Soom Idealian 75 body review

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.

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Unassembling and stringing a (Withdoll) BJD

I still have photos to post. I promise I’ll get to at least the one shoot I did in the early winter when there was still hope of… getting an actual winter. We haven’t had snow for most of this season and it’s been warm and wet and just generally uninspiring. I have those photos edited and re-sized so those I can get up. But before I do that, I’ll post these guide-video-things I took yesterday.

Just uhh, be warned, I don’t have a proper video camera. I can’t see my viewfinder from in front of the camera and my DSLR does not have an autofocus when shooting. So some things aren’t quite in focus or properly centered. Putting on the head of the doll was cut out cause, yeah, went off the frame. Still, made these cause there were some people in the Withdoll thread on DoA having trouble changing the new body’s hands and I’ve seen some general mentions to not knowing how to string the body (or being afraid of not knowing how to if taken apart). General rule of thumb: keep track of the body parts and put them back the same way they were on. Pay close attention to elbow/knee nuggets especially.

The body is pretty generic in the way it’s strung. I have a few ooold stringing tutorials with photos & text that could be used as a reference just as well (though apparently only in Finnish). Mostly the differences in stringing comes from whether the doll is strung from neck to feet or foot to foot with a separate torso string. Sometimes the strings cross in the pelvis to make it appear as if the legs are strung from foot-to-foot, though they’re not. But all of these are things that are not hard to adjust to once you know how to string at least one doll.
There are exceptions, of course, like fairyline dolls from Fairyland where it seems that most limbs are strung separately and just snapped on in the torso. Honestly, wouldn’t wan to have to change the string for one like that… seems like a lot more work and annoying fiddling with things.

Anyway. These videos are not great, I have no video editing software other than ffmpeg and ehh, would’ve taken me ages to do anything fancy with a command-line only program. xD Still, they get the message across, I hope. Turn on captions for some extra commentary and use the shortcuts in the video description, if needed.

These are named like it’s only this specific body that they can be used for, but like I said earlier: most BJDs work with the same principle and you can definitely use these for other dolls too. I made sure to assemble the body so that it’s easy to see how to keep the tension even and not get one foot/arm loose and the other really tight.

The bottom line is: stringing a doll should not be hard. It shouldn’t be a chore that leaves you in sweat, blood and tears. If it is (has hapened to me too: I’m looking at you Souldoll and your Zeniths), the string needs to be changed, asap! You should always be able to do it by yourself, at the very least by holding the doll down with your foot and pulling with one hand with the other ready to insert a hook or a stopper. It shouldn’t take up all your strength. If it does, the string is either A) too tight or B) just not good. It should have a good elasticity (not too much!) and tension.
For the correct length of the elastic, it varies a bit from doll to doll and the thickness of it. I personally try to put in as thick a string I can fit without it interfering with the joint movement. As for the length: I make it long enough to show from both knees and both elbows before it’s pulled. Or at the very least have it reach the knee/elbow joint. Then it should have enough elasticity to be pulled all the way to the wrist/ankle and still be pinched between your fingers or held in place with a string puller long enough to hook the hand/foot in place.

Withdoll vs Souldoll males (mini sizes)

Sorry for the lack of updates. I’ve had some life stuff and haven’t really played with my dolls and if I have, I haven’t done full shoots that I’d feel have enough content to post here… with onee exception that I just forgot about.. need to fix that soon.

I’m back with a quick comparison that I promised to do back in April. But I only own one of the dolls and we haven’t gotten together with our dolls with mizya in forever, so it took me/us this long.

The Withdoll boy (with sanded down muscles) is mine and the Souldoll guys belong to mizya. All photos are taken by mizya and apologies for the shadows and random colors, it’s wintertime and there’s like no light so we had to improvise.


Always from left to right: Withdoll junior boy (custom ns), Souldoll N.L. boy (grey skin), Souldoll Vito male, shown joints ver (sandy brown)

Heads are Taren, Kyron and Berial human.

