she/her. migrating here from Instagram. Here to look at dolls and have fun. forever pro artist 😎.
231 posts
cute
#time traveler ghost who is always confused about what year it is
#we'll make it work
You're about to close on your very own, suspiciously affordable and comfortable house. Just before you sign the contract, the realtor shows you the required legal disclosure: your new house is haunted by the type of presence you'll get from this spinner wheel.
Of course it is.
About ten years ago I decided that the next step I needed to take in my life was to accept and explore what it meant to be a failure and to have failed. This infuriated almost everybody in my life and clearly terrified a lot of people. People do not want you to accept failure. They dont want you to like... Sit with and think about it and pick it up and turn it arpund in your hands and really examine it. They want you to keep throwing yourself against the impossible walls until your body explodes! They do not want you to say "alright then, I've failed. What does that mean for me? Im still here. What does the life of someone who has failed look like?"
This makes people very angry and panicky.
My mental health improved in ways it had not in the previous DECADE once I stopped. And. Sat. With failure. And thought about what my failure ... Was. And looked at the structures that produced it and examined them critically.
It is so taboo to fail and admit it openly and talk about it. It is so taboo to talk about or think about failure in an accepting way rather than hiding it shamefully until you experience a degree of success in some area which allows you to present the past failure as "a stepping stone" to your current situation. Fuck that. We are put in positions of guaranteed failure by society every day and then punished and shamed for it. Lets fucking talk about failure
I made him sit still for a photo
I can't tell and demand what anyone else spreads their money on, but if there is anything I hate the most, it's blatant falsehoods being paraded around as fact. I won't name names since I'm not interested in brigading since spamming someone is never going to productively change someone's mind, but as a reminder: recasts (counterfeit ball jointed dolls) hurt all artists. To pretend that it's OK to participate in the theft and exploitations of BJD artists because "the companies [they work for] exploit the artists because they don't get royalties and are only given a one off payment" is wildly inaccurate for the majority (if not all) BJD companies. The BJD hobby is a global hobby and how one company may operate from another may vary wildly from company to company, country to country, as local laws may dictate artist's rights to their work in specific ways as well as specific employment contracts. By no means is this a end-all, be-all, but most BJD artists are the company. Sometimes the company is solely the BJD artist and whomever they may hire to help with doll production. Sometimes the artist, like Bimong, participates in casting and cleaning up the dolls. Other times they might not have those skills and may need to hire fellow employees or commission another BJD company to do the casting for them - many artists use Harucasting, Resinsoul, Island Doll, Fdoll, and so on for their casting services, for example.
Sometimes the artist also haves on apprentices - have you ever noticed that Supiadoll and Limhwa's works look similar to Bimong? They studied under him. I am unsure if Limhwa casts their own dolls, but I know Supiadoll (as of the last few years) uses Withdoll to cast their dolls (with at least one collaboration doll between the two of them, Xion). The BJD hobby is small and many companies have artists who will leave and start their own company, in time - Cerberus Project (Fairyland) used to work under Luts, Resinsoul and Bobobie are sister-companies, Xagadoll and Asleep Eidolon are sister-companies, Dollits (J Baek) used to work for Doll in Mind, went independent, and for a time Dollits worked with Darak-i under the brand "Macaron Doll" and shared a workspace... Would it even surprise you to hear that the most infamous recaster, who had probably done the most harm in this hobby, used to work as an employee under Xagadoll before he was found to be stealing from them and subsequently fired? The BJD world is small and through a cruel twist of irony, the only properly "large" BJD company probably IS that recaster specifically: Luo. (Quenifs, Shuga Fairy, and whatever other monikers he decides to use for himself)
Needless to say, the average BJD operation is probably 1-4 people. But if the artist isn't the owner of the company, sometimes they are able to take their sculpts with them - whether it's because they still retain ownership or they are able to buy the rights to their dolls, I cannot say with certainty without asking them myself, but when Cerberus Project left Luts to make Fairyland, they also took several of their sculpts with them, too - that's why Luts can't make a Delf Soony anymore, even though it was originally produced under the Luts name. J Baek was a sculptor for Doll in Mind, and when he left them to create Dollits, he took several of his sculpts with him, too - SooHee comes to mind, but she wasn't the only doll.
Some BJD companies are "bigger," Fairyland floats around 40 people all-in-all and Volks - of legitimate companies - ...may be the biggest company, when taking account the Dollfie and Doll Dream branches? I am not sure if we've ever gotten a quote of how many employees Volks employs in that section of their company.
Again, I cannot say what another person can and cannot do with their money. However, if you're pro-recast, you can defend recasts all you want, but you don't need to spout inaccuracies as fact. It's much more respectable to just say you want a cheaper doll, no matter the "actual cost" to the hobby as a whole.
Funding recasts just gives recast companies the funds to steal even more dolls, including from those little single-artist teams like Lillycat, even though sometimes those recasts might not even be particularly profitable for the recasters. (Even Hujoo Freya was stolen, and she a $40 plastic bjd that was widely available at the time!)
