FIDs Everyday 2

More photos featuring my Fashion sized dolls

Baron's New Look

I sent my Baron's head to Lisa Jameson in April to have him repainted after the awful job Iplehouse did to him. But she was delayed getting to him due to worsening health issues. She said that she did the best she could, and he ended up being her very last faceup commission, with her announcing her retirement immediately after he was done.

When he arrived home, I just put his head back on his body, with his old wig, and went on a short trip. After we got back home, I took a good look at him. I was happy with his new look, but something just didn't seem right. Then someone whose opinion I respect made some comments about disliking his old wig, that it looked like a 'mullet', and how she couldn't stand to look at photos with him in them. So I thought I'd try restyle his wig, and in the process I totally destroyed it. I spent the next few days kicking myself for listening to someone else's opinion and ruining the wig. But then I made a new wig for him, using the same mohair as his first wig. Only this time I was going for a softer, more natural look.

It turned out that the new wig was just what he needed. I finally had my Baron back!

Royal Robes

Several months ago I came across a wonderful painting, King of the Golden Hall, by Magdalena Katanska. She had done a painting of King Theodan from LOTR, standing with his horse as if they were posing to have their portrait painted....

I thought I'd love to do something like that with my Lawrence and his horse, then have it photographed at our son's movie studio. I imagined that it could be that he was having his portrait painted for the tenth anniversary of his coming to the throne. Which meant I'd need to make armour for his horse, and I'd need fur trimmed royal robes. I already had the purple robes I'd made two years ago for Lawrence's coronation, but it only had fur down the front edges and not all the way around the bottom.

So I started a new one, out of wine red velour this time. Real royal robes are completely lined with fur, but that would be way too thick on such a small scale, so I was only going to do it around the bottom. The further along I got with the new red robe, the more I wished I'd added fur around the bottom of the purple robe, because I really liked that one. Finally it bothered me enough that I picked apart the bottom hem of the purple robe and added a fur edge all the way around it as well. It took forever to hand-stitch the fur and bead both robes. But when I was done I had two royal robes, one for the King, and one for the Queen, and I took some photos...

the King and His Horse

With Lawrence's horse's armour finished it was time to try some poses for the painting for the eventual photo shoot. The plan is to photograph an artist actually working on the painting, so I need to have it underway for the photo shoot, because there's no way I can do it on the spot at the time. Which means coming up with a pose I like to do a painting of, and figuring out how I will need Lawrence and his horse to stand in the movie set.

First I tried him wearing his robes draped over one shoulder, and wearing his circlet crown, while holding the royal orb, and his sword and coronation crown resting on the table behind them...

Then I tried him holding his sword while wearing his royal robe over both shoulders...

I decided the tapestry in the background was too distracting, since it wouldn't even be there at the final photo shoot, so I needed something more 'architectural' with them standing on a series of steps. I put the sword into the background again, and tried Lawrence holding his crown.

But the crown isn't rigid so proved almost impossible for him to hold properly.

Even so, it made for some nice photos.

But he probably wouldn't be holding his crown, so I went back to the original pose again...

So I think I have the inspiration for the painting now, and I even got a nice collection of photos in the process.

Monica

And finally, to finish off the series of photos of Lawrence and Monica in their Royal robes, I have a few photos of just the Queen.

Gold and Green

My sister and I were working on a new book - Fantasy Fashions - which will feature photos of every costume I've made for my realistic adult dolls. But there wasn't a good clear photo of the green and gold Medieval gowns. Yes, my dolls had worn them both in several stories, but there were no good 'portrait' shots of either one. So I had to take some.
First I took some in the castle interior...