8.12.12

Zemeno Dark Fairy Figurine Repaint


As anyone who might visit my tumblr at any given time will probably notice, I have a decided weakness for gothy, emotive camp.  

Even before I discovered the world of BJDs, a friend gave me a little Zemeno figurine for Christmas.  Although I had seen such fairy figurines before, I thought that their appeal for me had died sometime around my eighth birthday.  On the whole, this remains true.  However, this Zemeno Dark Fairy Figurine came opportunistically packed with a black and purple flier advertising a number of other fairy figurines.

I had never heard of Zemeno.  They had an underwhelming web presence at the time, so all I knew was that I had seen one of their dark fairies, and I knew where my friend had made the purchase.  This last point acquired additional interest because, amongst the fairies advertised on the purple flier, there was one who, as a tiny printed facsimile, reminded me of an illustration by Edmund Dulac of Scheherazade.  



I went to Millenium, gothic kitsch central, and inquired about the figurine shown in the flier.  Lo and behold, the lantern fairy with the headscarf was available (her company name is 'Eclipse' and you can see her at La Table Ronde's appropriately camp website).  I recall feeling utterly scandalous as I left the store with my lantern fairy; no decent young adult in Art School ever purchases such tacky things, I thought.  Then there was the price.  These were the days before BJDs, and I performed all manner of mental acrobatics to impress upon myself that spending $30-ish on the lantern fairy would not entirely condemn me to the ranks of the hopelessly dissipated and debauched. 

When I returned home and inspected my dissipated indulgence, I discovered that the mass-manufacturing process had not been very kind to my fairy.  Part of her face was globbed onto her headscarf in the manner of a pancake.  The paint around her eyes was not very precise either.  Not having any other suitable tools, since Art School was determined to make me a large-scale painter of Edifying Post Modern Art, I used a sakura fine-liner to fix the pancake face and badly painted eyes.  At least, from a distance, she looked respectable.  However, I was never completely happy with her face.


So, a number years later, I find myself in the heat of procrastination and academic despair.  I take the lantern fairy down from her post, am appalled by the company face-up, and feel a sort of pity for my inexperienced, fine-lining self.  It then occurs to me that I have since painted on somewhat similar objects that cost a great deal more.  I can hardly imagine making my poor fairy look any worse.  So I decided to try giving her a sweeter, more gothic pin-up inspired look. 


What I discovered in the process is that her forehead is strangely bumpy.  I also found an inverted bubble in her nose, which I was only partly successful at filling with acrylic paint.  She's about 10 inches tall, so this makes her my smallest face-up to date.  I used only arcylics, which is another reason why she is not quite as subtle as my BJD face-ups.  Maybe in several more years, I'll have improved sufficiently to do attempt another repaint.  For the time being, I think she looks tolerably better.

She has azo red on her lips, raw umber and mars black on her eyes and eyebrows, titan buff on her nose, and ultramarine blue in her irises. 

As always, thank-you very much for reading! 


* * *

23.11.12

Essay Land


It's that time of the year again.  I blame my lack of recent updates on this situation of most direful essay-writing.

On the upside:

Iplehouse has released three interesting nYID boys (Justin is my personal favourite), and I might (might-- I said might!) soon be in the position to speak in a more informed way about Marina Bychkova's Enchanted Doll resin line. 

One may also notice a few books in my stacks that pertain to dolls.  Who knows, but perhaps I shall have some research-induced thoughts to share in the future.


* * *

30.10.12

The Fall of the House of Usher


DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.

On one of the staircases, I met the physician of the family.  His countenance, I thought, wore a mingled expression of low cunning and perplexity.

The valet now threw open a door and ushered me into the presence of his master.

The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty.

Upon my entrance, Usher rose from a sofa on which he had been lying at full length, and greeted me.


We sat down; and for some moments, while he spoke not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe.

Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher.


To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden slave.

 “I shall perish,” said he, “I must perish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost.

In this unnerved, in this pitiable, condition I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR.”


He admitted, however, that much of the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a more natural and far more palpable origin


to the severe and long-continued illness of a tenderly beloved sister, his sole companion for long years, his last and only relative on earth.


“Her decease,” he said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, “would leave him (him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race of the Ushers.”

While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was she called) passed slowly through a remote portion of the apartment, and, without having noticed my presence, disappeared.


A sensation of stupor oppressed me as my eyes followed her retreating steps.

