davidd's A Doll A Day 2018

[davidd]

Do you find her cocoa skin tone hard to photograph? Unity has caught my eye.

I do find the cocoa skin tone challenging to photograph. The face often comes out too dark. When I try to supplement the lighting on the face, the reflective eyes almost appear to glow, looking overly bright, glassy, vacant, and kind of creepy. The "creepy glass eyes" effect is even more pronounced when using the built-in flash on the camera.

I have not yet come up with a standard technique for providing supplemental lighting on the face. I've had fairly good results using a hand-held flashlight with tissue paper held over the lens as a diffuser.

Unity has slightly narrowed eyes, while Harmony has round "anime eyes." I wonder if the reflective eye effect would be less pronounced with the narrow-eyes face sculpts?

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7 December – Knock-Off Barbie Bakery Set

Yeah, yeah, I know. Today is December 7th. I had hoped to compose a tribute photo for Pearl Harbor Day. Instead, it's yet another Lame Last-Minute Snapshot™.

I find "knock-off" bargain-priced toys to be both amusing and depressing. They are amusing in their often blatant attempts to mimic name brand or popular franchise toys and figures, and of course for their generally poor quality.

But I feel sad when I think about the kids who receive toys like this as gifts. Kids know the difference when parents and grandparents do not. The disappointment can be crushing when opening an eagerly anticipated gift only to find a cheap knock-off instead of the authentic item. And then, the knowledge that your parents or grandparents or other relatives didn't know the difference... or couldn't or wouldn't pay the price for the real deal... compounds the disappointment.

Fake Barbie, seen here, isn't too bad as far as such things go. At least her outfit and accessories would blend relatively seamlessly with genuine Barbie items. Also on the shelves in this particular store were knock-off Little Mermaid and Disney Princess dolls, fake My Little Ponies, and a score of off-brand action figures mimicking popular lines like Power Rangers and Marvel Superheroes.

If The Grinch had really wanted to crush the spirit of Christmas, rather than simply taking all the presents from Whoville, he would have replaced the presents with cheap knock-offs and counterfeits.