Meet 64-year-old Ayano Tsukimi from Nagoro—a small village in eastern Iya, Japan. Tsukimi passes her time by making life-size dolls in the likeness of the deceased from her village or of the people who have moved away. When the dolls are finished, Tsukimi strategically poses them “in places that were important to them.” Beyond just posing them in important places, she also creates and decorates their background settings.

Tsukimi is married, but her husband and daughter live away from her in Osaka. She lives with her 83-year-old father in her family’s house.

 
Here’s Tsukimi’s “Valley of the Dolls”:

 
The World’s Best Ever

 
The Clone Factory in Japan can “clone” your likeness onto a doll, which brings a whole new meaning to playing with yourself.

Check the full story here.
 

 
A picture tale of doll cloning, after the jump…
 
With thanks to Steve Duffy
 

Ruth Gordon and Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby
 
Okay, these handmade dolls by Alesia Newman-Breen are really freakin’ great! I’m all about anything Ruth Gordon and to find this doll on zee Internets pretty much made my day. WANT!

All of Alesia’s one-of-a-kind (NOT one-of-a-series) handmade dolls are exactly that - no molds are used, no off-the-shelf factory-made components.  Each doll is made by hand with hand-sculpted polymer clay head, breastplate, arms and legs, and a hand-constructed cloth-over-wire-armature body. All garments and accessories are sewn and assembled by hand. THERE IS ONLY ONE OF EACH DOLL. Prices range from about $300 to about $600 a doll. A very reasonable price for a unique masterpiece of the dollmaker’s art. The dolls range in size from 14 to 18 inches.

Blanche and Baby Jane Hudson

More dolls after the jump…

 
The disclaimer at the God’s Little Ones reads: “Warning if you have had an abortion or miscarriage this page may be hard to view.  If you choose to proceed you may want a tissue box near by.”  The site also feature dolls in various stages of “gestation.”  The photo below shows dolls ranging from eight to eighteen weeks.

And while it might be true that we’re all created in His image, “creation” costs more for some of us than others: “Models available in pink, tan and brown skin tones others available upon request add $10.00 for brown as it is a more expensive pigment.”
 

 
(via AFC)

 
Politically Corrected: What’s small, cuddly, and likelier than a Build-A-Bear to initiate a workers’ revolt?  The Communist Cuddle Doll.  Castro looks cooler with that cigar, but I’ve got my eyes on Lenin—he looks like my Grandfather!  And, yes, “The Boss,” should not ever be confused with Kim Jong-Il, but if the Dear Leader can bring pizza to Pyongyang and stop that missile testing, maybe he’ll make next year’s collection?

(via TrendHunter)

 
After getting nabbed in Switzerland over the weekend, film director Roman Polanski is now “wanted and desired” back in the States.  Judging, though, by the picture above, extraditing Polanski won’t be easy.  As the Huffington Post corroborates, he still looks “very determined to defend himself!”

In the Huffington Post: Polanski To FIGHT Extradition

(Spotted via TrendHunter)