When a door, at length, closed upon her, my glance sought instinctively and eagerly the countenance of the brother;

but he had buried his face in his hands, through which trickled many passionate tears.


The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of her physicians.

Hitherto she had steadily borne up against the pressure of her malady, and had not betaken herself finally to bed.


But on the closing in of the evening of my arrival at the house, she succumbed (as her brother told me at night with inexpressible agitation) to the prostrating power of the destroyer.

I learned that the glimpse I had obtained of her person would thus probably be the last I should obtain—that the lady, at least while living, would be seen by me no more.



For several days ensuing, her name was unmentioned by either Usher or myself;

and during this period I was busied in earnest endeavors to alleviate the melancholy of my friend.

I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn hours I thus spent alone with the master of the House of Usher.


One evening, having informed me abruptly that the lady Madeline was no more, he stated his intention of preserving her corpse for a fortnight (previously to its final interment), in one of the numerous vaults within the main walls of the building.


At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the arrangements for the temporary entombment.

The body having been encoffined, we two alone bore it to its rest.

We partially turned aside the yet unscrewed lid of the coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant.


Usher, divining, perhaps, my thoughts, murmured out some few words from which I learned that the deceased and himself had been twins,

and that sympathies of a scarcely intelligible nature had always existed between them.


The disease which had thus entombed the lady in the maturity of youth, had left the mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face,

and that suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death.


And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an observable change came over the features of the mental disorder of my friend.

The pallor of his countenance had assumed, if possible, a more ghastly hue.

On the seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady Madeline within the tomb, a light step on an adjoining staircase arrested my attention.

I presently recognized it as that of Usher.


“And you have not seen it?” he said abruptly, after having stared about him for some moments in silence—
“you have not then seen it?—but, stay! you shall.”

Thus speaking, and having carefully shaded his lamp, he hurried to one of the casements, and threw it freely open to the storm.


“You must not—you shall not behold this!” said I, shuddering, to Usher, as I led him, with a gentle violence, from the window to a seat.

"Here is one of your favorite romances. I will read, and you shall listen:—and so we will pass away this terrible night together.”

I became aware of a distinct, hollow, metallic, and clangorous, yet apparently muffled, reverberation.


A sickly smile quivered about his lips; and I saw that he spoke in a low, hurried, and gibbering murmur, as if unconscious of my presence.

“Not hear it?—yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Long—long—long—many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard it—yet I dared not—oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am!—I dared not—I dared not speak!

We have put her living in the tomb!"


"Oh! whither shall I fly? Will she not be here anon? Is she not hurrying to upbraid me for my haste?

Have I not heard her footstep on the stair? Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart?"


Here he sprang furiously to his feet, and shrieked out his syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up his soul:

I tell you that she now stands without the door!


Then without those doors there did stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher.

For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold—

then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily toward the person of her brother.



He seemed almost suffocated with terror when she put her pale hand upon his knee, and I too, stood frozen, like one transfixed by the uncoiling of the envenomed viper.


I saw that despite the wasting fatigue which lent her movements such an unsettling irregularity, there was an expression upon her face that I could not entirely reconcile with her brother's torments.

At first, I felt convinced that no maddened thing, having crawled forth from that ancient vault, could rightly harbor the expression that I fancied I saw in her eyes.  What I saw must be some false hope, some perverse trick played by the dim light.

Yet all my doubtful observations, tainted as they were by Usher's hysteria, found a measured and tender relief, when the lady spoke.


"Dear brother," she said in a faltering tone, "be not so frightened; it is only me, your Madeline."

Even as she addressed him, I watched Usher return a little to himself; his posture grew easier, and he looked at his sister with better recognition.

When she began to slide to the ground in her weakness, he caught her slender form in his arms and held her close.

I could not hear what he then uttered to her, so softly did he speak, but from what small portion of his tone that I could discern, his every word seemed to convey the fondest gratitude and the most loving apology.


As soon as the lady Madeline had recovered enough to made her wishes known, she petitioned her brother to leave the house.

Usher was at first completely opposed to the suggestion. 

He recalled to her the storm raging outside, his numerous frailties, his horror of noise, of light, and the strength with which the house had taken possession of his character; he could not escape the conviction that, should he attempt to go away from the premises, some dreadful cataclysm would wreck an indescribable violence upon us all.

