Spilling (Almost All) The Beans...

Alright, I've had it! For months and months and months now (and maybe a bit longer...) I have been trying to keep my work-in-progress DD a secret, and I just can't stand it anymore. Some that were started last year may not be finished until next year, and some special ones that have popped up unexpectedly... it's just too much to keep track of who I've told and who I haven't.

 

SO, hopefully someone will find this interesting even though many are just floating heads. I have been trying to keep this almost all to myself because I wanted to have surprise posts like Baldylox does, but I just can't wait that long to talk about who the up and coming are in our household.

 

Baldylox: I commend you for having the strength for such endeavors, with my own kids I just do not have the mental capacity to juggle that much.

 

These aren't in any specific order

 

The hardest of all to keep a secret was Rainie's twin sister! (She's been the 'pink secret' in my sig for... way too long) For about three months Rainie would occasionally stop, sigh very dramatically, and say, "I miss my twin sister..." Every single time I would remind her that she didn't have, nor had she ever had a twin sister. In her usual obedient way, she didn't listen. Eventually I ran across a pic I had saved, thinking if Dolly had a sister, the pic is what she would look like. After Rainie insisting for so long that she had a sibling, when I looked at the picture again, I knew Rainie was right.

 

Currently they are having to share a body so until I can take a picture with them together without splicing photos in Photoshop, they will both be considered unfinished because then their birthday will be the same. (You can't have twins if there is only one girl...)

 

Ringo is generally the exact opposite from her 'big sister' Rainie because she loves ruffles and really frilly clothes, is generally a lot quieter like Tamayuki. Her favorite things are fairy tales and most stories (especially if they have princesses), gnomes, writing, and My Little Ponies. One thing she does have in common with her twin is she has her own ways of getting into mischief, she's just a lot better at not getting caught. She enjoys spending her free time writing stories about our family, but they tend to diverge rather drastically from reality. She says that she's just writing things the way they should be. She may look innocent, but I'm pretty sure she's an 8th grader going on 20...

 

Ringo with her favorite pony (because it's shiny.)

 

 

Rainie (45cm body) & Ringo (MDD body) before their faceups

 

Next up is another 'invention' of Rainie's that happened when I couldn't bear to wipe off the blushing I did on her face before sending her off to Anouc. So we got another head and I modded it for Rainie so she could get her faceup done, and figured that I'd find a use for her old head at some point. In grand Rainie fashion, she simply didn't let that happen. At the time I was swapping heads between bodies and her old head went on Tama's body in his clothes. I told Rainie that she looked silly being bald (Tamayki's is the only boy-ish wig I have) and she suddenly piped up and said, "I'm not Rainie anymore, I'm Ralph, Rainie's little brother." I didn't take her seriously because a few days before when I was doing Christmas photos, she was wearing a beard and suddenly announced that she was Harvard, the Christmas Elf. (That's Rainie, blunt as ever...) Despite my protesting at her again, her new sibling stuck. I have told her that she is banned from inventing more siblings, and so far she has listened.

 

I don't know too much about Ralph, but I do know enough to see that he's his own unique kind of oddball. Fascinated with aliens, conspiracy theories, and has the ability to suddenly say the most random and off the wall things, it doesn't surprise me that he's related to Rainie. I'm sure he has at least a few ideas on how aliens caused the extinction of dinosaurs, and that it somehow involves french fries, and maybe a few zombies.

 

Ralph and Ringo after Christmas

 

Ralph is wearing Rainie's Christmas elf hat, and Ringo is wearing her gnome hat that we use instead of Christmas stockings. Ringo was polite but quite clear that she did not want an elf hat when she could clearly have a proper gnome one. (Really the only difference is it stands straight up.) This was shortly before Rainie, Ringo, and a couple of others were sent of to Anouc.

 

Then there is Lucas, but more about him has already been posted here. any more info than that is going to wait until he's finished and he pops up in photo stories.

 

Then there is Kiyoteru Hiyama, my first DD that I'm trying to stick to a character not of my own making. He is my favorite Vocaloid, and if you don't know what that is, it would be easier to either Google his name, or look him up on YouTube.

