New ladies, weird hairstyles, crazy caterpillars, etc

Ah, new Laini's Ladies complete. It's a small new collection that will debut at the summer gift shows. Just four ladies:

I made samples over the weekend; watched about 4 episodes of Lady Oscar while I cut them out. (Love that Lady Oscar! These episodes were all about the feud between Marie Antoinette and the Countess du Barry (mistress of the king) -- funny, French court intrigue, told in big-eyed anime. Lady Oscar herself scarcely features in these episodes, and there's hardly any swordplay at all.)

[Oh, heh, I got the new "School Visits" section of my website posted. It's HERE.]

Check it out:
In my ongoing quest for Laini's Ladies faces, I came across a site I've found before: Lunagirl Images. I'd never ordered their CDs because I thought copyright would be an issue, but I finally emailed them and asked and they granted me permission to use just faces from their photos. So I ordered a ton of CDs, and even bought some digital download collage pages, but then I didn't end up using any of them because none of the faces had quite the right look (from the downloads; I hadn't received the CDs yet). Laini's Ladies' faces need to have a certain joy or sweetness (usually), and the problem is that models don't tend to shoot for that look. More like: sultry, sexy, bored. NOT so Laini's Ladies-esque. I scrounge through a lot of photos to find a few smilers! I'm hopeful there will be a some on these CDs I can use, though.

And look at this:
It's a little set of vintage hairstyle cards sent to me by my friend Abigail. Isn't it awesome?? Of course, I couldn't resist trying some of the hairstyles on myself:
(That's a picture from my Mexico photo album. Yes, I am having a cookie for breakfast.) I tried some hair on this little boy, too:
Ha ha! So silly.

Since this is becoming a post of randomness, here is a photo I snapped while taking pictures of my new ladies. I made these dolls a few years ago:
I went through a brief obsession with making dolls with polyclay molded faces. These were the paperdoll-body versions. The one on the left says "ripe slice of person." I don't remember what that was about!

Random wrap-up:
Besides Laini's Ladies and Silksinger, which I'm fully back into with great zest, I have recently read Atonement (the movie was a strikingly faithful adaptation; I loved both), and then right after that, a really good, super-creepy ghost story called Heart-Shaped Box that my parents had given Jim for his birthday (along with a Spiderman Tshirt and season 2 of Veronica Mars). Now I'm reading a YA called Teach Me -- I just started it last night and I'm deeply into it. Instantly loved the character's voice and humor, and got so sucked into the story of a highschool girl in the aftermath of a passionate affair with her teacher. Girl voice/male writer, extraordinarily well done. Funny, convincing, fabulous. (Liesa, I'm dying to find out what Nine did at the wedding.)

So, that's the book update. We're also watching Buffy season 3, which I haven't seen in ages and I think it might be the best Buffy season ever. Faith! Werewolves! Angel returned from the hell dimension! The mayor! God, it's so good.

Reading all that stuff above, you would think that I never work, wouldn't you, that I just sit around reading and watching TV. Well: not true! I work! I wrote myself to a massive hand cramp yesterday! (Notes on the revision; so many new ideas!) Besides the books and TV shows, there have also been brief flirtations with a possible new obsession which I plan to stave off: collecting more weird creature parts! You know about the box of claws. Well, once you're in possession of such a thing, you sort of start wanting more claws. It's only natural (ask Batch Hangnail). And how about some fangs while you're at it? I really think I need a full set of hippopotamus teeth, and maybe a replica giant sloth claw. (Did you know giant sloths weighed 20,000 pounds? Er, how is that even possible?) And then, too, you can wile away quite a few minutes looking at freaky pictures of moth caterpillars. Look, it's like a couple of space-alien dachsunds out for a stroll:
And. . . what???
No. . . really?
Eeeeeek!

(It is high time for a new installment of "Earth's Greatest Hits" I think. Moths, man. Moths are crazy!)

Heck, I really need some amazing, rare insect specimens, like these. They're like jewels. No? I don't need them? No, I don't. Slipping the credit card back into the wallet. Shopping averted. Back to work!

P.S. "Emily's lost story" people, yay, this is going to be fun!! Let's read the books and be in touch. Anyone still want to sign up, see last two posts.