While he spoke, a nauseating tremor rippled suddenly through the floor, lending a manifest credence to his fears.  I saw his face whiten, and Madeline's eyes darted over the walls, as though, having only left one prison moments ago, she now found herself thrust into another.  


"Sir," said she to me, "stay with my brother if you will, but there is a pestilence about this place that I have neither the strength, nor the patience, to endure any longer."  Usher entreated her to stay-- nearly threatened to terminate his own existence if she abandoned him-- and she countered by asking him to leave, and cited her own premature burial as proof that his foundering judgement required a change in atmosphere.  I watched the siblings quarrel with some astonishment, not daring to take a side myself. 

In the midst of their argument, the house gave another lurch.  This movement heaved the room with such force, that Usher's lamp was dashed to the floor.  As I sped to smother the flames and oil with a bundle of bed clothes, a third shock hurled the three of us, and some of the lighter furniture, almost to the opposite side of the room.  Appearing to be scarcely sensible of the heat, Madeline urged me to follow, implored me to assist her, and commenced to drag Usher bodily over the smoldering bed clothes, across the floor, over the very threshold. 

There was a chair and a small dressing table thrown in my path, but I scrambled to pursue Usher and his sister, particularly due to the fact that the house had begun to sway and creak with all the violence of ship about to be wrecked at sea.  I found the lady Madeline struggling to induce her brother to descend the stairs, while she held the rail to support herself against the rocking of the floor.  For his part, Usher had attached himself to a baluster; he continued to insist that it would be a physical impossibility for him to exit the house alive.  I saw that he had fallen into such a state of desperate panic, that he seemed entirely to disregard the dangers presented by the house's churning architecture. 


Although I would have respected my friend's inclinations under almost any other circumstances, I could not but feel that his fears began to make him a danger to himself.  My own desire was now to run from the building as soon as I could find opportunity.  I had already heard the footfalls of the few remaining servants rush outside towards safety.  There was a crumbling noise that troubled in my ears with an incessant grating.  When Madeline saw me, she again asked me to help save her brother, and this time, I pried Usher from his baluster.  He attempted to strike me for this liberty, but being ill practiced with his fists, and partially prevented by the lady Madeline, I cannot say that his blow did me much harm.

We then carried Usher out of the house.  He went raving, then sobbing, then half-fainting, but for all his anguish, out of the house he went, and not for a single moment did his sister cease to offer him some gentle comfort or assurance.


The storm was still abroad in all its wrath as we found ourselves crossing the old causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could have issued; for the vast house and its shadows were alone behind us.

The radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-red moon which now shone vividly through that once barely-discernible fissure of which I have before spoken as extending from the roof of the building.  Seeing my attention directed toward the house, Usher and the lady Madeline also turned to see the illuminated fissure.


While we gazed, this fissure rapidly widened—there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind—we saw the mighty walls rushing asunder—there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters—and the deep and dank tarn at our feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the “House of Usher.”



* * *

The End

* * *


Notes: Thanks so much for reading this photostory!

 The first part of these notes will concern itself mainly with Edgar Allan Poe's story, while the second part will touch on the ball-jointed doll related side of this photoshoot.




But first things first: for those of you who might be scratching your heads, wondering how I dared to write a Poe fanfiction and change his perfect ending to The Fall of the House of Usher-- I did make a special picture of the canonical end, with Roderick and Madeline lying together.  Presumably, this would be the last that the narrator saw of them.  

 

It makes me all depressed and stuff to see them like that.
I'll just pretend they are only napping on the floor.

1.  
 So, whatever one might say about Roderick Usher's rather extravagent flaws (his narcissism, his contagious solipsism, or even his incestuous, and quite possibly necrophiliac, tendencies)-- as a literary character, he remains rather sympathetic.  Whenever I re-read Usher,  Roderick seems to me like someone so buried in himself that he is practically entombed there, and, like his sister, he finds himself awake and self-aware while he is trapped in that morbid place.

Many sad things happen in The Fall of the House of Usher.  What befalls all three central characters (or maybe all four, if we include the house) is tragic, but not inherently frightening.  The fear in Usher comes from the interiority of Roderick Usher and the Narrator.  There is always a lurking horror of one's own self, of losing control, and of losing one's mind.  This is the frightening center of the tale: that sanity can be so frail, so uncertain, and that to encounter one's self in true, unmediated isolation is a mad and infectious experience.  

