One year

     It has officially been one year since I first came in contact with my very own ball-jointed doll. My brother had his Bobobie Apollo already, but wouldn't let anyone see or touch him for any reason. Meanwhile, mine was on her way from the UK.

     I remember when the box arrived, I was home alone and sitting at the dining room table to be sure I wouldn't miss the delivery (she was actually supposed to be delivered the day before, but the mailman hadn't even knocked on the door before driving away and leaving a slip in our mailbox). Upon tearing off the plastic wrapping and cutting the tape on the box, I pulled out my beautiful, faceless doll and proceeded to take her apart. I had no idea how to put her back together. So I got frustrated, set her pieces aside, and went ahead with the faceup until my brother came home and put her together for me (and we found out later that her arms were switched, which was why it was really wonky to try to get her to pose).

     And then about a week or two after struggling to get her to sit, I took a closer look at it and found that the hip piece was blocking her legs from coming up at a nice 90 degree angle. So when nobody was looking, I put on one of my mom's dust masks (the kind used for construction work) and started sanding away at it. It was scary at first, but then the feeling when it was over was nice. Like an accomplishment. Once I could straighten her legs and set her on the table sitting up, I wanted to do more. I wanted to pierce her ears, reshape her hands, and all sorts of other crazy things. So the next day, I went at her ears with a needle--though the whole "hot needle" thing doesn't work if your needle doesn't stay hot for very long. I wound up just kind of carving the holes out with the needle and then poking deeper and deeper. It killed my hands.

   

     I wanted more.

      Eventually, I did a suwarikko mod on her legs, reshaped her face, and all sorts of other crazy stuff. I even went ahead and gave her more piercings (after reading up about this amazing little tool called a pin vise)

     My Resinsoul Li is the doll that's taught me a great deal of what I know about BJD's--from restringing to faceups and sewing. She was the first step for me, and the biggest struggle. I used to have a plan for her long ago, but looking back it just wasn't right for her. Then again, nothing has felt right for her until maybe a month or two ago when I most recently changed her faceup. She has no backstory, no name, I'm not even sure if she's human or whether she should secretly be something else. She is just a doll.

     And, at least for now, I'm happy with her. I feel like if I'd settled for the smaller, cheapest option when it came to my first doll then I wouldn't be happy with would probably not have gone on to try new dolls. I would have just been frustrated with the single-jointed posing and the fact that for some reason the smaller doll's clothes would have costed more than my girl's. I'm happy that I got her, even with that awful pink wig that I was convinced was the look for her. I'm happy that I failed horribly trying to make my own wig out of wefts from the local beauty shop. For some reason, I'm also happy that it took 6 faceups for me to decide whether or not I even liked her in the first place. There was a long time that I was just considering putting her away in her box and just playing with my other dolls forever (and then selling her after everyone forgot about her).

 

        She's proof to me that I can stick with something, and serves as a prime example of the progress made in just one year.  I couldn't have picked a better doll to start out with.

~~Aronzo~~