An Another Great News

          In the last year, "The Immortal Classique" has made several female dolls, starting with “Sahara”, “Bai Zuzhen”, “Evginia”, “Adriana”, “Pocahontas”, and “Queen Victoria”. All of them have been well-received by doll lovers, collectors, and many of my friends and fans. Because of your feedback, I’ve been able to improve the dolls themselves, the photography, the props, and every other aspect of the craft. Though the effort is exhausting, it gives me great pleasure whenever I finish another doll, costume, or prop. And as an added benefit, I have come to know several talented artists, such as Freddy T., Miwa M., Cholo A., Tatiana F., Marina B., and Chewin M., who have given me the inspiration to succeed.

 I'd like to announce here that it's the time to reveal the latest project, my first Immortal Classique male doll, based on the work of another talented artist with whom I am friends: Nene Tina Thomas. Before we'll talk about the details and theme, I'd like to say something about my male doll's inspiration. Several months ago, I received a lovely email from her about my dolls. Since then, we have been in constant contact, and we have been exchanging ideas about bjds and art. After a while we become close friends. She sent me a link to her website,(link) and I fell in love with many of her paintings. Some are romantic, some are like the fairy tales from mythic history, and some show the emotion of the character through the facial expression. One character in particular struck my fancy, called "Lord Phaedron Daane". When I first saw it, I thought it was just an ordinary painting that Nene had been inspired to paint. When I asked her about it, I learned that Lord Daane is one of the major character of a book series she and her husband are writing, called “The Zarryiostrom”. Nene and Steven work together on the series, with Steven writing the book and Nene creating the imagery. Unlike many novels, this one contains many pictures of the characters painted by Nene. They are so incredibly beautiful. After seeing them, I didn’t hesitate to ask Nene for permission to make a male doll inspired by "Lord Phaedron." 

         From my Facebook page, many of you probably followed my male doll project for a while, before I stopped working on it. It may have seemed like I abandoned it completely, but the doll was kept in a drawer while I worked on some of my female dolls. I thought several months ago about coming back and working on it, but I was suffering from a lack of inspiration. None of the ideas I came up with seemed to fit the doll, and so it sat idle, until I saw the painting of Lord Daane. I realized that the main reason that I should start with this project as my first male doll was just because I loved it! 

"Lord Phaedron Danne" by Nene Tina Thomas

I like almost every aspect of this character’s face, from his charming look, the oval shape, full of lips, and long raven-black hair with its distinctive white streak. His eyes are very tender and calm. He looks very tall and slender, which is perfect for my tastes as I don't like broad shoulders, or big muscles with six pack abdomens. He looks less like a fantasy character than a modern mannequin, with a more realistic body type. In the story, Lord Phaedron is 20 years old and his character is very honorable, which is reflected in his look. When I asked Nene about his costume, she said “unlike my other characters, who are very serious, Phaedron is a little bit more casual. Pretty much all of my other male characters are wearing jackets so this sets him apart a bit.” I asked her if I could design an outer jacket with no sleeves, and she said that would be fine. That made me happy, because I think a black jacket with some metal on it could make him look like a warrior.

        As a final detail, I have asked Nene to send some close-up pictures of his pistols, main gauche-dagger, and rapier. The pictures below show the props designed by Nene. I'm so excited to see the whole things get done. It make take times to produce these props for Phaedron, but the results must be great. 

All weapons designed by Nene Tina Thomas

                                

        The props and the costume of Phaedron's look very powerful, so I think the diorama for him should be glorious and magnificent, too. I imagine three large gothic windows lining the polished walls and floor of a midnight black marble corridor, perhaps accented with a luxurious chair or a elaborate vintage couch. I’m not sure about the big chandelier, but it would be nice if I can find one. Through the windows maybe you can glimpse a clear blue sky with some clouds,  and perhaps some branches with tiny pale cherry blossoms. I have pictures in my mind, but I only need time to make the whole things into reality. Now it’s time to bring the male doll back and start modifying him! For more working processes of the male doll, please visit the facebook fanpage.(link)

Thank you very much to:Nene Tina Thomas, Steven Plagman and my friends here.Hugs/Nune

*all pictures are the copy rights by Nene Tina Thomas.

