JATMANStories is BAAAACCCK!

To everyone sick with the Coronavirus right now, my heart is with you. I’ve also been ill for months and can’t seem to shake whatever this is. Not sick enough to be allowed to get tested, not well enough to risk going outside and catching something worse, I’m thinking I’m living the same experience as the majority of those ‘allegedly’ infected across the USA.  

I’m counting my blessings that I’m able to work from home, that I have home, a job and food is still delivered to my door.  I’m so grateful that my family is safe and sound.  To all of you that have lost someone, I mourn with you.   

All I have to offer you now is escapism, which has been my friend and ally with Netflix, Amazon and other streaming services.   I will start to post stories again to hopefully make you laugh, and bring a little lightness to your day. I will post as often as I can, and send out newsletters to tell you something new is up. 

I’ve been away from posting doll stuff for the last few months trying to start my own business and leave it to me to chose the worst time in history to do it.  So it’s come to a halt as I wait to see what happens with the economy, with trade with other countries, with the shipping business in general.  I wanted to find a way to have a second income to fund my doll hobby, and/or back-up my finances in case anything happened to my day job.  I wanted to find a way someday to work from home so I could have more time to do stories. Now working from home has found me, but taken my health and energy I need to build dioramas and film.   So I’ll work with what I have, a backlog of stories unfinished, but filmed and post what I can, when I can.

I wish you all the very best, and hope that you stay safe, and healthy.  I should have Episode 1 of ‘Potluck Samurai’ up within a week.

For now I took a few photos of two 2019 pre-orders that finally came in, and may be the the last Fashion Royalty doll and last action figure I get this year or more.  

Hot Toys Star Wars Princess Leia Besbin Mines:

Integrity Toys Fashion Royalty “Your Motivation” Erin Salston 

So much more is coming, keep coming back to my website for more updates!  Sign up for the weekly newletter. 

3 Updated Diorama Tutorials Up!

HIATUS –  This will be my last post for the next 6 to 12 months.  I’m embarking on a life changing new venture that will take all my free time and  my resources to get off the ground.  I won’t be able to announce what this project is just yet. I’ll keep you posted when I can.  I thank you so much for reading and commenting. It’s always a sheer pleasure to share this hobby with others and I hope to continue doing so in the future once I get this project stabilized.   Thanks for your patience.

Wishing You All A Very Happy New Year!!!!

All my exterior, kitchen and bathroom dioramas are now grouped into one diorama each. Here’s photos from the three diorama tutorials posted today:

So much more is coming, keep coming back to my website for more updates!  Sign up for email newsletter updates!

LAPTOP DOWN

My wonderful laptop which has served me well for almost 5 years has lost all hard drive space, plus the monitor is dimming with each day.  So I’ve ordered a new one which will arrive this week.

Many of you know what switching from one computer to another (Digital Moving Days) entails…. weeks of installing software and downloading and uploading files.  For me, it will be a LOT of software installations and updates.  So I need a couple of weeks off from posting to get the job done. 

Sorry for the wait, but without my laptop, nothing happens at JATMANStories, as it’s my only computer.  Thanks so much for your patience.

Here’s some promo shots for my next upcoming story ‘Potluck Samurai’:

So much more is coming, keep coming back to my website for more updates!  Sign up for the weekly newletter. 

Closet Spaces Diorama Tutorial Is Up! 

Both closets and a store Boutique are shown.

Please read and VOTE on last week’s BLOG below.  I need more input. 

There are photos below of the closet space areas in today’s tutorial.

So much more is coming, keep coming back to my website for more updates!  Sign up for the weekly newletter. 

ELEVATOR TUTORIAL IS UP!

I know I’m very late to the game, but I’ve just discovered the abundance of ways I can easily self publish an ebook novel.   

To give you my long writing history: I attempted to get my first novel published in the 1990’s the old fashioned way, print out all 250 pages, formatted perfectly, get it bound correctly, and send it in a padded envelope over and over and over again to one publishing house after another.  After over 100 rejections, I gave up and started writing my second novel.  After the same experience I started writing movie scripts and moved to Southern California to be closer to Hollywood and try getting one published. That pathway in was far more seedy and difficult since I didn’t know anyone in the industry, and my writing was… mediocre to say the least.  I didn’t have enough experience in that format.  so I walked from writing a long while until I invented a new method of returning to it through doll stories.

After twelve years of creating doll stories, age, stamina, cost and available free time are slowing me down considerably on the output of stories I’m able to accomplish.  But I still want to keep writing for the rest of my time on this Earth.  So looking into alternative ways without the manual labor of all the diorama building.  Not to mention my audience will greatly increase on some of these websites like Wattpad and Amazon Kindle.

I’d love to take a vote on if you would read my work on a free site like Wattpad, if I posted short stories or novels there without photographs? Please vote below.

Here are some photos of different elevator dioramas that will be in the tutorial:

So much more is coming, keep coming back to my website for more updates!  Sign up for the weekly newletter. 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

I’ve added a little something to my Haunted House page with a small Halloween photoshoot with some of my child actors.

I’ve also added another New and Improved Diorama Tutorial which features all my past staircase knowledge into one big page of stairs.  

