Out of the box

My newest (and probably final) factory girl is here! Unlike Ash, I kind of like her straight away, even though her catalogue of faults is far more extensive. I wonder why that is....

She has the obligatory ick matted hair. There was actually melty rubber band in it! Thankfully it hadn't bonded into her hair at all and I could just pull it out. She's had a hair treatment and is looking better already.
Her scalp is a very different skin tone to her face - that I'm not very pleased about at all as obviously it isn't something that can be fixed! I'm wondering if I should just put her reroot on a coolcat scalp instead or maybe try to swap it for a scalp of the same skintone. She also has a bit of a gap between her scalp and faceplate. You can see from the pic how nasty looking her hair was.





The poor girl got saddled with a bad body too (maybe that's why I feel a connection with her :P). Different coloured torso and legs, a few little black marks here and there, a little gap in the join where none should be. A shame because she has the pink nailpolish arms that I like so much. I'm thinking of popping her on a Pure Neemo Flection - yeah baby!
She has a wonky eyelash (saw that in her auction pic).
Her mech works beautifully, and the special green chips are really lovely. I don't like the ambers or the pinks, so I'll change them out ASAP.
Most annoyingly (as I wanted to preserve her makeup because I liked it), she has some unexpected flaws on her face. There are a few little speckles of blush here and there - even in her eyelashes. Her blush is uneven and she has some flaws in the glossy finish on the plastic on her forehead. *sigh* Lena, you really need to take better photographs! I scrutinised the auction pics for ages without seeing these problems :( I was tempted to see if I could send her back, but the postage is so expensive it really makes it impractical.

I'm wondering if I might be able to somehow sand her while carefully preserving her makeup or if it's a lost cause. Such a shame, because I'm finding her cute in the extreme which I was not expecting at all! She immediately told me her name is Roxy and I think I'm going to like her :)

My first Blythe custom

I've had so much fun the last few days "making over" Ashling. I wasn't too sure about the look that I wanted for her, so I just kind of played with colours and blush until I got something I felt reasonably happy with.

I'm glad that I did the work on the Basaak first, as I was not at all nervous about pulling her apart and I had a little bit more of an idea of how the pastels behaved. I'm not really happy with her lips, but I think that until I get some MSC so I can build up the colour some more, they'll have to do for now. If it becomes apparent that I just can't do lips at all, I'll send her away to an Aussie customiser to have this done. Originally I gave her green pastel eyeshadow, but I wasn't happy with the colour once it was on her as it looked kind of yellowish. Since I already have a Blythe on the way with yellow eye shadow I went with some a neutral brown.

As you can see, I've managed to tame her hair a little now as well. When it was still wet I made it into ringlets and when it dried it looked great! Sadly during the process of putting her head back together they have kind of fallen out. Still, there is no arguing that her hair looks much much better than when I started and I have decided that for the time being at least, she can keep her hair as is.

I've given her some new chips too, olive drab and plain baby blue (which I'm not as keen on). Initially I took out the plum ones that she came with, but I've since put them back in. I think they might be the same purple/plum chips that PAM has and it's about as close to having a PAM that I'll ever get!

Hot water - the miracle treatment!

I cannot believe that it's Thursday already. This is insane! I've got to work on my group assignment (otherwise known as "I must do all of the assignment because the rest of the goup are complete losers that don't care if they fail"), but I was feeling a bit stressed out about it all, so I took a little bit of time out to do an experiment on my newest victim, Ashling.

As anyone who reads this blog or follows me on Flickr will know, I hate her hair. Horrible horrible carrot red frizz. I tried to curl it to no avail, the frizz returned within minutes. Since I'm planning to chop it all off and reroot her anyway, I thought I might attempt a hot water treatment on it. I've always thought it seemed like such a risky thing in that there's a chance the hair could melt if it's not done properly, and also once the curl is gone it's gone for good. Only a boil perm will get it back and those can have unpredictable results. So anyway, off I went and did it, and you know what....it's tamed it. It's still wringing wet, but it's much much longer and the curl is only on the ends. She seems much less Susan Boyle and more Nicole Kidman now. If it looks ok when it's dried completely, I may even keep it. Who knew that a bit of hot water and a brush could do that! On the down side, it's still falling out :(

Deboxing a factory girl...not quite the same

I ran into the post office in my lunch break to pick up my red haired factory girl and I was dying for the day to end so I could go home and see what she looked like in person. So here it is - the great deboxing.



The box got damaged but she was OK.

Mostly because she was wrapped in bubble wrap like some kind of coccoon.



And here she is in all her glory



You can't quite tell from the photographs, but she has most of the faults that I warned of in my Factory Girls post (ironic huh?), none of which were disclosed. Still, I bought her to customise and for that she will be fine. Here's her list of "issues".

Bad hair - it looked ok in the auction pic, but it's kinda ratty. A lot came out from just running my hands through her hair. Her curls have crispy ends - to be honest I think my Basaak had better hair, albeit thinly rooted. I don't know if she'll be keeping it. I've just given it a quick wash and put it in curlers, but if it keeps coming out it will have to go.

Mixed body parts - she has transluscent legs and a dark smudge on her back. On the upside, she has pink nailpolish - pretty!

Scratched face - I tried to photograph it, but couldn't capture it. She has a scuff on her forhead and a green scratch near her eye. Hopefully they will both sand out.

Scratched eyelids - her lids both have a line of "wear" on them where they have been rubbing on something inside her head.

On the bright side, her eyes do work, and I still got a great doll to customise, which is what I wanted her for. I kinda hope her hair turns out to be ok and stops shedding all over the place as I don't mind the colour. On the other hand, I've seen some very beautiful red wenslydale locks that would look amazing...and also some gorgeous white mohair of the shiny variety (mmmm shiny!)



Right now she's in curlers, waiting her turn to get prettied up. I don't even have anything much for her to wear that doesn't clash horribly with her hair! I will need to sew her something just for her I think. She'll have to be patient as I'm very busy this weekend. Besides, I still have a blue bob to cut.

So close, yet so far...

My redhead factory girl is trapped at the post office. Oh why did I not take a sickie today as I was considering?! For the record, I am actually not 100%...and worse still is that I can pinpoint the exact moment I came into contact with this lergy - a boy coughed in my face (so disgusting - who does that??) at the supermarket and I thought to myself "yep, bet I get sick" and a few days later here I am all icky and blocked up.

So anyway, I have to wait until tomorrow after work to pick her up and the suspense is killing me! Zumpf and Sadifairy from Plastic Paradise have bought her sisters and I think it's so cool that this online Blythe community make it possible for me to know that! They both live in the US, so it's extremely unlikely that I'd come across this info if it weren't for the magic of forums and Flickr.

I've got some ideas from the community about the bits that make up my blonde girl too. Rumour has it that her eyes belong to Q-pot or possibly Christina the Bride and her face is either Mango's (most likey I suppose) or excitingly, the not yet released Nicky Lad. I don't know that I will keep her as a blonde with that colour eye shadow now... I think a deeper colour would suit her better. I'm open to suggestions if you have any! I want to get the saran ordered straight away so I can get started.