Subaru's Photo Dump

Our friends at DHL brought me a new package today.


I enjoyed Makoto in my vague knowledge of im@s, but @BeyondTime's pictures of his Makoto ultimately cemented her to be in my wish list. lol.

Anyways, the opportunity presented itself to me and Makoto ended up coming home (albeit unexpectedly).

@_@ I think I've gotten 2 grail dolls within the span of a few weeks.
So much for being on this so-called "Doll Diet". Pheh.

I'm pretty glad to have gotten another NIB deal. Unfortunately, the wig was a little misshapen because it was in storage for a long time.
I may take a shot at restyling it, or ultimately buying a replacement. But we'll see.  

I think I need to have Mandarake blocked on my work computer. ><;

1 hour ago, Subaru said:

I enjoyed Makoto in my vague knowledge of im@s, but @BeyondTime's pictures of his Makoto ultimately cemented her to be in my wish list. lol.

Congratulations, Makochin is awesome.

 

1 hour ago, Subaru said:

Unfortunately, the wig was a little misshapen because it was in storage for a long time.
I may take a shot at restyling it, or ultimately buying a replacement. But we'll see.

I think yours looks pretty much like mine did out of the box, but you seem to have it styled better than mine already.

She's beautiful! Those accessories are sooo cute. And she looks so stoic and kind.

9 minutes ago, Veravey said:

And she looks so stoic and kind.

Her iM@S backstory is: She's was raised a tomboy but she wants to let the world know she's really a very feminine girl inside. The problem is she so fits the pretty boy archetype that she ended up with hordes of screaming female fans, and she looks quite dreadful in the Lolita style dresses she thinks are the epitome of feminine.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/1SazdLb4jTU

 

 

 

I'd love to have some of the iM@S girls one day, even if just for their outfits. Details are incredible.

My wallet is like this right now. ;_;

Are blogs still popular?
I've been working on redoing my website @@; 

I'm hoping to start working on some new projects so hopefully I can get started on those.

https://pleiadesroom.com/

1 hour ago, Subaru said:

Are blogs still popular?

Blogs can be useful, but I think they aren’t necessarily popular when compared to social media platforms like Insta or Discord.

If I want info on a subject they are useful though.

I’m very much an anachronism in my own time, so I might not be the best barometer for “in.”

5 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

Blogs can be useful, but I think they aren’t necessarily popular when compared to social media platforms like Insta or Discord.

If I want info on a subject they are useful though.

I’m very much an anachronism in my own time, so I might not be the best barometer for “in.”

I think it's a good way to have a collected space to gather your thoughts and self written articles 🤔

I loved journals/blogs/personal fansites because they were kind of "closed" if that makes sense.
Social media and chat platforms like Discord move a little too fast to be able to accurately catalogue stuff I think. 

Hopefully I'll keep up my site, but I have the tendency to get distracted and go "Ooo shiny" and spam discord like 1000 times.

1 hour ago, Subaru said:

Social media and chat platforms like Discord move a little too fast to be able to accurately catalogue stuff I think. 

Yeah, forums are great as a reference to refer to, but I've encountered a lot of people who think forums are last year, now everything is Discord, and in their world if you like forums something is wrong with you.

21 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

Yeah, forums are great as a reference to refer to, but I've encountered a lot of people who think forums are last year, now everything is Discord, and in their world if you like forums something is wrong with you.

I still really like forums, so it's kind of disappointing that they're slowly dying out.

I do understand the appeal of chat services like Discord. It's kind of nice to know when people are online, PLUS you get the instant gratification of getting instant replies. 
It's nearly impossible to search for resources though. 

A lot of blogs usually have an official twitter these days where they can post links  when it updates. Plenty of people can’t be bothered to subscribe to an RSS feed, but will follow a twitter account. I mean, I myself never notice the official Dollfie blog updating unless Volks tweets about it, and then I follow that tweet.

After taking forever to get started... I've been working on another face-up on a DDS Len the past two weeks.



There's a black speck on the chin but it turns out that it was just a little piece of dust that was immediately dusted off. 

25 minutes ago, Subaru said:

I've been working on another face-up on a DDS Len the past two weeks.

