D A T A L O G

Here are some more of my junk eyes. I'm still having problems with air bubbles, particularly during the doming process. All of these eyes have imperfections that make them unsaleable. The purple eye is the worst - it shifted in the pressure pot during the curing process, and the dome ended up moving WAY off-center, so it looks like it has some kind of growth. The darker blue eye was a test subject for several different things, including touching the resin before it was fully cured to see what would happen. The answer? Lots of tiny, tiny gouges in the surface of the dome that make the eye look cloudy. The light blue eye actually turned out the best, but again has bubbles in it. For some reason, the clear resin isn't responding well to the pressure pot (not de-bubbling, surface texture going "wonky"), while the white resin does just fine in it. I'm really hoping I can solve the bubble issue without having to build a vacuum chamber. Building the pressure pot was difficult (and expensive) enough!



Since these are junk eyes, I probably won't bother removing the stems from the back. For the eyes I actually intend on selling, the backs will be removed, resulting in a flat-backed/half-round eye.

Because it's snowing, and I work at a college that has a small Japanese garden on campus, I slapped a kimono onto Darryl and brought him to work with the intention of taking photos in the snow.

Of course, by the time I actually got to work, it was raining and windy.

So instead, I took him into the tatami room next to the garden and shot a couple of quick photos.



( Two more under the cut. )

We're, uh, not going to talk about the fact that it's a fairly girly kimono.

Like several of my other dolls, Talon has recently undergone an upgrade to a more realistic and mature sculpt. I'm really, really ecstatic with how well he turned out.

He looks great with Darryl, too. ^__^



( Three more photos under here. )

Just a one shot. Darryl's new self finally has eyes (of a sort). They're urethane prototypes that I made a few months ago, and have some problems, but they'll do for now.

I'm just going to leave this here.

So I've been thinking about the doll crew. Big surprise, huh? Anyway, I've been specifically thinking about the heights of the characters, and the relative heights of the dolls that represent them. Because these are the kinds of things that are important to me.

Wren is always supposed to have been 5' 7" tall. Jian Yuan's height has shifted a bit over the years (he and Wren were originally the same height), and he is supposed to be 5' 4" tall. Darryl has always been right around 6'. Talon has fluctuated a bit, but is generally right around the same height as Darryl, as is Tekla. And so on and so forth.

Wren 2.0 is a 60cm doll. Darryl 2.0 is 65cm, the intended Talon 2.0 is also 65cm, and Tekla is 65cm-66.5cm depending on what feet and shoes she's wearing. Since Wren is pretty much in the middle of the group, and since the height of the doll is a conveniently even number of centimeters, I worked off of her. 5' 7" is 67". There are 2.56 centimeters in an inch, so Wren is 171.52cm tall. Dividing the height of Wren 2.0 (60cm) by 171.52cm gives us .349813432, or thereabouts.

Now it's time to check this. If Darryl is supposed to be around 6' tall, is 65cm the correct height for the Darryl 2.0 doll? 65cm divided by .349813432 is 181.82cm. If we divide that again by 2.56, we end up with 72.59", or 6' ½". So yes, Darryl 2.0 is (delightfully) just the right height. From this, I can infer that Talon 2.0 and Tekla are also the right size without having to work their exact heights out.

This means that my formula for determining the necessary height of a WUNPO doll based on the height of a character (when "C" is the height of the character in inches and "D" is the height of the doll) is:

(C x 2.56) .349813432 = D

By this formula, the total height of Jian Yuan 2.0 needs to be 57.3cm. We can also reverse the formula, as we saw with Darryl, to determine the height of a character based on the doll that represents them:

(D ÷ .349813432) ÷ 2.56 = C

Using the reversed formula, Rupali (doll is 58cm) is just a hair under 5' 5" tall, which is perfect for her character (she's supposed to be between Wren and Jian Yuan in height, but I never set a specific height for her). And Rafe is 5' 9½", while Laith is just a smidgen over 6' 6". Again, perfect for the characters (I had been concerned that the Laith doll was too tall, but he's supposed to be 6½', so that's spot on).

The awesome thing about this isn't consistency in the doll collection, though. It's the fact that I can apply this formula to anything that I want to make for the dolls, to make sure it's in scale, as long as I know the full-size measurements of the item. For example, a WUNPO doll-scale AA12 shotgun would be 34.67cm (13.54") long, and the seat of a dining chair should be 16.12cm-17.91cm (6.3"-7") high.

This entire thing was brought on by the fact that I'm at work, and am supposed to be studying for my first attempt at an IAHSS certification, which my job now requires. I test in four hours. So far, only two of the six officers in my department who have taken this test have passed it. If we fail it, we have thirty days to prepare for a second attempt. If we can't pass on the second try, we're fired. I haven't read the book yet, and it's 38 chapters long.

Yeah. To say I'm unenthusiastic about this textbook would be an understatement.

EDIT: Passed the test. It was actually really easy (and I still haven't read more than five chapters in this book). Not sure what all the fuss was about, but have a feeling I'm going to be tutoring several of the guys over the next few weeks.

I am completely beat, but the show was awesome. There were so many people that for a while it was practically standing room only. I put up pictures of the displays on DoA, but here are some more detail photos of my diorama. I wasn't able to finish all the parts I wanted, but I'm pleased with how it turned out. I'll keep adding to it and tweaking it, and use it for a photo set.

I'll start off with a shot of Ǝrəšiš. She was displayed alone, on a pedestal in the middle of the exhibition room.


( More photos, all stupidly large. )

That's apparently what May 2011 is.

I ordered the Canon T2i at the beginning of the month, and it's scheduled to arrive today (YAY!!!), yesterday I ordered not one, not two, but THREE Iplehouse EID heads, and today I broke down and (on impulse) purchased GRANADO's "Boyd" sculpt. I don't care overmuch for his head, but the body is right on track for what I want for the long-disembodied Luke Alan (Esthy "Peroth"). So hey, if anyone wants a Boyd head in the normal skintone, let me know, because I'm probably going to sell it.

EDIT: Holy shit I love this camera. @_@ It takes better pictures of my dolls THROUGH GLASS than my other camera does when they're all carefully posed and lit.

Also, there is a halo-shaped rainbow around the sun. It looks very strange. I tried to take a photo of it, but it's too big. I gave up because the light outside is so bright that just being out there is making my eyes water. Ah, the joys of being a night owl.

Rupali has returned from her visit to Lyn Raftis, and is definitely rocking her new faceup. I'm in love with this. Lyn took my sketchy "I kinda' want her to look professional, but also casual, and I want her lips red but not too red, more like reddish, and her eyebrows black and nice, but really just do whatever you want" and turned it into EXACTLY what I wanted. She's a miracle worker, really. And just in time for me to get my gal all put back together again and ensconced safely in the WUNPO-crew doll cabinet before I go under the knife next week. DOUBLE WIN!



I do apologize for the crappy photo. I snapped it quickly at work, and the lighting here sucks. (Also, I think I will get a new camera this year. My point-and-shoot just...isn't cutting it anymore.)

Here are two quick shots of Ha-Neul, as requested. He needs new eyes, new hair, and new clothes, but I adore him all the same.



( And one more. )