The Goddess arrives – Colourless

On Tuesday a long awaited package arrived containing DD Megurine Luka~ ♡♡+.ﾟ(￫ε￩*)ﾟ+.ﾟ I’ve been hunting for her for quite a while, as last spring I wasn’t able to order her directly from Volks and the second hand market prices have been… less than ideal for my budget. (-∀-`; )

I’ve lost a lot of auctions for her on Y!J because they always climbed way over my price range. While Luka is my absolute favourite Vocaloid, I still wouldn’t be able to shell, like 100k yen or more for her, no matter how much I wanted her. Finnish customs fees are pretty awful, too, which adds a couple hundred euros to the price, so… I saw the majority of Lukas going for around 86k~95k, and then there were also those insane from 100k yen all the way up to 150k yen which was pretty yikes. One of the reasons why I never got Takane was that her price is almost always in the 100k yen + range, ahah… I just can’t afford to pay that much.

But anyway, eventually I stumbled upon this auction of Luka where she had some staining on her body, and the person had also put protective tape around her head and arm & her outfit was no longer sealed. So I figured maaaybe this one doesn’t end up attracting quite as many buyers. I was so nervous bidding for her, and when it was just a couple of hours left for the auction, I was afraid someone’s gonna come along and lift her price closer to the 90k range again so that I can no longer afford her. (*;´□`)ゞ But surprisingly, even at the last few minutes no one was coming to bid and I was already like, omg, am I getting her for an absolute steal ??? But then there was, like, 30 seconds left and someone came to bid on her… and the auction time lenghtened by another 10 minutes and I was like fffffff—- (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ I bid some more and again, at the last minute someone bids on her and the auction time lenghtens YET AGAIN!! (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ That was super nerve-wrecking, but eventually I ended up winning the auction. Σ(っﾟДﾟ；)っ She ended up costing me 5k more thanks to those last minute bids, though. But my budget for the doll had been a hopeful 700 euros and I won her for around 83k yen (including proxy fees) so that was still okay. (ﾉ^ヮ^)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧

But I don’t know what the heck was up with this purchase, because she took an extra long time to get to my proxy! Usually when I win an auction, the package gets shipped in 1~2 days and then arrives to the proxy’s warehouse within 1~2 days. But with Luka, it took, like, a week for the seller to ship her out and then it took eleven days for her to reach the proxy’s warehouse. ミ（゜д゜○） I was really stressed about it ’cause I’ve never, ever had any of my Y!J purchases take that long. I never ask my proxy to do a check on my stuff ’cause I have pretty high trust in Y!J sellers, but this time I had to ask them to take photos for me ’cause it had taken so long and I already imagined all sorts of things in my head, lol… but yeah, luckily it was the correct doll and everything was fine. I do wonder what kind of courier the seller used, though, because it was so slow and it ended up costing me a thousand yen more compared to the domestic shipping fee for my fullset DD Sheryl Nome and Miku body (in Miku’s box) I’d bought off of Y!J earlier. So strange and frustrating. Anyway, luckily Luka arrived in Finland quickly after all the delay on Japan’s soil… I was already afraid something’s gonna go wrong with the international shipping since the domestic shipping had been super slow. But luckily not! ((´∀`;))

Although, the mailman was feeling lazy for a change and didn’t even attempt to bring me Luka, so I had to call the customer service and have them call the mailman to bring me the package. (ーー;) I live in an apartment complex where the doors are locked and we don’t have a buzzer system, so sometimes the mailman decides it’s not even worth trying… although a lot of times, because I know that a package is coming, I either go open the door or hang out on the yard waiting. This time I had stuff to do so I couldn’t hang out in the yard, but I did make sure to open the door – and it was open at the time of the supposed delivery attempt, so naturally I was pretty pissed when the tracking updated saying they were unable to deliver my package. (ﾒﾟ皿ﾟ) But yeah, I called, ranted a bit and eventually the mailman came… but this time instead of apologising, he had a pretty nasty attitude so that was iffy and I think I’ll put in a complaint once I have the energy and composure to write a polite email. I don’t appreciate the mailman getting sassy with me when he didn’t even try doing his job, and I had opened the damn door. (;｀O´)o

Aaaaanyway, enough ranting, let’s move onto the photos, finally!

The long-awaited box! And plushie Luka, for obvious reasons, hehe~ o(^▽^)o

The doll box was upside down, ahah. (･∀･；) Also the box and its contents smelled quite bad. I wouldn’t say it was like she’d been living in a smoker’s home, but… this rather bad smell anyway. Luckily it’s more or less disappeared now after airing out everything.

The doll box! I’m still disappointed they switched to this illustration, instead of the one they originally announced Luka with (it can be seen on Luka’s page). This looks more sloppily drawn and reminds me more of a dakimakura illustration… not a fan. (¬､¬)

The doll wasn’t secured with the ribbons, but luckily there was some bubblewrap to keep her from moving too much. The wig’s cardboard was also on top with the doll…

… and everything else was just thrown under the doll, ahah. Well, luckily nothing was missing nor seemed to have any damage.

