New Dolls

Over the last month i've made two new dolls: one costumed, titled 'Bride of Frankenstein' and one tattooed, titled 'The Vessel'.I can't believe that i've been able to (almost) complete two brand new dolls in one month on top of working on other projects and nudes simultaneously. I think that this July i outdid myself, but I also almost lost my sanity in the process. I'm going to hold off showing full pictures of either doll for a bit because the Bride is missing last bit of detail on her dress and the Vessel is waiting for her head ornament, which is yet to be made. The Bride of Frankenstein is a very special doll because she is wearing a very interesting, Steampunk inspired, bronze head dress. The 'hat' was very complex to make and i'm quite proud of the fact that i was able to make it work in the way i envisioned it. The piece fits snugly on the head, but it's assembled of three hinged parts which open up like an orange peel so that it can be put on the doll's head and removed without much difficulty.I'm very excited about making more metal head ornaments and can't wait to begin the next one.There have been other very exciting things happening around here, one of which is another interview for a Fashion Doll Quarterly Magazine. It comes out in the fall as well as Haute Doll, but it will have different works published there, including the brand new dolls.The other exciting thing is that i'm almost ready to make the sterling silver slippers for Enchanted Doll available for sale. I'm just working out the final details of cost and packaging. This pair is the first style in the very exclusive line, and i'll be posting close up pictures when it's ready to launch.

Always working, never not working

I apologize for being absent from my blog for the past while. I have really been busy this past month. Some really exciting things have happened, from making a doll for a famous fashion designer, to preparing shots and interviews for a couple upcoming magazine features (Haute, FDQ), and of course, making dolls for orders.I also have a really exciting project that I'm working on that will be featured in the upcoming issue of Fashion Doll Quarterly. This is a doll with a twist, and she's dying to meet everyone.Back to the studio, I'm just wrapping up my intense reclusive work period, and I'll be back making regular posts soon.

My schedule announcement

Attention every one who wishes to order a doll from me: I've officially stopped taking orders until December 2008. I'll make another announcement about possible available slots for that month later on in the summer. Meanwhile, if you are interested in placing an order sometime in the future, email me. As some of you know i have to get ready for my upcoming shows in Europe in late 2008 and in the States in early 2009 and I simply don't have enough time for commissions.However, there is a good news too. You have an opportunity to win a FREE Enchanted Doll.On my next birthday I will be giving away one nude doll as a gift to honor the admirers of Enchanted Doll. My birthday is on March 16th, 2009 and that's when i will announce one lucky winner. To enter a contest to win one of my dolls you will have to become a member of Enchanted Doll Forum at http://www.biscuitshouse.com/Enchanted/All the information regarding the contest will be posted on my site and the forum by the end of July 2008.

Tattooed Porcelain Girl

This is my first attempt at tattooing a porcelain doll.I think it turned out pretty good. You can find this new girl in the Costumed Doll gallery because even though she is nude, her tattoo is her costume. The name of this project is Mermaid Song. This girl also has a new face with a new hair style, and can be ordered as a nude. When i'm taking orders that is.What's cool about this tattoo is that it's an actual tattoo; the drawing is engraved into porcelain prior to firing with a fine needle as a real tattoo would be 'engraved' into human skin.

The Birth Place of Enchanted BJDs

Ruby and her mother-molds.

My solo Show at Villa Terrace Museum

I would like to publicly announce that my first solo show is finally scheduled for April-June 2009, at the Villa Terrace Museum of Decorative Art in Milwaukee, Wisconsin!It was scheduled a little bit sooner than i expected which leaves me with less time to organize it. This directly affects my custom nude order schedule because this only gives me a one-two month window in which to take orders before i have to go full speed into show preparation mode starting January 2009.I haven't figured it all out yet, but I will continue to make announcements on the status of order schedule. We'll see what happens.As for now, i'm really excited about the show and look forward to it. There is so much work to be done yet and i will have to work harder that ever. However i don't think that's possible as i already work double time. It'll be a great show!

A day outside the studio

It was my boyfriend's birthday on June 7th so I put my work away and took a day off. This is what i look like when i'm not working....sort of. Not always drinking and gambling though.We went to the horse track not far from Down Town Vancouver, where we live, and spent the day drinking, betting on horses and chilling. It was a lot of fun, although the day was rather cold for June. That's summer time in Vancouver for you.In the very first race a horse went down head over hoofs along with the jockey who also got kicked in the head by the oncoming horse's foot. He crawled off the track and collapsed on the grass face down. The horse stayed down too and within seconds the track was swarming with attendants and an ambulance. They got the horse up and it didn't appear that it sustained serious injuries to every one's relief, but the jockey was taken away in the ambulance. He was conscious though and waived to the crowd.We were lucky in the first three races with our horses coming in first and second, but then we lost our winnings on the other 6. Which was fun anyway. The end.

