Crear un fondo sencillo para tu blog o diorama

Estos días son días de cambios, no hago más que buscar cosas relacionadas con el diseño y mi cuenta en Pinterest se ha llenado de múltiples inspiraciones y posibles fondos para el blog.

Aprovechando que mi amiga Sandra me ha preguntado sobre dónde encontrar fondos sencillos para dioramas, se me ha ocurrido que podía publicar una entrada al respecto; pero como no quiero sólo centrarme en mis muñecas, haré un post que os resultará útil cuando busqueis fondos básicos (tanto para vuestros dioramas o escenarios, como para vuestra web, blog o diseños personales)

• En el caso de los blogs y páginas web, es importante cuidar su estética y  armonía. Si sois asiduos lectores de algunos de ellos, os habreis dado cuenta de que la apariencia resulta casi tan importante como su contenido, por eso resulta muy importante elegir un buen fondo, que lo dote de personalidad, pero que no despiste al lector.
• En el caso de los dioramas y escenarios, también es necesario crear cierta armonía entre todos sus elementos, de modo que el ambiente no resulte demasiado cargante y provoque que nos perdamos los pequeños detalles.

En la red existen infinitos bancos de imágenes dónde encontraremos fondos interesantes, pero en ocasiones los colores no se corresponden con las tonalidades que tenemos en mente y terminamos desesperándonos. Otras veces, elegimos fondos demasiado recargados, que saturan la visión de nuestros blogs. Y no hemos de olvidarnos, sobre todo cuando no somos expertos diseñadores, que menos es más.

Una solución a este problema, son los generadores de patterns o tramas, programas que nos permiten crear y modificar fondos en base a diferentes patrones que se repiten.

Ventajas de un generador de patterns:

- No utilizan imágenes, generan distintos patrones o mosaicos que son perfectos para usar como texturas.
- Son herramientas rápidas, fáciles de utilizar y bastante intuitivas
- Podemos diseñar nuestros propios motivos y utilizarlos en el futuro en nuestras creaciones y diseños.
- Podemos modificar las tonalidades y adaptarlas a la gama de colores que tenemos pensada.

Desventajas de un generador de patterns:
- Los diseños generados son impersonales y en algunas ocasiones puede resultar negativo, todo depende de cómo los combinemos y se adapten al diseño.
- Hay tantas opciones y son tan simples, que nos costará decidirnos.

ALGUNOS EJEMPLOS DE GENERADORES DE PATTERNS O TRAMAS SON:

• http://patternizer.com/

Patternizer os permite crear fondos con estampados de vichy, cuadros escoceses o rayas.
En la siguiente imagen podéis ver para qué sirven los botones principales.

• http://www.stripegenerator.com/

Este generador está especialmente recomendado si buscais un fondo a rayas. Su funcionamiento es tan sencillo como el anterior pero para guardar los cambios debéis de hacer click encima de las dos flechas.

El panel de la izquierda sirve para modificar el tamaño de las rayas, el espacio entre ellas, el color, estilo de fondo, sombra, colores de fondo y orientación.

• http://www.patterncooler.com/

Pattercooler llega un poco más allá y os ofrece fondos algo más elaborados, con múltiples tramas que podeis colorear a vuestro antojo. Para guardar vuestras creaciones de forma gratuita debéis de seleccionar la opción *.png

Algunas de las creaciones que podéis obtener con los mencionados generadores son:

Éstas 3 tramas las diseñé mientras elaboraba el tutorial y podéis descargarlas y utilizarlas sin ningún problema.

¿Y a vosotros/as? ¿Os gustan los generadores de patterns o preferís utilizar fondos más elaborados?

Bryce Sugar has a new home

Hace mucho que tenía ganas de meterle mano a una Icy doll. Me parece que tienen una carita entrañable y que con unos pocos cambios pueden ser fantásticas.
Despues de darle muchas vueltas, nació Bryce Sugar y ahora busca un hogar para que pueda seguir experimentando en otras niñas.


Long ago I wanted to get my hands on one Icy doll. I think they have such a pretty face and I think that with a few changes they can be fantastic.
So Sugar Bryce was born and now she is looking for a home, so I can keep experimenting in other girls.

 

BRYCE SUGAR HA ENCONTRADO UN NUEVO HOGAR! :)
BRYCE SUGAR HAS FOUND A NEW HOME! :)

Differences between original Blythe, fake and prototypes (Part 2)

How to differentiate an original Blythe, from a prototype or a factory?