Avaiable Dolls

Here comes The Queen. 

This reminds me of some magazines.

 

It seems she gets ready?

         It took almost 3 months to finish the doll, The Queen Victoria. 

I feel like I gain more love and passion nearly get obsessed with the dolls I make. My sculpt, painting, dressing, photo taking skills keeps improving and they become more visual from what I have in my mind. There are many visual concepts inside my brain but I cannot extremely express them all out. However, The Queen Victoria doll gives me a big representation from my imagination that comes into more reality for me. I get so happy, very happy whenever I look at her pictures from my phone, laptop, or anywhere else. Thank you God so much, my parents, and many nice friends that keep cheering me up. These are so worth!  

 

         As we have seen a music video I already made for her, there are some pictures that wouldn’t be chosen for making the video. I think these 2 pictures looked very nice, but too modern according to her look and dress. However, this small imagination that it seemed Victoria was flying in the air, looked so lovely and cute. There are many shots these this, but I keep them specially that one day, many of them will be used in the future.

 

         And this is another technique that shows a different look of her. It could be so enigma, and a scary side of her? It made me think of a Vampire, something haunting in the castle, or some spiritual things. Sorry if some of us don’t like it. But I think it gives a different vision of the photo taking technique that changes the mood and feeling of the doll! Oh she may need blood? I’d better not to say. But at least this is a new thing for my exploration of a new picture style!

This reminds me some black and white movies.

 

         As some people may need to know where and how to purchase The Queen Victoria: “Please be announced that the Victoria dolls will be officially available for sale on the 22^nd of June, 2012." For more pictures, please visit this following official website. You may click here

The Queen Victoria Doll price is 2,000$. 

Her Elegant Look:-)

I offer 2 lay a ways plan only: 
1^st half is 1,000$ and the other 1,000$ for the final.  
The deposit is “non-refundable”  This price excludes the shipping cost.

For more informations, please feel free to write: immortalclassique@gmail.com

Thank you very much. Hugs/Nune

Very Soon Victoria

The nude doll, Victoria.

        

         It can be a tradition to post a nude doll in the assembling process before taking her photographs in complete costumes. I think it should be a few days that the stainless steel springs will be sent directly to my home. Then, I can assemble the doll, The Queen Victoria so soon enough. I’m so excited to take her photograph! For this time, I will take her photo in my studio because I have prepared a diorama for the Queen specially.

        The diorama for the Queen is just done yesterday. I went to see a cousin who is a carpenter and asked him to borrow some tools and equipments for making the doll scene. I wish this can be a small tutorial for friends who need to make the diorama for the dolls themselves. It's easy and I think everyone can do it. Yeah! I started to calculate the width and height of the wall as the floor (the base polished porcelain tile) is 60x60cm. The wall size is at 60x70cm. Then I used the lumber machine to cut the plywood into 2 pieces. (For the left and right wall). I smoothed at the edges of them with the sand paper to make it look neat.  Once when I got the size that I need, it's time to glue the wall with the wall paper I have bought from the agent. To make the wall paper stick on the plywood neatly, I needed to polish the plywood again with a very rough sanding paper. After sanding it, I applied the glue all over the texture of the plywood. Then I used the roller to spread the glue all over it. Leaving it for a while, I carefully put the wall paper at the bottom of the wood. Slowly put it down in the horizontal line, then used to the sponge and the plastic bag to smooth the surface of the wallpaper. Yes, it's a half way for now. One difficult task was done. So it's time to do the decorate the wall. I bought 4 completed architraves that they have a design I needed. It's 30x11cm. I put them together and 2 of them needed to be cut in 90' by using the try square. (I couldn't do this alone so I asked the factory that it has the special equipment to cut the hard materials like rock, resin, and etc. to cut the architraves for me). I also picked some small golden frame woods(for making the photo frames) that fit the wallpaper, a small one for the above of the architraves and a bigger one for the lower part of the architraves. I put these 3 pieces; the small golden wood, architraves, and the big golden wood, together. Put them to the walls and that’s done! (I decided not to permanently stick them all to the walls because it’s much more easier to move, assemble or separate when it needed to be displayed in another places.) Lastly, I used the latches to hold the left wall and the right wall together. I can open it like a book and the closed it nicely and strongly.

