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Discovered a new girl – Dollmore Sona

0820430004502I decided to have another look at the Dollmore MSD sized dolls even though they don’t have a mature style body. Despite not having a mature style body however, the girls have similar hip and chest measurements to Latiblue, which makes me wonder if they can’t share clothing with the slim MSD. The only difference is that that they don’t have a mature bust and their waists are 2cm bigger than the Latiblue. A nice point of the Kid Dollmore is that they take a 7-8 wig which I feel are easier to find, but maybe that’s just me.

What really got me about the Kid Dollmore dolls is they have a few dolls that I feel have really unique face sculpts that are absolutely adorable, one of which is Sona who I added a picture of in this post. 🙂 I really love Sona’s face, especially with the dark eyes and dark hair. I have to admit that Sona and Miro are both really enticing to me despite their non-mature body styles. Another enticing factor is that Dollmore gives you both eyes and a wig with your doll, all for the base non-face-up price of $216. However their face-up service is $55, which I think is a bit on the expensive side. If I got myself a Sona I would definitely want to get the default face-up because I love how her eyes are done, and they are done in such a fashion that I feel my novice hand cannot recreate it.

I’m near the point in my doll window shopping where I feel I could make a commitment to buy. I’ve seen so many different sculpts over the past week that I swear I’m seeing doll’s faces when I shut my eyes! lol! Because it’s always a lot of money to buy a doll, I really want to make the right choice and get one that I will get the most enjoyment out of. I want to get a buddy for my Yara soon though, so I need to try to come to a decision! *faint*

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Window Shopping – Mature MSD

yernI decided I might start collecting a list of dolls that I’ve been interested in purchasing. I think it will still be another month or so before I can get one though, so sad. Hehe…..Anyhow as far as mature bodied MSD dolls go, I find that I really like the LatiBlue Yern sculpt. I like her gentle looking eyes and her general neutral to pouty look. I also really like the LatiBlue body in general and she has measurements like my AE Yara, so they can share clothes and wigs too I believe. Yern is also in my price range, especially if I decide to do my own face-up. I read on the website that Lati is planning on restocking a lot of their dolls on July 5th. I would love to get in on that order, but I’m not sure I would have the money for the shipping by then. I imagine being involved in a GO would help, but most GOs don’t allow resin purchases, and also I have never run a GO and it’s probably a little late to try to get one started for their restock anyway.

I also really like the Minifee mature MSD bodies quite a lot, perhaps even better than I like the LatiBlue body sculpt, especially the cutie bust and cutie leg version. However, I’m not really drawn to many of the face sculpts that are offered. I imagine I could always find another head sculpt I like that would be a good resin match for the Minifee body, but I have no experience in resin matching so I’d be reluctant to do that. I suppose I could go scour DoA for some FAQs though.

wrybcqzlfile_28_7 Another doll I saw during my window shopping was 5star Doll’s Yoka. She has a delightfully melancholy look, and 5star’s body sculpt is pretty nice as well. It’s not as pretty of a body sculpt as the Latiblue or Minifee, but still quite attractive, and for the price at only $190 for a blank doll, I’d say it appears to be a pretty good deal. 5star seems to be pretty new though, so I know not of their overall quality, however, Mint on Card is offering them for sale in the US, and having ordered from them before I feel that they wouldn’t be selling anything that wasn’t quality…..Then again they do carry Dollzone, which some people have issues with…something about a ceramic filler? I dunno. XD Anyway I’m not fond of the pink eyes and red hair, but I am imagining that Yoka would look pretty good with dark hair and eyes, no? 🙂

kzcpbriqrebecca31 The next doll that intrigued me was Ringdoll’s Rebecca. I think it’s all about the little round dark eyes here and the dark colored hair. I am also fond of the slightly open mouth she has as well….I think I’m a sucker for those kinds of dolls, because I really love the classic Narae face too, which has the slightly open mouth, and I love Narae’s gentle partially closed eyes. Of course at this time though, Narae is totally out of my price range, but hopefully one day after I find a decent teaching job I can afford to get to get both a Narae and Narin. Anyway back to Ringdoll, who really has a lot of nice head sculpt, but really their bodies leave a little bit to be desired…at least in appearance anyway. I can’t speak for pose-ability in any of these dolls I’m talking about since I don’t own one yet. 😉 Anyhow I have seen numerous other dolls in my window shopping who are very cute, but I’m going to leave off with just one more before this post gets to long.

idollamyfullset4This next doll is an Island Doll named Amy, who actually has my own namesake, lol. I think SoulDoll also has an Amy doll, but I don’t care much for the soulkid body. Anyhow I had never heard of Island Doll until I saw one on ebay yesterday. Anyway again we have another doll with a slightly open mouth and small round dark eyes. She certainly is a cutie, and Island Doll’s body sculpt is as nice as 5star’s body sculpt, though at least to my eye, not as impressive as Latiblue or Minifee bodies. A blank doll starts at $210 though, so it’s a little lower than a blank Latiblue.

In the end I like all of these dolls, they are all very pretty, but I do have some reservations about purchasing dolls from companies I have never heard of before. However I did buy an Asleep Eidolon and was really quite pleased, so maybe I shouldn’t feel that way about these new young companies with fresh new sculpts. I imagine when purchasing a doll from a lesser known maker you can be somewhat guaranteed to have a more unique doll. I kind of get tired of seeing all the same Luts sculpts for example. Lati’s dolls though seem to retain their value well, and since they have my favorite body sculpt out of these I am leaning towards trying to get a Yern during their next sale period. Of course I haven’t 100% decided to get an MSD. I’ve been seeing a lot of adorable tinies too! Anyway at this point though I’ll be ending this long long post. lol.

