Remake: finished (but needs CC)

Sooo, this is sort of a remake of this doll:


I tried to upload some stuff onto DA, then realised I didn't like anything I've ever made, XD, so I was messing about with the base in paint, trying to improve it enough to upload it. I really like the new face, and the new shape is an improvement, but that's neither here nor there...

I'm planning to make her skirt out of some sort of semi-interesting material, maybe chord or have some sort of pattern. I'm debating giving her heels. And I wanted to give her a hat, but this is the best any hair's turned out in a while, so....

I don't know I just feel like she's going to be super boring no matter what I do! So.... help!?

Anyway here she is (so far):

ps. does the white shading need more contrast?

EDIT: Okay here's what I've got. I'm not really happy with her, I just see problems EVERYWHERE but I just wanted to get it finished! (I messed about with the colour of the skirt 3847238947328 times and then eventually realised that no amount of doing that could fix the shoddy shading but I couldn't bear to change it again).

So lots of CC would be great and any ideas to make her more interesting? she seems ssooo plain. I'd like to do *something* to her before I put her on DA. Thankies

What do you want to be 'when you grow up?'

This is for everyone because most people are always aiming higher anyway.

What's your ultimate career goal?

I don't really know yet, but I'll come back later and give my (extremely rambling) thoughts on the matter.

Favourite Exercise?

Well, I've never really been sporty.
And I've always been really physically lazy XP, but I know I feel much less tired and rubbish (not to mention look better) when I've got some regular exercise in my life.

I was thinking about this because I'm doing mission101 (don't know if you've heard of it, but *link*) and a few of my goals are about this sort of thing and it's coming up to my first year over and I've really made no headway into them XP, although I've completed many other goals/started others.

I know lots of you have had really fun sounding sporty/exercise/fitness type hobbies (different sorts of dancing, etc) and so I just wondered what everyone does? What level they do it to? How they got started in it, etc?

As for me, I like swimming and walking because they're not too painful and I'm a big exercise wimp!
I'm also taking the government's advice and trying to do the 10,000 steps a day thing, so I'm buying a pedometer this week. If 10,000 is easy, then I'll up it to 12 or 15 thousand and then try and build it into my regular day . I've also decided to book a pilates 7-week course just to try it out. I've been meaning to for a while since I used to be really flexible when I was into many various forms of dance (come to think of it that's another thing I'd like to get back into, but not at this level of fitness XP). I wanted to try yoga but that seemed a bit too 'spiritual' for me, and I don't want to perpetuate the climate activist-veggie-hippy-chanting sanskrit-charity nutcase stereotype, either, sooo.. pilates it is, for now anyway.

I really want to take up running because it's supposed to be really quick to notice your progress, which I think is what I need, but I don't even own a proper pair of trainers, so I think it would be a little expensive to get started and I'd be scared that I wouldn't keep it up . I'm really unfit thus it would embarrass me to run around the streets of fallowfield (student area of manchester). I'd have to do it in the dead of night or something...

I'm also super keen to take up cycling as a method of transport/form of exercise. I mean, I can ride a bike, but I'm not mega confident on roads and my dad sold my bike when I wasn't looking so I'd obviously have to buy a new one. This summer, I'm going to be in Vietnam and we all get a bike to go out and explore the city, so I'm going to try and get good at then, and if I get used to it, come back to uni and use my bike rather than getting a bus pass (which are £160 a year!) so in the long run it might save money, too.

Overall though, while i don't mind exercise classes, I absolutely hate the gym. So boring. So depressing. So full of crap magazines and even crapper music tv. (Apparently it can be really addictive though, I have a friend who is really gutted if she can't go x times a week)

Closed doors.

Well, basically I was just thinking about how every decision you make (and many you don't) closes doors. It's really annoying.

When I was born in England, with English parents that automatically made it really difficult if I wanted to live or work in the US at any point, because they have a really strict procedure for immigration. Even though by the end of this degree I'll have a masters in Mathematics and Physics, and probably a first. I'd have to apply for jobs without any knowledge about whether I could actually work them or not, even if I got the offer. It's just so backward.

It's like when you're hitch-hiking, if someone offers you a lift, you want to take it instead of being stuck in a service station, no matter where it's going, but if you'd stayed 10 minutes longer you'll never know whether someone would have offered you a lift to somewhere you would have preferred to go.

And you've only got so much time, there's so many things that I'd love to be more involved in, but choosing to spend time on my studies/with tom/as oxfam treasurer/doing a charity collection/applying for internships/excercising/whatever means that I have to spend less (or even no) time doing other things that I would really love to do like learning a language, or reading, or learning more about politics, or doing something artistic, or applying for funding for things, or being involved in other socities, or whatever.

It's just so crap. And I know I'm lucky because I still do have plenty of oppertunities... People that were born on the other side of the world might have no clean water or no family, or a huge chance of getting ill and dying, but it still just absolutely sucks that everything has to move at a fixed pace (your exams will be ___, or you must do ___ by ___) and that there's just no time to do what you want to. And that everything is just so unpredictable and you end up wasting time on stupid things like taking the bus into town or people being late for things, or deadlines being moved, or paperwork going wrong or sleeping -_-.

And it's just that so many of the systems in place are not fair, at all. And that you can't do anything just on your own merit, it's your own merit + where you live - whether you're a girl or not * how much money you've got / (millions of other stupid factors like what colour hair you've got and whether you eat meat or whatever).

For example, if I wanted to work in space technology, I'd be more or less screwed just because of where I was born. Same for if I wanted to go to a foreign university - it would cost me 3 times as much a year. And even when I'm 45 I'm going to be paying for silly mistakes I made when I was 16. Life is just literally not fair, and it never will be. </rant>

I know I'm taking a very pessimistic view of this, but it's just one of those days.

Finally Completed: Gypsy Lady

Well, I went through a lot of stages; these are just the ones I bothered to upload:


But finally, thanks to lots of awesome cc and inspiration/motivation from you guys, I have these two versions that are at least fully shaded if not completely finished. I still intend to edit them once I've had a break from them and before I enter them in the contest. For the record, I've got nothing against gypsies or old people lol, but let's face it stereotypes are just fun to doll. And so are evil things =3.

As you can see there's one with a little evil shadowy background thing and one without. Just did that bit for fun really, but I think it makes her look a bit more evil maybe. I probably won't enter that version.




I'd really like CC on the face, the shading, the table, the hands, the feet and pretty much anything that's easy to edit. I'll also add more if you think it can take it but there's quite a lot of little details already, I don't want to overdo it (more than I already have anyway =)).

I know that most people are around 7 heads tall and my crazy gypsy is only 5, but that's just my style. Big heads, yeah. Plus she's hunched over + old...people shrink with age, right? Well that's my story and I'm sticking to it =P

Thanks again for all the comments =D

And last but not least, a goat didn't really fit, but I thought I'd give it a go and here it is:


edit:
And now goaty as a baby (smaller horns, lol) with a little toddler gypsy girl whose name is mirella (a Romani gypsy name according to google) mainly because there would be a gaping hole in the image without something there. Just because.