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Mini dolls comparison

Alrighty, comparing my minis with the new WD girl body. Some of these poses are the same as in the review, because I like to use basic mobility for review purposes. Once you know how far a joint moves in each direction, you can think up a bunch of poses. I was thinking of also putting the DIM GSE body into the lineup as well, but then decided against it as I’ve modded it heavily. She’s in some of my older comparisons, though. I can get my hands on an old Minisup girl body, Souldoll NL boy and Vito male body as well. If you want a similar comparison/review of them, do let me know.

Lineup:

Withdoll boy body >> Bimong classic Narin (new elbows) >> Bimong classic Narae (small bust) >> Withdoll girl body (old) L bust >> Withdoll girl body (new) D bust >> Minifee a-line large bust

Always in the same order.

Worth noting:
– I’ve sanded off the muscles on the WD boy body, but they don’t affect mobility. I’ve also removed the stopper inside his torso.
– The classic Narin is from the newer releases where Bimong re-made the elbow joints.
– The classic Narae is an older type with single joint elbows. The new releases come with the exact same joints as the Narin next to her. But they also have deeper ankles with less mobility (though I did sand mine to work like this older one).
– I’ve removed the stopper from the old WD girl’s torso
– The MNF is at least 5 years old and as FL keeps recasting their own bodies, the newer ones will be smaller, so she isn’t very accurate as height comparison.

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New junior Withdoll girl body comparison & review

I received my new Withdoll girl body and took some photos right away. I’m also planning on taking new comparisons with other company bodies as well, as I have a MNF visiting from a friend, but I had to leave town, so that will happen during the weekend.

My old girl is grey skin from 7 years ago (2011) and she has yellowed due to age. The Vampire Rachel head is also from 2011 but it’s been in a box most of this time and isn’t as yellow, but it is lighter than the new grey skin body. I’ll take nicer comparisons of the skins too, once I get back.

EDIT// Added a few bust comparisons to the end.


Old body (L bust) on the left and new body (C bust) on the right.

The two are very similar in shape, some details are different (old body has visible ribs and hip bones, new doesn’t). The arms are similar in joints as well, but the rest not so much. The new body is strung with the legs together, while the old goes from neck to ankles. Also worth noting that the new body has a thicker and a shorter neck but the torso is a little longer, so they end up the same height although the shoulders aren’t even.

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Soom 2012 SG female body comparison + review

I shot these at mizya’s place about 7 months ago, but then forgot about them. I also had a few demonstrative videos of the posing, but I seem to have accidentally deleted them or moved them somewhere else, since I’ve switched phones after that and they were shot with my phone camera. I will add them later if I happen to come across them, but I’m afraid they’ve been deleted.

This is otherwise kind of late, too, because the new Soom female SG body has been around since 2012 after all. But I haven’t really handled it much as I never bought one for myself. I got to borrow this one from kesakeru for this purpose.

First we have a comparison with some other dolls of the same size, and then a small review of a few of the joints.
(So sorry about the quality of the photos: the light was bad and there was not enough backdrop)


Oasisdoll Chic body (ns) > old Super Gem female (pv) > New 2012 Super Gem female (tawny) > old Souldoll Zenith double (ws)

As you can see, the new SG body is the shortest: both the shoulders are the lowest and the neck is short so she says short. Old SG is tallest, though Zenith has the longest legs (those girls are all leg).

The new SG also has the shortest neck and sharpest turn at the base, making her stand quite stiffly compared to all the others. Both the new SG and Oasis doll have quite boxy shoulders as well, but due to the sculpting elsewhere in the torso, the Oasisdoll looks much more relaxed.

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Animetic eye review [Updated on Jan 17th]

I thought I’d do a little review of animetic eyes, since I’m personally having a really hard time finding eyes for my Dollfie Dreams. I haven’t bought acrylics for my dolls in years and my dolls don’t wear them (with one exception), because the quality just doesn’t compare to the other options out there, but with DDs I’ve had to make more exceptions. There are urethane animetics out there as well, but they’re mostly very hard to get because the makers tend to be based in Asia and only sell them at conventions. So, I don’t have many different brands right now, but I’m slowly trying out different ones, while trying to find _the_ eyes for my girls. I think I also saw a pair of very interesting oval glass eyes somewhere -directed at DDs and those got me really curious.

