Barbie head mold confusion-headache, and question...

[DollyKim]

Okay, outside of a couple of fancy schmancy Barbies they make a sh*t load of every one. Prices are arbitrary. I've been looking for some from my childhood and it's all over the place so that doesn't matter.

The dolls want to be customized. They want to go with you to Imagination Land.

As for "ruining" it if you ruin everything you'll ruin nothing. It's a thanks Great Depression generation for leaving us with grandma's hoard full of 50 year old supplies that rotted away instead of being used. So the best way to combat that is to use stuff for their intended use and even come up with new ways to use it. We aren't going to run out of stuff. And if the people in your environment only have negative things to say stop showing them or pick things that don't matter much if they get hurt.

You need to find a blog platform, but not like Instagram, with a large artistic community and share some stuff. Tell people what supplies you used, what techniques you used, what inspired you if you want. But don't say anything disparaging, say neutral or positive things like you like how it came out or you learned something from it. The uplifting comments, rebloggers, and followers will come. The people asking questions how you did it will come.

You will find the positivity you need, you just have to look in a different place than you are for it.

And definitely post pics here, if we don't see it how can we enjoy it?

[Tam I am]

Do you have a picture of the ghost dancer character?

[Studio 126]

If you mean
http://kattisdolls.net/facesI/fc_BMillie2013.htm &
http://kattisdolls.net/facesI/fc_BT2014.htm ,
the latter has more pronounced dimples.

That is interesting that they call the 2014 Teresa sculpt "Bambi." Bambi is the name that I gave to one of my 1990 Teresas.

[WhiteDove01s]

And definitely post pics here, if we don't see it how can we enjoy it?

Thanks for the pep talk. (And sorry about the meltdown. ) I was mostly raised by my grandparents and they grew up during the Depression era so a lot of the values rubbed off on me. It's why I'm trying to shift perspective to think of dolls that aren't characters yet as "art supplies".

And I'll definitely try to do pics. I spent most of this year so far rearranging almost everything in my room to get desk space, and only yesterday found where the tablet stand went during the process. It's a lot easier to get pics online with that thing than it is either my laptop's webcam or my little handheld camera as it uploads them and has an automatic share-to-facebook function just as a starter. (Tho I need to still take a few days and clean it off because I managed to clog up all its memory with videos of the dog and the squirrels that are sometimes seen from my window.)

I just made the Amazon order with some extra long beading needles in it for reroots. (Brushing doll hair is one of the things that calms me, so I prefer that over the glue method just in case, unless a doll has particularly short hair or a style I wouldn't brush. I also hope to try wigmaking by the end of the year. I got my mitts on one of those multicolored clown wigs I hope to take apart for some colorful practice hair.)

[DollyKim]

Not a problem. I hope my gransmother is rolling in her grave the way I allow myself to burn thru things that I would have been told in my childhood would have needed to last me "forever". I've burnt out on and given away more stuff than I grew up with and it's always turned out for the better.

Did you say squirrel videos?

[WhiteDove01s]

Do you have a picture of the ghost dancer character?

Since I haven't done the OOAK yet, no. There is one known picture but I don't know how official it is. (and the descrip on that page says she's blond when I don't recall that from the Nightmare Lands boxed set.) I plan on using a good dollop of "artistic licence" when it comes to nightmare characters anyway.

What I have planned for her: I like to use monster high for Nightmaren/Nightmare Court/Other dream monsters as it's a way the weird proportions work well for me. I have a Spectra Vondergeist (I think? White Monster High with clear forearms and lower legs, molded chains on the wrists?) that arrived with a badly done near-buzz-cut do and a duct tape bikini. I'm still at the stage of cleaning off all the glue. I plan the end result to have almost no color... white, clear, light greys and silvers. I have silver and white hair ready. I want to try to do one of the older ballerina outfits with the knee-length skirt and the french-style off-the shoulder bodice. I need to look on ebay for some silver glittery tulle for part of it, maybe. Still planning. Maybe twist her hair up into a bun but leave some of it falling down. And if I did the bloodstains I want to hold off until I get some photo-reactive paint pigments so maybe they only show up in the sun. Because I like the idea of also seeing her in a non-bloody all-silvery state and don't want to have to do two dolls for it. Tho I guess if the remaining blood isn't on her I could get away with just doing two matching dresses, huh...

Since there's interest, maybe I could start on her first and make a thread for that?

[WhiteDove01s]

Did you say squirrel videos?

Yeah. I got myself a cheap Kindle Fire, and while I was learning to take video with it I kept taking short videos any time I spotted a squirrel at the feeder outside my bedroom window. I went over to facebook (been avoiding it the last couple months between a lack of time and that it just isn't working right on my computer or I just don't know how to get it to work) but couldn't find any of them or make much sense of the photo section there.

Taking the pics is easy, figuring out how to get them online and stored somewhere I can share them isn't for me. Imgur is the only place I know of that works for posting. Youtube I'm still wary about for videos because of the Coppa mess. The tablet was fun for having an auto-share button, but then one day it lost most functionality due to being out of memory because it was saving everything I took on its internal drive instead of on the SD and/or the cloud, and cleaning it off is being a nightmare that involves being logged in to Amazon on desktop and using the tablet at the same time so I can download everything I might want to keep first. Sometimes I just don't get it... I used to be good with tech years ago. I have and can still build a desktop from scratch. But trying to share media makes me feel like a monkey trying to do math.

[Tam I am]

She sounds like she's going to be lovely, Dove!

I got the Monster High ghost mermaid the other day. She's beautiful. Her face is a very different shape from Spectra's.

[DollyKim]

Spectra sounds perfect. If we lived near each other I'd be asking what color tulle because I have a lot just sitting around for unmade tutus since I got that Jenny doll book :/.

I will recommend buying a spool of tulle for doll sized tutus, cutting from yardage is a nightmare in its self.

[WhiteDove01s]

She sounds like she's going to be lovely, Dove!

I got the Monster High ghost mermaid the other day. She's beautiful. Her face is a very different shape from Spectra's.

I'm hoping so. I think Spectra's thinner face will work better considering the Nightmare Realm Ghost Dancer haunts people in their dreams. She's described as looking "tragic", which the thinner face suits better than a friendlier one. As soon as I got my mitts on a Spectra I thought of her.