In a conventional interpretation, Madeline Usher might be read as a reflection of Roderick; her sleeping sickness resembles a literalization of his compulsive introspection; both twins disappear into themselves.  As a reflection, she then becomes a dark double (other and uncanny) when, despite Roderick's efforts to contain her body, she begins to rebel against his expectations.


It has also been suggested that The Fall of the House of Usher expresses a deep skepticism about the 19th century's notions of an ideal family.  As the snarky cousin of the Sentimental, the Gothic thrives on sending up notions of perfect sympathy, protective patriarchs, moral religion, and conventional gender roles.  The Gothic invites the reader to wallow in the abject and the forbidden, and do so by following certain social norms to a potential extreme.

In my alternate ending, I took most of my inspiration from another one of Poe's stories, The Premature Burial.  This story features a Narrator who, like Madeline Usher, also suffers from a sleeping sickness.  He is haunted by the fear that he will be buried alive, and so puts a great deal of energy into make his final resting place as easy to escape from as possible.  Then, after being in a situation where he falsely thinks he has been buried alive, and wakes his neighbours with unnecessary screams, he realizes that he has been so afraid of being buried alive, that he has neglected to live a life worth living.

It then occurred to me, in the midst of working on this photostory, that rather than losing her mind and possibly seeking revenge on Roderick, perhaps the experience of finding herself trapped in the tomb gave Madeline clarity.  Her strength and determination to leave the tomb, though apparently appalling in the story, actually seems very admirable to me.  Roderick says that he and Madeline understand each other very well (probably too well).  I suppose here, the horror is that she understands him so well, that she knows he can hear her in the tomb and is not helping her to leave.  That is indeed an awful thought.  Yet, in this fanfiction, at least, I would like to think that Madeline's clarity permits her to be more forgiving to a deluded, mentally ill brother.  Instead of clinging to a diseased interiority, embodied by the decaying house, she wants to leave, and sees that they do so alive.

2.
With Halloween being very close, and someone's birthday quickly attacking thereafter, I've been revisiting Poe in my spare time.  This reminded me that although I named two of my dolls after Roderick and Madeline Usher, not only had I neglected to mention their namesakes (ever, anywhere), I had also failed to make any worthy photostories featuring them.

Part of this problem is that Roderick, my Buddydoll Mars, is a floating head (so I can never have him in the same scene as Marlowe)-- and the other problem is that photostories with Huge casts are quite difficult to manage.  I think that might be part of the reason why I have not made a decent photostory in such a long time.

Madeline, as I have probably mentioned before, is a Raurencio Adonis head on a Iplehouse EID body.  Although she (the doll) is usually blonde, Madeline Usher (the character) is almost always represented as dark-haired, even though Poe does not actually mention her hair colour.  I, too, prefer a raven-haired Madeline Usher, hence the dark wig.  Her blue dress and white slip were made by the lovely AyuAna, and her black waist cincher is from Dollheart.  Roderick is wearing most of an outfit made by Popomini on DoA along time ago. 

I made all of the textures myself, with one exception: a rust texture made by Princess-of-Shadows on DeviantArt.

Thank-you again for looking at my photostory!


Edited: 13 Feb, 2013

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17.10.12

Issue with the Enchanted Doll™ Resin Line

 This post is primarily a rant in response to this image that was being discussed on DoA, as well as discussions on the blog of Marina Bychkova.  If you are not interested in alarmingly expensive art EBJDs, please do carry on with your day.

* * *

In regard to the topicality of Enchanted Dolls™ on DoA, Marina Bychkova must be considered in a different light from the other dolls featured in the image linked above.

To begin at the beginning, Bychkova has been separated from the wider BJD industry-- previously because of her chosen medium of porcelain, but now also because the price of her new resin line is not in accordance with other producers of equivalently sized and styled dolls. Unlike the other dolls appearing in St. James's line-up image, Bychkova's resin Enchanted Dolls,™ despite their comparable aesthetic, are sold for about twice or thrice the price ($700 for a basic face-up and $1300 for a blank doll, for instance).

Bychkova's new resin Enchanted Dolls™ are different from the others because their high prices are not based on quality of craftsmanship or materials alone (the resin line is still just elastics, imported glass eyes, S-hooks, and resin, even though Bychkova once proclaimed that elastics Suck), and clearly (as St. James's shades-of-grey illustration shows) they are not based on any objective artistic superiority either.

