Sealant Comparison: For When You Just Can't Get MSC

 Army Painter Matte:

• It has very little tooth, so it takes a lot more layers to achieve good color with it.
•  It is also prone to snow flaking. 
• It is good priced. 
• I will update this post as I finish a face up using it. It does hold up really well to handling, which I would assume for a sealant used for miniatures.

Testors: If you have to use something other than MSC, this is what you want. 

• Testor's gets a lot of crap, but it's pretty good. It has good tooth.
•  It does tend to appear more yellow, and if you use too many layers it can get cloudy. 
• For the price and availability it is a good choice. 
• It also seems to get a bit dirtier than MSC. 
• I can get Testor's at my local Walmart.

Plaid: Please, please, please do not use this. 

• It is gummy, collects dirt, doesn't hold color well, and just looks unfinished. 
• It is very, very cheap and available at a lot of places so if you have no choice, go ahead.
•  It is safe on resin dolls.

Modge Podge: I have heard conflicting reviews about this, so here is my experience:

•  It is great for joint areas in full body blush, not for face ups. 
• It's far too thick to even consider for a faceup. 
• It's sturdiness means it's pretty damn difficult to remove, but it does appear to be safe for resin as far as I can tell. 
• My centaur's hooves are varnished with this. 
• It gives them a bit of a glossy touch and they haven't chipped yet, compared to other areas of her body blush.

Next sealants I want to try:

Volks' sealant

Citadel Matte Sealant

Just my initial thoughts on them. I will provide some pictures of face ups done with these sealants at a later date.

Thanks for reading and happy collecting!

On Scammers, and why it's not your crusade

Here's the thing- for as long as there have been replica dolls there have been a few assholes selling them as legitimate dolls.

Recasters often provide fake paperwork and fake headplates. Scammers may have used these to sell recasts as legit.

Why this isn't your crusade: A scammer can use a legitimate set of papers or plates to sell a recast as legitimate. Are you going to tell a company to stop producing these things? In my opinion, the reason FL is one of the top recast companies is because they have no papers, no plates, no logos on the dolls.

Some recasters are now offering boxes. Scammers will use these to sell recasts as legits…because scammers are scammers and that's why they will do.

Shit That Happens in my Skyrim...with a lot of swearing.

Ok this post is seriously off-topic, but I don't want to make a blog just for this stuff (though I might if I get bored enough), and I wanted to share it with my Skyrim-loving friends. You will be returned to regularly scheduled shennanigans eventually.

My Skyrim is a bizarre place, especially on Legendary difficulty apparently. I routinely find more glitches and bugs than most people even think possible. These range from faceless people to floating wagons. I've even resurrected a dead bunny only to have the corpse of said rabbit slide about on the ground as if it were alive although the game clearly thinks it's dead. Lately dragons have just been dropping out of the sky, flopping on the ground, and dying right as I get to them. It was creepy as hell. I've decided to document some of the strange shit I've found in my world.

This is Brila. She's my current character. She started out as this lovely orc warrioress here:

I feel pretty. So pretty.