Farandoll: Forest to World

Pepper

While the enchanted forest is the main sphere where the main characters evolve, the story actually starts with  the adventures of Pepper.

You can read more about it here:
http://farandolls.deviantart.com/#/d1xeipp

Pepper (Alice Cherry Blossom) is actually the reason why Farandoll came to existence. As mentionned in the previous post, Fauna, Flora and Minera were old characters of mine that I adapted to a specific setting, an enchanted forest. I've always wanted to do more with these characters but the idea was just like a seed, planted deeply in my head but it hadn't met the conditions for its growth until three years ago.

There was not much background story to the Guardians until the Alice CB entered my collection. She was my fourth doll purchase and a rather impulsive one. I didn't know why but I just felt the urge to get her. I admit I didn't really care about pigs but the Alice sculpt had a lot of charm.

Alice Cherry Blossom
(Image courtesy of Elfdoll)

And it took me a long time to figure out why I wanted her so much. She didn't really fit in the Forest at first, I tried to see her as a sidekick to Fauna but it just didn't work, she had her own style somehow. But one day it occurred to me that she was a foreigner that was travelling and discovered the Forest. Then it was no longer  possible to envision just a forest, there was obviously something outside of it, an entire world and finally the plot, while still missing many elements, became clearer. The seed finally had grown and became a sprout and hopefully, with time I am hoping it will turn into a big tree...

Farandoll : Population

Farandolls is my main BJD project. The story mostly revolves around an enchanted forest, protected by spirits known as the 'Guardians', in a world called Farandoll.

While the guardians are humanoids, the world is mainly inhabited by anthropomorphic characters that live in relatively small communities, although there is one big city as well, the capital. The forest is a hidden location and therefore not known by many.

Here is the cast (picture to be updated):

(click for larger size)

Forest Guardians

Ny: A magician from another world that has summoned the other guardians to protect Farandoll. Not much is known about this character, she is currently in a dormant state.

Fauna: Guardian of the Animals. Sister of Flora and Minera, she is considered as the eldest of the three siblings as she is the most calm and mature.

Flora: Guardian of the Plants. She is quite coquettish and also the most sociable of all the guardians.

Minera: Guardian of the Land. He doesn't have the ability to fly unlike his sisters, but since he'd rather travel underground, it doesn't really bother him.

Bacteria: Guardian of the Bacteria. Cousin of Mycota and Alga. He likes to think about himself as a though barbarian.

Mycota: Guardian of the Mushrooms. The fastest of all Guardians. He loves playing pranks, especially on his cousins.

Alga: Guardian of the Lake. Alga rather vain, but still takes her position as Guardian dutifully. She is usually seen in her undine form, but may shapeshift her tail into legs if needed.

Forest Inhabitants (involved in the main plot)

Jalne: A refugee that has come to live in the Forest. She lived in the Fairy Kingdom, but the latter has now turned into a desert.

Scarlett: Former princess of the Fairy Kingdom, she is still a baby when she comes to live in the Forest. Jalne is her caretaker.

Dig-Dig (Molybden Molyroot): A mole. He helps Minera with the maintenance of tunnels.

Muscat: An orphan mouse who is mute. He seems to believe he is a cat for some reason.
Chickpea: A curious yellow bird. Nicknamed 'Cheeky' because if his shamelessness.

Denizens (involved in the main plot)

Pepper (Sue Erwina van Borden) : A young writer and illustrator, who lives in the capital. She goes on a journey to find inspiration and by chance discovers the hidden forest.

Purslane (Porcelaine Rose Eberlein) : Pepper's niece. She comes to live with Pepper after her parents go on a cruise and are victims of a shipwreck.

Regina Ricecake (rabbit): Pepper's best friend. They went to the same boarding school. She now works as a fashion designer.

Cornelius Cobear:  A young cat that meets Pepper during her travels. He doesn't really enjoy the hustle and the bustle of big cities and would rather look for quiet places and new fishing spots.

Sirius (Darius Dosadough): A childhood friend of Cornelius. He dreams of becoming a rock star.
Hippolyta Hydroplum: A dwarf hippopotamus lady, Madame Hippolyta is a former diva who now owns multiple businesses related to fashion and entertainment.
Flavia Fennelbrush: A girl fennec that works at a candy shop.

The following characters do not have resin incarnations but they may be mentionned in the stories.

Brownie Bursarbee (bear): Retiring chocolatier and owner of the Beehive, a renown confectionary shop. Pepper is one of his regular customers and therefore knows him well.
Harvey Hazelhat (hare): An apprentice chocolatier working at the Beehive. He is talented and will take over the store after Brownie's retirement.
Iwana Ingabean (iguana): Professor Ingabean is an eccentric inventor. His inventions are usually not very useful although he made a solar-powered camera for Pepper.

