Someone on DoA requested a comparison shot of a Dollmore Kid with other MSD sized dolls, particularly how the slim MSDs like Narin and Unoa looked together, and I was happy to oblige. I thought I would go ahead and expand on the comparison shot a little bit for my blog though in case it might be helpful to others.

So first of all you can see how my Lusis has a slimmer waistline and is more in proportion with an adult female. Overall the bodies are nearly the same length, Sona just has a slightly longer neck which makes her appear a tiny bit taller than the Unoa. However Sona’s arms are a bit longer than the Unoa and her hands are definitely larger. Overall these two girls as they are can share loose fitting clothing like dresses and shirts.

Unoa has a larger bust, but Sona makes up for that in overall girth. Basically all of the Dollmore kid is just a little larger in girth than the Unoa, but this goes doubly do for the thighs near the ball joint. Dollmore kids kind of have “thunder thighs” lol. Anyway because of the differences in the thigh and hip area, they aren’t particularly suited to share pants, but you can get away with some skirt sharing, and possibly even loose short sharing if you are into that kinds of look.

Lastly, Dollmore Kids have huge feet. You can clearly see the size difference in the picture. Really I think Dollmore Kids must have some of the largest feet on an MSD because it is not uncommon to buy shoes that would work for an SD or SD13 girl and have them work on the kids.

Well I think that’s about it for my comparison chatter. I won’t discuss resin comparison because A) My Unoa is blushed, B) My Unoa has some yellowing and C) My lighting blew out Sona a little bit because I don’t consider her that white!!

While I was researching SD13 girl bodies to come up with a plan for Mio, I happened upon a company called BeYours. They appear to be a small doll company who at least to the English speaking community are fairly new. As of right now it looks like you can either order via TaoBao or Sunny’s World (the English site) also carries them. They also have their own website, but it seems as though it’s very new since it’s half finished and is a bit difficult to navigate due to dead links and such. Also I still haven’t figured out how you would order from their main website. I suppose you could always contact them directly though.

Their face sculpts are rather pretty, and for some reason they remind me a little bit of SupiaDolls style wise. They have fantastic face-ups which really brings out the beauty of the sculpt, however as of now I am unsure if you can order a doll with a face-up at all since I’ve only seen blank dolls on TaoBao and Sunny’s world. It would be a shame if you couldn’t order one with a face-up as they really are quite beautiful.

The thing that first attracted me to these dolls however was the body sculpt. The sculpt is reminiscent of Volks SD13 girls, but is a bit taller and at least to me seems to have a sleeker design. BeYour’s “white” resin color is also this very pale beige that is very appealing. Their normal color is more pinky, but also pretty. As far as jointing goes she is double jointed and I particularly like how the “knee plate” of the double joint in the knee blends very nicely with the rest of the leg. Sometimes I feel that the doublejointed knees sacrifice too much in aesthetics for function for my taste. Overall the body shape is also appealing and she appears to have graceful hands. She is a tall one however, so I think for my needs I will probably stick with a Zaoll body.

Since they are a newer company though it would probably pay to research and keep abreast of any reviews coming out. A number of people on the forums have stated that BeYour’s resin is thin in places, while others claim there is no problem. BeYour’s did redesign the body so it could be that the older design may have had some thin areas while the newer design has fixed any flaws. I have heard reports that they pose very well though.

At only around $350 though, this is an economy priced BJD, especially for a 60cm doll. I do have to point out though that the doll is around $40 or so cheaper on TaoBao compared to ordering from their English site or Sunny’s World. As I’ve already stated before, I do not like this practice of increasing the prices for Western customers, so that makes me a little grumbly. $350 is a reasonable price to be sure, but I still feel less valued or respected as a customer, when better deals are given to people in their own country.

With all of this said, I will start with a re-design to make this place look a little more attractive and I’m probably going to try to suss out the categories and make them more organized. So please excuse any mid re-design ugliness and construction dust while I work on the new design (^_^;). I am also still considering a name change for this blog. Originally this started as a craft blog idea back when I made my own handmade paper and such, but now the name “Paper Stars” I feel just isn’t reflecting the content of the blog any more. ^^;;

I’ve had my eye on Dollmore’s Youth Eve Mio for quite a while. I love her sweet face and distinctly Asian look. I’m also a bit of a sucker for dolls with open mouths and teeth parts as well. What has prevented me from buying her in the past has been the fact that she is a 60cm doll, and as much as I love my MuDoll Ash, the big dolls are a bit too large for my tastes. This being said however I have always wanted to have a male and female pair of that size, sounds crazy right? XD

Another doll I had taken an interest in on the Dollmore site is Zaoll Luv as I find their body sculpt fantastic and there has always been something about the dreaming love sculpt with the purple eyeshadow and pink hair that has drawn me to it. Also interesting about the Zaoll is the size of the doll. They don’t have the impossibly long legs and have more human proportions. This got me to scheming then of possibly creating a hybrid of Mio on a Zaoll body. I’ve researched the topic and was pleasantly surprised to find that there are others who have already done the very same thing I want to do but with various other Dollmore heads and non Dollmore heads. The only roadblock is that apparently Zaoll’s resin is supposed to be a little pinkier than the Eve heads, but that seems easily remedied by a good face-up.

All this being said, I am strongly considering a Zaoll/Mio hybrid for what will probably be my one and only SD13 sized girl. This will probably also be the first doll that I order blank without face-up since I have a specific style of make-up in mind. This probably won’t be happening for a while though as I just bought my first DSLR (yay!) and there are a few other things I want to get squared away first. So for now Mio is just high on my wishlist.