Enchanted Doll Forum

Dear Fans,I've been wanting to announce for several days now that one of my collectors from France, Helene, has set up an Enchanted Doll forum where admirers and/or owners of my dolls can meet and interact. The Forum is fairly new and hopefully it will grow as more and more of my creations populate the world.I'm a relatively new artist in the field and i do custom work, not mass production, so i don't expect for ED (enchanted dolls) to flood the doll market any time soon. That's why they are so special.Anyway. I just want to thank Helen for loving my dolls so much as to make a forum for them. I'm honored . Again.http://www.biscuitshouse.com/Enchanted/

"The precious punishment of the young lady and her addiction"

This painting was done by Elizabeth Lacunza, from Spain. It was inspired by my work, i'm told. The reason i post it up here is because i'm really flattered by the fact that other artists find my work inspiring. It's an honor. It's a little bit surreal, actually, to see my work interpreted by another's hand. It transcends its original purpose and meaning to become something else. But also beautiful.I believe she is doing a series of doll-based digital paintings and look froward to seeing more of her work.

Latest media appearance of Enchanted Doll

This is the most recent magazine article from Europe that features my work. Stilus is a design magazine from Budapest, Hungary, and it showcases lots of contemporary design, fashion and art. I got 6 pages this time! I wish i knew what the text is about, but i can make a pretty good guess since it's based on the information i had given them. Still... You can view the the article in the Artist Info section:http://www.enchanteddoll.com/artistinfo/published.html

The doll list

I just wanted to mention that i'm still working on that best doll/worst doll list. I'm just so swamped with work that i'm still in research and writing phase on that report. And now i'm also sick on top of everything and had to spend the entire day in bed yesterday.I'll be posting teaser images of the new 3 dolls in my costumed dolls gallery by tomorrow.

Meet Farah

Farah is the latest addition to my nude bjd doll line. You can find more pictures of her in her gallery.In the shots she's wearing some optional white gold jewelry, on her hands and her ankles. Just like my other nudes, she can be ordered with or without these accessories (along with other options not shown, tattoos, gold body ornament, eye/hair colour changes, etc).I notice that I'm really attracted to making dark-haired dolls. I have made more black haired dolls than any other colour combined. It's funny because I never want to dye my own hair black, as a matter of fact, in the past I've put blond streaks in my own hair to make it look lighter, but I've never considered going darker. Actually, I really like my natural, sandy colour and haven't done anything to it in years. Beautification it too time consuming.

No time to post

I've been catastrophically short on time the last 3-4 weeks.I'm in super crunch right now with multiple deadlines converging on me and i'm finding it hard keeping my sanity. It's almost over though. This Sunday I'm completing the shoot for Scheherezade and the other two OOAK costumed dolls i've been working on for Haute Doll Magazine and sending all the final materials to the editor that night.Then maybe i'll take a nap. Maybe.I'll post the sneak peak shots of the dolls on my site and here by the end of next week. I'm so excited to see this finally come together, especially since i haven't completed many costumed dolls in the last year. The two dolls will not be seen anywhere, not even on my site until the fall issue comes out. They are being kept a secret. The third one, however might be shown on my site, but not anywhere in print for several months. Just to give you guys a taste of what's to come because all three of them share a similar theme.But in the future, if I don't post for a while, it's because i'm crazy busy working on something new which will soon debut on this blog and/or the site. So, if i'm neglecting to post for over a week-it's a good thing that foretells progress and new dolls.

Bjd chest comparison

Finally I was able to photograph two different chest pieces side by side to show the difference between them. As you can see the difference is subtle. The new one on the left is more narrow than the old one on the right and gives the doll a more slender appearence. The new one also has rounder, slightly fuller breasts than the old one and has narrower shoulders with more 'armpit' space for the stand. So, the two main advantages of the new chest piece are: one, clothes fit it better, especially if they are beaded because on such a small scale beads add more visual thickness to the body, and two, more space for the stand underneath the arms and increased articulation of the shoulder joint. I like it better because it makes the doll look more dainty and delicate.