But for now this is what I have. I’ll add more if/when I get them.

I tend to photoshop my photos if the eyes go dark due to bad light, but for the review purposes I have not photoshopped these photos at all (except brightness/contrast).

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DD: Takatsuki Yayoi arrival

Time for the first doll arrival of the year. I don’t have anything for her, except the eyes that arrived two days ago, though she was preordered a year ago already. I was avoiding thinking about it to make the wait easier, so I have yet to even give her a name, or decide whose little sister she is. Haha, but my DDs don’t have very specific storylines or anything, so there’s time to figure things out.

I did a bit of a quick review of her, but no proper photos yet, because I’ll of course be re-painting her right away (though it’s really dark right now). These are just some quick shots of the face, the wig and a few different eyes and wigs on her.


(Don’t mind my lazy attempt to copy the pose, it was cold outside)
Of course she arrived with all her default gear, as Volks dolls do, but I am planning on unloading the outfit on someone else -if there’s anyone that would actually want it. I just pretty much want to be rid of it (outfit+jewellery+shoes -but not the hair thingies). I’ll also probably sell the eyes, though as Volks acrylics go, they’re not that bad.

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Withdoll Senior Male comparison

I was supposed to do this months ago, but I was lazy. However, today I took it upon myself to clean my doll shelf, so I did this while all the boys were out anyway. Some of them got a change of clothes while I was at it.
I don’t have any current or new boy bodies to compare this to, because all my boys are oooold. My other white skin boys are also basically cream white like the Withdoll body, but they’re so old and yellowed that they make the Withdoll look snow white, although it isn’t. My backdrop wasn’t big enough either, but I made do with what I had.

The Withdoll body I have is still the prototype 62cm version. The 64cm version sold with the basic Alan is taller and has wider shoulders.

So, here we go:

Dollshe 18M Pure (Rosen head) -> Soom Super Gem (Sard head) -> Luts Senior Delf type1 (Elysium Ban head) -> Withdoll Senior male 62cm (Alan elf head) -> Luts Delf type1 (K-Doll Kamyu head)

Not much to say. The Senior Delf and Withdoll are exactly the same height, but the SDF is slimmer.

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Withdoll Senior boy prototype review

I’m back with another review! This time I have Withdoll’s new senior boy body at hand, as I was asked to review it so that improvements can be made if they’re necessary.

First of all, this body is structually very similar to the female body, I’ve already reviewed here so I didn’t go into as much detail. And because the light was horrible for photos (so sorry about the bad quality), I took some parts as videos (no speech though, I don’t have a pleasant voice) to demonstrate the range of movement.

Please keep in mind that this is a prototype of the body, and the final version may be revised before any orders are sent out! I will be passing all this information to Withdoll and they’ll do the fixes they see fit.

Update:
I’ve heard from Withdoll that they will be improving the movement of the elbows, wrists, ankles and hip/thigh area. As well as do some shape changes to the extra hands and feet. The final version will move better but still look about the same. There will also be a taller version of this body released later this year. ^^

Girl vs. Boy


Girl body (ns, small bust, Vera head) & Boy body (cw, Alan head)

He’s very broad shouldered and hefty feeling. I measured him at exactly 63cm.

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azo2 vs obitsu 48cm (vs DDS/DD) comparison photos

I haven’t been able to find very good comparisons of the AZO2 body with the other Obitsu bodies Azone uses for their bigger doll line, so I thought I’d do this set because I have them both and DDs home.

The AZO2 body is on the same frame as the slimmer obitsu bodies and I think the limbs are regular obitsu parts as well, but the torso is azone’s own design (or obitsu made for azone? I’m not sure). I’m not so familiar with obitsu that I’d know exactly what arm and thigh pieces the AZO2 body uses either, but I guess they’re from obitsu’s lineup in some size.