My Making Processes

           I think the best part of doing the doll scene is to find the decoration items like the cabinets, flowerpots, vases, candleholders, or some furniture to make it look more real.(I love to watch many American doll lovers, especially Tonner dolls collectors that they enjoy finding the props and materials for their lovely dolls. That’s really nice to see the lovely things like this.) And here my finished doll scene for my Queen Victoria!  

I need a few props to make it complete

         I hope things will run smoothly. I’m going to share all us here when the photographing of the Queen Victoria is done. Thank you for visiting. Hugs/Nune

My Kimono's Dream Came True

         A long time ago before my Immortals were born, I found a website one day that it’s all about the Kimonos. I remember that I went to that website almost everyday, kept admiring and dreaming of my own Kimono like that. I didn’t know who the artist is, but I only loved to see some colorful kimonos in different colors, black, red, gold, some colorful tiny flowers, cranes, and also many miniatures beautiful props and wigs in Oriental Japanese Styles. Until I have made my own porcelain BJDs, I started to dream about those Kimonos again. I, therefore, started making the Kimonos, trying to adapted and applied from what I saw. I goggled and bought some books that taught how to do the Kimono patterns. Finally the Kimono from what I have learnt from the books was done.  Umm what should I say?  I gave up and I kept it. I never put it on the website anymore. It might not be the right time for me to have the best Kimono like those. It came up to my mind someday that I should write to that artist and ask her to make a Kimono for my doll specially. However, I was to considerate not to disturb her until there was a destiny, a very beautiful destiny that made my big dream came true. As I said in some previous blog that how I got to this Kimonos artist, Miwa M, a very skillful kimonos making master of many different types for BJDs, now I would like to make a second review for her kimono in this whole entry of my blog here.

         It came to me one day that I went to Miwa’s facebook and I saw some pictures of her doll wearing the kimono, “Oiran” The topic said “If you play with Oiran, please learn a tradition. Uncouth is disliked by them. :P” This made me think that the maker has a really strong back ground of what she’s doing. A person who becomes “Oiran” should have some political knowledge, entertaining skills, musical, acting, and some performances as a kind of art. An of course, she must have a good personality, too. This is how she looks from Miwa’s vision. How do you like her? For me I love this doll with the kimono by Miwa so much!

a.

b.

         After I have seen some pictures from her facebook, I wouldn’t hesitate to write and ask her about the possibility to own this hand made Kimono. Miwa said  she could not repeat the same kimono again because each kimono takes time and the graphics on the kimono are always not the same. I feel it’s so special because the cutting and the pattern from the real pieces are not what I could learn exactly from the book at all. To make a complicated things like this, the maker must have a very strong sense of how to attach and combine the pattern wisely. I got some massages back during our conversation and it took 3 days that the kimono came to my place after the writing some long emails. Thank you very much that she shipped the kimono so fast and I didn’t expect that it would be that fast! How nice.

          The kimono came to me yesterday in the evening as I came back home and my brother said that there was a package from Japan. I realized that it must be that Kimono from Miwa. And it’s right. I slowly opened and saw things carefully.  I got a short massage from her, saying something about her work. She also sent some postcards, and they are very beautiful! I got so surprised that Miwa had sent me the small pillow for the doll, a green mat, and also the golden back drop as a beautiful prop! Oh my goodness, my heart was popping out so fast!

         The second thing that I saw was something in a plastic box. The box was carefully packed the decoration part for the dress. I didn’t know what to call these pieces. But they are golden. On the right pictures, there are 2 goldfish as a beautiful decoration on it. This shows how imaginative that the Japanese people have from the past until now.

          This shows the front and back of the 1^st layer of the dress. I really love the red and purple. These 2 colors are so fresh. I noticed the pattern and they are totally hand made! I couldn’t believe this! They can be a museum Kimono doll quality. The different needles colors were carefully sew on the dress pieces. I’m so speechless. It reminded me a surprised thing of a temple in Kyoto once I visited, that temple was built and constructed without any nails! It’s so gigantic and it amazed me so much. So did this kimono!!!

         And these show the outer dress that the front and the back is beautifully and equally cut and sew by hands. The birds on the upper left arm, and right arm, and also at the bottom are so equal! That’s so nice!

