Not One, Not Two, But Three Kurhns! (Maybe three and a half.)

  

 I’m sorry I didn’t reply to comments on my last post, it has been more chaotic than usual here. We’ve come out of lockdown, but that meant stuff had to be done blah, blah, blah. So much stuff that some normal stuff hasn’t gotten done, then when you think “Yay! All done!”, you realise there is nine thousand loads of washing waiting to be done and everyone wants to be fed all the time. Which means there are always dishes. Ugh. Surprisingly the kids didn’t mind losing their playroom. And Tiny is thrilled to have dancing back. The Giant Baby is constantly overtired and exhausted though, which annoys me a little bit because by the time he adjusts to going to kinder again, it will be time for summer holidays. Ugh.

Anyway, less blah, blah, blah, more dollies! Three Kurhn dolls. Buckle in, this is looking like being a long post.

This first one I got from Red Q Panda. Actually, I got her on Ebay, from a seller named akirakev , which is actually the same person.

She is Hua Mulan. This one is the “Hero Version”, there was a second doll released at the same time, wearing a “suit of armour.” The armour version is pretty, in a cream dress and some gold and silver lame type stuff over the top. And she comes with a bow and arrows! But I prefer this girl, I love the bright red of her outfit. And she has a sword! And it’s made of real life metal! 

The cynic in me wants to point out that it’s probably a cheap letter opener, that’s been repurposed, but I won’t ruin the magic like that.

Her face is lovely, clean and simple. Her outfit is beautiful. Layers and layers of textured fabric. 

But I don’t want to undress her, in case I can’t dress her again.  Those boots are awesome though. But because they're so tall they make bending her knees a bit tricky. Also they're the kind of boot that goes on with a slit up the back. But because they're so tall you get a bit of this

They don't need to gape like that, it's just because Kurhn sadly, can't change the laws of physics.

And since I ended up undressing her, I'll show you her clothes. I'm sorry, I don't know the proper names for things.

This is the innermost layer. It's like a blouse, bloomers, stockings and split skirt in one. The lycra stockings are footless with loops of elastic that hook around the toes. The cuffs are velvety, and stained my dolls arm, which isn't a big deal since I plan on keeping her in this outfit, but I thought it was worth noting. The blouse, pants and skirt all have different patterns embroidered into them.

The next layer is this silky, crepey robe. The last layer fastened with Velcro, this layer ties with baby ribbon.

These are the last pieces. A vinyl belt, huge boots, and a sheer cape that attaches to the shoulders of her robe with press studs.

She has the simplest jointing of my three. She has a twist waist and joints at neck, shoulders, hips, knees and elbows.

These are the bookmarks that came with her. According to Google translate, the one's with pictures of dolls say "Hua Mulan". And the middle one says 

"Tian Mai Ying Tian Shun Shi "According to the order of Hai Ming, there are killers today." Repeated violations of our borders | Special orders for various military and civilian households to receive food and the whole country to guard the territory and the same enemy. "To protect the country from foreign aggression."

Which I guess is supposed to read as a military message from the Mulan story.

The other two I got from the Kurhn Official Store on AliExpress.

First is Sweet Lolita Fantasy Kurhn. There are two Sweet Lolita Fantasy Kurhn dolls. This version, or one with yellow hair and a black and white outfit that was a little meh. 

This girl has a different sculpt to my other two, and a cheeky side glancing expression and freckles. She’s a lot of fun. Her face paint is weird. The other girls look almost hand painted, but this girl looks printed, it’s a completely different effect. I like it but it looks cheaper.

The pink is only in the top layer of her hair, which has an actual hair clip of fake flowers and bells on a little alligator clip. She has ombré eyebrows and goldy eyes. Her dress is a frothy confection of fake flowers and her shoes are sweet, mint green, rubbery shoes that fit fairly badly but actually do up with tiny buttons!

 She’s not wearing any knickers but she comes with a little woven basket that’s pretty shabby and a white, lace, bra and knickers that might be just a tiny bit cheap looking.

This girl has the most elaborate jointing. The same joints as Mulan but also jointed wrists and ankles and her knees are double jointed, with rotation just above the knee.

I love this illustration on the back of Sweet Lolita's box. I wish one of them looked just like this drawing.

This, once translated gives a little insight into Kurhn. So thanks to the magic of the Google translate app 

The line about hobbies didn't want to translate. The first word was always reading , the last word was nearly always dancing, but the middle word kept changing and was variously "west", "beauty", "face", "picture", and "painting". I'm guessing it's supposed to be painting.

Also thirteen years old?! I don't know about that. That's like when Mattel used to claim Barbie was sixteen. Gosh, I hope they've stopped that nonsense.

My last girl is one of the two fifteenth anniversary Kurhn dolls. They’re both Moon Festival themed. I’ll tell you about the girl I don’t have (yet) in a minute. My girl has an elaborate hairstyle and a beautiful, wistful face.

There's also a little red design hidden by her fringe.

