing and fun??

My best experience ever in that regard was more years ago than I care to think about now, but I had a few days off all to myself with nothing to do and I took over the entire kitchen and living room constructing my Pinky Street scale U-Boat! I was "in the zone" and pulled a couple of all-nighters during that project! Good times!

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5 December - A Doll A Day 2022:


Bianca Beaumont-Banks (alias "Little B") is a character "retired" by AMMO action figure forum member BlondeActionMan who was passed along with permission to me to carry on her adventures (albeit with an updated headsculpt, body, and costume). Along the way, Ms Beaumont-Banks has picked up yet another alternate identity, the "professional name" Velveeta Dankbush, which she uses in her motion picture and modeling career. This second aspect of Bianca's background was developed in conjunction with AMMO forum member Kimono Troop Command during a joint photo-story project.

Body: TBLeague S09C
Head: GACToys GC-029A
Outfit: made in China, found on eBay

Wow, that would indeed be fun. I'm sure you must've posted some pix of it on Dolly Market at some point...? but... got a photo of the completed project for here?
The interaction on that forum with shared photostories & characters also sounds fun.

Alliecat wrote:
The interaction on that forum with shared photostories & characters also sounds fun.

It is fun! There hasn't been a good back-and-forth in a while, though. I've been too busy... or too disorganized... to "act fast" when an opportunity arises.

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6 December - A Doll A Day 2022:


Because this photo-story project is consuming all my available hobby time, things like this will be my pic o' th' day for a while yet.

An upside of this is that I'm learning to use my DSLR camera. I figured out a trick just a couple of hours ago, after shooting about a third of the pics I'll need for the story, that should save me a lot of blurry pix from here on out: set the ISO to automatic!

I have yet to upload any of the Auto-ISO pix, so I do not know if they will be overly grainy or exhibit too much digital noise.

Yay for learning to use the camera! You've been wanting to for quite some time, if I recall. Did you read the manual or are you winging it? It's great that you have some time to play instead of working on reno & repairs all the time.

11 December - A Doll A Day 2022:


Kindly disregard the occasional lunatic outbursts; Tærra Symmes, Eccentric Adventuress, is actually pretty nice... most of the time.

Body: TBLeague S27B
Head: Kumik 16-84
Costume: Mattel Wild Hearts Crew and various Bratz, Barbie, and GI Joe pieces.

12 December - A Doll A Day 2022:


Dolly-related parcel arrived today, one day after my birthday!
It's an item I "pre-ordered" about six months ago for which the release date was of course delayed. I've seen a few "user pics" online recently from purchasers who already received this doll-figure. As is becoming increasingly typical, the in-hand product does not look nearly as nice as the pre-release promotional images, hence my muted enthusiasm about opening the box. I'll get around to it one of these days.

Always disappointing when actual release does not match promo photos. One time the opposite occurred was with Dita Pullip! I didn't like her promo photos but love her in person.

I like the sexy stormtrooper.

TrueFan wrote:I like the sexy stormtrooper.

The figure can be "made to look good" in photos, but the quality is not what was indicated in the pre-release info. But it's okay. I've raised my initial assessment from meh to enthusiastic meh.

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14 December – A Doll A Day 2022:


I have completed another installment for the group photo story project on the action figure forums. This chapter is too lengthy to post in its entirety here on the Dal House Forum, so I'm including a link for those who might want to see more:

Sexy stormtrooper looks a little annoyed that you said she wasn't as good as the promo pictures. Your last photo looks very much like a human and not a doll. I read your photo story or at least some of it (kept getting interrupted) the humour was very good.

I'm always impressed at the amount of work in the photo stories.
Perhaps a photoshoot will make you more enthused about the new girl.
Love the beach photos!