To differentiate an original Blythe form Factory Blythe / Prototype, is a complicated task, since the Factory dolls have an exact mold of the original RBL Blythe. When buying a doll, therefore, if we don't plan to enter into the world of the Factory, the best is to go to stores like http://juniemoonshop.com/, http://www.hlj.com /, http://www.cc-toys.com.hk/. Another good option is to hit Mandarake if we are looking for an older model or second hand doll: http://ekizo.mandarake.co.jp/shop/en/

Have you found a nude doll on eBay or in forums with a second hand market and want to make sure what kind of doll it is? Don't worry, there is another way to differentiate them. The Factory Blythe / Prototype keep so far a hallmark that distinguishes them from the originals and it is that prototypes are the same in appearance, but do not wear the ring in the hole where the pullring string passes.

This is when I introduce you to Anneke. Anekke has a Blythe scalp of Ribonetta Wish, as you can see at first glance, it looks the same as any other Blythe, except that there is no official editions for that combination of makeup, color of eyes and scalp. Anneke came home wearing a dress and jacket of a Ribonetta, but she is not an original Ribonetta, she is a prototype, and if you look at the hole through which the rope passes, there is no metal ring that embellishes the hole in the backplate .

This is a very important point in differentiating the stock dolls and customized ones especially, wich will be the ones that we mostly will doubt about . We know the value of customization is more about the work it takes than the base doll being an original Blythe or a Factory Blythe, but it's nice to know what we buy when we adopt a customized doll.

Besides RBL prototypes in the market, there as well, although to a lesser extent, some prototypes of FBL mold dolls. Although these are more rare, there are some interesting variations for collectors, such as translucent FBL (which have not yet officially been released by Takara).

Clarified the main difference between Blythe and Factory / Prototype, let's proceed to:

Differentiate the original Blythefrom Fake Blythes:

The fake blythes are forgery and are not exact replicas of the mold of Blythe. It is important that we learn to distinguish them at first glance to not be fooled. As I said in my previous post, counterfeits 

are poor quality dolls and while we can pay for a prototype similar prices to those of some blythe because we like their hair color or skin, paying the same amount for a poor quality copy, I'm sure many of us must find it unfair and abusive.

I never had a fake doll in the hand, so to distinguish them I had to resort to pictures of the network and Taobao to perform comparisons.

In the picture above you can see a picture of a RBL Fake (1), a doll Takara RBL (2) and a Prototype RBL (3). As you can see, there are no differences between the mold of Casual Affair original (2) and the mold of Alexis Emerald Factory (3). But if you look at the picture of the Fake (1), there are slight differences in the eye socket.

When you look at the fake, we note that in the left and right sides of the eye sockets, there is a gap far greater than in the faceplates of the original blythe. This is because the eye socket is a little more oval and allows to see the mechanism easier, I think that makes them a sadder look. Some people who have had one in their hands also say that when they look straight ahead, his gaze is inward and makes a very strange effect. Also, another point that differences them is that the fake blythe have the nose slightly wider than the original Blythe. Since this difference is almost negligible at a glance, when we have concerns with a doll, we need to look at the holes in the sides, which, if any, will confirm our suspicions that it is a fake.

The fakes, unlike the prototypes do bring a bezel / ring in the hole of the backplate, but this ring in most cases is rusty, because of the low quality of the materials used in the copies.

In this picture you can also see that the stock eyechips have a different color, the greens are brighter in the fake (right doll). And I also appreciated that orange eyechips are much more yellow-orange in the fakes.

In the next picture you can see that the color of the special eyechips from last kiss is an apple green color, which differs from the original dark green.

  Last Kiss fake

                                                    Last kiss fake            Last Kiss original

This photos are taken from Mustang_Sally photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/mustang_sally5/

Besides fake models of Simply Mango Simply Guava, Urban Cowgirl and Last Kiss, fakes of unknown models are distributed too. Apparently they may be prototypes, but if you look at the eye sockets, we see that these dolls are forgeries.

We must be careful with the appearance of translucent fakes. These dolls are more difficult to differentiate, because they often do not keep common traits and makeup and this can lead us to think that it's a new mold or that the differences are simply due to the makeup.

But if you look once more into the eye sockets, you will see that they keep the proportions and spaces on either side that characterizes fakes.

I hope this post will be useful to resolve the doubts you have in your future purchases.

I recommend you stopping by the following groups where you will find more useful information.

Flickr groups where you can see pictures of prototypes:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1344817@N24/

http://www.flickr.com/groups/factoryblythe/

Flickr group where you can see pictures of fakes:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1648247@N22/pool/with/5146534994/

Translation by Jennyg http://www.flickr.com/photos/veranos/

Thank you so much for your help!

Original text by Jaiza http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaiza

 

Blythe Differences between original Blythe, fake and prototypes (Part 1)

As I see that many people have doubts about the differences between the original Blythe, prototypes and fakes, this post will be aimed to clarify concepts and appreciate the main differences between them.

