Dark Dollhouse

Another hot and humid meet that unfortunately did not go outside as planned due to a very angry looking sky that looked like it was gonna pour water out any minute.

Nothing did pour apart from the fountain outside the Royal Festival Hall that entertained kids and adults alike to the rythms of Brasilian music played on steel drums and various other instruments.

The theme this time was Teddy Bears. I had found one small Pooh Bear that I got in a Secret Santa a couple of years back and ta-da, managed to leave at home!

Also had a BIG plan of making a bear outfit for either Pino or one of my DD girls but decided that I just could not be bothered the day before. I had left it too late, as usual.

Had brunch with hubby before catching a bus to the Southbank and the inevitable dollie madness.

Couple of new faces this time, again, not sure who they were, hope they turn up again so I actually do get a chance to find out lol.

Had to move spot due to the heat so ended up packing up Cinnamon and Madicken and never got them back out of the suitcase :/ so no piccies of them this time… I am really negligent of all my Unoa girls these days due to my current DD obsession. Have to do something about that soonish

Not so much badness around this time or maybe I just missed it?

Lots of zombies though

Started the day making a quick body suit for Sasara so that she would be able to wear her default outfit. However, did not make any sleeves for her = She now got very black arms >.< Oh well.

Hubby made some lovely breakfast for me while I was packing up my suitcase and generally stressing around to get myself ready to go.

Actually headed out a lot earlier than usual reason being, was headed for Trocadero and meeting up with the DC crowd.

Got there and was picked up by Cookiedude_2332. Headed for the Technika machine and found Jezatron, Krowbar and GabrielVH hanging around Pocky who was superglued to the Technika machine.

For some reason I had imagined it to be one of those dancing games but no, something onscreen guitar hero like not sure >.< Have to google it at some point... Or maybe go try it.

Was only there a very short while, then we headed for the Royal Festival Hall. Arrived after a short trip in a VERY hot and sticky tube.

Lovely as always and Twirl had been the first on site again, as always lol! Definitely not a Londoner.

Some really nice fellow Scandinavians just passing through was at the meet but believe one of them is moving to London so hope to see her around more often.

Over the course of the afternoon it got stickier and stickier and people broke up a lot earlier than normally.

The DC people headed of for Japan Centre and Trocadero and I decided to stick with the Rezin crowd since I didn't really speak to them during the day.

Decided on dinner at Ping Pong just around the corner as convenient, fairly cheap and it had aircon! That was epic fun! Raven, Mau, Suvi and Twirl had never had dim sum before so it was really fun to introduce them to this new adventure.
Our waiter was really sweet and seemed to like our collection of dolls and figurines that invaded the table after we had finished the food and headed onto dessert.

Next time, it has to be Chinatown dim sum though, tastier and cheaper by far! Not sure if they do moist coconut balls there though…

This was the day after chasing around London after the Tokyo Trooper. Was a bit tired and a bit stressed out over all the things that I had not done the day before but decided to head out anyway as it was ages since I had seen Mich.

Took me two hours on the train on a journey that normally takes one hour >.< Stupid Sunday maintenance work.

Finally arrived after getting increasingly nervous that I was on the wrong train after Mau and Mich kept telling me I was not going in the right direction.

The rest of the party was having a sleepover in another part of town and well, over slept + did not have the address
They were a little delayed ^^

Great day, tried a lot of different lenses and got a few photos of the experiments.

This all came about after attending the SOAS DC event.

Kinda forgotten how but think I got chatting to Danny about it at some point, either at the event or afterwards online.
Mentioned that we, hubby and me, were of to Tokyo in a couple of weeks time and were gonna hit the Dollshow and Dolpa.
If I was interested in attending this Doll Summit thing that he was arranging with some other people on 3rd May, in between the two events?
Sure, why not ^^
Just had to sign up via tsubuyaku.fm – Easier said than done when you, as me, do not read or speak Japanese. Thank goodness for auto translate and general common knowledge about how websites are build *sweat*

Got Mio signed up to attend and was looking forward to it.

Then a couple of days before heading of to Japan, Danny Choo pulled out. He was planning on bringing a French TV crew but some of the Doll Summit attendants were not so keen on being on telly so he had to reschedule for Dolpa instead. Shame.

Was a bit split over this because, when I sign up for something, I sign up for something! Not because of who is going but because I actually do wanna attend whatever event it is that I am signing up to. However, as he was the only person I remotely knew and had ever spoken to + the fact that I still don’t speak any Japanese made me a little doubtful about the whole thing.