Video Fixed

Small update.The doll animation video has been updated to a better quality version. Still some visible compression artifacts, but at least it's the proper ratio.If you haven't seen it yet, be sure to check it out. The video was made a couple years ago for a project at Emily Carr, and it stars two of my early dolls.Chad put this video up on Vimeo, which is why it says "From Chad Isley"

Serendipity

This painting was made by a very talented Italian artist Natalia Pierandrei. According to her it was inspired by my dolls. I definitely want a print of it for my house.It's interesting the way Nati and I met.Serendipity is a good way to describe it. Three or maybe four years ago i found her work by chance in a compilation book of fairy artists. I thought it was some of the most amazing contemporary art i've ever seen and she instantly became an inspiration of mine. I checked out her website faithfully every week and was so infatuated with her artwork that I began emulating it with my own.Her painting had a fundamental impact on my style.It became a part of it actually as my own artwork matured and became what it is today. I absorbed it into my bloodstream and now it lives within me and is therefore a part of every porcelain doll i make.I wanted to write her for years and say how much she influenced the course of my genre, but i couldn't bring myself to do it for some reason. I didn't want to sound lame, I guess. Until one morning a couple of months ago; I was checking my email and was still half asleep when i saw this strangely familiar-looking name in my inbox. I opened the email and discovered that this person wanted to order a doll. And as i sleepily stared at the name trying to figure out how i know this person...........my eyes suddenly widened in disbelief and i was instantly jerked awake by the realization of who it was that wrote this email. To me. And then i squealed with joy while biting down on my knuckles for about 5 minutes. And then bounced around my bedroom for a while. I responded to her by taking and emailing pictures of my sketch book with her prints glued in there. And we were both going:" Oh, my, God...."Nati said that she'd been admiring my work for quite a while herself and that it actually, actually inspired her work in turn........I couldn't believe it. We were cross-inspiring each other's artwork without even knowing it! Our work was already present in each other's......styles. It just blew my mind.We became instant friends and now we're working on a book together. I'm hoping to visit her in Rome soon and meet her in person. I would love it if she visited me in Vancouver.I think the reason some artwork resonates with and inspires us more than other is because on some level it was always a part of our being, but we weren't able to consciously articulate it in our minds. Like an unspoken truth that we can't put our fingers on, but know nevertheless. So when we find something that inspires us, it's as if a lost piece of our soul is coming home and making us whole.Please check out Nati's site: http://www.nati-art.com/Perhaps it will have the same impact on you as it did on me.

Silver slippers and bracelets for Schehrezade

This is how tiny the slippers are. I just adore them. It's been a dream of mine to make tiny, precious shoes for a doll since grade 6. I've been beading their shoes up to this point, but on the scale i work with, they end up looking too bulky for the doll's feet because even the tiniest of seed beads and crystals are still disproportionately large for a 1:6 scale foot. I mean, they do the job, but i'm always trying to improve on my technique and execution and so, for the last two or so years i've been wanting to make slippers from a precious metal, such as gold or silver. This is the very first pair cast in Sterling. I carved them and the bracelets in jewelers wax, which was very tricky because you have to account for the shrinkage of metal during casting. So, there was quite a bit of guesswork involved into how big i should actually make them; too big and they will not look good on the foot, too small and they will not fit the foot. And you can't exactly squeeze a porcelain foot into a metal shoe. It has to go in freely. So, I calculated the best i could and they turned out perfectly! I'll see if i can have molds of these made for a limited edition run. Let me know if any body's interested in having these for their Enchanted Doll. They are solid silver and won't be cheap.The new Scheherezade doll is wearing over 120 grams of silver on her body. She will be unveiled in the September issue of the Haute Doll Magazine along with 2 more new costumed dolls.

Desk in Action

This is one of my work desks. Yup, I have several. All identical. But this is the primary one.I took this a couple of nights ago when i was in the midst of doing some metal work. I was cleaning up some new silver castings for my present one of a kind, costumed doll project. It's near completion.I try to keep my work area as clean as possible because physical mess on my desk actually manifests into a creative mess in my head. So, when i get frustrated over something or can't seem to get past a certain point in a project, I usually start tiding up and rearranging my studio space to improve its efficiency. And it works like magic to refresh my head and help me problem-solve. I seem to see things more clearly and solve all my hardest creative dilemmas at a clear desk.

I hate Blythe Dolls

I think Blythe dolls will go on the top of my "Worst Dolls Ever Made" list. I hate them. I don't see what the big deal is. I find them rather ugly and disproportionate.I invite Blythe lovers to sell me on these dolls. What is there to love about them?

More Gold Work

The doll with Gold overlay all over her body is near completion.This is a shot of her hands and feet, with the rest of her body being decorated likewise. The only other thing this doll is wearing, is a blue veil, and an ornate headpiece set with garnets and tourmalinesI made the piece in sterling and fine silver, and just took it to get plated with 24k gold this afternoon.Perhaps I'll post another sneak peak later on.