I wanted to make a bar for Inessa and Cardinal to hang out in, but I’m too lazy to actually make a bar so I just used my ooooold Gloria bar (you can see the pink horror here).  Originally I had spray painted it in gray and black to get rid of the pink…  I believe it was more or less the only colors of paint I had available to me and simply tried to coordinate it but failed miserably making it look worse than the pink/white that it originally came in. XD   But now with more colors available to me I’ve decided to update it.  And here’s what I came up with.  Yea… yea….. *sigh* I’m not overly happy with it. In fact I think it turned out rather ugly LOL. I just don’t have good luck with this bar.

The color choice of the bar was inspired by some decorative paper that I had but ultimately it didn’t come out as nice or posh as I had hoped.  The paper design was kind of a 60s ranch house retro pattern (which I looove) in very modern tans, silvers and shiny maroons. It looks so cool alone but when I tried to plaster it over the curved body of the bar the styles ended up clashing big time.  The only paper that looked semi decent was this flowery spread which was NOT what I was going for at all. :(

The problem is I have to  create a bar that Inessa would not only visit but be a regular at and she’s very particular. I didn’t want it to be a pub type of bar but more swanky of a wine bar. Knowing her style it needs to be a tad glitzy and colorful with lush fabrics and lots of textured surfaces.  So yea, you can tell I failed on this version of the bar.

I had bought a bunch of other decorate papers to use as inspiration so it’s back to the drawing board.  This time around I want to go more bold and will use a peacock feather as a spring board for color and theme, you know jewelry tone blue greens and purples. We shall see how it turns out.  So far LOL this evening I tried to spray the bar (for the third time now) and the paint started curdling. I guess I was too impatient. So tomorrow night, I’ll probably sand down the curdles and try to paint when I have more sunlight available. I just gotta learn to be patient with spray painting. It’s one of the things I’m very poor at doing. It’s those stupid mosquitos outside that make me rush to save my legs  XD Anyway I’ll try to post a progress report soon if anyone still reads this dusty blog! LOL

I think that Inessa is getting so complacent with being my favorite doll. I was thinking maybe she needs a little spice in her life with a rival. LOL But I don’t know if there’s room for two big personalities like her around here. It would be interesting though.

I was talking with Erica the other day that I don’t like perfect people. (Who does?) You know the kind of people who always dress so snazzy and never seem to have a hair out of place. Just beautiful looking. They can eat whatever they want and not gain weight. Those people irritate me and yet they’re so charming and have a genuine smile (generally) that you can’t help but like them and their perfume smells so good leaving wafts of sexy air behind them LOL

Then I said to Erica I think Cardinal could be one of those types of people. If he were real, he’d probably bug the heck outta me and I’d scowl at him every time he’d walk by. LOL But I really like photographing him (if you haven’t noticed) I just love his skinny legs for some reason. XD~ I have fun with him every time. (Though why are his thumbnails always of his waist? LOL)

If you wanna see Inessa in the corset when I got her, click below. I censored it a bit but I still believe it’s NSFW!

Well unfortunately I wasn’t able to post anything this month but I figured I should at least check in so I have 1 post count. To be honest I haven’t done anything doll related at all this month, I’ve been so occupied with my new job and just trying to learn the ropes. I come home each night and I’m totally exhausted… come the weekend I just wanna get out and do stuff with friends. I’ve rarely sat in front of my computer this month.

Work is going well, but it’s a lot to learn. Next Monday I’ll officially be done with training and be out on my own. It’ll be rough but I’ll make it!

I hope you guys are doing well and I hope you’re having fun doing dolly things. I feel so out of the loop right now, but I hope once I get settled in towards the end of March I’ll have more energy and focus to do things not having to do with work. LOL Until then, if anything interesting comes around, I wanna read about it on your blog. Or post a comment in mine. Help keep me in the loop! XD

BTW Happy leap year day y’all. Hope you enjoyed it.

I did some more web research on Japanese apartment looks and layouts in addition to what I personally remember from my own 1K apartments there and had a rough idea of two possible layouts I wanted in my head. I originally thought I could just make it as I go without really planning it out too much. But after a few short minutes of trying to do a rough layout using the real furniture on a board of foamcore and a roll of paper to draw the plans on, I said there’s gotta be a better way to visualize this. I tried to scribble it down quickly on paper (at the time, I only drew apartments B and C) but still had a hard time translating what I drew into a 3D space.

I know Erica uses some 3D modeling program to do her layouts but, meh, I don’t have the patience to figure that out right now LOL So I used the program that I know well: The Sims 3. XD And I came up with the two apartments plus a third that I conjured up while playing Sims. At first I had leaned towards apartment B but after playing around in the 3D space, I reeeeally like apartment C. It’s quite a bit roomier than the tight A or typical B space but I think it lends itself to photographing very well. I’ll explain all three + one…

Apartment A

Apartment A is the smallest and narrowest apartment of the three. However, this is a very typical type of apartment layout for, say, Tokyo which I was thinking Chi would live. It’s pretty similar to my old apartment layouts- the tiny entry funnels you through the kitchen, past the entrance to the bathroom and into the main room which serves as your living/dining and bedroom all in one. In this Sims mockup, it looks pretty roomy, but I can guarantee my real version would be really crowded since the Sims furniture is not the same scale/size as Chi’s real furniture. Great to be realistic, not so great to work with photostory wise. LOL
Pros: Simple. Realistically small, most likely what Chi could afford to rent in Tokyo. Kitchen/bath area can be separate roomset.
Cons: Cramped. Kitchen area hidden from living. Not so great to maneuver in while taking photos.

