Halfway through June already! Boy, the year's been flying by. It's funny, though - so many of my yearly events, doll-focused or otherwise, don't kick in until May at the earliest. June may be mid-year on the calendar, but it feels like the start of the year for me in a lot of ways, too! Well, let's see how my prep for the real start of the year went.
The Me
That January post was kind of a downer, huh? Well, I have some good news: my home life is MUCH more stable. Early February brought some hard conversations, but it went well, I'm much better off for it, and my home life has stabilized significantly. I also made it through the annual review process at my job, and I earned a passing grade with little effort. I'm surprised - this time last year, I was a nervous wreck about it. But I was fine this go around! Maybe I was too busy stressing about other things to have time for that...or maybe I'm just finally getting comfortable in the position. Either way, I'm pleased.
As is typical for me, my lifestyle changes have been a roller coaster - some weeks I'm eating healthy and exercising daily, and some weeks (most weeks, due to the recent weather) I do my best impression of a slug. I keep having to remind myself that any progress is better than no progress, and I had a lot going on that kept me from tackling that. But now that the weather is finally getting and staying nice, things should get better. Things have already gotten better elsewhere, so I'm sure I'll be just fine!
The Dolls
My 2026 blog entry back in January ended up being prophetic.
"No current or past releases have really gripped me. It's possible something upcoming might change that, but it would have to be spectacular." - famous last words.
An incredibly rare head showed up on Den of Angels in March - though it was advertised as one of DollInMind's Minimee sculpts, a local seller was offering the rarer (and much cooler) NobilityDoll version of the Medicine Seller, from the anime Mononoke. NobilityDoll offered custom sculpts like DiM did, but they were pricier, so there aren't as many. And once the order for the custom sculpt is placed and fulfilled, no more will be made. The order for him consisted of 4 heads, so there are still only 4 of him in the entire world.
I got into the anime last year, and it holds a special place in my heart, so I was so excited to see a head of the main character. The sculpt itself was really cool too, with prominent and chunky elf ears, narrow eyes, and a slight open-mouthed smile showing off some fangs. I don't usually go for open-mouthed sculpts, but his expression was too wonderful for me not to go for him. Very expressive and in-character. Plus, the recent movies very conveniently provided some new lore for me to play with - turns out there are 64 medicine sellers running around, not just the two that we see in the anime and movies. I don't often do well with making a doll of an existing character, as I tend to get paralyzed and locked into a particular outfit and identity for them, which defeats a lot of the fun of having dolls, for me...but an OC in the same universe? That, I could do. All I had to do to make one was pick an I Ching hexagram and go hogwild on it.
I went with the Zhen/Chen trigram to avoid making him too different from the existing medicine sellers (who are also based on trigrams), got ideas from that to help me pick the wig and eyes he'd wear, sold off Agrippa (who had basically become a mannequin for a cool fullset I have rather than a real character or doll) and put the fullset outfit on Zhen, and then...got stuck figuring out what he actually looks like. Each medicine seller has different face markings, and I don't know what they're based on, so I couldn't just research my way into designing his. It kept me from getting him a proper faceup, but I still had an interest in him, even though a huge drop in my dolly attention cappacity forced me to put him on hard backburner for a while.
Where did my capacity go, you might ask? Well...Volks finally went for my jugular. Right before my Japan trip, they announced the new dolls for Dolpa 55. Nothing interesting on the vinyl side (I'm not into Fate or Idolmaster, and neither sculpt caught my attention), but on the resin side...this year was the 10th anniversary of their Interstellar Boys Dormitory series, a series of dolls I've long admired but had either been too broke for or had missed out on when they released. To celebrate this anniversary, they announced two new dolls: a re-release of my long time "if I had a million dollars" doll, Regulus, with a new faceup...and a new character named Reda Venir that blew poor Reg out of the water. A long haired, androgynous glasses boy, with the same narrow eyed, mysterious smile that drew me to Zhen. Zhen had a fully opened mouth, but Reda's parted lips were a different kind of charming, doing that thing some Volks dolls like to do in photos where the expression is completely different depending on the angle the head is viewed at. I said I'd only make an exception to my no new dolls plan if it was spectacular...and Volks gave me spectacular. I was doomed.
Unfortunately, Volks's spectacular fullsets came with spectacular price tags, and I had to sit down and spend some serious time and effort figuring out if I actually wanted him, what I'd do with him...and, of course, how to afford him. I did figure it out in the end, though (more on that over here)! At the end of that journey he'd gone from a doll that I really liked and was on the fence about to a full fledged character that I could fit in with my other dolls if I wanted to, and luckily for my wallet, I had made it one of my 2026 goals to list up a bunch of things I no longer used on Mercari, so I had a way to fund him, too! Reda Venir came home in mid-May and has been getting spoiled ever since.