In the end, decided to just go for it!
After a little gentle pressure from various interest groups

Hubby went for an anime museum instead and general sightseeing and photo tour instead. Kinda got the impression that yet another day surrounded by dolls was not his idea of a good time

The Tama Centre turned out to be some way away from Shinjuku and central Tokyo in general + managed to get on a slow train as well heading out there. Nice scenery so pleasant but rather long train journey. Arrived around 3pm.
When arriving at the station found out that it was also the station for the Sanrio Puro Land, home of Hello Kitty. And it being Golden Week and children’s day you can imagine how packed the place was!
Loads of interesting stalls on the way up to the Tama Centre but did not stop and look. Next time

Arrived at the Centre and found the gallery, went in.
Glare!
And got the crossed arm gesture *no admission*
Tried to explain who I was and started pulling out Mio when I saw my Twitter name-tag *Dark Dollhouse* on the table and pointed at that instead. They all went *aaah*
Handed over 500yen and was in.
Wauw! So many Dollfie Dreams! And a plane! And loads of accessories! And SO much camera gear and tripods.

Was lead to an empty spot on a table and they indicated that I should put Mio down there and pose her.
Nice guys ^^ Shame, I have no idea who they were or what their usernames were or anything. Hate this language barrier thing!!! Seriously have to work on that Japanese for next time I go over there!!!
So, sat her down, posed her and wandered of to start taking pics of all the gorgeous custom faceups and gorgeous home made outfits. They just do it better than us, sorry us, but seriously, they are really Otaku in the real sense of the word.
Us, we do it very well too but they are just that little bit more crazy obsessive than most of us are. Know I am generalising but this is my blog and I am allowed to
Just very impressed with the whole thing m(_._)m

At first, Mio was all by herself, bit like me, getting the stares but no approaches, but then, nice girl came over and sat her MDD down. All customized by her. Started taking pics and saying *kawaii* – excellent! Finally something I understood lol.
More joined and I started approaching more people myself and indicating that I thought their dolls were amazing. Worked wonders. Got a few *thank you*s ^^
Unfortunately only got one business card :/ Shame, so many nice people there.

At some point shortly after I arrived there was a presentation round and I ended up with a mike in my hand O.O Bollocks!
Rambled something of in English and got an applause. Red face!

They started setting up for big shoot around 5pm and I headed back to Shinjuku to meet up with Hubby around 6pm.
Short but sweet ^^

Great day yet again ^^

Was hoping that some of the people attending the Danny Choo SOAS talk was gonna pop by but unfortunately no, could have been fun! Maybe they will turn up at EXPO.

Anyways, found out that one of the people that I chatted to at the DC event was a friend of a friend of Mao’s and they had recently been out bowling. How small the world is!

Was good seeing Mao again after her being tucked away studying somewhere up North I think and great seeing a lot of new dolls and their owners.

Not so sure it was good seeing Horse and Blood dressed up as babies but maybe in some sort of weird parallel universe kind of way it might have been Dunno. Still speculating.

Actually arrived on time for a change, instead of my stupidly late arrival last time that made me miss like, well, everyone. And managed to have breakfast with hubby before leaving as well. And doing some pattern making but that is another story.

How fast times flies, I am writing this up three days later as I have just been so bogged down with RL overtime, wanting to finish other blog posts, uploading/ editing photos, socialising and brewing on a project.

Normally I go to bed around 11-12 the latest. This week it has been between12-2 >< I feel just a tad tired and worn out but it have been soooo worth it!

***SOAS here we come!***

Escaped work half an hour early and grabbed a tube to Warren Street station where everyone were already waiting for me when I arrived. We were four BJD peeps who went as well as hubby:
Blacraven066 who is also a Danny Choo fangirl and a regular on his sites (dithering more over in the figure section than the Dollfie Section though)
Madam Mau Mau who came along for the company and the adventure of it all as she is not really into the whole anime/ Japanofile thing and actually finds it somewhat mind boggling sometimes.
Jezatron is another happy Dollfie Dream girl owner who brought along his Yoko but had to leave Mashiro at home due to space issues.
Hubby is not really into the whole BJD thing. Did try to convince him to start buying DD girls so I would not have to but I failed miserably and had to fork out myself. Bollocks! He shares my interest in everything Japanese though so maybe one day

Arrived at venue, picked up some nice seats right in the middle of everything and started unpacking the boys and girls and taking some photos.
They were an instant hit!
And we were actually very surprised that we were the only ones who had brought along any dolls.

Danny Choo prepping the tech for the talk. Wonder what all the rest of them are doing? Bit like London road works. One man working, five others watching one man work

Mio trying to get some attention while the tech is still being prepped

Mauzi and Bunkum waiting for it all to begin

The unruly attention seeking DD girls making another leap for attention and again, they got it

Getting impatient now – looks like it is about to start

***The Talk***

Fangirl moment, do apologize: DANNY! 5 to 7 on big ben, we caught up with him about 10 minutes later further up/ down the bridge towards Westminster

Danny Choo started his talk with showing piccies of his teen-hood stash from his mums house.
Always good to be reminded that obsessing about stuff as a teen is quite normal.
My obsessions were Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Spielberg, Lucas, Michael J. Fox and movies in general.