 Her dress is gauzy layers and bells over plain, white knickers, that are nicely made but not very interesting. Frankly as long as they’re not moulded or painted on, I’m not that fussed about how nice a dolls underpants are. (That is as long as they meet my minimum standard of better than what my Shibajuku doll came with.) Her boots are odd, which I love.

 She comes with Tanghulu, which is a traditional snack made of Chinese Hawthorn Berries on a stick, coated in hardened sugar syrup. Like teeny, tiny, toffee apples. It seems that while it’s traditionally made with Chinese hawthorn, nowadays it’s more likely to be made of other fruit. Strawberries, mandarin slices, blueberries, banana, grapes. Basically any fruit. Which makes me wonder how yummy the hawthorn berries are!

This girl has better jointing than Mulan, but not as good as Lolita. She has jointed wrists, but not ankles, and her knees are only single jointed.

She also comes with some little bookmarks. If you're wondering the text reads "Fancy Lantern" on the girl with the fancy lantern, and "Candied Haws" on the doll with the candied haws. 

The other doll pictured is the other 15th anniversary doll. That one comes with a rabbit shaped lantern on a stick, that actually lights up! I'm definitely getting her. I couldn't find anyone selling her yet but RedQPanda are expecting her to arrive at some point in December.

I find it interesting to note the differences between these three girls since they're all 2020 releases.

They all came with different stands. The clear one belongs to Lolita and frankly sucks. It is almost impossible to use. I can't remember which of the other two dolls came with which other stand but Tanghulu currently has the flat stand because she's my favourite doll and it's my favourite stand.

Their hands are all different. Mulan has basic Barbieish hands. Tanghulu's hands are a little more three dimensional, delicate and graceful. By contrast Lolita's hands are clumsy and disappointing. I had plans to order one of the dolls that come with extra hands, just for the hands, but now I don't want to in case the extra hands are like Lolita's ogre hands.

Their feet are different too but not very interesting. Tanghulu, Lolita and Mulan.

Their bodies are surprisingly different.

Tanghulu's underbust joint mostly gives forward and backward and side to side movement. And not a lot of twist.

Lolita has an underbust twist only joint.

Mulan has a waist level twist joint.

Looking at that picture, I think maybe Tanghulu and Mulan have different knees. I'm not sure and I don't want to take all of Mulan's clothes off again.

I have no idea how to end this post.

I really like Kurhn. My kids like Kurhn. I've actually ordered one for each of them and plan on getting more for me.

Burnt Offerings

 So I have a new thing I'm doing and it has suddenly struck me as COMPLETELY INSANE and I am possibly having a bit of an anxiety attack about it right now.

I have been doing wood burning.

Here is a deer that I burnt onto a rubberwood cheeseboard.

These are little jars, I drew on the lids of, and filled with a mix of store bought potpourri and some I made myself.

And a larger jar

My set up is extremely basic. I have a wood burning pen, that looks more or less like a soldering iron, actually it is more or less a soldering iron, it even has a soldering tip so you can use it as one, but it also has a bunch of brass tips for burning wood. It's not very hard and it's fun.

There are more complicated set ups. There's a huge jump in price as well. My set is either twenty or forty dollars, depending on how many attachments you get and whether you get it from Hobby Tools Australia or Bunnings. But it has absolutely no temperature control. Better kits have a temperature control knob. I've seen a couple of other sets in a similar price range but then the price suddenly leaps to three or four hundred dollars which seems to be a lot. Especially considering what can be done with t the basic kit. How much better can a four hundred dollar kit be? 

Here's where it starts sounding crazy. On Sunday I'm going to a market to see if I can sell any of my stuff. Which is terrifying and nerve wracking. Yay. Can we make this sound crazier? Ok. I have been doing wood burning for less than a month at this point. And for a week and a half of that time, I had no wood burner. (I listened to obviously stupid advice and broke it and needed to get a replacement.)

Right now I feel like this is the stupidest idea I've ever had. I'm super under prepared. I usually prefer to be super over prepared. I want to cry and panic and hide but for some reason I feel like I need to do this.

So here are some more pretty pictures I made, I'm off to make price tags and stuff.

Protea with blue gum tips

Cocky

Princess BunBun and Princess Pork chop

A bunch of kitchen thingys.

Looking at those tulips makes me think I need to find a good way to add colour to these. These palettes STANK! I think they may be MDF and I shouldn't be burning that. Or at least not without a ventilator.

These last ones are acacia wood coasters that I've turned into wall hangings and were a bit different. Acacia is a darker and harder wood so I couldn't do super fine detail or shading. But I had fun working with the natural shapes in the wood.

The toadstool's underside and stem were already in the wood grain and a bit lighter than the rest of the wood. I lightened it more with water colour pencils. The red is sharpie.

These orchids (? Are they orchids?) I coloured by tinting linseed oil. It took a LOT more pigment than I expected and wasn't as precise as I'd like.

This dancer I did because the natural colour variations in the wood looked like a stage and spotlights. It's not as pretty and picturey but I really like it.

Sorry the photos are terrible.