Hello?????  Why is he so HANDSOME???? 🥵 Can't wait to see how he turns out!

37 minutes ago, OccultBeast said:

Hello?????  Why is he so HANDSOME???? 🥵 Can't wait to see how he turns out!

Thank you! He’s for one of my close friends and will be turning into Waver Velvet.  I gotta so some finishing touches and make his eyes before I can call him “complete”.

I have my own Len head at home that I gotta figure out what I want to do with. I think I may keep him as Len though haha.

————

 

I’m thinking of writing my own tutorial for doing face-ups in my style and comparing tools.... but I’m not sure if that kind of thing is a little over done. We’ll see if I’m motivated enough in the next few weeks.

Edited October 23, 2020 by Subaru

2 minutes ago, Subaru said:

I’m thinking of writing my own tutorial for doing face-ups in my style and comparing tools.... but I’m not sure if that kind of thing is a little over done.

Personally, I can never read/watch too many tutorials!  It's always so interesting to see how others do it.

DSC09052 by ☆プレアデス☆, on Flickr
Saturday Miku. I was too lazy to edit out the stand.

---

I wrote a write-up on my blog about a face-up and stuff here.

Edited October 24, 2020 by Subaru

On 10/23/2020 at 8:38 AM, Subaru said:

I’m thinking of writing my own tutorial for doing face-ups in my style and comparing tools.... but I’m not sure if that kind of thing is a little over done. We’ll see if I’m motivated enough in the next few weeks.

In feudal Japan swordsmiths never passed all their secrets to their apprentices, because they couldn't risk the apprentice using that knowledge to set up their own shops and take away their business. Not an unreasonable fear when you consider that Gorō Nyūdō Masamune was once someone's apprentice.

Consequently, knowledge of swordmaking usually died with the smith. During the succession wars smithies were a legitimate military target, and there was one occasion where hundreds of smithies, along with the knowledge of their master smiths, were wiped out overnight. When the wars ended, so much knowledge was lost that sword making went into a post-war decline for centuries. In modern Japan swordsmiths are required to share their knowledge with other smiths, and as a result skill at sword making has been returned to pre-sixteenth century levels, and it only took about 30 years or so to do it.

I am pretty sure the same analogy exists in European culture, with masters refusing to pass on secrets to apprentices for fear of the competition. As a result, today we don't know how to make a new Stradivarius or Guarneri violin even though every violin maker out there desperately wants those secrets. 

I know this is just doll face-ups and not necessarily something momentous like violin making, but you can look at the way Volks face-ups have improved so much in 20 years. I am pretty sure you can give credit for that to artists at Volks sharing their skills with other artists. I don't think it's possible for tutorials of a type to be overdone, because almost any skill contains more possibilities than one person can ever know. Even basic guides to things can provide value to experts, because a new perspective often bring to light a new way of looking at something.

I'm not saying this to tell you that you must pass on your skills, I just trying to stress the value of passing on skills so the other practitioners of a skill can learn from that and help better the skill. Don't make the mistake of thinking that it's something that isn't worth doing just because others have done it before you.

 

On 10/23/2020 at 8:34 AM, Subaru said:

After taking forever to get started... I've been working on another face-up on a DDS Len the past two weeks.

Wow your gradients are so smooth, I love this

On 10/24/2020 at 2:02 PM, Subaru said:

DSC09052 by ☆プレアデス☆, on Flickr
Saturday Miku. I was too lazy to edit out the stand.
 

Loooove heeeeerrr! Those opaque, shiny black stockings slay me every time. Where does everyone get them?

15 minutes ago, DreamDollDesign said:

Loooove heeeeerrr! Those opaque, shiny black stockings slay me every time. Where does everyone get them?

I got my socks from this guy in person at Dolpa : http://hdpdoll.sakura.ne.jp/shop/socks/index.html

Ahh thank you! They're so perfect.

I’ve been a little quiet lately, but I’ve been busy making (failed) eyes again after taking a 3? year hiatus

Edited November 15, 2020 by Subaru

Mochi Ashi Arle is soooo cute.... 

Tweaked Rise's face-up a little.