davidd's A DOLL A DAY 2023

Yeah, renting could be a hassle. People on GM won't rent, mostly, because they say the tenants are often awful. Someone once showed me photos of damage her tenants had done and it was ridiculous. Talk about "trashing the place". Literally -- trash everywhere.

The Pinkys look happy to be back at the beach.

Alliecat wrote:

The Pinkys look happy to be back at the beach.

They are!

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11 November - A Doll A Day 2023:

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A cute little surf line for a cute little figure

It feels strange to see beach shots this time of year. I hope your travels went well and you're having a good time at your other accommodation.

cool photo!

How much tide range do you have?
Might have asked you that before, but, my memory... ehh.

I wonder if it's the camera angle or whether photo-story girl has very big hands.  It seems like a thing, that some of these female dolls action figures have really large man-hands?
Her face is pretty and a bit reminiscent of a J-Doll.

Alliecat wrote:How much tide range do you have?
. . .
I wonder if it's the camera angle or whether photo-story girl has very big hands.  It seems like a thing, that some of these female dolls action figures have really large man-hands?

The most extreme tide range at the peak time of the month is only about a foot (30cm), but since the beaches are fairly flat, there's a significant difference in the amount of exposed sand between high and low tide along this section of the Atlantic coast.

I, too, noticed the hands of the figure appearing overly large in some of the photos. They reminded me of one of the Cottingley Fairy photos: this one:

LINK TO PHOTO ON BBC WEBSITE

The first time I ever saw that image, it was in a book that featured small, low resolution images, and the "giant hand" looked really creepy and distracting. I read a number of books thereafter that mentioned the Cottingley Fairies, and in one book there was an excerpt from a letter in which the investigator mentioned he had "looked at the hand and it appeared normal." The "giant hand" in the fairy photo is a combination of the girl's two hands being overlapped and of movement during the exposure, giving the appearance that she has an enormously enlarged and distorted hand.

After your query, I was curious about the action figure hands. I did not recall the hands seeming abnormally large, so I took another look. I also changed the costume and snapped some more photos (see below).

I determined that the appearance of the hands being oversized -- and yes, it is true that some of these "seamless" female action figures have overly-large and not particularly feminine hands -- is, as you suspected, a result of lighting and camera angle.

Specifically, it is a result of wide-angle lens distortion when the camera is placed close to the figure and a hand is positioned in the foreground nearer the camera lens than the rest of the figure.

As you can see below, the hands look in proper proportion in full-length photos, but when the camera is placed closer to the figure with the lens at the wide-angle setting, as I have done here, the foreground hand appears relatively larger. This is an example of why wide-angle lenses are rarely used for portrait photography, as they tend to exaggerate features of the face, like noses, that are closer to the camera lens. I learned that a difference in camera placement of only a few inches can result in considerable wide-angle lens distortion.

Additionally, the hard plastic hands of the figures tend to be somewhat more reflective than the bodies, so in addition to lens distortion, the hands are easily overexposed, which emphasizes them even further.

As a result of your question, I learned something new about doll and action figure photography, and in the future I shall try to be more aware of hand positioning and relative camera placement.

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14 November  -  A Doll A Day 2023:

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I had noticed the large hands on the pinky figures but assumed it was a stylistic choice to do with anime. Picco neemo (I think) have a 1/12th figure with normal hands and one with large hands.

I don't think it looks strange on the dressed doll because again it appears stylised to match the anime character but it looks strange on the nude body. I stumbled on them looking for alternatives for little pullips a while back.

It's kind of amazing how different her hands look in the different photos.

TrueFan wrote:It's kind of amazing how different her hands look in the different photos.

Yeah, it's a weird effect.

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15 November - A Doll A Day 2023:


I found these miniature glass bottles, or apothecary jars, at a Dollar Tree store, six miniature bottles for $1.25 USD (plus tax, so about $1.40 total):


I mocked up some apothecary jar labels using Plasq Comic Life and printed them out (using my low-end inkjet printer -- they'd look a lot better coming out of a laser printer). Then I wandered around the house looking for "stuff" with color or texture, like salt, pepper, brown sugar, glue, cooking oil, and dish washing soap, to put into the bottles.


Definitely two and a half bucks worth of fun, right there! The bottles will make interesting background accessories for diorama scenes.

I like the way the labels look - almost like they are handwritten.

16 November - A Doll A Day 2023:


Actually, a stormy beach week! But it isn't snowing!

I made a couple of mini bottles for a kids Harry potter birthday party a few years ago. It was a lot of fun, the contents of a few were questionable by the time it came to packing though. Yours look a lot more professional. I like how she's just peeking round the feather in that last shot.

CatDragonStorm wrote:I made a couple of mini bottles for a kids Harry potter birthday party a few years ago. It was a lot of fun....

Yes, I found the bottle project entertaining. I have a few more to do, but I need to get another printer ink cartridge for my printer. Always running out of supplies, isn't that how it goes?

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Speaking of supplies...

17 November - A Doll A Day 2023:


I dunno... could Guy Who Looks Like He Belongs On A TV Home Improvement Show replace Janie and Triv?

davidd wrote:

CatDragonStorm wrote:I made a couple of mini bottles for a kids Harry potter birthday party a few years ago. It was a lot of fun....

Yes, I found the bottle project entertaining. I have a few more to do, but I need to get another printer ink cartridge for my printer. Always running out of supplies, isn't that how it goes?

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Speaking of supplies...

17 November - A Doll A Day 2023:

Fix-It Guy

I dunno... could Guy Who Looks Like He Belongs On A TV Home Improvement Show replace Janie and Triv?

You can go use the printer at the library!

I hope not. He can join the crew but not replace them.

Wow, a foot.  I would miss big tides.  Even with a wide beach, probably.

So you are developing an HGTV evening lineup here, with Smarts & Crafts followed by the new show, Fix-It Guy.  He looks like he could be quite the craftsman.

I didn't give the hands thing that much thought.  Just wondered because a certain new addition kinda has big man-hands. Wondered if it was typical.

Alliecat wrote:Just wondered because a certain new addition kinda has big man-hands. Wondered if it was typical.

After-market hands are available, or hand-swapping among various figures is sometimes an option. Sometimes the hands are just too big.

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18 November - A Doll A Day 2023:

You meant a foot of water but I got the conversation about the big hands mixed up and now I'm imagine measuring tides with giant feet.
Fix it guy is another one of those realistic photos where I had to do a double take to check if its a real person.

CatDragonStorm wrote:You meant a foot of water but I got the conversation about the big hands mixed up and now I'm imagine measuring tides with giant feet.

So it turns out I was looking at a tidal chart that was inaccurate, and probably misinterpreting the numbers as well, and the actual rise and fall of the tide is usually in the 1m / 3 feet range, but can exceed 5 feet / 1.5m. Which is not related to hands... which is the unit in which the height of horses is measured.

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19 November - A Doll A Day 2023:


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Does a photo of a plastic toy farm animal found on the beach count for A Doll A Day? Well, if you've ever tackled an A Doll A Day Project, you know that the definition tends to become increasingly generous as the year progresses.

It absolutely does! Love it!

Yer killin me with all these warm tropical beach photos  

CatDragonStorm wrote:...now I'm imagine measuring tides with giant feet.  

Haha -- that could be quite appropriate for our big tides here!  ("Those big-ass tides" as our bosun on the Bounty referred to them    )