It's OK if you think a doll is overpriced and "not worth" the value the company/artist has set for their work, but that doesn't mean artists deserve to have their work stolen. These are small companies, not massive cooperation that can easily weather theft, counterfeit products hurt all legitimate artists. It's just a matter of when. No one needs a doll but BJDs have become more and more accessible as the years have gone by, and will probably continue down this path as STL sharing and printers become better and better. Sometimes we cannot help but support things that perpetrate harm due to needs demanded in our society, but no one needs a doll, and I certainly wouldn't want to hurt someone (or multiple people) because I wanted a doll and damn the consequences to anyone else about me getting the "best deal" I could get (aka: paying the least amount of money possible). To wrap this discussion up... please remember, if you purchased recasts in the past, it's never to late to stop and start purchasing legit dolls, secondhand or directly. How someone "shifts" their collection from recast or legit is an entirely personal choice: personally, I think it's more than OK to keep your recasts and keep them out of the secondhand market and enjoy them as they are, as long as you don't pass them off as legits, and stop supporting the primary and secondhand recast market.
Teapot Animal returns with a friend!
i am not 100% sure if i like the cat head version, but it's definitely a different vibe for this doll. i did end up also printing the regular head for the black one.
available on my kofi shop right about now.
R⃨i⃨v⃨e⃨r⃨ Y⃨a⃨t⃨e⃨s⃨
𝙾𝚗𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚖𝚒𝚜𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚎𝚟𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚏𝚘𝚡𝚎𝚜.
My traveling companion has informed me that this blog needs a "profile picture" so I do not look like a "bot". This one was the most recent flattering travel photo, so it will do. My companion had to retake this a few times - pictures at the heights I enjoy flying at are evidently hard to take.
tv man take me by the hand
Oh, and by the way, that Supreme Court ruling is where that Harry Potter money goes.
My two boxes of Harolds have arrived! Shown: only the first box lol. It took me all afternoon to sift through them and make sure they were okay. I have a few touches to add (my logos, wiring, sanding any egregious seam lines). I will next be checking whose blank orders are ready to be sent. Full-sets will be worked on next!
Really excited to be sending them out soon! I will keep you all updated.
I am beginning the process of possibly switching my Dream Tactics character BJDs to fashion minis. I'm starting with a SartoriaJ elf and I'll see what I think.
No matter what I do, I feel like I'm always in a funk with that set of characters. I rarely reach for them. They're older characters age-wise and I've always struggled with them looking old enough. Especially the boys. Hana is the youngest main character at 21 and Levy is the oldest at 38.
The sequel cast is younger, so I might use the more standard 6/7 head dolls for them. We'll see. I've been feeling like I need a refresh for a long time which is why I think that I buy so many random dolls. Maybe this will finally be the solution.
Yep
y o u a r e n o t a l o n e .
I feel like I should sell like half of my pullip collection.
I think that bluesky is a bust for me...I guess that I will try to finally figure out Tumblr lol.
Uh.. Be Goths are doing a kickstarter to bring back those freaky lil goth dolls, but they are also now offering "blank" dolls for customs! I am also happy to see they will have enhanced articulation.
(its one of the things thats kept me from searching ebay for old ones)
hey folks if you have an android phone: google shadow installed a "security app".
I had to go and delete it myself this morning.
Just put this screaming cat mini watering can and decoration up on Cults or check out my Patreon to get even more fun designs 😆
Strawberry Shortcake in Big Apple City but make it Harajuku 🎀🍓🎀
Prints of this drawing are available on my Etsy shop, kaitlynillustrations.etsy.com ♥️
Wisconsin Humane Society has removed 73 cats from a single household. If anybody is in the area is looking to foster or adopt now is the time. Sounds like many of them are under-socialized.
never thought there would be a wave 2 but HERE WE GO roller skates!!!! yayyyy!
petal in the machine
“But shrimp!! Kill shelters are evil!!”
No, shut up, listen to me for a second.
“Kill shelter” is a colloquial term used primarily for Town/City (aka municipal) shelters that rely on incredibly limited government grant funding to operate.
These shelters, by the very nature of their existence, DO NOT HAVE the funds to operate like private rescues do.
On top of this, they’re also *legally required* to take in ANY animal that comes to them. Even if they’re full. Or they’ll lose all of their funding.
This is what leads them to needing to euthanize for space. Is euthanizing for space sad? Yes. But due to the current crisis, it’s also NECESSARY.
These shelters are constantly overfull. They’re STRUGGLING. They don’t have the funds to operate properly. And yet these municipal, government funded, struggling shelters are the same ones that are most likely to be providing care for owned animals in the community
Municipal (“kill”) shelters are the ones hosting low cost spay and neuter clinics. They’re the ones discounting vaccination appointments and microchipping. They’re the ones that have pet food banks so struggling pet owners can feed their pets that week.
These shelters are not evil. They’re doing the absolute best they can with the bare minimum funding they get.
These people are incredibly resourceful and care very deeply about the animals in their care. It breaks their heart every time they have to euthanize an animal that couldn’t get adopted.
These underfunded shelters need your money significantly more than that fancy private rescue you see on TikTok or instagram that has a beautiful facility and has never had to euthanize an animal ever.
Support your local shelters and they will give back to the community thousand fold.
Sincerely, an animal welfare student who’s tired of seeing the hardest working professionals shat on because of circumstances they can’t control.