Anime USA, Tyson's Corner, Virginia, 2004

(Originally written on October 30, 2004)

I've been focused on customizing dolls for the past couple of days (as I wrote a few entries ago, I got four blank dolls that need to be customized before I get diverted by the Christmas holidays). I have a sparkly red ballgown that I had already made (along with other clothes) before I even ordered the dolls so I thought it would be cool to do a "Lady in Red" doll (and, no, she has nothing to do with the real-life Lady in Red who betrayed gangster John Dillinger to the FBI).

In the meantime I have a Blue Lady Dollfie Plus whose right hand is currently missing. (It happened a few weeks ago after I took an initial round of photos of her in my backyard. I brought her into the house after the photo session ended and I discovered that her hand was missing. I tried searching for it but it has somehow blended in among the fallen acorns, branches and leaves on the ground. Everytime I thought I found her hand it turned out to be an acorn that had been split open by one of the many squirrels frolicking in my neighborhood.) I posted a message on The Lunar Ark mailing list and someone suggested purchasing replacement hands from The Doll & Hobby Shoppe. Unfortunately, the bare hands were sold out but the site still had gloved hands in stock.

I grew tired of seeing my Blue Lady with one hand missing so I decided on a unique solution: purchase two more Dollfie Plus dolls—one of which must have the same body as the Blue Lady (Volks EB Beauty A)—and order the gloved hands. I would take the hands off the new EB Beauty A doll, place one of them on the Blue Lady (the other one I would keep as a spare part), then place the gloved hands on the new doll.

When I discovered that the new hands had painted-on brown gloves, I merely re-painted them in red to match the rest of the red outfit. When it came time to do the hand switching on the two dolls, I discovered that the gloved hands lacked a hook to connect them to the arms. After searching online, I learned from the Volks Perfect File site that Volks routinely ships replacement hands without hooks because the company expects you to pull the hooks out of the hands to be replaced and use them on the new hands. What's worse is that I looked on Volks' English language site and I can't even tell if the company even sells extra hooks.

I've sent an e-mail to Volks regarding the missing hand situation and how to get a new right hand for the Blue Lady. I'll post a message on The Lunar Ark list to see if there is anyway that I can purchase a similar part somewhere. I live near two anime shops (both of which sell Japanese-imported model car and spaceship kits based on various anime series like Gundam Wing) plus a hobby shop that specializes in selling model car, plane, and spaceship kits that are distributed by U.S.-based companies. I hope I can find a solution to this because I really would like my Blue Lady to have two hands again.

Despite the Blue Lady's current predicament, I decided to take her on an adventure. This past weekend was the Anime USA convention at Tyson's Corner, Virginia and I decided to check it out mainly because I wanted to compare it with the Otakon that's held every year in Baltimore (which I attended a few months ago). I discovered that the Anime USA convention is smaller than Otakon but there are still plenty of workshops and activities that could easily consume one's schedule so much that many of the convention-goers end up cutting back on sleep. I wasn't able to attend all three days so I decided to just attend on Saturday only. I arrived early in the morning and found that it wasn't too crowded and parking was easy to find. The dealer's area (which is way smaller than Otakon's) was pretty roomy in the morning. But as the morning turned into afternoon, more people began to show up and it became very crowded everywhere. The last few events I attended was so crowded that there were no seats left so I ended up sitting on the floor.

When I thumbed through the program listings, I found out that, unlike Otakon, there were no panels on Dollfies or ball-jointed dolls. I also didn't see anyone carrying dolls around, which was also unlike Otakon (where I saw so many people carrying Dollfie Plus dolls around that I regretted leaving my Blue Lady at home that time). So I initially kept the Blue Lady perched on the edge of my purse but she kept on falling inside. After a while I decided to give up on showing off my Dollfie and kept her in my purse.

All that changed when I managed to make my way to the artist tables on the lower level of the hotel. I found one table that had two Mini Super Dollfies displayed and the person behind the table was also selling Mini Super Dollfie clothes as well as cat tales and cat ears for real humans. So I pulled out my Dollfie Plus to the person behind the table and she saw my Blue Lady and she was totally awed by her. She said that it's the first time she had ever seen a Dollfie Plus in person and she asked if she could take a photo of her. So I gave my permission and she posed the Blue Lady next to her Mini Super Dollfies and I took a couple of my own photos, which are posted here. (Feel free to click on the thumbnails to see a larger version of the pictures.)

A third person arrived with her own Volks Dollfie Dream and this one was also gorgeous. So we all placed our dolls together and took photos of them. Other convention goers also took their own photos. The third person then asked the owner of the other two Mini Super Dollfies if she can leave her doll at the table while she looked around the rest of the convention.

What was really cool was that the two other doll owners said that they loved the customization job I did on the Blue Lady. That's good to know since I'm still new to doll customization.

I spoke a few more minutes with the other woman but then I had to leave because I planned on attending a kendo demostration that was starting at 2:30 p.m. She invited me to come back later because she planned on changing the clothes of one of her Mini Super Dollfies.

I originally planned to return to the Mini Super Dollfie table after the kendo demostration was over. But when I arrived I had to sit on the floor because all the seats were taken. At that point I began to grow physically tired as well because I was constantly walking around everywhere. Unfortunately, after a few minutes of sitting on the floor, my legs began to cramp so I decided to leave the kendo demostration and check out the "Bad Anime Bad" workshop that was happening at the same time in the hopes that I would find a seat. Well, that workshop was full as well so I ended up on the floor. The good news was that someone near me had left his seat before the workshop was over so I was able to take over that seat after sitting on the floor for 15-20 minutes.

But when the workshop was over, I was so exhausted that I literally couldn't take it anymore. Plus there were so many people who had entered the convention in the afternoon that it was crowded everywhere. Even taking the elevator became a chore because you had to compete with other people to get on. On top of that, I began to smell a lot of body odor because not everyone practices the same level of hygiene. So I ended up driving home.

Anime USA, Tyson's Corner, Virginia, 2004

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