Dollfie Dream III (M bust), Dollfie Dream sister (S bust), AZO2 50cm (G bust), Obitsu 48cm (L bust)

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Soom eyes (warning)

I thought I should make this information post because I haven’t seen anyone mention this before.

I used to buy a lot of Soom eyes in the years 2008-2011 because I also bought their dolls. Then, I had a pause and only ordered some pairs occasionally (through Safrin doll because of the manageable shipping).

At around 2013 I decided I needed to order Seere a new pair of Zinnias because hers had gotten a little dull and wouldn’t reflect light well anymore. When I received them, I noticed that Soom had suddenly completely changed the way they make their eyes: the irises sit way deeper in the eye and they have a new printer. The fact that the printed irises are deep in the hole causes the rims to disappear and the pupils get really weird red reflections from the light. As a result the new Zinnias looked like completely different eyes.

I complained to Soom and they sent me another pair: only for me to discover that they were just as crappy AND the other one had a wonky pupil. I did see that they had tried to make the rim more visible, but it wasn’t nearly as good. I told them that they were not even close again, so they said they’d make me a third pair and would make sure there are no wonky pupils. About a month later I received the third pair and they still weren’t any better. None of the eyes I received looked anything like the original pair and at that point they apologized and said that they can’t make them like they used to anymore. So, no new eyes for Seere because they look so different that her whole expression changes:

Later that same year I ordered some more Soom eyes from Safrin doll to test their blue eyes for some of my dolls. Some of the eyes were the old style (they’d been in storage) and some were newly stocked and made with the new style. There’s a clear difference between the old and new types so it’s not hard to recognize them.


The far right one is the new type, you can see from the shadows and the pupil reflection.

I also ordered a pair of the Cinderella Star Light Blue limited eyes (the eyes they just recently sold again with some other limited, beware!) in 2014 despite how they were made. I didn’t mind that the rim disappears because they were pictured in a doll, so I knew what I was getting. I put them in my Siren because they’re a lovely bright blue colour. ♥

Or were. The reason I’m writing this entry is that a few months ago I looked at my Siren (took her out of storage) and noticed that she was wearing green eyes. Wtf?? I took them out and examined them and yup, they had yellowed like crazy. They’re less than two years old. And the doll that’s been wearing them has been in storage most of the time I’ve had her. When I noticed the yellowing, I immediately dug up my Soom eyes from storage and examined them. True enough: all the new type blue eyes were more or less green. I have two pairs of bluemarbles left, so you can see the difference in their colour clearly.

I’d recommend to not buy new Soom eyes (especially blues) unless you don’t want them to yellow like crazy, because this is just horrible. All my older type Soom eyes are fine. None of them have yellowed like this -and they’ve been in a doll that’s on display 24/7 364 days a year and get natural light. Mostly it’s the white parts that have gotten slightly yellow and some parts of the colour maybe (like in the above zinnias) but they’re not a completely different colour. Their domes don’t turn yellow in a year. =__= This pisses me off so bad because Soom eyes are not cheap, and yet they’re made like crap nowadays.

I am now wondering where to get the right colour eyes for some of my dolls to replace their old good quality (but dulled) Soom eyes. -__-;; And where the hell will I get young!Kilbas nice eyes since Yami stole his.

Almost like a new arrival (Warning: NSFW!)

This post relates to my original Zenith comparison again. And this entry is going to be looong.

Remember how I said I’d love to have the new body’s legs and the rest from the old body? Well, with Iria that’s not an option because she needs the new arms for the armour parts, but changing the torso would also be a HUGE step-up because the new body torso joint is just insufferable. I get so frustrated with its lack of posing and snapping back that I’ve been ready to throw the doll at a wall several times. 。゜(`Д´)゜。

So, I went and asked Souldoll if they would sell me the old body torso alone. To which they replied that it’s impossible. They have issues with casting the old bodies (which is why any orders with the old female body are delayed by a lot apparently). I replied and posted them photos of my body comparisons and said that I was very displeased with the new body and that it’s not worth what I paid for it. I also pointed out that they’re still selling the old body, so why can’t they make the torso for me. But they replied that they’ll be discontinuing it shortly. Clearly, they’re not willing to fix the master molds despite a lot of people liking the look of the old body. (。ŏ﹏ŏ)
They said they’d offer to sell me parts from the new body, but what the hell would I do with those? The new body is the problem in it’s entirety. And also that they’ll be looking into fixing the problems with the new body… sometime. Mainly the resin dust and gapping issues, probably not the shape of the joint, I don’t know. But for now there was no solution for me, so I gave up.

