Happy new year everyone! I made it back to the USA roughly a week ago and jumped straight back to work at my day job. I just got done with a 6 day work week. That was exhausting! Anyway, I put live my new prices, a $5 increase for each size, and I decided to charge extra for fantasy face ups again as they do take me a lot longer than a basic/natural one. I also changed that I'll ask for half up front for payment, and the rest when I'm done and have the work approved. I also offer layaway for jobs totaling a minimum of $100. Now for the WIP. I did find some time to finally get working on the Doll in Mind Rain USPS lost for a while and arrived late to me. I'm not done yet, I'm about 2/3 there though! Things I still need to add with him are red to the eyebrows, eye details, and robins egg blue coloring to the outer corner of the lips. I'll be able to work on him more tomorrow, today I'm too tired after working again.
0 Comments
My wife and I arrived safe and sound in Vienna two days ago after a long, but fortunately uneventful trip. Yesterday we bought a 9 foot (3 meter) tree with my dad and decorated it too. It's a beauty! Here's the tree (and my wife) in all its glory! It's covered in ornaments and chocolate. Yum! We're celebrating christmas tomorrow, which means I have to wrap gifts today.
Today we'll be going to a Christmas Market and having a grand old time. Either way, while I'm galavanting in Vienna, Austria I obviously can't work on commissions. I didn't even bring any dolls with me as I didn't want to deal with lugging one around the airports internationally. I'll re-open shop and commissions once I'm back in the US in the first week of January. Happy holidays and a grand new year if I don't post again before then! I finally managed to finish up the Doll Chateau Beatrice. She turned out super cute and pretty in my opinion, and the owner loves the work as well. I've gotten through a good chunk of my commissions at this point, which is good, because I'll be heading off to Austria on December 20th until January 2nd (though we'll probably arrive closer to January 3rd as we're landing shortly before midnight...). Anyway, onto some picture! I'm very happy with the end result. She's such a finicky little thing to get to stand as she doesn't have ankle joints. The S-hooks are in the knees and elbows, so her posing is a bit limited. Now for the FYI.
I'll be raising my prices in January. I'll also be charging extra for fantasy face ups depending on how long the work is going to take. I'll still have a flat base price for basic face ups/body blushes, but if you need anything added like scars or tattoos the price will reflect that. Freckles are included in the basic face up price. The reason behind that is because it can take me many more hours to get a fantasy face up done, sometimes it'll take 6 times as long as a basic face up. In the end it doesn't even cover the cost of materials what I charge. Those who I've already quoted a price don't need to worry as I will not be changing my already existing estimates. I've painted this doll four times already, because with each redo I improved and figured out something new skill wise and wanted to update the face up. The doll I'm talking about is my SO's Soom MD Shale in cream white. He has white blonde hair and the main reason I redid him this time was because I finally figured out how to do really light blonde eyelashes and eyebrows. Anyway, onto some pictures and then I'll explain the FYI! Here you can also see how I've progressed at painting him. The second face up I gave him I was learning to use brush rather than watercolor pencils and it wasn't very good... but the third time I had improved already and by the 4th he's looking pretty good!
Now for the FYI! I'm getting married this weekend to my beautiful and wonderful SO who I've been with for over 4 years. We've been friends for a good 7 years and roommates for 5.5 years. I'm so happy I get to call her my wife this coming Sunday. What does that mean for you guys? Not much really, other than that I won't be able to produce a face up easily this week due to being in full on finishing up wedding preparation. There will be at least some pictures I'm sure I'll post once the festivities are over. My dad and uncle are flying in from oversea's to attend. My sister sadly can't make it, but I'll be going with my SO to visit her and my family in Austria for Christmas (which means I'll be closing shop for the month of December). Anyway, enough blathering on my part! See you next time when I have more to post! Thanks for sticking with me! Due to working two jobs and doing face ups as well, there's going to be some delays in getting the rest of my commissions taken care of. I'm very sorry for this! I usually just do part time hours at my morning job, but I worked full time shifts several times this week, and the days I didn't I was working at my afternoon job. That one I work at less frequently, maybe 2-3 times a week. I also work Saturday this week, giving me a 6 day work week. Next week I have to work both jobs every week day. Oof... that'll be rough. Anyway, I did manage to get one more face up done this week in the morning. It was a simple one so it went quick. I worked on a Soom FCE Thera in bronze skin. I just love the Soom bronze resin tone, it's such a lovely and rich color. I was asked to put white freckles on her, which proved to be tricky and took 2 tries, but in the end it worked out. I'm also really proud of her eyebrows!