And we are off. Danny’s collection of old mags, wauw, I used to have the same amount when I was a teen – they were just boringly German and American O.o

He went on to talk about how he wanted to learn Japanese and wanted to go and live and work in Japan.
Showed pics of his charts with Kanji written up on them and shared how he had bought cheap VHS tapes with manga shows, taped them and listened to them over and over.
I did not have to learn a new set of letters but I did do the tape thing with my American movies and taught myself English that way as I wanted to be able to watch movies with no subtitles.
And I wanted to go to Canada, US or London – Done Canada, US and ended up living and working in London.

Then there was a lot of tech issues and a lot of talk about fast cars that never really seemed to get anywhere so un-planned intermission came up.

But then we started seeing more and more of this blue screen of death until we finally saw, well, nothing

Unwilling intermission. Now bashing the tech.

Not too bad, gave me another opportunity to snap some more photos of my girls in their new tees and the rest of the attending dollies. Milo was there too! Yay! But he was rather subdued compared to his normal self. Think he was a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing and not having any other Puki Tribe members present might have made him a bit shy lol

Kamui and Milo taking a break as well from all the grown up talk and tech problems

I can never remember her name, how bad is that??? Raven’s lovely girl and Jezatron’s Yoko lurking in the background

Double balancing act. Yes, Fate did fall down. Mio however, stayed put until removed. Maybe it’s the hair…

While trying to fix the tech Danny made a little competition for goodies he brought with him from the land of the rising sun such as face masks with anime girls on them and branded DC lanyards. At one point it looked like he was gonna throw them so our first reaction was: Protect the resin! He opted for the first come, first serve principle instead *phew* Resin and vinyl saved! Watching people rush for the stage was hilarious! Funniest thing was the person, who has yet to reveal him/herself that grabbed the water bottle.

Danny brought gifts, some more useful than others… This face-mask with an anime girl on front maybe not so much… Crappy focus, do apologise, I am still getting to grips with this camera

Back to the fast cars, the news of a Mirai Chan maid outfit to which Jez and I gave each other the thumbs up and more inspirational talk.
You never know when you get hit by a bus.
Food for thoughts.

***The Food***

And then there was food, wine, orange juice and net-working.

Went to get a glass of red wine and got approached by nice older gentleman but cannot really remember what he said to me as, I believe it was his wife who started talking to me instead.

Conversation went something like this:

Older lady: Are those dolls yours?
Me: Yes
Older lady: Are you not ashamed of yourself?
Me: No
Older lady: You are killing feminism
Me: Well I don’t think I am
Older lady: Yes you are, you should be ashamed of yourself carrying things like that around
Me: Well, you are allowed your opinion, I am allowed mine
Older lady: I guess you are, I guess you are *eye roll*

Got my glass of red wine and returned to my friends who got a bit shocked by my tale of killing feminism.
Madam Mau Mau’s response was: We are not killing it. Feminism is the right to choose.
More food for thoughts.

Time to try an grab some real food proved hard with a doll in one hand a glass in the other but I managed to score myself a couple of pieces of chicken. Omnomnom!

From my Iphone – Omnomnom!

Madam Mau Mau and Blackraven066 did a good job of doing a quick posing of the dollies. And they were soon joined by multiple friends. Rin, Yoko, Figma Mio and others that I have no idea who was. Wicked! Good to see that others brought their toys as well although they were not so visible during the talk.

From my Iphone – All the girls we brought along

From my Iphone – Joined by friends

I later discovered that Figma Mio belonged to Twitterer @smokedchizzu who I unfortunately did not get to speak to as was a fellow hunter of the Tokyo Trooper Saturday with less luck than me and hubby. Shame. Would have loved to meet up.

***Locked out***

Not sure where the time went but all of a sudden it was dark and we got thrown out O.o

Boy was it cold! Do I love my Japanese fleece from UniQlo, Ginza or what??? I felt quite warm and snug compared to a lot of other people wearing their summer gear. I might look like a stuffed Michelin man but at least I am warm

Hung around because, well, I had this idea that I wanted a signature on the tees. How cool could that not be?!

Got talking to a cool looking kid in a Matrix style coat while hanging around who took a pic of me, Mio, Jez and Yoko. He did not have a business card but I did get his blog address on a used train ticket

But Danny Choo was swamped in fans and me not wanting to be rude and just generally hating to wait in line was just hovering until decision was made to go talk to his wife.
She was really friendly when we met on Westminster Bridge the other day and she really liked my Star Wars cap so could be interesting to have a chat with her.
And she is super nice! Had a chat about this and that and found our her name is Jay ^^ Or actually, it is something I am not able to pronounce although I did make an effort.