For starters, we will clarify the concepts:

Takara Blythe: are all those dolls that have been produced by the brand Takara and are listed on the website of the brand http://www.blythedoll.com/ You can find most of the models published in this article http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blythe , see Blythopia http://blythopia.com/  or see the latest news and releases forum http:/ / www.vidasdeplastico.com/  or http://blythekingdom.forumotion.com/

As many of you already know:

"Blythe dolls were inspired by the designs developed by Margaret Keane, similarly to many other American dolls of the 60's and 70's. Its main feature were his eyes, which were able to be closed as desired and could change their color as well thanks to a rope with a handle (popularly known as 'pullstring') located on the back of the head, hidden by the hair. Blythe dolls were only sold in the U.S. (although produced in Hong Kong) for one year, 1972, because they were not very popular (American girls at that time were scared by his oversized head) and that made them disappear from the stores quickly.

Thirty years after its initial release, the Blythe regained popularity unexpectedly. In 1997, producer Gina Garan was given a 1972 Kenner Blythe original as a gift from a friend and began using it as a model to improve her skills as a photographer.

In 2000, Gina published her first book of Blythe photography at Chronicle Books, This is Blythe. Later in the same year, the American company Hasbro (Kenner's successor) gave Blythe rights to the japanese Takara. The first 'Neo Blythe' (developed by Takara) was used in a television campaign for Parco stores with instant and resounding success. This allowed the return of Blythes in the U.S. and then to the rest of the world, but this time turned into a product for adults 'collectors'.

Information taken from Wikipedia

Time has wanted to introduce into the market products similar to Blythe, but of dubious origin and this is when problems begin.

In addition to other products trying to imitate the design of the Blythe doll, I'll talk probably about in the future, they appeared in the market identical design models, which at first seemed a mixture of parts of different models previously released, or unreleased until that moment. These dolls would be called prototypes or Blythe Factory.

Blythe Factory / Prototypes: The history of the prototypes and Factory Blythe, has some points in common. The factory Blythe consist of pieces of different dolls and have not been recognized by Takara as original dolls, but they have not denied they are so, therefore, there are various theories about its origin.

I would like to quickly summarize its little story in a few lines: Takara initially sent some prototypes of dolls they were making to certain collectors, these dolls were not a final design, but reached high prices in the secondary market, since they were unreleased sample dolls with identical features to commercial models. Through some chinese vendors, large quantities of dolls started to be sold over time, made of different parts, which they called Factory Blythe.These dolls were made of pieces from about to be edited models, such as Zukin Ahcahcum Blythe and doll parts also released in the past, they had little flaws in their makeup, as e.g. the limited edition Blythe Doronjo.

The Factory Blythe has continued to be sold since then and have found its greatest exponent in the Taobao market. The large number of dolls offered makes us suspect if they are really made from leftovers or prototypes from the factory. Takara being involved or not in this matter, anyway, prototypes have the same mold than official Takara ones, with some small flaws as chips on the doll's makeup, assembly defects in the torso, a bad hair cut or entangled hair.

Shortly after the appearance of the prototypes and factory on the market, it began to sound the alarm of forgery and Blythe Fake appeared.

Blythe fake: when the first fake blythe appeared, terror arose because some vendors intentionally or unintentionally, were selling them pretenting to be original Blythe. The first models that began to be spotted as fakes were Simply Guava Mango and Simply The Urban Cowgirl and the Last Kiss. These three models were often sold with the original pictures of the brand and it was not until the reception of the doll, when buyers were aware of the deception. Differences in packaging were minimal and even an experienced collector might go unnoticed because of the low-resolution of the pictures used by the sellers.

Although at first sight differences doesn't show, Blythe Fake have not a mold which is an exact copy of the one used by Takara, plus, when removing them we can see that the material quality is lower than a prototype one and of course the original Blythe. That's a big advantage for us when we are differentiating them.

At this point, we find ourselves in the dilemma, how to differentiate them?, A problem I'll discuss in the next post.

 

Translation by Jennyg http://www.flickr.com/photos/veranos/

Thank you so much for your help!

Original text by Jaiza http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaiza

RETO SUPERADO!!!

El reto 7 muñecas, 7 colores ha llegado a su fin... juntas hemos pasado unos días muy emocionantes!!
Para l@s que no habeis podido disfrutar de él en flickr, he recopilado en esta entrada los mejores momentos en forma de mosaicos.

