Play Sets: Bratz Rock Angelz Recording Studio

   I've been having trouble with my computer. For some reason it can't install the latest updates, and it's blocking something, which keeps it from being able to come on. I'm having to use Ken's computer for this. That will slow down my posts unless I get that fixed.
  The play set for this month is the Bratz Rock Angelz Recording Studio.

The studio has a built in mixing board on the outside .

'On Air'? Is this a recording studio,or a radio station?

The recording studio goes to the series of Bratz RockAngelz dolls.

There's a door on the side so the dolls can enter the booth.

The recording studio was sold with and without a doll.

There's a microphone hanging inside the booth.

The booth is lined with speakers.

This is another shot of the inside of the booth.

Since the recording Studio is made for Bratz dolls,it's a little short for most 1/6 scale dolls,like Barbie. It looks alright on the outside, but it too small for them to stand up in. Twelve inch Paul decided that since he knows so much about recording, he would demonstrate Here he is showing how the door is too short for him.

He still needs some shoes. He's been crossingAbbey Road all day.

 But the booth is tall enough on the inside for him to stand up in. The microphone is too low though.

It was sold in 2005.

The set as it looked in box.

  The set originally came with a microphone for the child, that recorded and played back brief pieces,what appears to be a doll sized margarita glass, glass of orange juice, and two bottles of 'water',and a head set for the doll.
  Surprisingly, the recording studio didn't come with anything else that would be useful for recording a song,like,say, guitars for the dolls or any other instruments. Those things were saved for other sets that were available separately.
 

  Those sets included a stage set ,a drum and keyboard set, and guitars. (There was even a tour bus play set.) There were quite a few Rock Angelz dolls sold, who came with guitars,or a stand microphone. There was even a two doll set that came with a guitar and a keyboard.
  You can see the original commercial for the recording studio HERE.
   That's the play set for the month.See you tomorrow for the Doll Book of the Month Club.

The Final Dale Leroy

  Dale Leroy is finally finished...sort of. Some of you may remember seeing the beginning of the little felt fellow I have been working on.  Some of you may have been following his progress. Some of you may have no idea what I'm talking about. So here are some reminders.
'Dale Leroy',as he has become known,(named after the hypothetical little boy my mom always wanted and never had ), has a wire armature,covered with felt. He looked like this the first time you saw him.

His head is felt stuffed with Polyfil. He even has felt lips.

The neck situation looked ok when he was naked...

Then I made some clothes for him.

,,,but he looked a little stubby once he got a shirt.

Then I gave him some,as my mom called them,'big yella work boots'.

  All he needed after that was hair and a face. So here he is now,with both of those.

The fuzzy felt makes the eye lid paint look like eye lashes!

I'm not really satisfied. Other than the fact that his torso is too long and one arm is too short,I was hoping his hair would end up thick enough to reshape his head a bit. No such luck. I might try adding some more hair later.

He could use more of a nose too.

 I  don't know if I like his mouth either. Should I remove the felt lips and just try painting lips on? That's a rhetorical question, so don't bother to answer. I won't listen to anything anybody says,even though I've asked, as my family well knows. I'll probably be afraid to remove them for fear of ruining the whole doll, and just leave the felt lips on and complain.

I swear that nose used to be more visible.

"The Great Profile"  he's not.

So there is Dale Leroy. He looks a bit tall and lean to be a child,but hey,even hypothetical children need to grow up sometime.

   I am also working on the goofy faced little guy I showed you during the progress on Dale Leroy. We'll see him again soon.

Paul McCartney gets a repaint for his birthday

     Today (June 18th) is Paul McCartney's 78th birthday. This post was going to be for last year. I got this Kumik doll head last year, for my birthday,I think. 

But I didn't have a body for it. Ken got me a body last Easter,but the neck attachment was wrong for this head. Then he got me another one last Christmas, but the head has a long neck, and it wouldn't fit that body either. 

  So I didn't think I was going to get him posted this year either. Then, yesterday I realized the extra neck peg in the body I was using for the Michael Caine head I have could pop off,leaving the neck peg that worked for this head! Yay! Now I have a body for this one,and hopefully Michael Caine will fit one of the other two spare bodies I now have. I also wanted to do some repainting. You see, I found the head online,and Ken bought it for me. It was supposed to be a Paul McCartney head. But when I got it, the same sculpt was selling as a Tobey Maguire  head,and the one I received had BLUE EYES.

Scary blue eyes.

 Now wait a minute Kumik! There might be some similarities,but that is no way Tobey Maguire!

 And why are you sending me a Paul McCartney with blue eyes?!

 So I was going to attempt to repaint the head just a little, to make it more Paul-accurate. Of course, I was terrified to do that, because the head was about $30, and I was afraid of screwing it up. The eyes scared me the most. I decided I was NOT going to try to remove the original paint,because I was likely to make a mess of the whole face. Those eyes are really tiny. If I smeared the paint trying to remove it,it was going to go all over the face. So I decided to just paint over the existing eyes.

I glossed them too,so they would shine like real eyes.

 

That neck still looks really long without a shirt on him.

 I changed the colour to brown and made the iris' bigger.

I also lined the upper eyelids differently to make them look more sloped down at the outside corners,and have heavier lashes.

Guess what I used to paint those fine lines. A cat whisker!

 I darkened the outside corners of the lower lashes just slightly too.

I extended the left eyebrow just a hair,(That's a pun!),and darkened both the eyebrows and the hair.

His hair kept showing white spots. This was happening even before I painted over it. Major flaw in the head. I need to get some matte sealer and go over everything,but I'll have to touch that hair up---AGAIN---before I do.

 

I repainted the lips,trying to darken that little point in the middle of the top lip so it would look smaller, or even disappear.

 The dip in the middle at the top is a bit much, but ok. That point at the bottom just doesn't look right at all.

 The last thing I did was put a bit of shading on the chin to give the illusion of the slight chin cleft Paul has.

I still don't like the point the top lip comes down to. I could have tried to file it down, but what kind of mess could I have made of that?! That would also have meant I would have had to repaint the lips from scratch,and I was afraid I was going to have to leave them as they were, since I had trouble getting the paint colour right to repaint them. I still don't like the colour I ended up with, and I may change it.

  I spent today trying to get him photographed in between thunderstorms. Oh, and making him a black turtle neck out of a pair of black socks,bought specifically for making doll clothes. It was hot today,and it made me too warm just looking at him in the sweater. But,hey. Black turtle neck.

    My light was about to run out,and I was still making that sweater. So...I cheated a little bit. I only attached the turtle neck at the back, and folded part of it over the neck of the shirt. Part way through his photo shoot,it came untucked. Of course. I do intend to fix it.
  So what do you think,compared to this photo?

This is slightly later than the head. The hair is longer. I'm thinking that left eyebrow should have been lengthened a bit toward the nose. I can still do that.

  Ivy griped at me,"Yuck. Why did you give him stubble?!" Well I didn't. he came that way. Dark haired people tend to look sort of '5 o'clock shadow-y', even when they are clean shaven. 
  Other than the lip thing, my other complaint about this sculpt is the nose. Why is it so long?

Maybe that's the Tobey Maguire part.

  Kumik does some amazing sculpts. They have heads of lots of famous people,including John Lennon. It would have been pretty cool to get a John head too, so John and Paul could hang out together,maybe write some songs. But the John head is an early 70's head. The Paul is a 60's version.
  That's it. Maybe we'll visit with Paul again on a day with some sun!