Jez came over all of a sudden as he had to catch a train, such a shame as he had not had a chance to say hi to Danny but we managed to get us snug into the crowd and catching Danny’s attention so he had a quick chat with him and got a handshake. Win!

Continued talking to Jay and another DC fan came over and chatted along as well + one of his friends had a try of holding Mio, that was rather funny as I think the whole price thing scared him a bit. Later realised that I spoken to him earlier and I had exchanged business cards. Fail.

MMM was getting cold and hungry and we decided to split.
The crowd had thinned out by now and Danny made a leap towards us just as we were about to call it a day.

Excellent!

Had a really long chat about dolls in Japan, how we got into DDs and BJDs, how we found out about Danny and well, stuffs ^^
Really good fun.
Had picture taken by Jay and made my lovely Chandler photo-face. Great, juuuuust great.
I must say, very proud of myself, I kept the whole fangirl thing to a minimum and think I was rather well-behaved and not rambling too much. Go me ^^

Introducing Mauzi to Danny. Wonder if he will be going for some Korean resin next time?

***Mackie D***

Off we went to the warmth under the Golden Arches.

Had a disgustingly dry Large McNuggets meal of which hubby ended up eating most as I could just not deal with it.

Food makes for good photo ops of the dollies and did get a few good shots, unfortunately only on the Iphone as the camera was stuffed into the bag and I could just not be bothered to get it out. Also, Mio and Fate was sitting on top of it which meant I would have to move them and all – such a hassle ><

From my Iphone – Much better ^^

From my Iphone – Kamui hugging all the napkins!

From my Iphone – Mauzi doing a Mackie D

***Home***

Not even sure what I did when I got home, think I downloaded pics and might have uploaded as well but not sure. This week has been a bit of a blur.

But know I at this point realised I did not get an autograph even though I had the pen ready in my pocket. Guess it just got really friendly/ cosy and normal so forgot all about being a fangirl. Somehow when people become real it seems strange to ask for them to sign their name on stuff…

And also remember I was in a very good mood and found the whole evening and run up to it, to have been a completely fantastic adventure even though I do apologise for me fan-girling around all over the RezinDollz forum both before and after. Thanks for putting up with me ^^

Can go back to being normal me again, quite like that idea actually. Less stress full ^^

I was not planning on making anything for this meet’s Easter/ Spring theme because of my current obsession with FFXIII taking up all my spare time.

… Then I got this idea with girls with guns and bunnies and printing fabrics ><

So spent all Saturday cutting and printing and finishing this idea with help from hubby on making the bunny logo for my print.
And some of Sunday morning resulting in me arriving, well, around 2pm.

The whole summer time issue did NOT help. At all.

Annoyed at myself for getting idea too late to be better prepared as there were some people there I had never met IRL before and only got to see for a very short period of time due to me wanting to be creative, last minute style.

Grrrr. Note to self: Pack your bags the night before!!!

I had a great meet though! Despite being very fashionably late, not helped by chocolate festival outside the Royal Festival Hall or the crowds of people who obviously do NOT understand what 'elevator going down' means. Long story, boring explanation, next subject: I forgot to take ANY pictures of Luna O.o - Correction, any decent photos of Luna - shame on me!

Dollies are a great cure for FF addiction ^^ Not played for three days now! Record in the making after getting new FF game, like ever!

Another great meet with lovely dollies and their owners.

Only hung out for a short while as had a Mika concert to go to in the evening, which was great btw!

So much candy! Thanks to all who sponsored that mountain!

Made Cinnamon an outfit that was just cut and sew but turned out really well despite that fact. Rather pleased with it actually. Sometimes the whole pattern making thing is just too tiring and boring.

Chibis by Krowbar are amazing! Named them Madicken and Elisabet after the Swedish novels by Astrid Lindgren. Madicken is a bit of a tomboy and trouble maker and her little sister Elisabet is more sweet and innocent – thought it fitted them well.

And made Elisabet a new dress that I thought would fit her but now has turned out too small due to the nature of the fabric – bummer – think I will have to sell it on Etsy… Don’t really see Hel wearing it – somehow a little too flowery – but maybe… Will leave it for a while anyway.

Normally never go out on Valentines as the whole roses and hearts thing kinda gives me the creeps but did this year.

However, in a dollie context it is more digest able and  rather sweet ^^

Met at Edinboro Castle as has become the habit for these mini meets and were approached by staff who asked if they could snap some pics of our dolls and put on their Facebook page. Sure thing!

Good day out!

Oh, and made Sasara new PJ for the meet from a sale PJ.

And handed Chibis over to Krowbar to get faces – can’t wait to see them finished ^^

First meet of 2010 was full of new people and lots of new dollies.

The badness was somewhat limited but there was a lot of posing dolls on their heads…

And I forgot my phone at home so no tweeting O.o which was a bit frustrating but survived.