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.

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.

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.

So, I’ve got the lips looking more natural now, and I brought down the nose a little and gave it some more shaping. I also started rounding out the cranium in the hopes that I can get wigs to fit better on her since her head shape was a little off. My only concern with rounding out the cranium is that her head is getting a bit larger and I worry that her head may be coming more MSD size and perhaps a bit too large for her body. I won’t really know until I get a chance to lay out the doll again though which won’t happen until after I get the last of my comic work done for the week (probably Sunday night or Monday). Still have a lot to do with this head, but I am still happy with the direction it is taking.

Shot this pic right before I had to clean up my drawing table. I made some joint progress, as you can see the torso joint is coming along and all the joints are in place for the whole left leg. The right leg still needs it’s knee and ankle joint fitted though. The hip joints are giving me grief of course, but I won’t mess with them too much more until I am able to get the legs strung so I can see the balance issues and make corrections. The right knee joint is going to be a bear though because the foam core got twisted so the leg walls are thick in places they shouldn’t be among other problems. XP Just writing about it makes me anxious to be able to get her back out and get to work on those leg joints. I really want to see if she will stand at all, and as soon as I test that it will give me insight into better hip joints.

So, she has ears now, yay! But one is a tick higher than the other, boooo~. So I’ll have to do some careful sanding and add itty bitty bits of clay here and there to even it out. I tried to work on the shape of her lips a little as well. I’m hoping I was able to refine it just a bit more…I really hope I’m not overworking it! ^^;;; The other thing on my to-do list for the head is to even out the eyes, since one is just a tick lower. I think I might save the eye adjustment for when I have the headcap off, this way I can carve the wells for the eyes and then sculpt with the eyes in place.

The rest of my progress has been in cutting up the different part to prepare them for jointing. I also started work on the balls for the hip joint and have molds done for the ankle and knee joints. Now comes the long tedious work of creating all of the ball joints and then waiting for them to dry so I can tool them and graft them onto their respective body parts.

My next goal is to get the hip joints grafted onto the thighs and get the hip socket properly set to accept the joint. After that I plan to begin work on the torso joint, then probably work on the knee and ankle joints..or perhaps the other way around, ha ha ha.

Unfortunately I had a couple of whole bricks of clay go dry despite their packages never being opened. It’s my fault for leaving it sit for over a year I imagine. ^^;;; Anyhow, my clay was around in a greenware state. It was cool to the touch with a slight dampness and I could carve it with my fingernail, but other than that it wasn’t pliable at all.

Since these clays are expensive and I really didn’t relish the thought of having to throw out these clays I decided I would at least make an effort to reconstitute them. So far the method I have employed is slow going, but so far successful. Basically what it comes down to is this. I broke off a small section of the brick, dipped it in water, then wrapped it in a wet paper towel and sealed it in a ziploc baggie. After it sat overnight, the surface of the clay started becoming workable, while the core of the brick was still too firm. So basically I scraped off the workable clay and broke apart the brick even further. After I removed the workable clay, I sprinkled the remaining brick with water, re-wet the paper towel and wrapped the clay up again. For the workable clay I kneaded it and wrapped it in it’s own damp paper towel and kept it separate from the drier clays in the plastic baggie. If you keep the workable clay in with the very wet unworkable clay it will only cause the workable clay to become too wet and sticky. So in the end, just remember, keep them separated and you will have no problems.

So, as I said before, it’s pretty rudimentary stuff, and so far I have found no tricks to make the reconstituting process go faster. Basically you just repeat all of the above steps until you’ve finally turned all the clay back into a workable mass. My last bit of advice though is to change out your paper towels every so often because if mold starts growing on your towels it will contaminate the clay and well mold is just bad business!

I’ve decided to return to my doll project after having been inspired by other artisans great looking dolls. So here is my progress on “Cookie” who is looking less to me like a Cookie the more I work on her, haha. Anyhow since this picture was taken I’ve made her upper lip a little less thin and have been endeavoring to make the lips look a little less pinched/pursed. I think I am on the right track, but I will see after I post this latest bit up for critique in a doll making forum I frequent.

I plan on adding the ears soon and then cutting off the headcap. Once I am able to do that I’ll be able to drill out the eye sockets and start fitting in some eyes and better forming the eye shape. I’m hoping she will take a 14mm or even a unoa size eye since I have plenty of that size lying around.

I also cut the legs at the ankle last night so now I will sculpt the feet and add the ball joint. I noticed too late that I cut the ankle straight through the joint area so I will need to trim off a few millimeters of the ankle. It’s not a critical error, but it is one that will require extra work down the road…sigh.

You may notice in the picture that I accidentally sanded down to my styrofoam core. I ended up making a patch on the inside of the leg so as to keep the outside shape. Styrofoam cores are a bit tricky to work with when you are dealing with a smaller doll as any thin areas of styrofoam are apt to break, which is exactly what happened in both of my ankles. This in turn caused a drifting of the core so they weren’t perfectly centered…thus a thin side. XP

That’s it on my progress for now. I’ll post again when I have any substantial changes.

Here’s my first attempt at a repaint of a La Dee Da doll. I confess my paint wasn’t thin enough this time as I was in such an all fired hurry…for what I don’t know. Anyhow you can’t tell from the picture, but if you look at her up close in person you can see my tiny brushstrokes and that makes me sad. TAT It’s exceptionally sad because I think those eyebrows are some of the best I’ve ever done on a doll. Anyhow she’s going to stay this way for a while until I can find the time to wipe down her face and try over again. She still looks pretty cute though despite her flaws, so overall it was a good practice I think.