Apartment B

Apartment B is the middle of the road option. At first I was really set on this apartment layout because it’s the same layout featured in the game that inspired me to do these psys from. This is also a very typical Japanese floor plan, although slightly larger than A. At the right angles this room could be really good for photoshoots but if not at those angles, I think it would hide a lot. Unfortunately it’s not a square layout, meaning its going to take a lot more foamcore chopping than any other set.
Pros: An interesting layout and realistic Japanese design. Within Chi’s apartment budget.
Cons: Hard to construct. Kitchen/bath area must be a separate roomset. Extremely narrow. Kitchen hidden from living area.

Apartment C

Apartment C is the luxury apartment option. (LOL) This design features a very roomy floor plan with the kitchen in plain view of the rest of the room. I guess this is more of a studio than the other two designs. I think this would flow well for photos. Unfortunately, it’s the least Japanese of the designs and is obviously out of Chi’s meager apartment budget. I was on the fence on whether the partition wall by the kitchen should be a floor to ceiling partition or a half wall a little above the height of the table there. Most likely I’d make it a half way simply because it’s easier to photograph happenings in the kitchen and I wouldn’t hide my cute Re-ment fridge. XD
Pros: Spacious, easy flow for photos. Nice view of kitchen from living area.
Cons: Not distinctly Japanese, which kind of defeats the purpose of building the apartment. Out of Chi’s budget. Maybe TOO spacious ie. requires 2 foamcore boards?

My Real Apartment

I also thought about using my own old apartment layout for Chi. (Nevermind the lack of furniture in the photos LOL) It’s not anything special, the flow is not that great for psys but it’s what *I* know best. I wouldn’t have a hard time imagining going-ons there as I would these other layouts. I would have Chi’s bed against the far wall where the TV and desk are. Her couch and TV would be situated in the middle of the room and her desk would be tucked against the toilet side wall. I’d probably have to not use half of the furniture I have for her to make everything fit, but I could probably make it work. This apartment would be very in her budget. LOL.

So there you go. Those… were… my options. What would you go for? LOL Since I’ve written this, I’ve actually tried to duplicate these designs on graph paper with measured cut outs of the furniture and it’s very hard to get everything to fit in the way these layouts display. I have a feeling I’ll be trying to rearrange the furniture even after I finish the roomsets to make it flow better. My biggest concern is to have everything situated in a logical manner meaning that I didn’t try to shove everything in for the sake of having all the furniture present. Japanese apartments are naturally clutter-y because they’re just so small but if the layout turns out to be something I feel I personally couldn’t live in then it’s no good, you know?

Until I settle on a design, I’m not going to fully move forward with the construction. I am, however, prepping. I’ve cut my 4 walls (I realize I might not end up using them but it helps me spatially visualize things) and I started taping up my foamcore boards (and I’ll explain what I mean by that later). It’s not much but I’m slowly going at it. I do hope to get this finished by next weekend before I’m out of time! I’m sure if I have to continue working on this while starting my new job, I won’t have the energy to do it. Now or never!! Let’s do it!
ｴｲｴｲ。（・ω´・。）○オ──！！

Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to write about. I’ve finally decided to work on putting together Chiaki’s Japanese style 1k apartment (1k meaning “1 bedroom, kitchen & bath”, not “1000″ LOL) but to be honest, I’ve never made a diorama like this before. I plan to make it a full set with all four walls and all (3) rooms. I’ve been thinking about this project for a while and originally I had planned to make it out of wood but the scale, even as compact of an apartment it is, will still be quite large. I can’t leave the set out all the time so I needed to consider something a little more practical and cost efficient. That’s why I never really got anywhere with it because I had a hard time compromising.

After the holidays and sending all my energy to other people (they are worth it, I’m not complaining) I wanted to do my own thing for a bit and checked my projects list and was reminded of the apartment problem. So I said whatever and settled on using foamcore for construction. I’ve finished gathering my tools and materials for the basic construction today, so construction will start tomorrow.

Now I’ve worked with foamcore before and I’ll be honest, I’m pretty darn awesome with foamcore. Awesomely horrid. LOL My stuff was NOT impressive AT ALL. Cuts were horribly crooked, right angles were actually like 115 degree angles and everything fell to pieces with one touch. Just really shabby and unlike my usual self. XD XD XD I really didn’t have a clue how to work with this stuff… Still don’t actually LOL. But now I went out and gathered what I hope to be the proper tools to fix some of that. So it’ll be a huge learning (and most likely a laughably disappointing)experience but I thought I’d try to blog it all, step-by-step or close to it. It won’t be a tutorial, in fact I seriously would like to make a disclaimer right now that I don’t know wtf I’m doing so don’t copy me or re-post this as a how to. Please XD LOL But if you find what I do inspiring please try a similar project yourself, yea?

It’ll probably be a little boring seeing me re-invent the wheel but bear with me because I’m just gonna be posting honestly as I go along. Feel free to give tips too. Won’t guarantee I’ll implement them but it’ll be good to know for the future.