An eye brow

Well, nipples and lips are one thing, and so is the pink under the eyes; I don't mind much at all that the colour on the body is fading. But now!


After I did this...


This happened.

Eeep. Considering how 'well' my last 'paint' job went, I'm not looking forward to the prospect of painting her eyebrow. On the plus side; 1) it's on a part of her face I usually have covered by hair anyway, and 2) it's gives me a good excuse to make a proper effort of trying to paint her.

This happened before I've had Felice for 2 months (of daily play).

Happy New Year all.

Elf Armour Inspired Ribbon

image from
http://www.alleycatscratch.com/lotr/Exhibit/Travel/Te%20Papa.htm

I decided to try to make a ribbon weave that follows a pattern like the one above.



Attempt 1



Attempt 2




Attempt 3



Attempt 4



Attempt 5



Attempt 6, the one I'm happy with.



Added a skirt...


... and a head band.


Those cleverer than I could have anticipated that the weave doesn't hold up very well to being played with, since all that took a fair while to do, I probably won't be doing this too often.

Wires and Ribbons second try

This time I used the top of a bottle, and a DVD holder to give the wire a better shape.









It does help with neck stability, but still needs the neck wire modification I made earlier.

Wires and Ribbons

Had the idea of using wires externally wrapped with ribbons to help support Felice's neck. These are images of one such experiment, done somewhat quickly and crudely. It does help a bit.

Image alteration of some older images

I started this blog as a review of Arte 060 and as such it seemed better to me to have photographs that were unmodified. After taking photos of Felice, I thought some facial expression would be kinda nice; so I decided to do some photo alteration in the spirit of good fun with no deceptive intentions. Effort shall be made to ensure that images that have been altered are labeled such.

Having done a bit of alteration, I recalled some earlier photos that could have been helped by image alteration. Here are a few that I've chosen to do.











The images have been altered to enhance colour, change shape of eyes and breast, and remove casting lines.

Cookie for Christmas

Images have been edited to remove seam lines and change facial expressions

Image altered 1

For Christmas I was planning on putting some edited images. In the spirit of that, I'm first showing a couple of altered images.


An unaltered head and shoulders photograph.


Image edited. I had planned on having Felice with black hair, don't know, if or when I'll end up doing that. It's a pretty bad image edit job.



image from
http://www.artetokio.com/english/felice.html

For a while, Felice 'Nei' was the for runner doll that I was going to get, being convinced that Arte Tokio wasn't going to accept my custom request. As such, I tried some image altering before ordering to see what she might look like. It's also a dodgy job, but it was meant for my eyes only. It's easier to turn brown hair to black hair than it is from pink.

New products, but not to America?

Ah it's the post Christmas period. Merry Christmas all and a happy New Year. A couple of noteworthy mentions of Arte Tokio. Firstly I got a message from someone wanting to order from them. This person had been told that Arte Tokio was not at the time accepting orders from America and would be contacted when they are. I found this somewhat odd, and decided to do a tiny bit of investigating. I concluded that it could be because of the time of year. Arte Tokio has stated on their website that they are on holiday from "New Years holiday is from December 27th to January 3rd.". (from http://www.artetokio.com/english/index.html) Though that's possibly the reason why an order couldn't be placed, it's not a concrete explanation as I received the message on the 21st of Dec, which is before their holiday time.

Another reason that occurred to me this might be is that they might be putting off accepting orders as part of negotiations with a reseller. There is something on their site that I had not noticed before:

"
Accepting application for overseas sales companies.
Arte Tokio is now accepting application for corporations currently involved in overseas sales. While negotiations with interested companies are now underway for Europe, Russia, America, China and other offers will be declined, the opportunity for sales in Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other countries is still open. Corporations interested in the latter countries are requested to contact us, along with an explanation of their company overview, by email.
"
on http://www.artetokio.com/english/aboutus.html


I'm generally leaning towards the notion that they are a small Nipon-centric company which is probably very busy currently, and probably doesn't want to take on business that it can't meet just yet, particularly from a client base that isn't their core.


Now on to other nice shinies. Well Arte Tokio has expanded their inventory, and this time it's stuff I would have particularly wanted, namely a long camisole, a different coloured wig and glasses (yes for the doll, not for me!).






image and screen capture from
http://www.artetokio.com/english/order03.html


And of particular note also, is this.


image from
http://www.artetokio.com/felice_an2.html

at the time this was written, you can see this doll only on the Japanese version of the site. Thinking about it, though I am happy with the custom Felice An I have now, and currently profess that of the body choices available, I'd choose the 'normal' Arte 060, however if this version of Felice were available when I was ordering, I probably would have gotten her instead. Guess that's the nature of commerce, keep making more stuff you want to get later.


Now on to a little nit picking. Firstly, I thought of getting glasses for Felice because I though she might look cute in them. Though there are glasses on the site now, I probably wouldn't be getting a pair, as I'd prefer them in a different style. I do realise that you can get doll accessories from elsewhere, but well, I didn't want to be shopping around and maybe gamble that the products wouldn't fit quite right. I'm not buying anything right now, so this is a hypothetical 'if I bought right now' speech.

Secondly, when I got Felice, my intention had been to have her with black hair, something I won't be doing for a while I think. But the site, at the time this was written is lacking in black wigs; though I am otherwise impressed by the range posted, and would probably have gotten a brown one. Probably the 'Gothic Twin tail Brown'.


image from
http://www.artetokio.com/english/order03.html


Yeaap, the more I look at the new Adult Felice An, the more I'm convinced I would have gotten her, considering that if I could have I would have gotten Tamaki. Since Adult Felice An is not a character licensed to Arte Tokio by someone else, I imagine it will be a short while before she's available on the English version of the site.

Fading paint

Today we'll do a bit of a retrospect. At the time this article is written, the paint on inside of Felice's left elbow has just about faded away all together. The thicker more robust paint on her right inside elbow remains largely intact


as noted on this image, that's about a month and 2 weeks.


Some paint remained a week ago, but noticeable fading had occurred by then


so that's noticeable paint fading by a month and a week after getting Felice, (with daily play).

At that same time, some face make up and lip paint can be observed to have faded

more evident on close up.

Nipples are of course a dodgy repaint by myself, they having faded away a while ago, and covered by an earlier post.

Ribbon Weave

illustrations by Hyung Tae Kim
image from http://www.ashtonwhitney.com/category/rants/

Inspired by a weave pattern I saw in a Hyung Tae Kim illustration, I played with the idea of a neck weave of ribbon that could help stiffen Felice's otherwise sloppy neck.




This is how I began.


With wire modification removed, it helped a little...


... but not a whoooole lot...


neck 'bone'


neck 'bone' modified. Just twirled a bit of wire on with pliers.


And a much more stable neck, stable enough to play with her.




Playing with the ribbon more had me come to a simpler version.


That works just as well.


As an appended note, the wig doesn't quite sit on the head as well as it used to. Noted a month and 2 weeks after I got her. It's possible they don't fare so well after they get wet, or maybe it's normal for it to become slack over time and usage.


Saw something like this on a smaller doll. Seeing what this might do to hair shape.