Yup, everything was included. Yay! (＾▽＾) The staining around her hips wasn’t too bad, I didn’t really get it to show up in photos. I removed the tape around her head and arm and it left this sticky trail, ugh… luckily it came off with dishwashing soap! The tape around the arm was kinda tightly wrapped so it left this dent, sorta… I hope the vinyl bounces back eventually.

Obligatory wig colour comparison, lol. The wig was much prettier in colour than I expected, but sadly the quality is SO BAD. The fiber feels so coarse to the touch and it flies all over the place and gets tangled super easily – it’s an absolute pain to deal with unless you spray it with wig spray every ten minutes. I need to find a replacement asap…

And I, of course, took a comparison of Luka with my Suiren who’s Sheryl on a DDdy body with DDIII L flat bust. The L bust looks so top heavy to me on the DD body because of the skinny waist.

I think the DD body can have M bust at max before the propotions look ridiculous. The DDdy with DD L bust looks so much better with the thicker waist, bigger hips and thicker thighs.

And this wig… I like the layered look but gosh that fiber is so bad! Such a mess if you touch it even a little. （；¬＿¬) I eventually had to soak it in wig spray and water wax.

Dressed her to try out the default look. Her outfit is pretty nicely made and the accessories are nice, too. Her headphones feel a bit too big for her head, though, I have a hard time positioning them properly as opposed to Rin & Len.

Sadly I don’t like her default face up at all… she’s just so blank. (　ﾟдﾟ) Rin, Len & Mariko had okay face ups and with Sheryl I was positively surprised how much better her face up looked in person, but Luka… yeah, nope. (;´Д`)

She basically has no expression. Her mouth is so well sculpted but this paintjob does no justice to it.

Her teeth are so cute!（*´▽｀*） They rarely show up because the upper lip creates a shadow that hides them rather effectively, but… still so cute!

Before I wiped the default face up, I wanted to try if painting the corners of her mouth into a smile would make it better. I did a mock up in Photoshop before but I wanted to try it on the actual doll, too. SO MUCH BETTER!

Super cute mouth now! (´∀｀)♡ I don’t know why Volks didn’t do this to Luka (nor Kaede) honestly… was it not possible with the face masks or… ? But this change really improved her look in my opinion.

I saved putting her on the DDdy body for when she has a smile, lol! More confident now~ Luckily the leotard and skirt fit just fine even though she has a bigger butt now, lol! With Sheryl’s outfit, I had to make a new waistband for her skirt and open up the back seam a bit, too.

Smiling Luka is best! ₍՞◌′ᵕ‵ू◌₎♡ She became a whole lot prettier right away! And she finally has an expression!

And Dynamite hips & thighs really improved her whole look, too. Thick thigh Luka is best Luka! (๑°꒵°๑)･*♡

Although the default face up improved, I still wanted to repaint her because the Volks face ups are too sharp-looking to my taste. And don’t have enough lashes. My Rin & Len are repainted, too, so Luka would’ve looked odd next to them.

So, I went and wiped her face clean, ahah. Well, I couldn’t get all the paint from her mouth (like I didn’t with Mariko either) but since I’d be painting the corners anyway, it didn’t really matter…

She’s got a lovely sculpt, although her forehead is rather big so it makes it difficult to find wigs that suit her.

Sculpted teeth! Volks sculpts open mouths so well~ If only they painted them a bit better, too, ahah…

It took me most of the day taking all the photos so it was already evening when I finally had a chance to paint her, but luckily at this time of the year it only starts getting properly dark after 11pm so I still had plenty of time. I was able to finish painting her, but I’m not a 100% happy with the face up so I’ll have to repaint her again at some point – I never seem to get face ups right the first time for any doll… but yeah, it’s good enough for now. (｡･ω･｡)ﾉ♡

Some more photos of her with my face up:

Like Rin and Len, she’s also going to have an original character side so that I can dress her in non-Luka looks too. But occasionally she’s also Luka. Her OC name is Kanade, 奏楽. The two kanjis together can be read as “musical performance” and individually the first one stands for “to play[music]” and the other is for “relaxed, comfort, ease”. Continuing with the music theme, yes… I haven’t yet decided Kanade’s relation to Yuuya and Yuuri, but I’m thinking she could be their cousin.

I suppose I’ll end this entry here for now. I don’t have OC photos of her yet since I don’t have a wig that suits her… bangless wigs don’t flatter her head shape at all and most wigs that I have don’t have long enough bangs. She’s as difficult to find wigs for as Yuuya & Yuuri. Whereas Suiren has such a perfect head shape that basically any wig looks good on her, ahah… she totally rocks the bangless look, too. Well, let’s see which direction Kanade’s look will take! I was thinking I might want to make her into a redhead, but we’ll see. She also needs eyes of her own, these are spare Lizanna Stardusts in Amber, which I photoshopped blue. She’ll have to lend Yuuya’s Sapphire Stardusts if I get lazy at photoshopping the colour, ahah…

Oh right, have this omake, because I completely forgot to give any attention to tako Luka: