Happy 4th of July (A Photoshoot)

Happy 4th of July to everyone in America!

I actually took these photos a while ago, but I thought I would share them now:

I like the angle of this photo. 

I like the upper view of this photo. 

The blurred background in this photo is a cool effect. 

I like the way this photo turned out. 

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Which photo is your favorite? 

-Quinley 

Father's Day (A Photo Shoot)

Happy Father's Day! 

To celebrate Father's Day, I am doing a photo shoot with Astrid and Legolas. 

Astrid is the daughter of the alternate dimension versions of Tauriel and Legolas, so she shares the blue eyes of Legolas and the red hair of Tauriel. 

She was adopted by this dimension's Tauriel and Legolas. So let's get to the photo shoot: 

I like the angle of this photo, I tried to make it look as if they are hugging. 

For some reason, this photo looks as if it is turning slightly black and white at

the edges and I don't know why, but it gives it a cool effect. 

I like how this one turned out. 

I like the angle of this photo. 

During the photo shoot, I had an idea that Legolas and Astrid would be 

doing a Father-Daughter portrait near the end and this is what came out of it. 

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Which photo is your favorite? 

-Quinley 

My Thoughts on Carpatina's and A Girl For All Time's Newest Releases

Hello everyone, I don't usually see people talking much about Carpatina or A Girl For All Time. Mostly the posts I've seen are talking about AG, so I thought I would dedicate a post to sharing my thoughts about Carpatina's and A Girl For All Time's awesome new releases (including Emma, because I never talked about her when she was rereleased).

(screenshot taken from the official Carpatina doll site: https://www.carpatina-dolls.com/collections/pre-production-offers/products/louis) 

The first thing I noticed when I looked at a picture of Louis was that he had a different face mold than James (I renamed my James doll, Alfred) or Stephen, his face felt wider than the others. I think the reason for doing this had to do with the fact that the historical figure they were basing the doll on had a different facial shape:

(image from Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XIV_of_France#/media/File:Description-de-l%27entree-Du-Roy-et-de-la-Reyne-Paris_MG_1114.tif) 

Louis looks very similar to this portrait of King Louis the 14th, and I think Carpatina did a good job putting his personality and characteristics into doll form. Now, as for Louis's two wigs, which are removable, I find it very interesting because I thought at first that the brown wig was put over the auburn one, but it appears that you remove one to put the other one on. Since I don't have a Louis doll, I can neither confirm nor deny whether that is the way it works, but I am judging from what Carpatina said in the description. The cool thing about having two wigs is that you can always add a third one in, which adds a way to do quick customization without actually hurting the doll. As for the outfit, I love the style of it, and I like the style of the buckled shoes. The shoes are different from James' because of the time period difference and because of the fashion that was popular during King Louis' reign. As a whole, I am excited that they made another boy doll!

 (All three screenshots of Emma from the official Carpatina doll site, https://www.carpatina-dolls.com/collections/pre-production-offers/products/emma)
Emma was actually rereleased around the time I found out about James. I didn't really talk about her much at the time, because I was focused on the fact that a colonial boy doll was being released. Emma is a time traveller, who according to the description travels to the 1600s during Louis the 14th's reign (which is rather cool to have a girl doll and a boy doll who are from or time traveling to that time period in French history). Unlike the other girl dolls I have seen, she has two dresses (and a underdress), one from the modern time, and one from the 1600s. The 1600s dress is my favorite of the two, since the 17th century is one of my favorite time periods.

(image from the official girl For all Time website, https://www.agirlforalltime.com/collections/a-girl-for-all-time/products/elinors-surcoat-and-gown) 

Speaking of the 17th century, Girl For All Time recently gave Elinor (a doll from Shakespeare's time period), a new outfit, which looks beautiful on her. As a person who loves the Elizabethan era, I love that they are giving Elinor more clothes and accessories.

(image from the official Girl for All Time doll site, https://www.agirlforalltime.com/collections/elinor-your-elizabethan-girl-doll/products/elinors-cat-shakes)  

This cat reminds me of Caroline's cat Inkpot, except that he is named Shakes after William Shakespeare, one of my favorite playwrights! If you didn't know already I am a huge Shakespeare fan, and the fact that a cat is named after William Shakespeare in the Girl for All Time brand makes me so happy. And since her story is set in Elizabethan England (even though there hasn't been a release of it yet), it makes me wonder which of Shakespeare's plays will be mentioned in her story, and if there will be part of the book where Elinor visits the Globe Theatre! If there is a scene where she goes to the theatre, it would be awesome!