 

He is the 'blue secret' in my sig, and Anouc also did his faceup as well. Here are the reference pictures I sent her:

 

 

Here is the wonderful job she did (the eyes she used are more accurate than any I have at the moment so that's why I'm using her pic):

 

DDh07 male commission by ♡ Anouc ~, on Flickr

 

And the reason for going out of my way to make him is Naiomi is completely smitten with him.

 

 

So far at the moment all I have is his head, so he's got a lot of work to be completed before he's done, including seeing if I can do some 3D printed glasses frames for him. He will eventually be a 65cm Obitsu, and I will have to learn to sew a suit before he's done. Teacher by day, rock star by night... Seems like a quiet well rounded guy to me!

 

I've mentioned before about turning my Kos-Mos into a Victorian lady, one I intend to eventually have fancy dresses for, a proper corset, and most likely a bustle as well, even though that's more Edwardian. (For obvious reasons I don't have any pics yet)

 

Recently I was surprised to have the opportunity to get a hold of a full set Yui, causing everyone else to be put on hold. What can I say, it was an offer I couldn't refuse! I've wanted that sculpt for a while to make a 40cm Obitsu boy, who will probably secretly be Tamayuki's arch nemesis. Very sweet and full of smiles (especially towards adults), Eddie is a careless, irritating little twit who never goes home. I'm sure many people have lived near a boy like him, the type who never take a hint and about the only way to get rid of them is to drop-kick them out the front door, or tie them up and gag them before shoving them in a closet. I can't help but to laugh about him because he's so cute. He is sure to leave chaos in his wake in our household, but I think it will be fun, although I may be the only one to think so.

 

And for the first time I've had the curious pleasure to get a body before I know who to make it into. Since Yui's body will be leftover, I decided to work on a girl that has been in my mind for about a year that was triggered when I was trying to draft Tamayuki's faceup.

 

 

Although it's not very pronounced in this pic, I realized that the 03 head would make a really cute raccoon, one of my favorite animals since I was a kid. I've found it interesting how many fox girls are on the forums so I figured why not a raccoon. She doesn't have a name yet or hardly anything more than this vague sketch, but I'm going to have a lot of fun making her. I do have to point out that she isn't a tanuki since they are significantly different than raccoons.

 

I really have to send out a very heartfelt thank you to all my friends here who have helped me in one way or another complete, or obtain pieces to my little vinyl kids. Even Tamayuki and Yuriko have been given gifts that they still use a lot. I doubt that Raven and I would even have known about Kos-Mos and Momo if it wasn't for these forums. You have really helped to make my life much happier.

 

Thanks for reading all of this. Feel free to make comments or anything if you wish, I've just had fun finally being able to say all of this.

 

There is one more who is not on the list, but she will have an intro story soon-ish since she is complete.

 

~Sister Kyoya

Yay, so exciting! You've been hinting at these guys forever. We knew about the smiling 01 to go along with Rainie (she's so cute! ) and the 07 male from Anouc's post. So the male is for Kiyoteru, that's cool. But although I remember Rainie mentioning a brother named Ralph, he's still a surprise. And I remember Eddie from the discussion of DD boys. I'm excited to see how he comes out. The racoon girl sounds really awesome too.

 

But I have to admit, the one I look forward to seeing completed the most is Lucas. I generally don't like the lips on the 05, but I do like the eye shape. So I'm curious what can be done with it.

 

I wonder who the nearly complete girl is.... Maybe it has to do with the 04 girl Anouc did?

Wow, and I thought *I* could hide some new DD's from people!

 

Thanks for the shout out above, I appreciate it! It can be VERY hard to keep a new girl secret, especially when it's one you've been after for a while. But I think I've gotten pretty good at it after quite a few of them.

 

You have some crazy plans going on for your family.... WAY more at once than I've ever done! How you can have all these plans juggling about is impressive. I think I've done one or two girls at the most at one time. I commend you on it! I just hope you can see all of them to fruition sooner than expected.