This also marks my 199th face up, which means that now I'll have to redo Zephyra, my first resin doll, to mark the occasion of 200 face ups! She was my first and 100th, so it's only fitting she becomes my 200th one as well. Thank you for being so patient with me getting new work done slowly. You guys are really the best! That's right, today is my birthday once again. I also officially raised my prices for any new commissions I pick up.
I have all of the heads and bodies now on me that I was waiting on, so this week I'll be a busy bee painting them all! Some are already in process, but most I still need to start on. Last weekend was Anime Detour (my first convention ever) so I wasn't able to work on anything. At least the weather is going to be super nice this week so I can work on things after I get home from work. Just not today, tonight I'll be celebrating my birthday. Thank you to everyone that's commissioned me in the past and currently, you guys really are the best. Here's to another successful rotation around the sun! I haven't raised my prices in over a year, so it's time to do so. I feel I'm improved enough to do so. I'm only going to raise my face up and body work prices by $5 each. I think that's very reasonable.
Those who I've already quoted are still going to get the quoted price, so no need to fret if you are a current customer and in the middle of commissioning me! Also I started a new job, so now I have weekends off again rather than Mondays and Tuesdays. Such a strange concept to me after almost 2 years of my life! I'll be going to Anime Detour this weekend, so I'll be sprinkling in face up work in the mornings and evenings as long as I'm not too brain dead! I'm filled on commissions at this point, but my wait list is open as I clear them out. And the last bit of news I got is that my birthday is next week! Right on April 1st. Yes, I'm an April fool's baby (there is a joke behind that but I'll spare you the details). Good thing I love terrible jokes! Since I have no new work to show this week I decided to post my own collection, though 7 in the set up belong to my SO. And here's everyone! Not the greatest of pictures, but it'll do. This is the set up they are always in, even with my two cats prowling about. My SO is expecting another SD boy and an SD body for a floating head.
SD row: Mystic Kids Miri, Resinsoul Ai/DF-A/Soom Beryl hybrid, Soom FC Chrom, DragonDoll Cheng, Dollzone Chen, Dollzone Stramonium, Dollzone April. MSD row: Soom MD Rico, Limhwa Lily, Dollzone Miss Kitty/DC K-01/ Soom Cheshire hybrid, Angell-Studio Dina, Fairyland MNF Ryeon, Dollzone Shoyo, Soom MD Shale/DC K-02 hybrid, Soom SO Shale/Luts Pegasus Jamong hybrid, Eve Studios Pet Oriental cat. YoSD row: Fairyland LTF Chiwoo Elf Girl, Fairyland LTF DES, Soom FC Beyla/ FL LTF/Daisy Dayes hybrid, Soom MD Winnie Dee Ai, Fairyland LTF DES, Dollzone Chinese Dragon Girl/DZ Miss Kitty hybrid. Tiny row: Dollzone Sheep/Daisy Dayes hybrid, Dollzone Dale human. All the italicized dolls belong to my SO, the rest are mine. Just about all of them have been painted by me, except for the DZ April (though I did add freckles to her default face up) and the Eve Studios Pet cat. Everyone else has been customized by me in either face up or body blush. I managed to finish the last of the commissions I had and shipped everything out today. I feel accomplished! As for the FYI, I'm closing commissions until March. I'm going to take a break and work on some personal projects since my poor dolls have been neglected with old face ups that I could do so much better now! Anyway, onto the work from this week! First up is a Fairyland LTF Rolly VE faceplate from a friend of mine. She wanted me to paint her as a little goth girl, which I was happy to do. I think it turned out very nice. And then here we have the legs of my SO's Soom Ai girl. She's a red dear so red hooves it is. I was surprised at how few layers that took to build up. I only used about two layers of color to build up the red and another two for the hooves.
2014 is officially over and it is now 2015. Wow, what a year it's been! This year I only completed 50 face ups (but I did a lot of body work too), while last year I did 56. That's okay, I still have a few heads with me to paint that I couldn't get to before my one week vacation. Either way, time to show off my favorite face ups for each month of last year! My doll family also expanded by quite a bit. I'm at 17 dolls right now and one of them needs a face up, and a few others need a redo.