 

         The last thing that I would like to share us all here is the wig and the accessories. The wig is really neat and strong with the cap inside.It's called "Shimada" wig style. I like the small tiny double pins that the top has got small chains with the circular crafts at the tips. Needless to say, these special pins make the doll and the wig look very charming and truly beautiful!

         Now I just keep this Kimono very well in the box, and I promise that I will share us all here on day when I make another special doll that fits Miwa’s Kimono. I have a plan to make my private gallery one day in the future and I believe that the 2 kimonos from Miwa, Heian Period, and Oiran Kimono will display together beautifully in a nice glass box.I'd like to "thank you" very much for visiting the blog. I also would like to Thank You Miwa here for making my dream comes true. I have some other artists that I want to share here,too. But to night, Thank You and have a sweet dreams guys.

Hugs/Nune 

c.

credit pictures a, b, and c: http://www.facebook.com/miwa.maruta

Queen Victoria's Captures

         I got a short break to the sea with my family about a week ago. It was very wonderful as I have a full rest, sleep and eat! I also got some new inspirations while I was laying down closed by the sea shore. I saw some tiny birds walking closed to me and maybe they needed me to feed them some food. I slowly closed my eyes and felt asleep. Suddenly, my eyes opened and the fascinating trip from the sea has gone as I came back home and saw a big pile of letters and stuffs sending from my friends and customers. I realized at that moment that it was time to work again!!! 

         The first day back to my hometown was to rush to the main factory to do the final fire for the Queen Victoria. This morning I just went to pick them up and I slowly tried to put the wig and the crown on her head. What do you think? For me, I love it so much. Especially, the neck collar decorated with the lace, tinsels, some tiny beads, and diamonds made me get so happy. It is so elegant and truly beautiful.

Victoria's Head Caption

         From the picture above, the red wig is decorated with tiny synthetic pearls, pinching with the silver pins to hold the position of them. The center part is decorated with the real silver string and attached the water drop pedant. I thought it was so luxurious to put it on this way (at the forehead) because it was perfectly fit with the Swarovski earrings. 
         And when I put the collar on the completed costume, it really made me think of the 16th century costume, so royal and imposing. 

Victoria's (almost) Complete Costume

         And this is a good news. From the beginning that I started making doll project, making the card of authenticity with serial numbers, and also the thank you card caused me some problems because the postcard company did not give me a clear detail of the paper used for making cards. As a result,I was so upset a bit because those hundred cards  I got hundred were disqualified enough. 

         A trip to the sea gave me a chance to visit to a shop in the big mall, Martha Stewart, and I found some tools that I can use to modify my cards now. I spent time 4 hours to choose and pick some tools that I thought they would be useful for my works, and they really worked!!!

" My Lovely Card "

         This is not a postcard from heaven or an invitation card from the Queen. But it's a card, "Authenticity Card" as well as the "Thank You" handmade card that are made from my heart:-)

 

 a: on the left; if the owner is a female,the picture of a woman will appear after the cover.

 b: in the middle is the crown, a paper that is cut from the previous card, that this gives a shadow when the light shines through.

 c: on the right; if the owner is a male, the picture of a man will appear after the cover.

          Yes, things go so slowly and all the problems need fixing gradually. Please do not get bored to wait for the Queen Victoria in complete:-) Thank you very much for visiting. 
Hugs/Nune

Victoria's Reveal

         The rain keeps falling down and the weather has been changing so recently, this caused some problems for the mold making. The Victoria face has been remade 3 times that I found some problems here and there on her face sculpts. The works go so slowly and I sometimes feel that lucks didn’t come to my way much. Now, I have another processes of the Queen Victoria to show us all here. As we know that she’s the Queen, Victoria is supposed to have her own crown. Originally, I had an intention to have a crown with no much of decoration. I have talked to a person I once met in the Doll fête in Bangkok, K.Siri ,through the Viber that I was making a doll theme related to Queen Elizabeth I costume. He suddenly sent me a picture of a model (could be Lilly Cole if I was not wrong) wearing an elegant crown. That crown in the picture looked so special as it has some small tiny branches ( straight wires come out from the crown) and there are some stars, small kinds of planets at the top of the wires. It could symbolize that at that time England was like the sun that it’s the centre of the universe. (This is just my opinion). So I came up to the idea that I should do this kind of crown that it has small branches like the picture that K. Siri has sent to me. Thank you to him here.