Poor little guy below is frightened by the haunted house staff… It’s adorable to dress up toddlers for Halloween. Half the time they’re terrified by the masks and the scares.  I know it’s a little cruel, but half the fun for us older ones is to watch someone actually getting scared by the silly. I’m still giggling at my nephew at age three, being afraid of the teen-aged boy dressed up as Chuck-E-Cheese.  Nothing was less scary than that unfortunate, sweaty teen in a rat costume.  

Preview of the different staircases & 2nd floor landings shown in the new and improved Staircase Diorama Tutorial: 

So much more is coming, keep coming back to my website for more updates!  Sign up for the weekly newletter. 

DIORAMA TUTORIAL: LIGHTING DIORAMAS

I’ve been spending the weekend drooling over the Fashion Royalty convention dolls on Flickr since I couldn’t go this year.  I wish I could continue building a collection, but money and space have slowed it down to a snail’s crawl in the last year or so. I have to sell dolls and diorama stuff just to make enough shelf space to get a few things.  I don’t want family members to call that show ‘Hoarders’ and get me on it, LOL.

A Harrison Ford as Han Solo head sculpt (not the Hot Toys original, but the cheap custom knock-off from Ebay) arrived and they did a decent job of getting his likeness. He’s a little thin in the cheeks, but still good enough to be a new actor in my guild. See his photos below.

So this week and for the next 6 weeks, it’s a Diorama Tutorial per week.  How I light dioramas is my latest, click on the button above or the lighting photos below to get you to the page.  Thanks so much for looking.

Harrison Ford as Han Solo in Star Wars (Custom sculpt on eBay):

Lighting Your Dioramas Tutorials Will Cover Stuff Like This:

So much more is coming, keep coming back to my website for more updates!  Sign up for the weekly newletter. 

DIORAMA TUTORIAL – THE BASICS is Up!

Actors Pages Are Updated

I’m back to weekly posting. For the next few weeks it’s a Diorama Tutorial per week.  Check out the ‘Coming Soon’ page with the button above to see what tutorials are coming up.

This week I’m starting at the beginning with ‘The Basics’ which goes over Foam Board, materials, Walls, Floors, Windows and doors which can be applied to all the other diorama tutorials.

I’m trying out a new layout for dioramas, writing them directly on the web page.  Please leave comments and let me know what you think of the new format.

Also, check out the newly updated actors pages.  These are also directly onto the website instead of inside a gallery. Let me know what you think!

Here are some photos from’The Basics’ tutorial:

So much more is coming, keep coming back to my website for more updates!  Sign up for the weekly newletter. 

‘Sister Williams’ Episode 12 Finale Story Is Up!!

Breaking my website was a good thing as far as how much better I’m able to make  my posts look.  I’ve been working night and day on redoing all my Diorama Tutorials AND I’m excited to say I’m going to back to Weekly Posts starting next week!!! Yea!  I have too much content to post every 2 weeks will drag this on for years.

I’m going to re-release new and improved tutorials which use my combined knowledge of the topic so that all Kitchens, staircases or elevators will each be in a centralized tutorial page on that topic so you can see all the examples.  If I make more of that in the future, I’ll add to that topic’s tutorial page.  Check out the ‘Coming Soon’ page button above to see what’s coming next.

‘Sister Williams’ Finale, Episode 12 Story is up right and I’m so sad it over.  Click on the button above to get to that page.  Here are more photos from this week’s episode:

So much more is coming, keep coming back to my website for more updates!  Sign up for the weekly newletter. 

‘Sister Williams’ Episode 12 VIDEO is up!

SCROLL DOWN to EPISODE 3 and click on the first photo to start the slide show.

SCROLL DOWN  to the bottom of the page and click on the 3rd Video for Episode 12 Preview.

It’s been a CRAZY couple of weeks. I was adding ‘Sister Williams’ Episode 11 story to my website on Labor Day weekend and somehow I broke my front page slider and couldn’t get it back.  Then my Newsletter sending PlugIn broke and I had to go to another vendor for that. 

I knew my theme was done. It was old and I could no longer get it updated, so I got a new one called DIVI from ElegantThemes.com which does WAY more than I need it to, but is fabulous.

But like any time you buy new and put the old in it, (old furniture in a new house…) the old looks dingy and needs a cleanup.  So I’ve been working every waking hour I’m not at my full-time job on re-doing and re-loading all my content again in this new gallery format.  The stories are bigger and easier to read for PC and Tablet.  On the Phone make sure you turn your screen landscape once you start the galleries or videos. 

I have a LOT more to clean up and I’m down to the ‘need serious work’ stories and Tutorials.  I’m planning on Re-Releasing these tutorials because I’m going to blend what I’ve learned over the years into one tutorial each on these topics:

1. Stairs
2. Kitchens 
3. Bathrooms
4. Elevators
5. Exteriors
6. Lighting
7. Action Figures & Dolls

So, you’ll get new and improved tutorials.  This will delay my next few stories after ‘Sister Williams’ ends in 2 weeks. 

I hope you like the new look and feel of the website.  Please comment on my story pages. Commenting on my BLOG pages doesn’t show up at the bottom due to the way WordPress constructs many posts into one Blog.