The vacation was nice, I had a very good Christmas with my SO and her family. For Christmas dinner most of her family came over so we were at 25 people and I made 10 pounds of mashed potatoes. Not much was left over after that many people. It was all good. Anyway, here's to 2015 being a great year! I'm closing shop for the next week because I'm going on vacation to Florida to spend Christmas with my SO and her family. We're flying out tomorrow in the morning. I'm shipping off the last commission today during lunch at work (hopefully), though I should be able to just drop it off later in the box drop off as well. So nice to have a postage scale and know exactly how much shipping will be and then being able to pre-pay the shipping!
I'll be back on the 27th, so I should be able to do at least one more commission before the year is up. 2014 was a hard but good year for me. Anyway, I wish everyone a happy holidays! I just received yesterday the head from the winner of my Tumblr raffle, it is an Impldoll Aldrich just like I used to own. He's a dragon (unlike mine) so he's going to be a lot of fun to work on. I'll get to use my shimmer powders on him. I was also contacted by a friend to work on one of her dolls. She'll drop him off with me on the weekend. Finally I'm starting to get commissions again, which is wonderful because I've been going through doll painting withdrawal. I did repaint my partner's Soom MD Shale again, but I haven't documented it yet. My partner also got her centaur's new body, so I had to shift the doll set up again. Sticking 8 MSDs into one row was a task and a half. See what I mean? The dresser is definitely getting too small at this point. We have another YoSD coming, but I know how to fit her into the set up. Also there's an SD floating head that needs a body, but I think I know how to get him in there too.
Only 2 dolls (MSD) are in a doll stand, everyone else is just standing on their own. Though the SDs are leaning against the wall for support. I've been sick as a dog since Saturday, but I finally feel better today so that's a good thing. That means I can finally mail out the last two commissions I had completed. Either way, I repainted my new girl yesterday and finally documented her this morning. She is a Limhwa Lily in normal skin. I'm really impressed with her posing, the MSD Limhwa girl body really is a treasure. It moves very smoothly and holds poses nicely. I haven't even really bothered to think about sueding her. Her buttlocks are a little finicky, but they do work to keep her sitting upright. Overall, I am very pleased with her.
Now for the FYI: I'm holding a free face up raffle on my Tumblr. The rules and everything are in this post. Since I'm all out of commissions I thought it would be fun to hold another raffle. I tend to greatly enjoy them. Either way, if you would like to try and get a free face up from me and have a tumblr, like and reblog that post! Well looks like I'm out of commissions again, but that's okay. My friend who wanted me to paint her DF-A Fox decided to sell the little booger instead.
All I got to paint now is my new doll that is coming today (a Limhwa Lily), and maybe redo some face ups on my own dolls, but that's about it. Val, my DZ Chen, is in need of a new face up, his is rather old at this point (it was #38). I'm at 138 completed face ups at this point, which has me really proud. I started taking commissions for face ups around end of 2011/beginning 2012. I feel pretty accomplished with how far I've gotten in my craft. Either way, if you need a doll painted, or a friend does, just send me a contact form, or an email, and I'd be happy to do so. I lowered my turn around rate to 2-3 weeks, though more than likely I'll get done sooner with your dears. I'm debating buying ad space on DoA again, it did help business last time. I'm back from my trip overseas to see my family and came home with treats, many experiences, and an awkward sunburn along my neck and chest from walking without sunscreen in Budapest.
My SO and I visited Austria, Hungary, and Serbia. She didn't like Serbia much (the amenities weren't the greatest, i.e.: the outhouse for a bathroom), but she loved everything else. It was her first trip to Europe and across the ocean. Her favorite part was all the food. It is nice to be back home though and in our own bed. So much nicer than a pull out couch for 2 weeks. It was comfortable, but still it's good to be home. The kitties missed us a lot and greeted us with a chorus. Either way, that means I'm open for commissions again. I still have a few left over that I'll hammer out this next week. |
Iza's Face UpsWelcome to the blog area of my site. Here you get to see my progress shots and the such of what I work on. Also I post news here. Enjoy! To Do List:
Archives
April 2024
Categories
All
|