It seems that the crown needs more branches.

         It’s good that the branches piece can be removed as a separated item to the main crown. The crown has 8 line parts and each part is decorated with violet, pink and white diamonds. At the front line part, there is a big cross figure as well as at the top of the crown, too. When it attached to the small branches part, it looks very elegant, and also when it stands alone. 

I love this crown in real:-)

         So now let’s see The Queen Victoria’s costume. I choose the silver-grey synthetic silk and all the materials, such as beads, tinsels, threads, and modals in silver and grey color, to make an elegant costume for her. From the picture, I decided to add the neck collar to make the costume become more beautiful. At the beginning, I tried to use the wire, cut and bent them in the shape, U shaped like a fan for the neck collar, but I found it’s not strong enough to hold the neck piece. Now I have another plan that I will share with us all again here when it’s completely done. (Yes, it’s now on the beading works:-) At the upper arms of the costume, I slowly put the laces and then add some silver beading works in a small line between them. And there's more beading works at the sleeves as well. However, I think the triangle chest part, the scale is quite small. So I need to make it a bit more longer than this one...sign

It needs chiffon, and some more beadings around the lace.

          And the final thing that I'd like to sahre us here tonight, is the doll's shoes. For her shoes, I need to coat them into silver so that the costume and the shoes will perfectly fit each other. The shoes contain of the diamonds color group as the crown piece; violet, pink and white. These are the current shoes that they have the highest heel that I have ever had. They really look fabulous and I have tired them on a doll and I got so happy, very happy to see something so beautiful like a fairy tale.

                  And this is the other picture of the side look of the shoe.

Looks like a fairytale's shoes?

         The shoes have not been coated yet. When they are finished, they would be so shiny and perfect for Victoria. The costume and the accessories for my Victoria doll almost have been finished. But,. well the doll face and body are still in the porcelain slip process and they need to be put into the firing process. They are waiting my hands to slowly give body blushing, face painting and wigging. How can I move on while the rain keeps falling down??? Poor me:-(

Thank you very much for you time to everyone here/Nune

More Works

         Last night, I just posted a picture about my latest sclupt of my Victoria on my Facebook, showing my failure ( I mean a result that dissatisfied me for the a big numbers of my rough paint test on my doll face) to my friends there. It's a kind of disappointed to me as I worked really hard on it and hoped for the best that it would be another nice one for my own doll making. However, I didn't know why the blank sclupt looked very nice indeed, but the result of painting was very disappointed to me. My I Phone has more than 200 pictures of if and I kept all the records, and angles to see all the results every time I was free. (I watched them so many times before I went to bed, woke up, and etc.) I tried some experiments with the photo shop to check the facial balance, finding mistakes as a home work and then woke up in another day and rushed to improve it. I must Thank You for many nice friends there to encourage me and that really means a lot for me. Now I'm making on another new head, trying to find and correct the mistake I have done. I hope, really hope that this head will gives me a big smile.

         Now the accessories, and the costume are on the way to finish. But how can I make the whole things now? I wish I could have time, a lot of time more than this. Something needs to stop for a while, and doing something instead. I work like a bee now. I woke up today and then started to make another sclupt. It's been now 14 hours that I work on it. I put the sclupt tools down and them updated a short blog about my latest progress of my works. My friend nice friend who does the magnificent paintings said sometimes she didn't understand of something wrong and not knowing what that something is... Yes, I really didn't know what's wrong with that and why. This is the picture of a blank costume of Victoria that doesn't have any beading works. I should explain the details here but it seems I have a very low motivation to mention about it now. ( I also didn't talk about any of my inspiration until now..I'm sorry about this)

A long way to go,...

        

         And, this is the crown, my Queen's crown that is almost done. There are a main pieces of this crown, but it's my top secret not to share you here. I believe that the crown will be so magnificent when it's done and I will put it on her red curvy wig.

 

In the wax process

         

         I think I should stop this entry now. Yes, it's time to answers the emails. Have a wonderful day everyone.