What are you planning for your dolls?

Re-doing my MSD girl completely. New faceup, new body, new wig, and new wardrobe
My wallet is already crying but at least its the plan for the whole year

 

I plan on making my first doll into an original character concept (Dollmore Glamour Eve Fine)
I plan on getting DDIII bodies for two of my DD heads and shelling them into Muv Luv characters.
I want to shell my SID Eva into a female castainc slayer and my EID Chase into a high elf priest
I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with my FID Stella yet.
I want to get a male HID, modify the head into an OC character and give him angel wings.

 

I'm waiting on my boys to get here, but in the mean time, I'm kinda branching out my hobby and thinking outside the box for what I want to do with my crew. I'm making my wishlist, thinking up clothes to make and things to buy, trying to reference back and forth about what sealant is best for the best price and what pencils and pastels are getting the best reviews for the money, etc. Just lots of planning going on rn while I wait!

 

I'm trying to decide what to spend my limited free cash on... there's a bunch of stuff I want (beads & rhinestones for jewelry, an iron that isn't at my parents' house, magnets for making brooches, various ribbons, vintage fabrics), each of which would only cost about 10 euros... but if I spend 10 euros six times, that's 60 euros! So I have to prioritize what is most urgent right now... Unnngggg...

 

What are you planning/thinking for your dolls? Right now, I'm working on two big projects at the same time (very slowly because life but I hope to have at least one finished by the end of the year):

• A big MSD-sized diorama resembling my version of the Sanctum Sanctorum from Doctor Strange (including interchangeable walls, flooring, multiple pieces of furniture, decor...) so I can have a variable background for taking pictures.
• Shelling Storm from the X-Men in doll form. I already got the right head for her but need to save more for a body then even more for someone to dye her and give her a face-up. The wig I'm already working on, and clothes I have a bunch for her, but I'm low on cash right now and between jobs and she will take me some time to complete.

 

So I'm the sort of person who has multiple projects going at the same time - I cycle between them when I get some work done, and then brain says, "NO. NO MORE THIS."

In the back of my head are grand shadowy plans, in no apparent order:
Keep practicing face-ups, especially eyebrows. My current struggle is getting that clear, clean eyebrow hair look that professional face-ups have. My eyebrows always look like they're painted with acrylic (cuz they are), but professional face-up artist eyebrows look so smooth. Going to try watercolor paint next.
Sewing! I have a decent pattern hoard/stash, and I'm looking forward to making all the neon-green muslins/toiles with my clearance fabric bolt.
Mods: more dyeing, and more additive/subtractive mods.
Photography: I continue to practice. I have plans for massive, multi-doll pictures. I mean, when you've got over 100 dolls - why not create some sort of epic scene? Hm. I wonder if I could get them all instruments and make an orchestra?

OMG, instruments and chairs for 100 dolls. NO, brain. NO.

And then, eventually - sculpting my own doll. I'm never going to buy the exact doll that I want. Heaven knows I've tried. I have to make it. But first - hands and feet. I want to make lots of hands and feet.

 

Brain won.
I went to Thingiverse. I now have folding chairs, woodwinds, brass, strings, and percussion.
Oh, boy, that's going to be a lot of printing.

 

I'm putting together two OCs as MSD dolls, which has eaten hours of my time without feeling especially productive in terms of creating the final products yet. But since I've only been in the hobby a couple of months, I only have one of the dolls on hand, and the other is on order and won't show up before September at the earliest.

So mostly what I'm doing right now is figuring out how much clothing to acquire at a reasonable pace, and researching patterns for sewing. But it's the most motivated I've been in years to get out the old sewing machine!

 

• Faceups: Marcie, Phoebe, and Aiyu all need faceups, to mention nothing of my incoming No. 9 Babel Shu, whenever she gets here. I want to paint my Dollfie Dreams myself, too, so that's on the list.
  
• Body: Speaking of Shu, I want to put her on an Impldoll body, so I'll need to get them to make one for her in a custom color. Eek!
• New Dolls: I'm still tentatively looking for a good deal (or a re-release) on a DDS Anthy Himemiya and I'm actively planning to add a tan Maskcat Lisette 2.0 to my collection at some point. New dolls also mean new wigs/eyes/doll character-specific clothes.
  
• Existing Projects: Ingrid needs to be sueded or something to make her more stable, posing-wise, and she's the kind of girl that needs tattoos. Marcie's body needs restringing badly. When I'm ready to send out Marcie and Aiyu, I'll need to break out the brush cleaner and wipe their existing faceups.

