davidd’s A DOLL A DAY 2022

[davidd]

8 September - A Doll A Day 2022:

This nightclub diorama room box originated back in mid-2018 as a temporary setting consisting to two short walls coming together to make a corner:



It was originally intended to be a temporary backdrop to be discarded, but the parts were still hanging around -- hard to imagine, I know -- in December 2020, so they were integrated in to a larger, more substantial diorama for a Christmas Party sequence:



Since December 2020 the box has been sitting in the storage shed, complete with Christmas tree, occasionally disappearing completely and at other times partially emerging from beneath the ebb and flow of clutter:



The 2020 version is rather odd shaped, narrower at the back than at the front. I do not recall now why I constructed it that way. I believe it had something to do with trying to create a sense of visual depth, and to allow for a variety of camera angles that would disguise how small the space actually is:



I recently decided to make another half-hearted attempt at salvaging this room box before deciding whether to discard it completely. This entailed reworking the walls (with scissors and hot melt glue) to create a rectangular space offering more usable floor area than did the previous tapering design:



It doesn't take much for the space to begin looking cluttered again. Doll and action figure room box spaces are usually much smaller than they should be to properly reflect true scale, but even a small 1:1 scale room takes up an enormous amount of table or shelf space in 1:6 scale, so for practical doll photography purposes, the scale spaces are usually condensed:



I have another section of wall somewhere, including a cut-out for a door, with which to fill in the missing left-side wall space. It's often helpful to either have a "short wall" on one side of a room box, or to have a section of wall that can be easily removed, to allow for easier camera and lighting access.

I hope I can find the missing wall section within the next few days. I'm already getting tired of working on this mess, and I'm thinking I should have just binned it before I started.

The original version had colored lights integrated in to the walls, I still need to replace the lights. As with so many other bits and pieces, I repurposed the lights for something else and now I'm not sure where I put them.

[Alliecat]

It looks interesting… I’ll have to come back and look at these on a bigger screen, and when I am not completely wrecked from two very long days away.

[davidd]

... and when I am not completely wrecked from two very long days away.

I am still largely "wrecked" nearly two weeks after a long ten days away. I hope your recovery is faster and more complete.
Were you on the mainland shipping eBay parcels?

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9 September - A Doll A Day 2022:
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9 September - Bratz Flashback Blind Box Mini Fig

[Alliecat]

So will you be opening it, or will it sit for months like many of the other boxes you have shown us? 
The Christmas party setup is great, with so many figures. I think the difficulty of a shot increases ex!ponentially with the number of dolls you add. So I know those take a lot of time. 
It makes sense to build it tapered for perspective. But as you noted, the other way gives you more floor space.
Also, the previous day’s photo gives a nice suggestion of a larger space.

Were you on the mainland shipping eBay parcels?

Nah, not yet. I need to list that stuff, but I am hesitating as I anticipate hassles with annoying buyers and customs/tax.
I was at a Thing. It was cool.

[davidd]

I was at a Thing. It was cool.

Glad the Thing was cool.

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10 September - A Doll A Day 2022:

10 September - Japanese Decorative Doll --  a Souvenir

from the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo

[Alliecat]

That's a fun souvenir. How did you acquire her?
The depths of the storage shed must hold some fascinating stuff!

Glad the Thing was cool.

Heheh, Been There Done That Got the T-Shirt

[davidd]

11 September - A Doll A Day 2022:
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11 September - Random Hasbro Action Man (American release) Figure

[Alliecat]

Well, isn’t he a handsome dude.

[davidd]

12 September – A Doll A Day 2022:

12 September – Nice Boots...

... among Other Nice Assets, like a Nice Rifle and a Nice Pistol

This TBLeague figure may be headed for the ol' eBay soon. It's something I shoulda done a long time ago. In fact, I never should have purchased this fig. It's not really my style. And other than brief appearances in maybe a half-dozen photos total, the poor thing has been wrapped up in tissue paper and stored in the bottom of a box for the last three and a half years.

If I'd kept the packaging it would be worth a fair bit of money now, but I discarded the box and inserts ages ago.

It occurs to me as I'm posting here that I could try augmenting the costume, or lack of costume, with some other "steampunk" costume pieces for which I've never found a use. Unfortunately, what passes as a costume on this "fantasy western" figure is pretty much permanently attached. Attempting to unclip, unsnap, or otherwise remove the current costume would likely result in damage to the pieces.

I don't much care for the hat. It's made of felt and it attracts dust and hair and lint like a magnet.

The spurs on the boots are pretty neat. The circular pointy bits are separate pieces so they actually rotate.

Okay, so now – this is sort of a stream-of-consciousness post as I get various ideas and as I look up information online – I see that a pre-owned fig with the original box recently sold on eBay for $212.00 USD including shipping. Mint-in-Unopened-Box examples sell for around $400.00 USD. That means that I'd be lucky to get $150 at best were I to sell this one. After eBay fees and shipping costs, that's hardly worth the effort, since I'd be lucky to clear $100.00. Purchasing a body and a head sculpt without a costume now costs over $100.00. That being the case, I'd be just as well off trying to carefully remove the costume and maybe selling the parts I can salvage, and dressing the figure in something a bit more tasteful.

But only a bit more tasteful. After all, this is a tacky, prurient Phicen figure.

Too much thinking is making my head hurt. Back to the storage box for this one for now, I guess.

