Liebster Award!

Because of my longstanding computer problems which really set back my ability to blog regularly, I wasn't able to respond to being nominated twice for this a few months ago!

 

About The Liebster Award

The Liebster Award is an award made for bloggers by bloggers, aiming to put the spotlight on new bloggers and give them a chance to shine and get known here in the blogging world.

The Rules

– Put the Liebster Award logo on your blog.
– Thank and tag the blog who nominated you.
– Answer their questions and come up with 10 new ones for your nominees
– Nominate 8 blogs (with less than 200 followers), let them know you’ve nominated them, and link them in your post
– No tag-backs

The first was by Beth from Chestnut Heartbeats and I was so touched to read I was her customising inspiration, that seriously made my day, thank you so much! <3 p="">

Extreme face painting!

Although I don't post about them as much, I have a budding 1/6th scale doll collection, mostly of charity shop rescues and the odd one from ebay. (like the super cheap 12" Doctor Who figure with one leg who I intend to make into a post apocalyptic cyborg wasteland wanderer. XD)

I've got another Skyrim inspired one to post about soon actually, but I'll leave him til another time.

I bought this 'Get Real Girls' doll a couple of years ago. The range was designed to rival Barbie, with an emphasis on sport and outdoor activities and absolutely zero pink. The clothes and accessories were really good quality, as were the dolls themselves, though I believe Mattel pressured the company behind them to the point that they ceased production, which is a real shame as they had a lot of potential.

While I liked the body, the headsculpt left much to be desired. The facial features, especially the eyes were far too stylised for my taste so she had to have a bit of work done...

Ignore the clothes - the shoulder armour belongs to someone else but she'll probably end up as another wastelander eventually...although now that she's done I'm kinda changing my mind a bit.

To start with I whipped out the acetone and carefully removed her original face paint.

Then, once I'd given the head a quick rinse to remove any remaining acetone, started adding in a new face. This was tricky as the head had no sculpted eyes, so I was painting directly onto smooth plastic with little visual or sculptural clues as to where the eyes should go, so they're a little wonky. (not helped by the fact that all my good tiny brushes weren't tiny enough for the level of detail I wanted.)

She still looked a bit plain so I gave her some freckles and now I love her.

I added in some white 'highlights' which made more of a difference to her expression than I was expecting, though they look a tad green due to the underlying paint seeping through.

I'd covered up her head so I could seal her face, then unwrapped it and dipped it in boiling water to restyle the hair. It wasn't the best quality hair but I'm not ready to attempt re-rooting and I thought it had potential to look good with a little work.

She's far from perfect but I like her a LOT more than I originally did as she has a lot more personality.

I gave her some new hands as the ones she came with - while not as useless as Barbie ones - came with a magnet set into one (presumably to interact with specific accessories) and were therefore not really all that realistic.

My only other GRG doll had an even more extreme makeover a few years back into an alien thief of unknown species - Hetche!

I really want to get back into my sci fi crew- I had great plans for photostories and things but, like many projects I start, I end up postponing them for ages, which is frustrating to say the least.

Also, random thought but I realised today that this is the first time in the history of this blog that I've managed to post at least once EVERY month! Woot!

Apparently I was destined to have this one...

I'm not a big believer in fate or destiny or whatever you'd call it, but sometimes things happen that just seem meant to be!

A few months back I was idly browsing MH$P looking for vintage customs. I don't really collect Trads these days as they take up far too much space and I prefer to concentrate on my Julips, but there's something about the often naive charm of older customs that really appeals to me - not least because many of them are mohaired, which is one of my favourite methods of customisation.

Anyway, one such vintage caught my eye - a Breyer 'Smoky' etched to an extremely loud sabino/overo (at least I think that's what you'd call it anyway) by Judy/Judith Miller. I love wild sabinos and etchies, so he immediately spoke to me. He'd had a broken tail but that didn't bother me that much because most of my models are just kept on display and rarely shown. He was cheap too, considering how much work had gone into him and I was seriously tempted. He was still available, so while I was trying to decide whether I should go for him or not, I googled the artist, hoping to see more pictures of her work. Unfortunately, the first thing to come up was a completed eBay auction of that very same horse...which had just sold.

 

I shot the seller an email just in case and to my dismay I discovered that they'd just forgotten to take down the MH$P ad and he was indeed no longer available.

Obviously there was nothing that could be done, so I carried on with life, occasionally wondering where he was now, until one day last month I was on MH$P once again and...wait, was that? Yes!

He was back up for sale, presumably by whomever bought him on ebay, and the best part?

The ad was listed on my birthday. Obviously the fates wanted me to have this horse!

This time I had no hesitations and hastily emailed the seller until I got word back that he was mine! :D

Border Reiver tack anyone?

I've been meaning to post about this for years, but persistent computer issues have put me off...but no longer! I have a shiny new computer that actually functions, hoorah!

---

I have always had a particular affinity for the Scottish Borders, not least because most of my ancestors hail from there, but mostly because it's where we go on holiday every year. I feel more at home there than I do in my home town of Glasgow, but that's perhaps not surprising - I'm not a big fan of cities in general. (although the phone reception here is far better!)

Anyway, a number of years ago whilst driving through the countryside we saw a sign advertising a 'living history' display at the 13th century Old Buittle Tower by 'The Borderers', a group of like-minded individuals from across the UK and some from as far afield as the Netherlands, who dressed up in period costume and weaponry, complete with fully kitted out ponies bred to resemble the now long gone Galloway type. This was pre-Nigel, so I didn't get any photos other than this one on my ye olde film camera but I remember being blown away by everything, from the mounted archery and shooting at a gallop, to the fascinating history behind the Border Reivers themselves.