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My second kitten doll in progress

It is very dark and rainy today, but I started in on my second kitten-sculpting project. I will add more sculpted fur another day. It’s hard to see details today.

I got better photos of Ziggy using a tan backdrop, and the spot metering and white balance bracketing settings on my camera. You can see his whites now.

Other than that, I am doing some boring-to-me things like editing web pages. I’m trying to get a more comprehensive online doll gallery together for our main Ruffing’s site. Max, in particular, has a lot of cute stories to go with all the art doll photos we have accumulated. There are so many cat doll photos on our Flickr doll pages at this point, that we thought it would be more entertaining if they were put back in their original contexts, with the stories that go along with them. I still have to edit Ziggy’s photos for his page…
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Still playing with lighting

Ziggy needed an accessory and so I painted a little car for him. He seems to like it. I think it sets off his onesie nicely anyway.

I experimented with a white background for photographing him today, and I am still struggling to get it right. I think I will go with tan when I set up the tripod and photograph him for real. I need to raise him up on a stand first too. If I can muster some patience, perhaps I will try to learn to use manual light metering. I’m always trying to fix things in Elements instead. I’m sure the camera can do all kinds of wonderful things if only I would learn to press the right buttons and turn the correct dials.
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“Ziggy” the Tuxedo Kitten

Granted, I wish I had taken these in better light, but I wanted to show you Ziggy as I just finished painting him. He still needs to be varnished, and then we’ll get some better photos of him…I hope!

I don’t know why he makes me think of Little Bear. That’s Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik, with pictures by Maurice Sendak in the background. Maybe it’s the slope of his nose, or his amusing, but charming, overbite. I don’t know, but I think at the very least, Ziggy and Little Bear could be good friends.
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Painting my kitten doll

I’m pokey, but I am making progress. Little Ziggy (I’ve decided he’s a boy now) has been coming right along. He’s got a pastel yellow onesie with a periwinkle blue collar and buttons down the front. I’m having quite a time keeping his whiskers white. I’ve had to repaint them a couple of times and I’m sure I will again. Painting thread is not as easy as I might have thought. I think what takes the most time, aside from painting his multitude of kitten hairs, is deciding how I want him to look. He is a stylized version of a kitten after all, and there are plenty of choices to make about how I want to do that. All in all, he’s a cute fellow.

Just an aside…Those are my African violets in the background. They are getting what looks like white mildew on them. I was so glad to be able to get them to survive, and I am not happy about this new turn of events. Does anyone have any experience with this? I read keeping a fan going helps, but it is cold for that! I’ve been trying to get rid of the infected parts, but I seem to be losing the battle 🙁

Another aside…We’re on “vacation” from our eBay store this week, in sympathy for the current eBay boycott. We’ll be posting our new dolls over on our main website. I’m working on expanding our art doll pages over there so people can visit, take a look at available and already adopted dolls, and read their stories. I don’t know if a boycott will have any effect, as I imagine eBay will continue to cost sellers more and more, but I do think the changes to the feedback system are insulting. In the coming months, sellers will no longer be able to leave negative feedback, but buyers will continue to be able to. Personally, we have never left any or received any negative feedback, but whether buyer, seller, or both, we should all be subject to the same policies. To do otherwise is to invite abuse. If eBay wants to reform its feedback system, I believe it would be more fair to do away with the positive, negative, and neutral signs, and just have plain, honest feedback. I believe if eBay users don’t feel threatened by potential punishment for saying what they think, that they will leave more accurate accounts of their transactions. I think that would be much more valid and much more fair to everyone.