I wish I could generate a little bit more enthusiasm for all the silly seamless "action figures" I've accumulated. My interest has waned considerably over the past couple of months, and even more in these recent weeks as I've been feeling under the weather. I'm hoping this week I'll finally shake off the grip of die Grippe.

PS: one thing, in general, about photographs of seamless action figures that really annoys me is photographs in which the angle of the head sitting on the neck looks awkward, stiff, or unrealistic. It is an extremely common issue with photographs of TBLeague (Phicen) figures, and I see that I have made that very mistake here myself.

My "excuse" is that I'm not feeling well, I was in a hurry, and I was intent on getting the figure to stand up without dropping the hat or rifle or random bits of clothing. I literally unwrapped the figure, set it up, snapped the photo, and was done in about five minutes. But the excuses are no excuse. The head thing annoys me when others do it, and it annoys me more when I do it myself, and I should not have allowed that to happen.

What this means is, lucky you, you may get to see, or have to endure, some more photos of this Fantasy Western figure this week until I can convince myself that I can get the head-neck angle right, while not overlooking awkward elbow creasing (another problem with these figures), unfeminine foot placement, or unrealistic arching of the back and shoulders.

"Unrealistic arching of the back and shoulders" on a figure shaped like this? Like that could possibly happen! If you look through photos of this type of figure online, many of the figures are posed with absurdly raised shoulders and arched backs to over-exaggerate the already over-exaggerated curves. Again, the head placement is often an additional issue; how is it that so many action figure photographers seem to have no idea how far a human head can swivel on the neck? These are supposed to be human figures, albeit somewhat stylized, not owls! Real people do not generally twist their heads around to look backwards over their shoulders, or at least, not without also twisting the torso and shoulders. The head-at-90-plus-degree-angle thing irritates me further, in addition to my general annoyance over stiff, awkward head posing.

Obviously I'm in a generally irritable mood at the moment, so I'll stop now. Did I mention the headache?

[Alliecat]

I didn't think the pose was that unnatural at first glance, but I do see what you mean about the elbow. They ought to be able to do something better than that for the price of the figures? I have a Barbie-type doll from childhood with seamless legs and I don't recall they ever creased like that.
Must admit these ridiculously impractical outfits always make me SMH...
She has little enough on that you could make her a new outfit that would fit over it and probably never show

[davidd]

13 September - A Doll A Day 2022:
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13 September - Unopened Parcels

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I'm trying -- largely failing, but trying -- to clean out a huge pile of stuff. I ran across some unopened parcels. The red box in the front has been removed from its shipping carton, at least, so I know it is an action figure. I must have had a project in mind for it when I purchased it. The two brown boxes in the back are unopened shipping cartons. Probably more action figures, from when I was enthusiastic about an outer space photo story I was working on, but I'm not entirely sure if that's what's in them. Maybe I'll open up the shipping cartons later today.
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When I find things like this, I wonder what the heck I was thinking. Obviously I wasn't thinking, or at least not thinking clearly.
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This is shameful and embarrassing. Maybe, by posting this mess, I can embarrass myself in to doing something about it.

[Alliecat]

I think it’s sad that your hobby seems so often to be a source of frustration and now embarrassment. In an increasingly broken world our creative hobbies should be the things that bring us joy. I too am frustrated by clutter and try to keep it out of my hobbies. I am not sure what the answer is but I hope you find peace of mind about it and can continue to enjoy.

[davidd]

In an increasingly broken world our creative hobbies should be the things that bring us joy. 

I suspect I have allowed the "broken world" to creep in to my "hobby world," and in so doing, bring chaos and despair along with it. I have two options: give up and let the clutter, emblematic of external chaos, win; or fight back by starting to clean up the mess. If I can do nothing about the real world, perhaps I can bring order and internal logic to my make-believe world.

Oh, here's a good one for you: make-believe. Some years ago, when I was teaching elementary school, during one of the standardized tests a number of students began raising their hands with questions. Their questions were about a phrase in one of the story prompts. "What does 'make-believe' mean?"

I was working with students age 9 and 10 at the time. I was surprised that so many had never heard the term 'make-believe.'

I was also pretty annoyed that apparently none of the grades from K thru 4 had ex-posed the students to the term.

In violation of a test proctor's job, I took it upon myself to make a group announcement: "Okay, you guys, listen up. When you see the words 'make-believe,' it means 'pretend,' okay? 'Pretend' or 'imaginary' or 'made up.' You got that? Any questions? 'Make-believe' means 'pretend.'"

The other proctors looked at me, but didn't say anything. They were getting tired of answering the same question as well.

The emphasis in schools is shifting toward teaching "critical thinking," but "critical thinking" is simply not possible without a basic grounding in facts and vocabulary.

That includes knowing what "make-believe" means.

/digression-of-the-day  

[davidd]

14 September - A Doll A Day 2022:
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14 September - Shipping Carton Contents

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Jiaou female action figure bodies x3
TBLeague female action figure body with head x1
TBLeague male action figure body x1

[Alliecat]

Oh boy, more figures. Do you have characters in mind for them? Hope we'll get to see them.
I wonder how weird Pullip heads would look on these bodies. The flexibility would be nice.

The emphasis in schools is shifting toward teaching "critical thinking," but "critical thinking" is simply not possible without a basic grounding in facts and vocabulary.
That includes knowing what "make-believe" means.

Jeez, coulda fooled me. Critical thinking seems rare enough to be a superpower these days.
It's really sad that kids don't know that. It is an odd phrase if you think about it -- just sad it's not being used enough for them to know it. Who plays pretend now? All you have to do is sit in front of a screen.