Dollimus Prime

no leaves, but plenty of eyes.

inspired by me spacing out on a long drive & staring at trees. this happened earlier this year, and birches ended up growing leaves before i finished the doll.

HAVE BEEN WORKING ON THIS FOR SO LONG AND PLANNING THIS FOR EVEN LONGER I AM SO HAPPY TO FINALLY BE DONE LOL!!!!

notes + closeups under the cut!!

Little Menaces - Angel Kiana

these faux porcelain & filigree animals might become a series because they are just so fun to make.

using paper napkins for decoupage has also made me a superfan of william morris. his designs have so many elements going on i could make five completely different dolls from a single one. the patterns on this bunny are from the strawberry thief, pictured below.

he talks a lot about how much of doll's fashion wouldn't exist without Black culture and has pretty insightful reviews for any fellow doll enthusiasts!

lonely-only

speedpaint:

Prompt 2, to help resist buying new things from big corps! Especially as they try to tempt us with black friday sales.

Thirteen doll-related questions for your answering enjoyment! I'll put my answers after the cut. (Thirteen Qs, because Monster High is one of my favorite franchises.)

1. What's your best doll memory from this year? 2. Which doll is the most spoiled? (gets the most photos, wears the best outfits, has the most lore...) 3. Do you have any dolls from childhood still? Who are they? 4. What's the strangest place you've ever taken a doll photo? 5. Imagine you get to design your perfect doll: tell us about them! 6. Which platform do you most like to use to share and meet other collectors? 7. What's your storage situation like? How about display? Do you want to change either? 8. Do you have stories/lore for your dolls or are they just pretty to look at? 9. Anyone in your crew in a relationship? 10. Have you had any fun doll interactions "in the wild"? 11. Would you ever go to a meet-up or convention? What would you want that to include? 12. What's a customizing skill you want to get better at in 2026? 13. Tell us something about yourself, not related to dolls!

I'm not sure I have one that's the MOST spoiled, but Raquel was the first one I designed a collection and made a 6-book arc for, and I am now working on piecing together that collection from the secondary market.

Only one, my Lucy (JLY 28). She's been with me since 2006 and will be my constant companion.

Under a giant rocket at the Space and Rocket Center!

That's basically Raquel! I wish she were a real AG character, but maybe she's better in my hands. Other than that, it would be fun to have a true mini-me. Lila is closest, but she's not quite it.

Tumblr and Discord!

Not great. I have a shoe rack that's like a quadruple bunk bed, and a couple of AG boxes under my bed. I display them on top of some storage cubicles. Once I'm somewhere I know I'll be living for a while, I'll be getting shelves where I can store and display them at the same time.

They all have lore, although some more developed than others (the Wellies least of all, but they do have it!)

Luci and Valu (my Lea) were my first pairing - STEM girlies! Next came Ivy and Sonali, marching band gfs. Finally, there's Chrissa and Gwen, who are in a pre/early relationship phase.

My 24th birthday visit to AG was super fun!

I would love to! It would be fun if we did some of the crafts from the pastimes/magazines.

I'd like to finally try recurling my Kanani's dead hair! I've had her for several years now and still have never tried.

2. Which doll is the most spoiled? (gets the most photos, wears the best outfits, has the most lore...) For the last 6ish months it's been a three-way tie: my mini-me, Marta (lightly customized 24), and Shamsa (TM62).

3. Do you have any dolls from childhood still? Who are they? Yes, but not AG. They are a couple of baby dolls I got when I was about 8.

4. What's the strangest place you've ever taken a doll photo? The middle of a horse pasture. Keeping my doll from being stepped on by curious horses was challenging.

5. Imagine you get to design your perfect doll: tell us about them! 18 inches with articulated elbows and knees, maybe wrists and ankles, medium-toned skin, blue eyes, dark curly hair, and blue eyes with a Jess mold (to look like the neolithic peoples from the middle and near east).

6. Which platform do you most like to use to share and meet other collectors? Tumblr

7. What's your storage situation like? How about display? Do you want to change either? Storage totes in the closet for most things, with some vacuum sealed bags for the clothes. I'd like to have less to store, but I really like the things I have. Kit's furniture is SO cute, but I don't have space to display it, so it sits on the closet shelf.

I have a shelf on the wall and a space on my desk for display, but I don't like clutter, so I only have one or two dolls out at a time. If I had a totally spare room, I'd set up a giant dollhouse and display more there.

