Still workin'!

Working on Dresden's staff while watching a good episode of Criminal Minds that surprisingly I haven't seen. :P

The Haunted Vessel: Mr. Dresden

*Disclaimer* I'm a strange person and have strange experiences. If you're not interested in the possible paranormal, feel free to skip this entry. :)

It's been quite a while since I've written an installment of the HV, primarily because I haven't had many experiences as of late. With the dog here and the boss on vacation, I've been much busier than normal. However with the arrival of Mr. Dresden, things appear to be picking up.

When I go to bed after having had a doll out, especially with the puppy around now, I am very careful to place them in a particular spot. So for example with Harry I have him sitting with his arms just so, his head in this direction, legs here etc. This is partially a carry-over from my bjds who can fall and get damaged easily. So it is best to have them in a safe position and know how their joints are bent. Pullips aren't quite as fragile, but the habit carries over anyway.

A little background information on Taeyangs which will make the following all the more interesting... Taeyang bodies have a unique neck joint that attaches at their collar bone. This allows you to turn the head in various directions without moving the body. Very cool feature for posing.

Now each night I have posed Mr. Dresden in a particular way as is my custom, and each morning I wake to find him moved. Not substantially, but enough for me to notice. His body is generally in the same position, but his head/neck are turned to face me in bed. I'm not in the habit of having dolls stare at me while I sleep, so this is not something I would do. Also, given the type of movement it is, I know it's not due to furniture being bumped. The neck joint will only move when someone deliberately moves it. As for someone doing that...we only had company for one of the nights, and I highly doubt (read: dolls freak them out!) they would have snuck into my room at night and touched the creepy doll.

It is interesting to note that like Daemon before him, Dresden is the bearer of several "magical" accessories. Whether they are intended as toys or not, they do have certain symbols inscribed and special meaning attached to those symbols. It makes me wonder on a witchy level if that's why both the dolls were/are active...

So who knows, perhaps I will have more Haunted Vessel posts to come!

Progress Pictures: Dresden!

Some progress shots of my Dresden and his accoutrements, i.e. his hockey stick staff and Bob (skull in the lower left hand corner). I like elements of both the books and the show, so I combined them a bit here. In the books Harry has a wooden staff with carved symbols he uses, in the show it's a hockey stick. I thought the hockey stick idea was fantastic, so I used that as my base. There are a number of carved runes down the side, and I'm going to be painting it as well as adding some fabric and maybe crystals.


A better close up of the runes:
Not pictured are his drumstick wand and pieces of his shield bracelet. More to come!

Introducing the one, the only....

Harry Dresden

Yes, that Harry Dresden. :) More information to come!

Kain II

Kain II's (still unnamed) eyes actually came in yesterday about an hour after he arrived, which was awesome! So here he is with his correct hair and eyes, but not necessarily clothes. Sorry for the repetitive pictures, but I couldn't help it. :)

Stress...stress...stress...doll!

My Kain II arrived today and not a moment too soon. It's only Wednesday and my week has been insane and extremely stressful.

He arrived in a battered shipping box that looked like it had been stomped on and kicked down a flight of stairs. o_o I opened him right in the post office to check for damages, but thankfully Denver Doll packs their dolls really well. The post master was really curious so I showed him the doll, and oddly enough he thought Kain II was kind of cool. :)

Once I got back to work I freed him from his pretty cardboard prison and set about taking his wig off and replacing it with the blond one I had waiting. He looks fantastic as a blond. :) Unfortunately I found that his right shoulder is damaged, just like with my other Kain. :( It's not a damage I could call DDE about as it's really just due to Jun Planning being crappy at making bodies.

So...I really would prefer he not be on an Obitsu, not to mention the fact that I don't have an Obitsu lying around for him. Instead I think I'm going to go home and cannibalize poor Kaleb a bit to make things work. Kain II's arms aren't actually broken, so I will swap them with Kaleb's and everyone will be happy. Since Kaleb is just hanging around right now, I'm not worried about having super move-able arms for him.

Of course I can't call him Kain II forever, but it seems that he may not in fact be Ronin... As of now we both seem to be leaning towards calling him Dresden after the Dresden Files (good TV series, FANTASTIC books!). I even considering making him sort of an alternate world Dresden, but we'll see. :)

Another Kain II Update

I'm not sure if I quite believe this because it seems a little too good to be true, but according to Kain II's tracking, he should arrive tomorrow. o_o I guess this guy really wants to be home!

Last night I browsed eBay for a bit and picked him up a bunch of good basic clothes. Some jeans, a pair of white leather pants, a pair of skinny black jeans, and a Harley Davidson shirt. It's amazing how expensive Ken clothes can run you, and forget putting "Taeyang" in the title... I also picked him up what I believe is an Elvis outfit for Ken. It's cute, black and white stripes with black jeans and a jacket.