             

(Image from the official  Girl of All Time website:
https://www.agirlforalltime.com/ (downloaded may 20 2019)) 

As it turns out, Girl For All Time is releasing a boy doll, though he is from the 21st century (and I much prefer historical boy dolls and girl dolls). Although I find it exciting because this might mean that historical boy dolls will be released in the future. If there was a boy side character, who was friends with one of the girl characters, it would be awesome if they made a doll of him.  Anyway, I am excited to find out what releasing a boy doll means for future releases at A Girl For All Time.

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Do you have a favorite release from the ones I mentioned? Do you prefer 17th century France or England? 

Love,
Quinley

Happy Mother's Day from The Queen of the Gods (Post by Hera)

Hello mortals, as queen of the gods, and mother of Hephaestus, Hebe, and Ares,
I was asked to write a post for this holiday "Mother's Day" or "Mothers' Day".
Anyway, Zeus, if you are listening, you will know that today will be your least your favorite day!

My favorite things to do during Mother's Day 

-Torture my husband's other children, send a snake* or two, or make someone insane.
- Complain to Disney about their movie adaptation of the Twelve Labors of Hercules, and tell them that I am not and will never be the mother of Hercules!
- Revolt against Zeus. Remember that the Fates said there would be a downfall, my little cuckoo**? Well, I may be leading it, you never know.
-Send the many other demigod daughters, sons, grandson-son things (I'm not even going to ask) of Zeus on many labors, which hopefully they will fail.... Hopefully....
-Spend time with Hebe and my other children, and tell them how much I love them, and apologize to Hephaestus for throwing him off Mt. Olympus.***
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What are some of your favorite things to do on Mother's Day? Have you ever tried to overthrow the annoying King of the Gods? 

Farewell Mortals, 
Hera, Queen of the Gods. 

P.S.  Aphrodite won the golden apple contest that said she was the fairest, but that doesn't mean I'm not the best mother! If there was another golden apple contest that said To the Best Mother I would win for sure!

Notes for mentions of mythology:
*Hera sent snakes in order to kill Hercules. She failed, since Hercules killed the snakes.
**Zeus disguised himself as a cuckoo in order to woo Hera and succeeded in the end.
*** When Hephaestus was born, Hera thought he was ugly and threw him off Mt. Olympus.

Custom Doll Project: Mermaid

Hello everyone,
 To start this post I finally figured out how to repaint a whole doll's face.
 I used an Ariel doll. At first I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with her,

but I started out by using non-acetone nail polish remover: 

( This type of nail polish remover is safer...even if your hands do get a little wrinkled in the process.) 

It took a little bit of work, but her paint started to come off... 

In the end I decided not to remove everything (partly because it was hard to get into the gaps and crevices, and plus I could just cover it up with paint) the next I did was to rinse her off with water from the sink and then I waited...

I came back after a few days, 

and I figured out what I wanted to do with her... 

(my drawing of a mermaid came from this post on my writing (drawing, and acting) blog) 

I decided I wanted to make her look a mermaid from my fantasy book series, All is Not Lost For All Will Begin Again. (This picture is what I had in mind when I repainted her.)

          First I made a outline with pencil (as I have seen many doll customizers do in their videos)

I  then painted on eyeshadow to her, and tried to make it stand out more than it had before. 

(I am not sure how well that worked though.) 

Then I painted in the white space and began working on her eyes.

The next thing I did was to start working on the scales under the eyes (This is common trait of mermaids in my fantasy story.)

I then repainted her lips.

As it turns out part way through the outline of the eyes didn't work, so I had to cover them up with paint.

I then painted the scales to be blue and green to match her eyes and eye shadow.

I then painted on eyebrows and added pupils into her eyes.

Next what I did was to paint scales around her ears (since I cannot exactly do the elf-like ears that have scales on them.) I also painted them the same blue and green colors but I unfortunately didn't take photos of that.
I also made the scales under her eyes look more scale-like.

After that I began cutting her hair since I wanted it to be a more natural red, as opposed to Ariel's red hair...

Once I had done that I began gluing on yarn. 

Until her hair was more natural looking. 

After that I realized I was not completely happy with her eyebrows, so I ended up coloring them in. 

I then drew scales onto her arm. 

Then I began working on her outfit, I used blue felt for her tail, and used silk leaves for her shirt. However I didn't take any pictures of that. 

But here are some photos of her tail from different perspectives: 

Before:                                                              After: 

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I was really busy with Camp NaNoWrimo this April,  which is why I didn't post very much, but I hope to post more this May. In the meantime...

Have you ever done a full doll repaint before? What's your favorite fantasy/mythical creature? 

-Quinley