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Mature Body 20cm BJD, Doll Values and Other Musings.

Recently I’ve been kind of…er…”pre-shopping” for a new doll. I know I want one, and money-wise I’ve saved and I am close to being able to get a new BJD, or if I wanted, I could already get any Pullip, Dal, Taeyang or Blythe I wanted….well maybe not so much “any” Blythe. Anyhow I’ve been leaning towards just getting another BJD because Pullip and Dal offerings as of late haven’t interested me, plus I have to admit I am a little disenchanted with Pullip since I’ve been having so much body troubles with her. I ended up taking her off of her 25cm SBH because despite all of my efforts her neck was still flopping and since her new wig it became even worse. In the end, I am far more pleased with my Dal, and would probably buy another Dal again in the future, but as of right now, not another Pullip unless a to die for design came out.

Anyhow I digress on my Pullip misgivings…..So I’ve been looking at the possibility of getting a new BJD, and I know that I no longer want anything beyond MSD size. With all of the mature bodied MSDs out there, why would I possibly need a giant 60cm+ doll just to get a more mature body shape? Besides that, I prefer smaller dolls as they are just easier to handle and you have more miniature options available to you, especially since the advent of the American Girl Dolls, and now those larger size Dora dolls. Anyway I am interested now in the even smaller BJD, especially any size that would be a nice fit for my current Pullip house or I would even go so tiny as to get a doll that would work in my 1:12 scale dollhouse that my grandfather built for me. As I got to thinking about it even more, I thought to myself, “I wonder if there are any mature bodied 20cm dolls out there” so I searched and lo and behold there were!

20061211124945_mLimhwa makes a barbie size BJD called ToYou. For a while though they stopped making them, but recently a new ToYou was offered called Sara, and she is quite a beauty. However Limhwa dolls only have certain ordering periods and seem a little difficult to get in that regard, but I will still keep them in mind. I also came across Soom’s Mini Gem series, which again are mature bodied 20cm dolls. I absolutely love their doll called Aren, which you can see in the pic I posted. So I’ve started seriously considering a “barbie sized” BJD because they would work my my new dollhouse and would be easy to clothe. I need to figure out though how easy it is to find tiny wigs and eyes though before I jump into that, and I also have to wonder how difficult doing a face-up on a tiny doll would be….there are these type of factors to consider. Plus I love all those itty bitty tinies out there too. Heh, I know I probably mull over things way too much but when you don’t have a lot of disposable income you tend to really ponder large purchases more. In the end though I probably have a bit of dolly overload from looking at waaaaay too many dolls.

Anyway after looking around for BJDs I also decided to see what people were selling secondhand on DoA and eBay and such and I seem to be noticing a trend in doll values, and that is that they seem to devalue as soon as you buy them. I saw a few people for example selling brand new dollies that were still mostly boxed that they just couldn’t “bond with”. These dollies were being offered at a lower price than what you could buy new at the maker and were seriously comparable in newness. If you have an older dollie before double jointing became commonplace, there is no way you could get full value for your dollie again…or so it seems. You see, as of late I’ve been considering selling my DIM Danbi as I have fallen out of love with the larger dolls and he spends a good deal of time in his box. However I have been reluctant to sell him because he was my first BJD, that and the fact that it looks like perhaps at best I could sell him for $125 less than his purchase price.

Of course dolls like Unoa and such seem to retain their value well, but I find it really funny that Pullip dolls can double or triple in price in 5 years whereas a BJD will most likely devalue. Blythe is another dollie that seems to keep her value too, as dolls that are only a couple years old may already be double their original value or more depending on edition.

Well, I think I’ve probably rambled on enough about dolls, so I think I shall sign off for now….and keep on musing over the possibility of purchasing another doll.

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Dolly Find!

newdesk
I went and did a little thrift store shopping with my cousin when he was out here a couple weeks ago and I found this cute little vintage desk from the 70s! It works great in Edie’s room, and then I was able to move the armoire down into the nearly empty living room, yay. Besides the desk there was some other furniture that came packed together with it, which were a beige armoire and vanity set complete with seat, as well as a small table and chair. These toys were made for a type of doll that was produced back in the early 70s and turned out to be perfect Pullip and Dal sized items because they are a little more oversized than the Barbie furniture and thusly are a better fit due to the added height of the head size on Pullips and Dals.

Anyway I got the whole bag of toys for only $5.00 at my local DAV, so I am going to highly recommend thrift store shopping to search for doll clothes and furniture. The DAV and AmVets are better though than your run of the mill Goodwill because they have more toys and they are packed in plastic bags. Goodwill seems to only have a lot of larger toys. Also it is possible to find bags of dolls/doll clothes as well. I saw a pack of doll/doll clothes there that I was tempted to buy for $3.00, but the bag was heavy on the dolls and had less so much clothes. I think there is a certain amount of luck and timing to get a good find, but when you do it will totally make your day! It totally made my day to find that little desk, which subsequently I researched online and came to find that it is actually worth around $50-$60 these days! (O-O)!!

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First Face-up Complete!

yaranewfacesmI finally finished my AE Yara’s new face-up. It’s not perfect, but I am satisfied enough with it to seal her up and apply gloss. There are a couple hidden areas that I think turned out a little blotchy because of my overworking it. Going through this I’ve learned that for next time, I won’t fuss so much, and I will use a larger brush for the overall blushing. In the end though I like her so much more now! I think she looks much less innocent, a little more spacey, and I love the new lip color. I am also thinking that she looks better with these darker eyes, though I think I need to re-adjust them again, lol.