Then, later that same day I got an email from Souldoll that said they found an old body from their warehouse that had resin dust issues in the arms, but the torso was okay, so they could sell that to me. (ノ^ヮ^)ノ*:・゚✧ I nearly jumped out of my seat. But the message didn’t mention a resin colour, so I was a little wary and asked them if it was white skin. But nope, I got an instant reply saying that they’re sorry, they got confused and that the body they had was normal skin. (╯°Д°)╯︵ ┻━┻

At that point I was even more disappointed. When I messaged them, I was thinking that the worst they could do was say no. After their email I got my hopes up and then got shot down even lower than I was before. I wanted to forget the whole thing at that point. =____=;;

But then, the next morning I had another email from Souldoll waiting in my inbox, saying that they found one more body from their warehouse and that was white skin. (ノ。≧◇≦)ノ Whoop~! I was instantly like yes, yes I’ll buy it, yes! Let me buy it (even if it’s yellowed, I’ll take it )! I was afraid of mentioning this purchase anywhere because I was still kind of sceptical that I’d get it. They could send me the ns one, or a new torso… or it could get lost in the mail and I’d never get it ever… endless possibilities for a pessimist. :P

But now it’s here!
ヽ(´∇´)ノ (∇´ノ) ヽ(   )ノ (ヽ´∇) ヽ(´∇`)ノ
Even more miraculous that it managed to slip past customs. Nowadays they grab even damn tiniest letters, so how they let this one slide by, I have no idea. But saved me some 30€ there.

tl:dr Bought a new (old body) torso for Iria from Souldoll

Had to make a box opening because this almost feels like getting a new doll (mostly because Iria has just been sitting on my doll shelf since her arrival as I hate the body):

Continue reading “Almost like a new arrival (Warning: NSFW!)”

Senior Withdoll Girl (SWD) Shoe review

I finally received the renewed legs and feet from Withdoll today, so I dug up my SD shoes and did some quick tests.

I didn’t review the shoes in the original SWD post because the feet were so tiny they didn’t fit any shoes I had. I suggested that Withdoll make them bigger by certain measurements and they did. Now the feet are okay to balance on and they fit into lots of shoes.


(Tata’s paradise SD16 shoes)

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Zenith comparison continues with clothes on

So, remember this comparison I did?

Well, I keep hearing about how the chest joint is “more aesthetically pleasing” in little clothing, such as lingerie. Something which has always puzzled me personally. Maybe I just don’t find regular joints ugly, because I find that even though the torso does get cut with waist joints, the doll is still pretty in lingerie and swimwear. These dolls are supposed to have joints, it’s normal, so not everything has to be hidden. Personally, the dolls with legs strung together so that there’s no visible gap for the string at the top of the thighs kind of freak me out because they look so weird. I also have dolls that do not go around in their undies, so “ugly” joints wouldn’t bother me under the clothes. What DOES bother me is when the whole silhouette gets distorted by weirdly placed joints. I do not like broken-looking dolls. And my dolls will get distorted because I use the joints the dolls have.

So, I took a few photos of the Zenith bodies in ‘revealing’ clothes to compare the look of a chest joint with a lower one. Unfortunately I don’t have a lingerie set for this size, but a corset-like top and a cropped top should do the trick all the same. Also, the old Zenith body doesn’t have a waist joint either, but it’s lower than a chest joint and the same size so I can use the exact same clothes for it for a more accurate comparison. With a waist joint, it would obviously be visible with a cropped top, but I’ve never seen a hard-edged waist joint and it never creates the same kind of a bump in a weird place – it’s just basic human anatomy.

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