10 002 hits later, Darren finally gets his sweater

Blogger tells me I've reached 10 000 pageviews - 10 002 to be exact. To be fair, a good third of those are probably just me checking that the html isn't borked, but I stilI feel this is occasion to celebrate - with a few more blurry photos! Hooray!!

I made Lottie a pair of pants while I was at it. She fit right in with the IKEA furniture. And of course the surplus dye gave her a few faint pink stains, not too bad but still annoying. 

So I made her a pair of white socks instead. No proper hem at the top yet because I'm lazy. I'm amazed they fit in the shoes (they're from same cheap white t-shirt I used for her top). 

You'd be frowning too if you were wearing that. 

Remember Darren, the Triad Omega guy? Remember his sweater that I started about, oh, 18 months ago? Well, yesterday I was on a roll and decided to finally finish it. Still not entirely happy with how the v-neck turned out, and I'm not sure why I made it quite so big. I must have learned something from all the doll clothes I've sewn since, though: those final seems were a lot easier than I remember the rest of it was! Progress: hard to see, but probably happening anyway. 

V-neck: a bit lumpy, but finished. 

Also, the Momoko boots I ordered arrived yesterday. They're not the legendary Doc Martens, but still a really nice pair of doll shoes. I read somewhere Momoko dolls have big feet, so I thought the shoes might fit the Simba Super Model girls. A pair of heels might have been trickier, but the boots fit perfectly. 

left: Jun Shibuki (uses a SAJ body by Takara) wearing those blue OHC boots, right: Super Model Miri wearing the Momoko boots. 

I like the realistic design of these boots, and I'd like to get more for the "bigfoot girls" if I can find them at a good price (these were used from Mandarake.co.jp). 

One thing I'm a bit worried about is the split in the back doesn't end in a round punched hole like it should, it's just sort of printed in the plastic. I should do something about that, but I'm not sure I could make a perfect circle with a hobby knife. A heated needle, maybe? 

Cool Kevin is here! - Some kind of review

Kevin, looking cool in his shiny box

Well, Cool Kevin arrived a couple of days ago and I've been planning to write something about him. At first I thought of doing a proper review à la Toybox Philosopher, but since Kevin doesn't seem to be available or well known outside Germany/continental Europe (and those who live there are probably familiar with him already) I'm not sure there's really a need. Still, I took a billion photos so I might as well post them. :) Nude male dolls ahead! (Blurry and badly lit, too!)

Canvas sneakers for Ken!

When I said I would scale down on the doll stuff shopping, I didn't include shoes!

 

I've wanted these canvas sneakers for a while. Originally I wanted red, but then GoodStuffToGo had the blue version for about half price (closing sale! :( ). There is a male and female model, but they're action figure sized, and according to the pictures I saw the male shoes are HUGE even for action figure shoes. The female model is about 4 cm and looked like it might fit Ken or other male fashion dolls.

They come with a bag and box, which I knew would probably get beat up in the mail, but I don't care. It's patina!




The socks have pretty thick printed strips that stretched and cracked a bit when I pulled them over Liv's heels. Ken doesn't need them, but they fit Monster High pretty well!

(Cheap unarticulated Ken, but I think the feet are the same, more realistic mold as, say, Fashionista.)


Some random comparisons:


Action Man's and Triad Omega's feet are too wide!


Ballerina Barbies feet are too small!


Compared to the "micro sneakers" for fun.


Some of the eyelets don't line up. Also I think the skull logo ended up on the wrong side, but I can live with that. I looked, and the logo seems to be exactly where intended, although I have to wonder if it wouldn't look better placed on the other side? The glue residue looks bad but that's mainly due to the camera settings.


These would probably fit more 1/6 scale male fashion dolls if they weren't so narrow! Is it just me or do action figure shoes generally have a pretty odd length/width ratio? They always make the feet look super long.

Re: scaling, I remember reading a complaint somewhere about the neck on the Omega body being too long. Someone suggested this was deliberate, to allow for several layers of clothing made of not-quite-1/6-scale fabric without making the neck look too short. That's actually pretty good thinking: some things need to be tweaked in order to look good in 1/6 scale, and I'm wondering if there could be a similar reason for the extra-long and narrow shoes. Can't think what it might be, though, but someone who owns more than three action figures might know?




These are probably the nicest shoes any of my dolls own. I kind of wish I had bought two pairs while I was at it, but like I said they only had blue left and I've only got one doll who can wear them anyway... I might save up for a red pair from the Bay of E sometime, though.

Darren's New Sweater, part 1

 Well, I was going to start off with the traditional "yay first!!!1" post, but then I figured I'd just get started with the actual content.

Darren is a bit dusty.

This is Darren. Hi, Darren! He's a Triad Omega and he needs some clothes that match his dashing good looks and broad shoulders. I'm not sure about the look, but the shoulder room I can probably manage.


This is the first time I've attempted a sweater. I don't know what I'm doing and I'm not in the mood for extensive research, so there's lots of trial and error involved here. Material is an old T-shirt I think and some very very blue stretchy fabrid I had lying around. Not the colors I'd pick ideally, but good enough for practice. The stretchy stuff is for hems and cuffs. It's a bit thicker than I would like but I'll give it a try.

I was going for a simple, loose model since I don't think I could manage a more form-fitting style. It also helps hide bulky seams, particularly around the cuffs.

One thing I wasn't sure of was where to place the sleeves: high up or low on the shoulder? I went with low since I thought it would make his shoulders less pronounced, and also to go with the loose fit.

Unfortunately I managed to miss the marking by about a 5-10 mm and the seems ended upp even lower down on the arm than planned! This also meant the torso ended up too wide, moving the look from "loose fit" to "hockey goalie gear"... I haven't decided yet if I'll remove the sleeves and try again, or leave it as it is. I'll probably hem the v-neck first and see how that turns out before I decide.

Attaching the cuffs turned out to be easier than I thought! The fabric didn't bulk too much, and keeping them stretched was easy with the
Now, I know very little about sewing but one thing I've managed to pick up somehow is the importance of zig-zaging the edges to prevent fraying, particularly when attaching stretchy hems. In 1/6 scale it's really not feasible to do on the machine, so I'm improvising something similar by hand. This stitch most certainly has a name, but I can't be bothered to look it up right now. Is this how a professional would do it? I have no idea, but it seems to be working.

This is just to show the difference one little stitch makes when it comes to 1/6 scale.
The one on the left I "zig-zaged" after attaching the cuff, the one on the right I did it the other way around. The one on the right looks slightly better, I think.

Yes, of course one turned out shorter than the other. I can live with that. :)

Note incredibly unspecific idea sketch in background.

Well, that's as far as I got in the first sitting. Stay tuned for part 2!
(All pictures preserved for posterity on my Flickr, here.)