Realistically, though, pretty much all of my doll stuff is on hold for the foreseeable future. My current collection is in storage as we're between houses and staying with relatives (working on selling our last house/paying down debt/getting slightly better paying jobs before buying our next one), so while I can add a head here or a pair of shoes there, any extensive doll projects are on hold until further notice.

 

The largest thing I have planned is doing the faceup, along with extensive blushing and artwork on my large Dollzone Sawarieda mermaid girl. Every few years I like to do a big art project with my dolls, pulling out all the stops and really stretching those creative muscles. At over 100cm she will certainly be a challenge…just as soon as I can find the time to fully focus on this project.

 

@MaleficentMrsofEvil
PLEASE share pictures or a project journal. Doll orchestra is a project of a lifetime!


Things I'm planning to do:
- get Mitchi's feet and hands to match with the rest of the body, either by leaving them in the sun so they yellow or by dyeing the body to match them. The body was in poor shape bought second hand and the new bits obviously don't match by being fresh normal skin. I should also refresh her sueding and wire the limbs because they are very flail-y.

- Once the body arrives, I'll probably need to give Asa a new faceup to match the faceplate to the new resin tone. I'm also thinking of getting both of my unoas a few more faces and paint them.

- Make the wig + ears + outfit for a Chi cosplay for one of my dolls... I might also get an anime style-head for this

- New body for Billie (ordered, waiting), I might need to make some new clothes for it, too.

- A Nana-inspired styling and photoshoot with Nuoyi and Billie

- make a tumblr or a website to archive photoshoots and faceups

 

i have a doll in mind that i'm still looking around to see if i can find an appropriate sculpt for, in an appropriate resin color... still not quite finding what i'm hoping for, but i'm gonna keep searching til i do! trying to find a decently dark-colored resin (like darker than luts' current darkest brown skin; but maybe cooler-toned than they currently offer, and maybe less saturated) and preferably the sculpt will have elf ears. i've seen sculpts that i like for this character, some of which do even have elf ears, and i've seen resins in colors like i'm describing, but never both together, lol! oh well... the search goes on!

for ollie, i'd love to find him some more fantasy-historical type outfits. i could and should be making him some but honestly i'm just lazy, lmao. most of all though i just wanna get him out of his box and take more pics with him! weather's not being very cooperative lately for taking him out and about... lots of storms and rain

and i need to get my doll shelf built so i don't have to keep him all cooped up anymore!

 

My friend recently gave me the gift of a very special doll. She and I have been in the hobby for nearly fifteen years now and she has decided to focus exclusively on her vinyl collection, but there was one resin she couldn't and didn't want to sell. It is her nobledolls Raspberry whom I am now the proud owner of. This doll was one of the very first grails my friend had in the hobby, and if I'm not mistaken first came to live with her back in 2012? 2013? A few years ago she hybrided the head onto a minifee body for better poseability and clothing options.

For many many years I've only gotten dolls to match characters. Occasionally I will move on from said characters or find shells that better reflect them and great revamps will happen in the body of my collection itself, but other than my very first doll, who I picked simply because he appealed to me the most at the time, all have been bought with the express purpose to house a specific character.

Thus I am left with this incredibly important doll (whom I adore deeply), and the task to not only 'make them my own' but also "discover them". I'm feeling almost like I'm about to meet a new person that I know nothing about in a way, and can only pray we get along.

So... right now I'm trying to think how to prepare for their arrival. Should I put a little 'welcome pack' for them together? If so what should I include? What kind of colours would they like? Maybe I should look for names and daydream until they "tell" me their own? It's a very very fresh experience for me!

 

If you're asking how one shops for and obsesses over a doll before it arrives, I think I can be of assistance.
First: research eye sizes. Buy too many, but don't care cuz they're shiny.
Next: research head size. Buy five wigs in five different colors/styles, all the while secretly knowing that she'll really "match" one and the others will sit in a box until the end of time.
Third: go see what everyone else dresses their dolls in, and then go shopping for clothes/patterns. With a minifee body, your limit is your wallet.
Oh - maybe see if you would like to get some of those "kill" feet. Denver Doll had a few in stock. Peruse the optional hands. Marvel at your desire to buy enough hands that your cart equals the cost of a doll.
Erm, wait. Kinda calling myself out here.

 

I've got kill heels for SD, they're great for sitting poses where one foot is on tiptoe, so I'm happy to have them. But I can't find shoes that use them