I Figured It Out

Counterfeit Goods Hurt All BJD Artists

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.

hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

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)

THE TYRANNY OF THE SUN IS OVER

More Muriel Colors Unlocked!

We reached more color options tonight: Grapefruit, Mulberry, and Lime! I'm going to see about making a few more mock-ups of the bonus color options, because I find these particular combinations really fun. Here is the gif I made for the campaign page!

Want one? These colors are now unlocked for any doll option (kits, assembled blanks, and assembled blushed). And of course, here is a link to the Kickstarter campaign page!

“Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.”

― Jamie Anderson

How to Plot a Complex Novel in One Day

Now first, I have to say, that the plot you’re able to come up with in one day is not going to be without its flaws, but coming up with it all at once, the entire story unfolds right in front of you and makes you want to keep going with it. So, where to begin?

What is your premise and basic plot? Pick your plot. I recommend just pulling one from this list. No plots are “original” so making yours interesting and complicated will easily distract from that fact, that and interesting characters. Characters will be something for you to work on another day, because this is plotting day. You’ll want the main plot to be fairly straight forward, because a confusing main plot will doom you if you want subplots.

Decide who the characters will be. They don’t have to have names at this point. You don’t even need to know who they are other than why they have to be in the story. The more characters there are the more complicated the plot will be. If you intend to have more than one subplot, then you’ll want more characters. Multiple interconnected subplots will give the illusion that the story is very complicated and will give the reader a lot of different things to look at at all times. It also gives you the chance to develop many side characters. The plot I worked out yesterday had 13 characters, all were necessary. Decide their “roles” don’t bother with much else. This seems shallow, but this is plot. Plot is shallow.

Now, decide what drives each character. Why specifically are they in this story? You can make this up. You don’t even know these characters yet. Just so long as everyone has their own motivations, you’re in the clear.

What aren’t these characters giving away right off the bat? Give them a secret! It doesn’t have to be something that they are actively lying about or trying to hide, just find something that perhaps ties them into the plot or subplot. This is a moment to dig into subplot. This does not need to be at all connected to their drive to be present in the story.  Decide who is in love with who, what did this person do in the 70’s that’s coming back to bite them today, and what continues to haunt what-his-face to this very day. This is where you start to see the characters take shape. Don’t worry much about who they are or what they look like, just focus on what they’re doing to the story.

What is going to change these characters? Now this will take some thinking. Everyone wants at least a few of the characters to come out changed by the end of the story, so think, how will they be different as a result of the plot/subplot? It might not be plot that changes them, but if you have a lot of characters, a few changes that are worked into the bones of the plot might help you.

Now list out the major events of the novel with subplot in chronological order. This will be your timeline. Especially list the historical things that you want to exist in backstory. List everything you can think of. Think about where the story is going. At this point, you likely haven’t focused too much on the main plot, yeah, it’s there, but now really focus on the rising actions, how this main plot builds its conflict, then the climactic moment. Make sure you get all of that in there. This might take a few hours.

Decide where to start writing. This part will take a LOT of thinking. It’s hard! But now that you’ve got the timeline, pick an interesting point to begin at. Something with action. Something relevant. Preferably not at the beginning of your timeline - you want to have huge reveals later on where these important things that happened prior are exposed. This is the point where you think about what information should come out when. This will be a revision of your last list, except instead of being chronological, it exists to build tension.

Once you’ve gotten the second list done, you’ve got a plot. Does it need work? Probably. But with that said, at this point you probably have no idea who half your characters are. Save that for tomorrow, that too will be a lot of work.

Disclaimer for this post.

one thing that took me embarrassingly long to learn is "sometimes when people say things, they will not be true."

I used to tell people about this revelation and they'd be like yeah.....duh.....but like, why wouldn't my base assumption be that you're communicating to me in a straightforward manner. anyway, I get scammed a lot.

The opposite of grimdark is hopepunk. Pass it on.

Since I had everyone off of their shelves, I decided to think over updating their displays. I'd been contemplating getting some risers for the minis so I could make more use of the vertical space in the bookcase, but then (after hours of looking at different display risers online lmao) I remembered I own a pile of manga I very rarely reread or look through! Plenty of room for the dolls to sit on top of, as well as in front. :)

I tried to primarily use series that my doll characters exist within (either as canon characters or my own creations), but since I don't own a lot of media physically, I had to use a few fillers haha (such as Paradise Kiss, Saiyuki, Dragon Knights, and Kamui).

Also made use of one of the shelves I had to take out of the bookcase to riser some of the big dolls up that are above the roombox (as well as plopped my Devil May Cry books behind Vergil and Qianna). There's this chair I've seen on Taobao that I'm thinking of getting two of for Jonathan and Rhonwen to sit on (since I think she'll likely be kicked out of the bookshelf eventually when my Black Cherry Doll girls arrive). Mixed up the Tokyo Ghoul gang a bit too just because (as well as plopped some of my Halloween decor down with them to fill up the extra shelf space).

Glad I thought to use my manga as risers, because that ended up freeing up several spots in my two cube shelves. Hooray for storage space!

Really happy with how the minis look now. They look less shoved away in a corner and like they're actually on display now. Plus, manga spines are always visually appealing.