Dalicious Challenge 3

Dear Readers,

The third challenge of the Dalicious Photo Contest was: VINTAGE! One single idea came to my mind and I did not have any other so I went ahead with that initial plan. Can you tell what is going on in this picture?

Gerda (Dal Dotori) is having a yard sale and she is horrified to see Scout (Dal Tweety) fighting with Dal Cinnamoroll (She does not have a name yet!) for a much sought-after Kenner Blythe doll.

The inspiration for my photo came from two sources: one is from reading stories about doll collectors hoping to find a very rare Kenner Blythe doll for cheap at yard sales.  They Kenner dolls were the very first Blythe dolls but they were discontinued very early on.  It's extremely difficult to find them nowadays, especially when they are in their box.

The other source of inspiration was from my own experience at a Tuesday Morning store.  I spotted a DAL doll and took her in my hands to see.  Suddenly another customer ran toward me and took all the remaining dolls on the shelf!  Then she looked at me and my doll.  I thought that she was going to snatch it from my hands LOL  She asked me if she could look at it and I showed her. She complimented me on my find and left.  I then realized that I took the ONLY DAL doll from the shelf... all the other dolls in her shopping cart were J-dolls for which I did not really care to buy.  Well I like J-dolls but I am very particular about which one so I only like a few models.

So that was not a fight but it was such a surprising reaction from a buyer.  I never had seen somebody so eager to get the dolls!  I think she regretted that she could not get the DAL!

The most difficult hurdle I had for this challenge was to position my dolls to stage a realistic fight!  I could not make them stand up on their own.  So I put Scout on top of Dal Cinnamoroll.   Posing them was so much trouble because I could not get them to look like they were really fighting. I had to re-position them at least 10 times.  I took at least 50 pictures this time, more than I have ever done before in the contest.

Many of my pictures came out blurry during the two first challenges but for this one, I received some help!  My husband bought me a tripod from a garage sale (we do love going to yard sales!).  It was only $5 and in excellent condition.  Thanks to the tripod, I didn't have as much blurry photos.

Here is a behind-the-scene photo :)

I was excited for this challenge!  I got to use THREE of my Dal dolls and I took some time choosing among the "vintage" toys I have.  This picture also marked the return of Gerda (Dal Dotori) who had a broken arm.  I gave her a new body (an Obitsu 21cm).  She is a lot more sturdy now but her neck is floppy so I might have to cut the neck in half to fix that problem.  Otherwise, that new body is a dream compared to the Dal stock body.

It was a very fun challenge and I love having three Dals on display!  But I am terribly unhappy about my photo.  I wanted to redo the scene but time ran out so I sent in the best pictures I had.  I hope the judge will like it enough T_T  Wish me luck :)


EDIT: All the contestant's photos are now up!  You can view them HERE.