8. Do you have stories/lore for your dolls or are they just pretty to look at? Stories and lore galore. That's half the fun for me.

9. Anyone in your crew in a relationship? Nope. Some are friends, some are sisters. All my girls are about 10, and still into other things than relationships.

10. Have you had any fun doll interactions "in the wild"? My kid found a couple of dolls at a thrift store and was immediately like "Look! Do you want these?!"

11. Would you ever go to a meet-up or convention? What would you want that to include? Probably not. I'm perfectly happy sharing in online spaces.

12. What's a customizing skill you want to get better at in 2026? I still struggle to get lips and teeth to look just right if I have to paint them. It's something I've been working on since 2020.

2. Which doll is the most spoiled? (gets the most photos, wears the best outfits, has the most lore...) Ara's probably got the most lore, but right now, the DearSDs are getting the most spoiled in terms of time taken with them and outfits made for them. The AGs also have a good amount of clothes, but they're just lucky in that there's only two of them to share between.

3. Do you have any dolls from childhood still? Who are they? Unfortunately not. I did have a Molly doll growing up though and bought a different one at an estate sale a couple years back, so I kind of have her back.

4. What's the strangest place you've ever taken a doll photo? Ah, nowhere particularly odd. I've got some photos from my walk home from work, and some in my old office.

5. Imagine you get to design your perfect doll: tell us about them! Double joints for sure. I'd love a chunkier, more youthful body. Size, not sure, but I am still on my DearSD and smaller 1/3 streak. Either a dark, cool-toned tan or a pastel fantasy color, maybe lavender. Slight hint of a smile, especially if the mouth is a bit open. Alternatively, sleek and futuristic robot/cyborg doll. Plenty of mechanical details and/or lines cut into the sculpt to dictate where chassis plates are. More mechanical parts are electroplated.

6. Which platform do you most like to use to share and meet other collectors? I enjoy forums like DoA and wish their popularity picked up a bit more. I miss the forum era of the 00s-early 10s. Discord's good, too, but I'm not in any dolly servers these days, last one I was in, er, imploded.

Instagram's fine for updates from doll artists or some sales, but I don't like it for trying to form a community.

7. What's your storage situation like? How about display? Do you want to change either? The BJDs have a display cabinet in my living room, and the AGs sit on top of a cabinet/nightstand in my bedroom. Storage is either inside the AGs' cabinet, in the dolls' boxes stored under my bed, or in a handful of boxes around/under the BJDs' display cabinet.

I dream of having a room I could dedicate to craft things, and a whole closet I could transform into a giant dollhouse. Alas, I've just got a studio apartment right now.

8. Do you have stories/lore for your dolls or are they just pretty to look at? Depends on which group they are.

The AG dolls are sewing models for the most part, but I do have a bench and some props for them. The 1/4 scale BJDs have a whole lore connection thing that's some sci-fantasy romp, with about half of them related through an extensive royal family situation all centered around Ara. (Suha's his sister, Fiadh's a foster sister, Tian Ni and Nawra are his cousins, Nova's his bestie, Clover is Nawra's girlfriend.) Thalassus is an immortal space pirate in that universe currently.

The DearSDs are there to be cute. They don't have a whole lore setup, but they do have some general personality/ages.

The 1/3s do have some lore, but they're not tied to each other. Nikki's got the classic escaped lab experiment learning to be a real girl deal, Chandra's a wandering punk rock biker gal.

9. Anyone in your crew in a relationship? Nawra and Clover! I tried having a girlfriend for Suha but that doll didn't work out, so she's a single pringle once more.

10. Have you had any fun doll interactions "in the wild"? Nah, not from random folks. I'm not brave enough to bring my dolls to public spaces yet!

11. Would you ever go to a meet-up or convention? What would you want that to include? I have gone to a couple meetups and am hoping to go to a convention in the next year or two! I'm happy to hang out, look at everyone's dolls, chat about them, and the meetups have had photography spots with fun props.

12. What's a customizing skill you want to get better at in 2026? Mostly improving my sewing, but if I redo any faceups, I want to get better at eyebrows. A lot of my dolls have dark eyebrows and I think the pastel base layer needs to be lighter so the pencil "hairs" are actually visible.

My Clawdeen BJD restyle is complete! This was soooo much fun. Check out the process on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/4xTl5HzibUI?si=1WY6A5QtljpT_qNe

Made a ball jointed doll of myself hhhhh