ROJO

NARANJA

AMARILLO

VERDE

AZUL

AÑIL

VIOLETA

Muchas gracias a Alejandra, Alma, Azuldeluna, Begona69, Baccarita, Cactus, Cucasina, Higadillo, Nenya, Noelia_sweet, Meigaland, Pandora, Penelope Hutton por haber aportado vuestros granitos de arena. Espero que hayais disfrutado con este pequeño proyecto y tengais ganas de particiar en futuras propuestas. Como veis, no ha resultado tan dificil ser constantes :)))

7 muñecas 7 colores

Este es un pequeño reto creativo que vamos a realizar en flickr para motivarnos a ser constantes y a que hagamos fotos a nuestras "niñas".
Para no demorarnos en el tiempo y caer en la pereza, comenzaremos con el reto mañana mismo, por lo que esta noche podeis ir pensando en qué se basará la foto de mañana.
La idea es fotografiar una muñeca cada día y que a su vez la tonalidad predominante se corresponda con uno de los 7 colores del arcoiris.

El orden de este reto será:
Martes 12: Rojo
Miércoles 13: naranja
Jueves 14: amarillo
Viernes 15: verde
Sábado 16: azul
Domingo 17: añil
Lunes 18: violeta

Al finalizar cada día realizaremos un mosaico con las fotos de l@s participantes, así que teneis que comprometeros a ser constantes estos 7 días. ¡No me sirven las excusas! :)))
¡El límite lo pone vuestra imaginación! Ya estais preparándoos, porque mañana toca el: ROJO

Tod@s l@s que querais participar sereis bienvenid@s! Para empezar, debeis de dejar un mensaje en este enlace foto y subir la imagen de "7 muñecas, 7 colores" en vuestra galería.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaiza/7362342378/

Diferencias entre Blythe originales, prototipos y fakes (2º Parte)

¿Cómo diferenciar una Blythe original, de un prototipo o de una factory?

Diferenciar una Blythe Original de una Blythe Factory/Prototipo, resulta una tarea complicada, dado que las muñecas Factory tienen un molde exacto a las Blythe RBL originales. Por tanto, a la hora de comprar una muñeca, si no tenemos pensado adentrarnos en el mundo de las Factory, lo mejor es que acudamos a tiendas especializadas como http://juniemoonshop.com/, http://www.hlj.com/, http://www.cc-toys.com.hk/. Otra buena opción es acudir al Mandarake si estamos buscando modelos antiguos o muñecas de segunda mano: http://ekizo.mandarake.co.jp/shop/en/

¿Has encontrado alguna muñeca desnuda en Ebay o en foros con mercado de segunda mano y quieres cerciorarte de que tipo de muñeca es? No te preocupes, existe otra forma de diferenciarlas. Las Blythe Factory/Prototipo hasta ahora conservan una seña de identidad que las diferencia de las originales y es que los prototipos son iguales en aspecto, pero no llevan puesta la arandela por la que pasa el cordoncito del pullring.

Es aquí dónde llega la hora de presentaros a Anneke. Anekke es una Blythe con scalp de Ribonetta Wish, como veis, a primera vista su aspecto es igual al de cualquier otra Blythe, salvo porque en las ediciones oficiales no existe esa combinación de maquillaje, colores de ojos y scalp. Anneke llegó a casa vestida con su vestido y chaqueta de Ribonetta, pero ella no es una Ribonetta original, es un prototipo y si os fijais, en el agujerito por dónde pasa la cuerda, no existe la arandela metálica que embellece el agujerito del backplate.

Diferencias entre Blythe originales, prototipos y fakes (1ª parte)

Como veo que mucha gente tiene dudas sobre las diferencias que hay entre las Blythe originales, prototipos y fakes. Este post estará dedicado a aclarar conceptos y apreciar las diferencias más notables entre todas ellas.

Para comenzar, aclararemos los conceptos:

Blythe Takara: son todas aquellas muñecas que han sido editadas por la  marca Takara y se encuentran recogidas en la web de la marca http://www.blythedoll.com/

Podeis encontrar la mayoría de los modelos editados en este artículo de http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blythe, consultar la Blythopia http://blythopia.com/ o ver las últimas novedades y lanzamientos en el foro http://www.vidasdeplastico.com/ o http://blythekingdom.forumotion.com/.

Como muchos sabreis:

"Las muñecas Blythe fueron desarrolladas inspirándose en los diseños de Margaret Keane, de manera similar a muchas otras muñecas americanas de los 60 y 70. Su principal característica era sus ojos, que tenían la posibilidad de ser cerrados a voluntad además de cambiar de color gracias a una cuerda con un tirador (conocida popularmente como 'pullstring') situada el la parte posterior de la cabeza, ocultada por el pelo. Las muñecas Blythe solo se vendieron en los EE.UU. (aunque se producían en Hong Kong) durante un año, 1972, ya que no fueron muy populares (las niñas americanas de la época tenían miedo de su cabeza desproporcionada) y eso las hizo desaparecer de las tiendas rápidamente.