Dolls of the Louisiana Plantations

Final destination: New Orleans

Back in early December I went on a road trip down to New Orleans with my mother and sister as a way of celebrating my mother's birthday.  That trip involved lots of jazz and beignets, as one would expect.

But on the way there, we spent one night and a day and a half in Vacherie, Louisiana, home to several historic sugar plantations. We drove past several, and did a tour of two of them:  the American-style Oak Alley Plantation and the Creole-style Laura Plantation. And at each of them I was able to do some doll-spotting, so I thought I'd share some of those dolls here. Enjoy!

Happy New Year & 2015 in Review

Happy New Year!

Since we're now into 2016, it's time to do the annual look back at who joined the doll and figure posse this past year.

I started out 2015 by bringing home way too many minimates:

And it was all downhill from there! ;)

Happy Holidays!

It's Boxing Day already, so I'd better put out some Season's Greetings before the New Year!

Mulder and Scully interview Santa on one of the great mysteries:
How does one man deliver all those gifts in one night?
Help from the aliens, perhaps?

December Already?

Wow, where does the time go?

I've been slow with new posts lately for three reasons: travel, pre-holiday planning, and the fact that Fallout 4 has eaten up most of my free time lately. Still, I'm moving forward with my sales list, have taken a few one-off comparison photos, and we're getting closer to the shipment date for a couple of pre-orders, so there are posts dedicated to those things in the pipeline.

In the meantime, enjoy a quite shot of a new Funko mini that I picked up (a Fallout Pip Boy) in a cafe in Chapel Hill, North Carolina (which I was visiting for a wedding a few weeks ago):

Body Comparison: Soom ID51 vs. Souldoll Vito

Soom ID51 London, Souldoll Vito Rouse

One of the most common photo requests I've gotten on doll boards is regarding the in-between (at 52cm, bigger than MSD, smaller than SD) sized Vito from Souldoll and Idealian 51 from Soom.  I have one of each  - Soom ID51 London and Souldoll Vito Rouse, so let's take a look at them side-by-side.

A note to the sensitive, unclothed dolls below the cut (although they're posed for modesty, since I originally took these to share on a board where that's a requirement for anatomically correct dolls).

Not on scale, but at least it's in-theme.

A few years ago my sister passed along a miniature copy of Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong, both because she figured it would make a good doll prop and because I'm a First World War buff, and would appreciate the theme.

The book is actually just a touch too big, even for the big dolls like my Dollmore Mettaa from their Glamour Model line, which they list as 75cm (although he's really only 73cm).  Still, since I did have a uniform in his size (although not quite of the right vintage), I thought it was worth using in an anachronistic and not quite in-scale photo shoot.

I was going to try to make him a miniature poppy as well, but my attempts were even more off-scale than the book, so that will have to be a project for another year.  And in a way, that works for where we're living. Although it's not Remembrance Day here in the US, Americans do mark a military-themed holiday today (Veteran's Day), but they don't wear poppies. I suppose because their involvement in the First World War was so short (when I was living in DC, during one of my mother's visits we walked through Arlington National Cemetery - she pointed to a First World War grave with a birth date of 1899 and wondered if he'd lied about his age to enlist. I had to remind her that by the time the US joined the war he'd have been 18.), so it seems to be less of a cultural touchstone that it is in so many other countries.

In any case, on with the photos!

Passing through: Fallout 3's The Lone Wanderer (male) by Funko Pop!

The Lone Wanderer

Folks who know me from a variety of doll forums may recall that during the 18 months I lived in the DC area, I usually had my location listed as "The Capitol Wasteland", a reference to the video game Fallout 3, where your character ("The Lone Wanderer") wanders the post-nuclear wasteland of an alternate-1950s DC. Having played the game several years before moving there (and since most of the game's locations were based on actual geography), I secretly always expected to run into ghouls in the metro.  And sometimes called my dog "Dogmeat" when we were going for walks.

So seeing a series of Funko Pop's released, I of course picked one up.  Unfortunately the one I ordered turned out to be damaged, so I ended up sending him back. To be honest I was relieved to have the excuse - the figure is fairly plain, and since the player character is customizable in-game, I didn't feel particularly drawn to him in the end. Still, I did take some photos, so let's take a look.