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A Dolly Rant.

So, I’ve seen a few things that have irritated me lately related to dolls, and I figure this is probably the best place, my personal blog, to rant about it. Rest assured though this has nothing to do with fandom.

I’ve noticed this for a while now since I’ve spent some time on TaoBao, but it’s only recently come to really bother me, and that is the fact that sellers on TaoBao jack up their prices in their English language shops. Take for example this skirt and top set in a Taobao shop (whose name I am witholding for search reasons but you can find out easily enough on your own). The list price is 88 Chinese yuan as you can see below.

swprice

88 yuan is roughly $14.19 based on the last check of the exchange rate, which you can easily find out by just googling “_insert number_ yuan to USD”. Google actually has a built in exchange rate calculator that pops up that will even show you the exchange rate trends from the past few years.

swpricejack

Now above we have the exact same item in this particular seller’s English language store and it’s listed as being $39. ( ಠ ಠ ) Yeaaaaah….Now I will give them the benefit that they offer “free shipping” on all their goods. Usually this just means they have calculated the price of shipping into the goods, and this is fine, I have no problem with that, but we all know that a small mailer packet for two pieces of doll clothes is not going to be $25.

Now I am willing to pay good money for quality goods, but I am going to have to say that I had purchased from the above seller in the past and for the quality of item I would have been better off to have bought from an independent crafter on etsy who had a better quality product at a better price.

So now that I’ve had it out, I hope you will be a smart shopper and stop patronizing stores who jack up the prices for Western customers because they think they can get away with it. Go buy instead from independent crafters or doll companies with with good customer service and fair and equitable pricing globally.

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La Dee Da Doll

I’ve come to like the look of the La Dee Da dolls, and with a price cut currently going on at Target I thought I’d go ahead and purchase one of these cuties. They have big heads and oversized eyes similar to pullip and the fashion on this particular “city girl” doll is bright and cute reminding me of something Blythe or Pullip would wear. You can see from the photo above how she sizes up next to Blythe, Dal and Pullip.

So, the clothing that she comes with is a little blue next shrug, a pair of tube stockings, shoes, a hair flower, dress, earrings, and a little plastic pincushion wristlet. The dress’s ribbon is attached with velcro which means you can switch it out with the hair flower as it also has velcro on the bag. However unfortunately the hair flower is initially velcroed AND sewn into the head, so you will have to cut it loose to do anything with it. Also velcro is not kind to plastic doll hair. ^^; Anyhow the other versatile part of this outfit is the dress has a pull ribbon in the back so it can go from being a bell shape to being cinched into to a balloon shape.

As for the doll herself, she doesn’t have nearly as much articulation as Monster High or Pullip. She does however have knee joints and rotating hip joints. Her shoulder joint has more mobility than the classic barbie, but as you can see she does not have wrist or elbow joints.

I thought I would show a little comparison of the feet here, because I have great news! The feet of La Dee Da dolls are tiny and slender just like Dals, which means, yes, they can share shoes. Also they work fairly well on Blythe’s feet, but they will not fit on obitsu feet. On the flip side, La Dee Da dolls can also wear some of Dal’s and Blythe’s shoes as well.

For clothes sharing however you aren’t as lucky. La Dee Da bodies are slender like Monster High Girls, which means most of their clothing will not fit Dal as you can see in the above image. However clothes that would fit Dal will mostly work on La Dee Da, though they may be a bit more roomy. Monster High and La Dee Da can of course share clothing perfectly.

So next up I decided to take a closer look at the scalp of the doll to see how well it was rooted. Sadly I cannot say it is rooted very well. It is fairly easy to part the hair and see large gaps between plugs. The good news is this can be solved with some additional rooting which is easy to do. Also apparently the La Dee Da dolls who are styled with their hair up are worse off in the rooting department.

Well I think that’s about it for my review/comparison. I plan to customize this girl, so I will have a few more posts about those kind of things coming forthwith. 😉

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Custom Draculaura Complete!

So here she is, my first custom Draculaura doll, clearly though she is no longer a Draculaura! Anyhow through the painting process I realized that A) I bought a acrylic medium that was glossy and B) I need smaller brushes!! I thought the detail brushes I used for dollhouse stuff was going to be small enough, but clearly I need something even smaller.

Overall I’m really happy with how she turned out. She has a few flaws, a wayward brush stroke on her belly which looks like a scar, and her bangs are messed up a little since I accidentally pulled some out after removing the hair protection for when I sprayed her with sealer. I think her eye paint could be cleaner, but I think that’s a matter of needing smaller brushes and practice. I am going to go back to the art supply though and try to return the gloss medium. I don’t know if art supplies take returns or not, but for the price it is, I should at least try.

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Blog Changes – Anyone Can Now Comment!

I added a new CAPTCHA plug-in which will now allow non-registered users to comment without opening my blog up to spammers and spam bots. I realize CAPTCHAs can be annoying, but at this time it seems that this is the only way I can open my blog up for more conversation and still be free of spam. I want to make it clear though for all of you who have previously registered, you do not have to deal with the CAPTCHA when you are logged in, yay! So the incentive for creating an account is you don’t have to deal with CAPTCHA, and there are some other features you can make use of as well.

With all this said, please feel free to comment on things!! 😀 However if you are new to commenting your first comment must be approved by me (another spam prevention measure). Once you have your first comment approved you are golden to comment freely.

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My new doll is on it’s way!

When I checked my email this evening I had received notice from Mudoll that my order has been shipped! To be honest I was a little surprised, as doll orders usually take at least a few weeks. Maybe it was because he’s a fullset doll they already had some made up? Anyhow I am pleased none the less! I don’t have any idea on his arrival time since the tracking number isn’t working yet. I’ll wait until tomorrow to try again, then hopefully there might be more information on when I can expect my package. 😀

EDIT: I checked my tracking number this morning and my package is already in Chicago. 😀 This means it will be here soon, either tomorrow or Thursday I imagine.