 

 

 

Billy

I agree with Baldylox. That is a lot of secrets! haha But you have some fantastic plans in the works. I hope things go smoothly. I have realized what I imagine doesn't usually turn out that way in reality.

To say the least, this last year has been crazy for me in so many ways, I'm not used too having so much going on at once but it's really fun finally getting a chance to say something about it. Every single time I took a photo or thought of a photo story, I'd have to think about who could be in the photos, what I could say about whom, trying to remember where exactly I was in my DD story timeline... after a while it gets really exhausting, especially in Ringo's case because she's been completed since late Feb. and she was even in our Christmas pictures before her faceup was done. And even those I had to check before uploading them to make sure she wasn't in any of them. I did notice today that Ringo's hat is in the background of a Dolly pic.

 

 

And here are the reference pictures I sent as well. Anouc did such an amazing job! Almost every time I look at Ringo I have a fangirl moment where I want to squeal because she's so cute. I also still can't believe that Rainie finally looks like Rainie because Anouc did a perfect job (and that's not a word I use lightly.) Rainie was loosely based on Okamisan, and Ringo was obviously based on Ringo (both from Okamisan and Her Seven Companions anime.) I have been waiting so long to show her off, she's definitely pleased that she can finally be officially part of the family now. Until I get more bodies I think I just need to get used to swapping heads, photoshopping pics, and having the MDD sized ones not be on their perfectly ideal bodies. The stories just keep piling up in my brain!

 

Yay, so exciting! You've been hinting at these guys forever.

 

Yah, it has felt like that for me too. I really can't wait once Kiyoteru and Lucas are done because they seem to be unlikely friends, but they are still mischievous boys at heart. I can't deny the fact that it will be fun to see how high the 'nosebleed count' gets in our house once these two get settled. The biggest thing that's driving me nuts is how to do Lucas' hair, but I'll get that figured out eventually. It's a little hard knowing what body to use because the 05 is rather a small head, but it looks too big on the 45cm, so I'm still hoping that it will look fine/slightly more realistic on the 55cm body.

 

 

This is just a comparison to show how small the 05 head is. I was really surprised to see that there is close to a 1cm height difference between the 07 and the 05!

 

The biggest motivator for this post was to finally talk about the 4 boys that I've been working on, although I do have to admit that Eddie came up much faster than I ever expected. Raven and I just didn't think we'd get another opportunity like what we were offered so we snatched it up. My only real complaint about DD boys is trying to find wigs that don't look like a shaggy mop (like most 'modern' anime boys currently), and that isn't fur, or roving, or whatever. Since we have cats I really much prefer to have easily washable doll hair, since cat hair is inevitable. So between Lucas, Eddie, Ralph, and Bree (who has no set hair color ) I've been very seriously looking into seeing what it takes to make custom wigs. Its a good thing I like creative projects.

 

Even though I've vaguely had the idea for the raccoon girl for a long time now, once I realized that all I'd need to finish her is the head and a larger bust than Yui comes with, I couldn't think of a reason not to. I'm thinking Yui's wig would work great (and I could sew ears into it) and we will have Momo's brown eyes leftover since Raven wants to change them, there are very few things to figure out after that. I think the tail is going to be the most challenging because it's long as well as bulky, but I don't want some floppy thing either. That's probably the part about her that will take a few different versions before it ends up being what I want. I've been trying to figure out what her ratio of human to raccoon she is. The more animal like she is, the more it will take to get her done so she will most likely end up being only mildly raccoony, otherwise, what's the point of making her into a DD?

 

Wow, and I thought *I* could hide some new DD's from people!

 

Thanks for the shout out above, I appreciate it! It can be VERY hard to keep a new girl secret, especially when it's one you've been after for a while. But I think I've gotten pretty good at it after quite a few of them.