I'm very excited for my boy to come home, and I can't believe it could be as soon as tomorrow!

Kain II Update

I ordered Kain some eyes over the weekend, finally deciding on getting him another pair of yellow ones. They are acrylic, but rather than the normal ones I was looking at, I purchased him a pair of Volks Animetics. They are acrylic anime-style eyes that come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and colors. I've only seen one other Pullip with Animetics, but it looked pretty good so we'll see.

I also attempted (and hopefully succeeded) to pay Kain II off today. Unfortunately my bank was having some issues, so I don't know if everything went through okay. I'm waiting to hear back from Denver Doll to see if they were successful. If so Kain should be coming home some time this week, and his eyes will be here Thursday. Now I just need more clothes for him!

*Edited to add*: I just received confirmation that the payment went through, so Kain II is on his way home! :)

Monster High OC: Damien Night

Name: Damien Night
Age: 1200
Monster Parent: The Nighmare
Killer Style: Kind of gypsy goth; I like to mix rich colors with black.
Freaky Flaw: People recognize me all the time...from their nightmares. So embarrassing. And I have no eyebrows, it's a nightmare thing...
Pet: Shadow (He's a shadow.)
Favorite Activity: Scary cool dance parties, I love to dance!
Biggest Pet Peeve: When people (and monsters!) won't give me a chance. Just because I'm scary in your dreams doesn't mean I'm not a good guy.
Favorite School Subject: Art and Undead Studies, I'm so fascinated with the Zombie culture. I hope to be an exchange student at some point. :)
Least Favorite School Subject: Clawculus. Numbers and I don't get along.
Favorite Color: Red.
Favorite Food: Tacos!
BFF's: I don't know anyone at school yet, but hopefully the monsters here are way more scary cool than the ones at my last school.



I repainted my Monster High Deuce this weekend because I wasn't really going to do anything else with him. It was sort of spur of the moment so I didn't really have anything in mind, but I love how he came out! I *did not* make the wig, it was actually bought for my Puki but it's way too big. I feel like Damien needs more clothes now...

Kain II the Sequel

I'm hoping to have Kain II home by next week, assuming my surprise bonus is enough to clear his balance. I was fiddling around with Kaleb last night to see how other wigs looked on him, and I think that Kain II will be talking one of Uri's old wigs, the blond one he came with. I do love Kain's stock wig, but it tends to get a bit...unruly? I'm very picky when it comes to synthetic wigs, and alas Jun Planning isn't always the best for quality control.

I think I will also be installing acrylic eyes rather than using the eye chips and mech he'll come with. I won't be sanding down the mech, rather I'll be using eye putty for the eyelids and eyes. That way if I decide I want the eye mech in again, I don't have to worry about always needing acrylic eyes.

That being said, I have no idea what color to get. I love his stock yellow color, but those are hard to find in the right size. Currently I'm leaning towards a forest green, or something similar with complex tones. Or I might just go the opposite way and get him some Ersa Flora reflective eyes. :)

Seeing Double

Well the bait head from my last post isn't going to work out, so I browsed around a bit and did something I knew I'd do eventually...I ordered a second Taeyang Kain.

Kain is my favorite Taeyang thus far, and I missed having him in a more "stock" form. I do enjoy Kaleb obviously, but I wouldn't mind having back the character I originally created for him, Ronin. Plus I'd like to have a non vampire/werewolf/demon/etc. guy around here again. At least for a little while... :P

He's on layaway with Denver Doll, so it will be a little while before I see him. That's best considering what I'm going to be spending on the puppy in the near future. I'm trying to balance my doll love with dog love. :)

Just a quick little update...

I just contacted someone on DM about a bait Tae head, and I'm hoping he's still available. That would be even better right now as I know I'm going to re-body any Tae I get anyway. So hopefully I'll have another boy coming home soon!

Hey look, I'm not dead!

Having a puppy is a full time job, so unfortunately I've been a bit (well a lot) lax with this blog. However, I do have all sorts of neat dolls and toys to post about, and my little boy now has some toys that occupy him for hours so...

I've started a little collection of Vocaloid-related toys as I alluded to in some of my last posts. I have a plush Miku, a plush Len (my fave!), and a Miku nendoroid so far. I saw the new Pullip editions of the characters, but none were ones that really spoke to me. Well I loved Miku, but I knew the hair would kill me. I liked Len's costume, but he just wasn't quite right.


Then came the second installment of the Vocaloid characters and well...I'm a little smitten. I'm actually not a big fan of Kaito in "real life," but I love his Taeyang version. I think it's the funky colored hair, I have a thing for boys with crazy hair. :) He won't be released until September, but I'm going to preorder him through whoever gets him first. Pullilpstyle preferred, but there's also Entertainment Earth, so we'll see. With my little monster around I can't really afford to buy new big dolls, but a little Taeyang wouldn't be a problem. :)