Luckily for my other goal of keeping my collection size the same, a few of the items I wanted to purge were dolls, so in the end despite these new acquisitions the collection didn't grow at all. I continue to be very picky with new dolls considering the phenomenal releases lately, so I'm okay with violating my (admittedly pretty tentative to begin with) no-doll-buy plans. I mean it, though, any other new dolls will have to be spectacular!
I still don't have wishlists prepared for my existing dolls, but I did make some exciting progress on my hunt for option parts - Vajra got her wings shortly before the Japan trip (a very lucky DoA marketplace find), Fern got a couple of very cute new outfits from Volks, and I managed to get a few new props for the crew thanks to gachapons and needing some specific items to help Redda fit his character vibes.
And, circling back to Zhen, I finally settled on facial markings for him this past Tuesday, mostly based on Kabuki makeup. Turns out all I needed to do was get mad at Redda's outdated body, buy a different body, get rid of the old body by making a trade with a faceup artist, and panic - because now, I really had to sit down and design something for him so I could ship everything over to the artist in a reasonable timeframe. I continue to be a real seat-of-my-pantser when it comes to doll ideas! As of this blog posting, he is hanging out in Kansas and still on his way to the artist, along with the body I traded, but I have faith that he'll be ready by my year-end review so I can properly re-introduce him.
The Creative Pursuits
While I definitely won't be beating the number of photos I took last year (unless I really go hogwild over my next few doll events), I've been branching out a little bit from Verdi photos this year! I've been taking Fern on a couple of shoots, brought Vajra out for photos in Japan, and took some photos of Redda in Galena for the photography contest at Resin Rose. (Nobody comment on what I actually entered when August rolls around. I tried, okay?) Now that we're approaching ren faire and vacation season, I have some ideas for more photos with Redda (and Zhen, when he gets back) too, so I'm excited to see what those end up looking like. While I did manage to get a stand before my Japan trip for Vajra, I ended up not using it at all since Vajra only came out for a photoshoot at Tenshi-no-Sato. And since it's a saddle-style stand, I'm not so sure it's what I want to use with the boys. Maybe I'll just get really good at balancing them instead...
Turns out I can't plan well at all, because painting did end up happening this year - not willingly, mind you. I was struck by the recent curse Volks has been placing on their dolls! Less than a day after he'd arrived, Redda's glasses scratched his faceup, so I had to do some emergency repairs and seal him properly this time. I don't know why their limited dolls haven't been getting sealed lately, they're more than expensive enough that I'm sure there's been lots of complaints of them getting scratched! I'm just glad it was repairable. That was a heart attack and a half.
Sewing ended up happening too...but again, not as planned. It was all human-sized stuff! Both doll-adjacent, though: I made a big neck pillow of Verdi for my flight to Japan, and added a cape to a sleeveless top (both off Amazon) to make a fancy caped shirt to match Redda's default set so we can be cute together at meetups. No plans for any other sewing, but at this point, I don't trust my plans - so I'll just say "wait for the December update". You never know!
I still plan to get around to playing more with my jewelry supplies, especially now with meets coming up and a looper tool in-hand that makes the fiddly charms that make up doll necklaces and earrings a lot easier to make. I've done a little, having made Redda a pendulum and a chain holder for his crystal ball, as well as tearing apart some human jewelry to make him a chain belt, but I'd like to do more, especially with that giant bead stash I have. If nothing else, throwing some doll jewelry on the free table at upcoming meets means I won't have to have it rotting in a box at home, so maybe I should just start with making some slop and see where it takes me!
I'd also like to be a bit more consistent with website updates - I think the blog ended up being a very good idea for getting some updates out there when I don't have anything exciting in the photo department, but getting these past few out have led to me neglecting to upload my photos, which is kind of ironic. Plus, I still have grand plans to get ScrambLetters up and running, as well as either start in on the wiki for my Void setting or find something better to put in that section of the homepage...maybe a guestbook? So many ideas, so little time. Maybe my next vacation should be a week at home to catch up on it all!
The Overall
I don't have a narrative in mind for 2026 yet, but this year has definitely been quite good to me (if a little financially scary at times) so far! I'm excited for my end of year review to see what ends up changing between now and December - my goals for the rest of the year are to simply have fun being social with others in the hobby, keep on keeping this site up-to-date, and do even more creative stuff (especially taking more photos) if I can! I'm keeping my options open to whatever else might come up as I enter the busy event season of the summer and early fall. It should be fun!