A few behind the scenes photos from the story about Baron and Naomi's babies.... I wanted a nice location for the scene with Rex escorting the Doctor to the palace, and thought the scillas would be the perfect spot. The photos were taken on April 14th, 2023. I pose the dolls, and then sit down at a distance, and since it's a challenge for me to get up and down a lot, I ask Jan to make any small adjustments... Then I zoom in to take the photos... After the birth of Baron and Naomi's twins, I had all their friends come for a visit. I figured that they would host the dragon family out on the castle terrace, so set up the scene on the patio table. I created their 'garden' by surrounding the scene with baskets of million bells. I always buy several baskets of them every spring, because they have the perfect in-scale size flowers. The photos were taken on August 27, 2023, on a hazy, sunny afternoon. I set up the dolls in the shade, with their backs to the bright light. So I needed Jan to hold a white card to bounce light into the scene... Then I take close up photos... It was September 10th, and the sun was getting low int he sky, so any scenes in the usual direction on the patio table would be severely back-lit, which doesn't make for nice photos. So I set up this scene the other direction with the background to the north with the stone fireplace in the background. I filled the background with baskets of million bells. Many of the leaves from our crabapple trees, which usually provide shade on the patio all summer, had fallen already, so the scene was partly in the sun, which also doesn't make for the best photos. But there were also scattered clouds, so I took my chances. So I poked long sticks into the baskets of million bells to support clotheslines, and hung up the 'laundry'.... Then took close up photos of Lisa and Naomi interacting with the babies.... I like to throw 'birthday' parties for my dolls on their arrival dates, and Baron's was coming up at the end of October, and I thought that would be the perfect day to have the babies Christened, and then have a party afterwards where he'd finally meet his half brother. So I set up the party scene on the dining room table, and filled it with his family and friends.... It's times like this that I wish the background walls were higher, since it's impossible to have everyone in a single photo.... ...unless I severely crop it into a 'wide screen' format.... But the scene provides ample opportunity for close-ups.... Then I'll keep moving everyone around, and take more close-ups...
Taking a behind the scenes look at some of the recent photos of my Ruby Red dolls. First the scene of them decorating the gingerbread house. Like usual I set everything up on a box on the kitchen counter. That's so the dolls are at roughly the height that their eyes would be if they were real children, which is important for shooting anything in forced perspective.... Jan had been baking chocolate cakes that morning for our granddaughter's birthday, so I scraped some of the last batter out of his mixing bowl, and smeared it on the doll size bowls, to represent 'gingerbread'. I also wanted 'icing', so spooned some yogurt onto the edges of the mixer bowl. Then, when the background was clear of 'giants' I took close-up photos of the dolls... Then for the Christmas Morning scene I posed the dolls in the 'contemporary' Christmas interior on the end of the dining room table... The posing was extra challenging since I wanted variety in the doll's positions, but even though they are 'articulated', they aren't exactly the best posers, and won't hold many positions. I had Sara standing, and Bella sitting flat on the ground, both of which were easy poses, but I wanted variety and wanted Alex to be sitting on his knees. He is articulated at the hips and knees, but won't hold a knelling pose on his own, so I took a thick elastic band (the ones that come around our morning paper) to help him hold a kneeling position. He also needed elastics at the wrists so his hands would be pulled close enough together to actually hold something. Then it was just a matter of hiding the elastics so they didn't show in the photos...
A series of photos inspired by a cross-stitch embroidery I did years ago... *For more photos, check out the Forest Dwellers Album in Favourite Photos 2023
December 6th is St. Nicholas Day, and the children had put out their wooden shoes the night before. They were very surprised when St. Nicholas arrived in person to deliver small gifts and chocolate letters.... *Note - I've just shared a few photos from this photo shoot here in today's Blog post, and all the rest are in Favourite Photos.
So, to see all the photos from the Christmas posts featuring my Iplehouse children, go to Iplekids Christmas in Favourite Photos 2023 And finally some photos of Baby Mika in her new dress. It's not exactly a 'Medieval' style, but it's a Fantasy world, so anything goes. Plus, I made the skirt very short so it would be easier for her to move around without tripping on it. Mika with her big sister...
I've been working on the final set of costumes for my Fashions book. It needed a cut-off point or it would never get printed, so the final photos to be included will be those of Matias and Agnes' family. I'd already completed Agnes' gown last summer, and Matias' formal outfit last month... Then at Christmas when I decided they'd have a daughter, Olivia, she needed something to wear as well, and I thought it would be nice if her dress would be in similar colours to her mother, I chose a gray/green brocade, and a wide pink lace, and started work on it... I had originally made her a flower wreath for her hair, but decided to make her a hat as well. Velour is a much softer fabric than the fabric of her dress, and therefore makes a better crown, so I used some leftovers from Agnes' gown for the crown of Olivia's hat.... With Olivia having a hat now, I thought Agnes needed something to replace her flower wreath as well, so I made her a little Medieval cap. It was the same design I'd used before, but this time I added parts of a necklace I'd found at Value Village. I stitched the chain of pale blue rhinestones across the front, and secured the front of the necklace with the dangling pink and pale blue pendents across the back.... Then it was the baby's turn. I used the same brocade as Olivia's dress, but felt that the shiny flower designs were too big for such a small dress, so I used the wrong side of the fabric. All my pink laces were not really suitable, so I just used some pink cotton and stitched on some fine, narrow, white and cream lace. Then, to eliminate messy hemmed edges on the very fine brocade, I made the gray/green overskirt panels double thickness, stitched the edges, and turned them right side out. When working on such a tiny garment I find it's necessary to hand baste every seam before running it under the sewing machine. And even then, especially with curved seams like armholes, I often have to pick out the machine stitching and do it again. Sometimes more than once. But eventually after redoing a few seams on the machine, then finishing by hand, and doing all the embroidery and embellishing, the tiny dress was done, and the baby had a cute matching outfit.
December 29th was National Tick Tock Day, and time for the mice to do their annual maintenance to help keep the clocks running smoothly....
Milo had filled his tin... ....but Peach was still trying to decide.... The others were busy sampling the ones they'd chosen... Peach and Milo sat down and started sampling the cookies as well... After polishing off most of the cookies in his tin, Aaron wasn't feeling so good. "Are you okay?" "No. I think I ate way too many cookies." "I should have stopped after the first five." "Same here." "But they all just looked so delicious."
The first week of December was Cookie Exchange Week, and some of the kids got together to exchange cookies. Some brought cookies they had made themselves, while others brought ones they had purchased. ...so there was quite an impressive selection. They started sorting the cookies they wanted into tins.... Aaron kept offering Angela the chocolate chip cookies that he had made. But she was only interested in the macarons. They were her favourite.
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AuthorMartha Boers is an award-winning Canadian doll maker and costumer specializing in fantasy and historical-style costumes. Archives
May 2024
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