Enchanted Dolls™ are sold at that price entirely because of an exclusivity that Bychkova cleverly builds into all her marketing of Enchanted Dolls™.  What is being sold is therefore not only a doll: it is an elitist mystique that perpetuates itself through unattainably.  Until she takes steps to make her resin line more like the other resin EBJDs that are being compared on DoA, I do believe they are different.

To conclude so far: the resin Enchanted Dolls™ are not drastically different in aesthetic or in quality, but they are different from the other dolls pictured by St. James due to the context in which they have been economically constructed.  A dead shark on the beach is very different than a dead shark positioned by Damien Hirst.  Additionally, as fans have already discussed on the aforementioned blog, Marina Bychkova's waiting-list system has tended to be somewhat less than ideal.  For this reason too, the economic context of the resin Enchanted Dolls™ is different; the difficulty and uncertainty of being able purchase one of her dolls is a compelling component in Bychkova's economy of value.

Although this inciting of fans through limited release and opportunity has been exploited by many other BJD manufacturers, Bychkova has never constrained her waiting lists to any temporal or physical commitment.  Whereas other companies have offered consumers limited quantities, or limited dates for release in order to encourage fans to act quickly, Bychkova has, at least once, completely abandoned her waiting list after pursuing it for an arbitrary amount of time, and reopened a different waiting list after a second and equally arbitrary amount of time.  This strategy is as much a part of her dolls' mystique as their price, for it lowers certain collectors into a kind of submission, where Bychkova's whim is value, where what is withheld is desired, and where value and unconsummated desire are conflated into an experience that is later remembered (or concurrently enjoyed) as pleasure.

And I do so like that DoA has thus far avoided such madness.  Until now, most of DoA's discussion of topicality has centered on the aesthetic qualities of various dolls, but I hope that Bychkova's dolls remain off-topic on DoA for reasons beyond their visual aesthetic.   This is because the economy of value that she creates around her dolls is much more exclusive than the usual BJDs seen on DoA, and because her relationship as an artist to her audience is vastly different from the usual relationships that most BJD studios have with their audiences on DoA.


* * *

Edit (11/12/12):  It looks like the Enchanted resin line is probably on-topic for the new WBJD subforum.  Even though I still think that Marina Bychkova's dolls are different from the majority of dolls on DoA because of their exclusivity, they are very pretty, and I hope that anyone posting about them on DoA will enjoying sharing their pictures, stories, and discussions. No hard feelings, kay?  :0)

13.10.12

Awash II



That there
That's not me
I go
Where I please

In a little while
I'll be gone
The moment's already passed

It's gone
And I'm not here
This isn't happening
I'm not here
I'm not here


 







* * *

Notes:  Lyrics from Radiohead's "How to Disappear Completely."  I generally find Radiohead too depressing to actually listen to for recreation.  This is the last and second part to the Awash photoshoot that I made with Madeline, my Raurencio/Iplehouse hybrid. 

I had some strange thoughts going through my mind as I tried to think about my intentions for this second part.  Although they have somewhat glamorous connotations, the more I thought about the string of pearls, the more they looked to me like a chain of shackles.  

A lot of these pictures seem to be quite objectifying: Madeline does not have very much to wear, she's often in positions that probably read as visually consumable, and the pearls tend to point toward her potential to be seen as an ornament.  From there, I started to think about how one might disassociate from one's own self while being submissive to the camera's lense.  I tried to suggest a little of that by gradually making the pictures more faded and then darker, as if, in order to please the incisive gaze, the subject is disappearing behind a performance of passivity and retreating to a blurred, marginal place.

* * *

24.9.12

Awash Part I











* * *

Notes: More to come, and I do apologize for the lag between posts as of late.  As some of you might notice, I'm back to my old camera (alas, I know, but there will be more with my father's SLR eventually).

This photoshoot happened in stages, so it will appear here in two parts.  I delayed and delayed in posting because I felt kind of uncomfortable about sharing pictures of Madeline wearing so little.  

In this first section, I was sort of thinking about a Rococo Venus, stripped of the pastoral foliage, putti, waves, and aristocratic pretensions to immortality.  Instead, there is just her alone with her thoughts, a bed, and the cool air in the room.  She's much too sweet to be an Olympia after Manet, and there's a bored, listlessness about her-- she is having one of those mornings where nothing can remove the temptation to stay in bed a little longer than one should.
* * *