 

At least I got a little bit of fun out of surprising you, since you have done it so many times in the past with everyone else. Custom DD are a lot more difficult sometimes to work on without input from other people. I know for me at least, I get stuck in circular thought patterns and need to talk it out with someone else to finally arrive at a solution. Like Lucas' body, I keep forgetting that I have hunted for comparison photos a few times now and had decided on the 55cm Obitsu, but then I tend to forget or second guess myself. So writing it out on the forums gives me something to check when I forget, and saves me a lot of time not having to hunt for photos again. And this is in addition to a complete list of the DD I eventually want, and separate files for biographies and reference photos for each character I have on my computer...

 

You have some crazy plans going on for your family.... WAY more at once than I've ever done! How you can have all these plans juggling about is impressive. I think I've done one or two girls at the most at one time. I commend you on it! I just hope you can see all of them to fruition sooner than expected.

 

Even though sometimes the small details can be forgotten, I actually find it rather easy to juggle the 14 DD (all together) even when some aren't finished yet. For the 10 years before finding the DD, my free time was spent either playing The Sims (and later versions), making 3D objects for the game, or writing my own fantasy story and related offshoots. My fantasy world easily has over 100 unique characters that I can recall without much effort, I've easily had more Sims than that over the years and many I still think about. I played the games so much that I was able to analyze and mostly understand the mechanics behind why and how they did things, often I would 'play' the game in my head. What can I say, I'm just a natural born otaku. So realistically, DD are very much 'real life' Sims for me. I'm doing the same thing I've done much of my life, but now it's not stuck on the computer. I learned to know who my Sims were by sight, and anime characters are filled with types (like a glasses girl, or the big boobed alien.) So once I can figure out what they look like I actually know a lot about them. I always sound a bit crazy saying that the DD talk to me in my head, but that's just the way it goes with writers and their characters. Huge amounts of ideas go through my head all the time (I literally think in pictures) that the personality needs to "stand on it's own two feet" before it becomes solid enough for me to really take notice. I'm sure sometimes I seem like a flake because I have so much going on and jumping around to seemingly unrelated projects. But I do it because it is unbelievable fun to me. Don't worry though, Raven can't wrap his mind around it either.

 

I agree with Baldylox. That is a lot of secrets! haha But you have some fantastic plans in the works. I hope things go smoothly. I have realized what I imagine doesn't usually turn out that way in reality.

 

I have a very high concept to creation ability I guess you could call it, it's just my painting skills that need work. Here's an example:

 

 

In case you don't know, a sprite is a 2D picture drawn with 2 or 4 perspective views (depending on if the left & right can be mirrored) that appear to be a 3D mesh within the forced camera angle of Sims 1. So to make it into a 3D mesh for the Sims 2 game I had to analyze the shape, think about if it was a real world object how would the pieces be carved from stone and joined together, and build the 3D mesh in my head before making it in the 3D program I used. And because the Sims 1 pic is the largest size possible, I had to do a lot of squinting. The mesh is still lower quality than I would have liked, but I was trying to keep a good enough mesh quality without it being too big because it slows down the game.

 

I've never known of anyone else who analyzes everything in the real world and mentally converting it to wire frame meshes. Even before I knew what those were, I could figure out the overall composition of most anything by just figuring out what the basic shapes were.

 

This is one reason why I find it easy to know if a head will work for a specific DD. Sometimes when I look at the pics of a new head, I feel like my eyes have turned into one of those red laser scanners, taking in all the available info so it is stored in my mind as the photo itself, but also a 3D model. I think this is why I keep forgetting what body Lucas is going to have, because my mind keeps re-sizing the mental mesh from the 65cm height all the way down to MDD size. Sometimes I expect to hear the cartoon boing sound effect like someone is stretching something rubber.

 

I'm really happy that someone found my post interesting. I do apologize if I tend to repeat myself, I try very hard not to but it has been a constant battle recently.

 

~Sister Kyoya

Nice to finally see your DDs together and to find how much progress you're making with bringing your characters to life. I've been waiting to see more of Kiyoteru since I first saw his head and didn't realise he was going to be in Naiomi's life She seems to like tall men (that is if I remember correctly that he will be on a 65cm body). As for Lucas, I've really been wanting to see him interact with Tama and Dolly and would really love to see their photostories unfold. I've missed Tamayuki and his sweet disposition. And I am also quite excited about Eddie and how you're going to develop him. Maybe I feel a connection with him because you did mention him as having an Kaylus like older brother.

