There's nothing like the first snowfall to get everyone in the mood to start decorating.....

A few of the girls were taking their dog and her puppies out for a walk....

It was a lovely autumn day, and sure to be one of the last, so Yvette decided to take a solo ride in the woods....

When who should she meet, but Eden....

....her true love....

Continuing on with using my old art dolls with my BJDs, there's my Pied Piper.  I made him way back in 1991. My sister and I spent a Sunday sculpting all the rats, which are all over him. 

I've often thought it would make an interesting photo having all my little children following him somewhere, like through the woods or up a hill.  But it was just too daunting a task to even consider taking that many dolls out on location. 

Then this week with all the plants cut down in the upper garden, I wondered if I might be able to pull it off in my own backyard.  So I took the Pied Piper out of the display case and stood him in the middle of a bunch of BIDs, some in Fantasy/Medieval costumes and some in modern clothes. Which suited him better? Jan suggested the Fantasy/Medieval ones.  It was a fairy tale after all. But I only have the eight Royal children, and an additional eight more suitable costumes.  That wouldn't make much of a crowd.  On the other hand I had 30 children in contemporary clothes.  So contemporary it would be.

I set up some benches with baskets of million bells along the rock wall in places where the wall would be visible, sprinkled small locust leaves over the dirt, and poked in some pruned branches for extra 'trees'.  Then it was time to take all the dolls out and position them.

​I had a dozen wire 'poke-in-the-ground' doll stands, which I used for the  six KIDs, the boys, and the small dolls that would be up front. All the rest were supported with chopsticks up their skirts.  Altogether there were 15 BIDs, 6 KIDs, 8 KW Tinies, and baby Sena. There could have been 8 more dolls (the royal children) but I was too lazy to change them into contemporary clothes.

Then I took all the photos from the patio.....

This is the entire piece with the original Soldier....

For some time I've been wondering if it would work to replace the Soldier with one of my FIDs. After all they are the same size. So I chose Lawrence to play the role of the Soldier.

​I set up a 'haunted palace interior', but needed a main light source from above, so stuffed a string of Christmas tree lights into a funnel, and suspended it from the chandelier....

There were thirteen devils on the piece and eleven of them were permanently attached so it took some creative camera angles to take the photos...

It was handy that there were two loose devils, since they could be moved around...

Then combined with Lawrence's posability it helped give the impression that the devils were moving as well....even though only two actually were....

Of course then one thing led to another, and I thought I'd tackle more of the story by using my Storyteller. I removed him from his base and posed him in the only fancy chair I had...

In the real Storyteller episodes, parts of the story appear as silhouettes on the scene above the fireplace, so I took a look at the original video and painted two of the backgrounds into one painting on a bristol board surround.  It was challenging to make the scene look dark and dull enough.  

Then after processing the photos, I'd draw in  the little figures in Photoshop...

Then I decided to include the beginning of the story when the Soldier first arrives in the palace. But I couldn't show the whole room since the devils were permanently attached to the table, and I didn't have a bare identical one. So I had to fake it by using a much smaller rectangular table that had the same colour of wood finish....

I took photos of the two loose devils arriving at midnight, and made sure to move the clock hands so they were at the right time.  But I didn't notice that the photo of the Soldier hearing the devils arrive still had the clock hands at the time when he first arrived. So I had to fix it....

With so much going on in the scene it's hard to make sure everything in the background makes sense. There was another scene where the clock was in the background, and I had to fix the hands on the clock again....to help show the passing of time.....

There was another oversight involving the cards, which I didn't catch right away either.  The original cards on the piece were all permanently attached, so I needed to make some new ones.  The original cards were made in the days long before colour printing. My sister scanned in the red cards, and it was only possible to print them in black and white, so she took them to a copy shop where the b&w cards were photocopied in red.  Then we hand coloured the face cards, and I attached peel-back vinyl dollhouse flooring to the backs.

Well, I did have a small deck of cards, but they were too big, so I just took out all the face cards and aces, photographed them, shrank them to the same size as the devil's cards, and I was surprised I still had a sheet of that very same peel-off backing. So the new cards matched!

​But for variety, I gave Lawrence a whole series of different winning hands, and one time it was all queens....

It's the scene where the devils are asking if he's cheating, and it never dawned on me that the accusing devil also had three queens glued permanently on the table in from of him (no wonder he's asking!)  But I couldn't have that, so I had to remove them in Photoshop....

To fill out the story even more I decided to try take some photos of the Soldier opening the sack with the devils inside. Well, I wanted one of my favourite devils to be 'in the sack', so cut the bottom out of the sack so it could fit around him. Then Lawrence, who had already been changed back into his usual outfit, had to sprawl unceremoniously across the table.....

.....in order for his hands to be in position....and I had to place the set on the floor so I could take the photo from above.....

Then for the end of the story, I wanted to do the same thing as in the original video and have a devil come out of the sack that the Storyteller tosses across the room. I'd already resewn the bottom of the sack, so had to cut it again.  Then I used a tiny stand to support the fleeing devil....

...and just cropped in when I took the photo....

*To see my entire story from the beginning - 'the Soldier and Death'

​* To see the original Storyteller episode on which my characters and story are based -
​ 'the Soldier and Death' 

"With a great shrieking and flapping of wings, all the devils were drawn into the sack.."

"The Soldier tied the sack up tight, took it outside where he threw, kicked and beat it, with the devils screaming inside...."

"... and the Soldier released them.
​But he caught the last of the fleeing devils, and made him swear to serve him."

"....every game..."

'Your soul!'   ​

'Very good.... Let's play then.'  ​