Alright. Yes, I finally got my adult!Cin! Only took 6 years and another 9 months of waiting. =__= That is 6 years from when I realized that bronze York would work for the character. 3 years after my realization I came close to getting him, but Soom absolutely refused to add bronze as a skin color option and tawny just doesn’t do it for me. Would’ve been nice because they had the unassembled kit for sale that December and it would’ve made the purchase cheaper. Then finally, last December they offered York again and this time there was a bronze, so I had to jump on it in order to not have to wait another 3 years for a new release. I bought him with a 4month layaway and he was finished in April, but thanks to the current situation, Korean post will not send EMS packages to Finland. I waited until this month to pay the extra fee for EMS premium to have them ship him to me. And here he is, after massive customs taxes I finally have him. And he is huuge. :D
I got to working on him right away and he’s pretty much done, but I just don’t have eyes for him (also his shoes are still stuck in Korea). Thus I also don’t really have good photos of him finished. But I did take some shots of him when he arrived and did a small review of the body. I have pliver sueded him (so that’s what’s in his joints) but other than that, the photos are of him as he came to me.
Click the gallery images for commentary on the photos:
Body view:
Torso
Arms/elbows
Sitting/knees
He can sit fairly straight and using the torso joint, even lean forward slightly (very slightly). His feet will, however, be in the air because of how shapely his calves are.
The knee is double jointed with the nugget being inside the leg pieces. It moves effortlessly and has plenty of mid-positions with a lot of stoppers.
This is the full bend it goes to. So not enough for sitting on his knees but good enough for most things.
However, lifting up the leg when he sits it’s not something he excels at. 90 degree angle is pretty much as far as it goes up without coming out of the socket.
Even with such a minimal lift, the thigh is already this much off the joint.
I tried to get him into a more manly sitting pose with some hunch and the leg open. But the thigh really comes out of the socket and….
…this happens constantly. Though I do think certain types of pants will make the leg behave a bit better. But the joint is entirely too oval shaped and the hip area of the torso doesn’t allow for much movement. If I wanted this to be easier, I’d most definitely have to mod the hips a bit.
His ankles aren’t anything special. They’re just ball shaped with regular joints. They do move quite a bit though, which doesn’t make the body especially stable.
And that is pretty much it for the body. Seems like Soom put a lot of effort into the arm engineering and then not so much to anything else. He is fairly sturdy and stable once you find the balance though, but I would lot leave him standing around by himself -at least not without shoes to support the ankles. He is huge so I feel like the whole house would shake if he fell.
Head view
And I do have to open up about this one. I knew I wasn’t going to be a huge fan of the brain system, but hadn’t realized exactly how much trouble it would end up being:
Yeah, so, in order to get the headback in place, you have to pick up the brain and lift it aaaaallll the way up to the top of the head. Which, you guessed it, isn’t that easy without tools (I have no tools that would help with this). This already made me nervous because the bottom of the neck is VERY thin. Like way thinner than I’d like to see in a doll of this size with really thick and tight strings. This wasn’t easy with my finger strength alone. Couldn’t use a string that I’d usually use to pick up an S hook and set it in place because you have to lift it up and then push it into the headback.
The bigger problem came when I had to remove the head. Yes, I doubt most owners need to remove the headback, but I needed the whole head for a wig fitting and generally do also remove headbacks occasionally when I’m sewing cause they’re in the way. So, I grabbed the brain with my fingers and pulled it out while keeping it up but despite having a good hold of it, the other end snapped down and broke the thin neck piece of the headback. =___= Not a fan. I epoxied it back but I can not imagine being the only person with this issue. From now on, if I want to remove the whole headback, I’m going to let the strings go from his feet first and only then lift the brain and set it back down. Which, imo, is a bit more work than a head removal should entail.
ID75 & Iplehouse EID woman comparison (because she’s my other big doll, the rest of my “big dolls” are tall but slim and don’t compare):
Aand I did also paint him, so here’s a few photos of that, including a before-after view:
I’ll do an update later with, you know, clothes and wig and some eyes -as it’ll probably be a while before I get his actual eyes. Couldn’t order them in advance because I didn’t know the right size. Shoes would be nice too but that will depend on the postal service.
This review is so good! I have this body too, i fell in love with him, and had to wait until the first cw release to have it for my r hyperon, i was lucky compared to you, waiting for bronze 💦💦
I dont mean to be rude, but i would like to ask for some info. I see you sueded the joints with… actual suede? I have been doing it with hot glue, but it always end falling, and is difficult to get a nice, even layer of it in the joints. What do you use to adhere to the resin?
Thank you for your time!
Oh yes, the combination of a certain not very often re-released head + the right skintone can take forever. x_x His original release would’ve been on the original body anyway, which I was never a big fan of, so I’m happy. :3
I use thin lambskin. Can’t link you to the actual product since I haven’t been able to find it for years now, but they’re sold as roughly lambskin shapes and used to be called “pliver skiver”. It is actual suede yes, so any that’s really thin and has a rough and smooth side should do (my skins always vary in thickness so some bits are good for small dolls and other, thicker bits, for big dolls). I use water soluble glue (wood glue) to attach it, so it’s easy to remove by soaking it in water when needed. Obviously it’s not waterproof though, so it needs to be re-done after any good cleaning. And in some joints it can come off and get all roughed up -especially if the shape isn’t just right. It’s not perfect but I muchly prefer the feel of suede vs. hot glue.
Hi, I have the same doll and I jist want to know if I can replace the brain with a regular S hook? Been surfing the net for a whole week but haven’t seen anything or anyone doing it? Hope to see a response for this question.
Basically yes. It won’t work straight up as there’s no place to set the hook. You’d either need to carve little notches into the headback where the hook sits above the neckhole, (but that’s a bit risky as the part is very thin) or use something like epoxy to make notches for the hook. However, both option will put more pressure on the already thin neck piece, so do it at your own risk. That will also make the posing a bit more stiff as the string won’t have as much room to move.
One more option would be to screw a hook to the top of the head and cement that in with epoxy and pull the s-hook all the way to that one. That would give the best movement and not increase the pressure on the neck part of the headback any more than the brain does. However, if it’s not cemented well enough, the tension could cause it to break, pull the hook down and crack the head. So again, at your own risk.
The head isn’t built for an S-hook, so I never took the risk and just use the stupid brain system.
Thank you for explaining things thoroughly and I am glad that I didn’t do anything while waiting for your reply. I would just stick with the brain holder to avoid damaging my doll 😀