 

I have to say that Ringo is just utterly adorable. Anouc did a really awesome job with her face up. She looks so sweet like a female Tama. Can't wait to see your family completed and see their pictures together.

I knew I was forgetting to reply to something! Sorry Katnaper!

 

Kiyoteru is going to be interesting once he's done. With him starting out as a Vocaloid and being one of the lesser known ones it really leaves a wide space to fill in a personality. Yuriko thinks Hatsune Miku is the best Vocaloid much to Naiomi's annoyance. (Tama is a die hard Len fan.) Although Naiomi really wants a Miku figurine... so she can watch it melt in the oven. I hadn't really thought about how Yuriko would react when Kiyoteru is around. I'm sure she would have something to protest about. She's a good girl, but she is definitely the bossy big sister type who thinks she always can have her way. I'm really excited to eventually get the 65cm body, but I'm also trying to think ahead on possible ways to repair the body when it breaks. That's one of the hard things about that one is I have yet to hear of one not breaking. So this leaves me thinking a lot of the time about if 3D printed replacement pieces would be the best option, only leaving color differences to be the remaining issue.

 

Lucas is really going to be fun, especially since he's the Obitsu body with the magnet feet. I'm sure he will be a total ham when Tama wants to take pictures of him and Dolly doing action poses together. The other day I was reading the few comments that have been filled in his bio, its about 5 pages of questions for him to fill in so I can remember favorites, personal history, how they interact with the other dd in the house, etc. (All my DD have one but I need to get better at filling them in. ) I forgot that he's more like Kaylus than Tama or Eddie. Some of those comments... oh my! He's a one track mind and determined boy.

 

Tama has been missing everyone here like crazy and being able to take photos all the time. It has really been different learning how to have all of our DD in photo stories and knowing what stories to tell next. It was definitely easier having just Tama, Dolly, and sometimes Yuriko. Once I get one or two projects done I'm looking forward to doing some photo stories. I'm still trying to deal with the mess that exploded in my house during the year I was in school and when my mom and sister moved out. I'm happy to have enough space now, but its different finding the right space to organize everything. I refuse to take pictures of my messy house so its a really good motivation for me to get it done. Getting back to sewing again has really helped a lot in me feeling like myself again. Tama keeps reminding me that this Christmas we can finally make the cookies I just didn't have time for last year. It isn't even August and that boy keeps talking about Christmas! It's good to plan ahead but...

 

I really fell in love with Eddie because of his looks, but I'm expecting him to mellow somewhat over time so he doesn't drive me crazy. I'm thinking that he's such a twit because he's probably lonely. His brother is about 15 years older than him, and I don't know about his parents (too busy? They find him annoying too?) I think Ralph and Ringo will help buffer Eddie against the rest of the household. Ralph is too mellow and laid back to be phased by him, and Ringo is just really sweet and can play My Little Ponies with him, saying that the LEGO horses are the boys so her ponies don't get wrecked. She might have the means to make him calm down and be quiet by reading him stories. The only person that mildly would annoy him would be Bree, because he wouldn't even be a blip on her mental radar. I can see him trying to stand in her way to get her attention and she just pushes him and walks past, not realizing he was even there. His older brother (who has no name) seems to be his most common caretaker and may be the only person Eddie admires. He may not be a perfect brother, but I'm sure Eddie thinks he is.

 

And Ringo... she is going to be loads of fun. She is very much like female Tama, with a lot more quiet mischievousness. Often when I think about her she's taking the family photos we have and writing alternate (and often questionable) versions. She's 13 going on 25. She's a 'quiet one' who is amazingly perceptive to what's going on around her and love to watch and see how things change. Occasionally she likes to meddle in other's affairs. She thinks she's an unofficial matchmaker, and if people don't listen, she will go off and write how it was supposed to happen. With her around I can finally tell some of the stories that roll around in my mind but really don't make sense within the normal story line of our DD.

 

~Sister Kyoya