Bitten by the tiny bug

 

My first BJDs
Fauna, Flora and Minera

It had been three years now that I've started collecting Asian ball-jointed dolls and miniatures. I discovered BJDs back in 2004 and was immediatly attracted to them, despite having little interest in dolls when I was a child. I guess what appealed me about these resin dolls first were the customization possibilities as well as face molds that better suited my tastes compared to other existing dolls. They are a great support for artistic creativity such as painting, sewing, photography, etc. But at that time I was living in an university dorm far away from home, so I decided it was best to complete my studies before getting into the hobby.

On summer 2007, I was finally ready to bring one of these dolls home. I originally wanted a SD sized doll but then had a change of heart when I started to see companies producing cute tinies. And  when I saw the promotional photos for Elf Cookie, she immediatly recalled a character of mine, Fauna.

BC Elf Cookie - Keeper of the Birds
(Photo courtesy of Bambicrony)

However this character was part of triplet set and I just couldn't bring myself to have her without her siblings... Elf Lotti really looked she could be her sister Flora and Elf Gun seemed a good mold for Minera. These characters were very old characters of mine, which I hadn't really developped so far but still held dear. There weren't elves originally but they could be adapted to various settings and for their BJDs version I've more specifically decided to depict them as the guardian spirits of an enchanted forest.

The dolls were only available for a limited amount of time but fortunately I was able to save enough for both Cookie and Gun before the event ended. Lotti was a free event head. I bought a body a few months after my first order to complete my triplets, though now I've sold all the bodies and hybrided them on LittleFee bodies, as the latter are better engineered.

And then, well... I somehow ended up building a full world (Farandoll) around these three. I've always loved miniatures and this incited me to collect them as well as I enjoy having props for the characters.

Progress so far has been rather slow, as I focused more on learning basis for photography and sewing while gathering the elements I need for the stories. However at this point I think I'm finally done with collecting BJDs and plan to go on with my main project as I finally have all the important characters I needed for it.

There is still a good chunk of work to do before I can actually start bringing all these characters to life but I realized from the beginning it was going to be a long term project anyway and I hoping you will all enjoy it as well. I'll be regularly updating this blog as well (hopefully). Meanwhile feel free to visit my Flicker gallery or my farandolls account on deviantArt for photos.

To-do List

Last update:  March 2011

This is a list of things that need to be purchased or made for my main BJD project, Farandolls. Everything will be updated in this very post.


BJDs & important material
Dolls for all the Guardians
Dolls for secondary characters (status: missing rabbit anthro, not priority though)
DSLR camera and tripods
Living Colors lamp
Get a better camera lens?

Web Stuff
Set up dA account
Organize dA account
Website

Painting
Faceup for Flora
Faceup for Minera (redo?)
Faceup/body for Hyb (previous plan cancelled, new design?)

Pukisha parts (commission) for Bacteria
Boot and shoe parts for Mycota (status: not started)
Hooves/deer tail (status: need to paint them first for Caprice's photo shoot)

Main costumes and accessories
Fauna (status: started costume, accessories found)
Flora (status: design/pattern made, need fabric and wand)
Minera (status: costume mostly done, accessories found but a better treasure chest is needed)
Ny (status: costume not started, accessories found)

Wigs
All found, might need to buy some silicon headcaps

Miscellanous for Mini Guardians
Bacteria's grotto  (status: found, need customization/painting)
Broom
Bacteria critters (status: need to make them with polymer clay)
Mycota's cottage (status: found, need customization/painting)

Vegetable garden and well
Gardening tools, etc.
Repaint house (status: need paint)
Mushroom decoration
Bed sheet (status: got fabric, need to sew it)
Alga's underwater castle
Aquatic plants and gravel

Miscellaneous for Pepper
Customize luggage
Maybe redo Pepper's Departure photostory or rework it in comic format
Write scripts for Pepper's adventures (status: working on Fruit Festival)
Write/illustrate travel diary
Lighthouse + costume for keeper

Miscellaneous for other characters
Fishing boat and accessories
Paint Maize (Cornelius' boat)
Costume for Dig-dig

Forest Scenery
List pending..

Photos/Photostories
List pending..

Blog

++?????++ Out of Cheese Error. Redo From Start. (Hex - Interesting Times)

I've deleted the former posts ^^; Sadly, I'm just awful at blogging and the whole thing looked very disconnected. Thus I'm starting over, hoping to make things more organized. So this blog will be back soon but with a different format and this time, I will only post things related to my miniatures collection and my BJD projects.

Ebony