Pluto is a Volks SD17 Maximilian. Going to give big boys another try! I previously had a Ryoma Sakamoto. His face was quite slim from the front and I ended up selling him because he didn’t match my girls. From photos Max had a slight bobble headed look so I thought he might look ok, plus he uses 16mm eyes unlike Ryoma who used 14mm so surely his head is bigger. Now that he’s arrived happy to say his head size matches my girls.

When he arrived his box was bigger than I expected. It turns out inside the brown shipping box, there was another brown shipping box, and then the actual doll box. This is the first time I’ve seen this from Volks. It’s good that there’s more protection, but sure felt strange opening the box to find another box that looks almost exactly the same. His teeth look a bit strange because they are not sculpted, just white painted on top of his lips. His neck kips has notches in it, I haven’t noticed this in my other dolls before, perhaps this stops it from disappearing into his head as they tend to do. His wig is quite soft, the fibre feels different to my other wigs. The Interstellar Dormitory uniform, what can I say, this is already my fourth doll from this series. The chain this time is quite cute. I was not expecting a SD17 release as it’s Boys’ Dormitory, I had only expected young looking boys, but it was a nice surprise. And the SD17 body feels easier to handle than when I had Ryoma, a nice bonus of trying to take exercise more seriously.

Actually I quite liked the overall look of Regulus but wanted fair skin. Firstly because I don’t have many boys for now I want them to be able to share hands and fair skin seems the most common. Secondly I fell into the danmei rabbit hole around the start of the year and thought Max might make a good HC. I would have been a bit more hesitant if Max was released alone, but a Max with Reg’s faceup and styling, I think it will work. He will only be loosely based on HC, more like cosplay than a character doll. When I’m too rigid with my dolls such as making characters or specifying detailed personalities, I find it really limits myself in terms of how I style them. Plus Max would make a good Griffith too. As for XL I think Artemis would work. Although he definitely needs a taller body, I think the SD13 renewal would work well, and my original plan to turn him into a girl is rescinded. These are all long term projects because I’m slow.

Had a small doll meet~
From left to right there is Luna x2, Michele x2, F-60 (Coco in white skin) and F-81 (Mai in white skin).
Luna looks very different depending on the faceup.
Mai is also pretty cute, I ended up taking the most photos of her~

Welcomed another cutie this week~

Meet Saffron, she is a D’COORD MDD Mochi-Ashi (DD-f3) DDH-21 in tan skin. She is my first Mochi-Ashi and first tan doll. I previously had a regular MDD but her proportions felt a bit off because she had such a huge head and slim body. I feel like the Mochi-Ashi legs balance out the head much better. The proportions of the hips to legs looks better than I expected, it was something that really bothered me in photos I saw but it’s not as noticeable in person. However for curiosity sake I plan to try a DDP hip on my next Mochi-Ashi. The tan skin is quite nice, it looks very smooth and even, kind of like milk tea or coffee. And the DD-f3 frame feels nicer than my previous DDs, movements are much smoother which makes posing easier for me, my previous DDs were all kind of stiff. For some reason her vinyl also feels softer than my previous DDs.

For her fullset the outfit quality is pretty nice. Her cardigan has working buttonholes rather than snaps, and her socks are knitted with a seam at the toes only. My only criticism is her bow is sewn on, so you can’t for example use a different ribbon, and it looks strange when her top is left open because the bow is just hanging there. I guess I could cut it off though. Her wig makes her head rather top heavy, but posing is still doable if I make sure to shove her head down the neck peg fully. Her shoes are quite long and narrow compared to her feet but it’s not noticeable once she is wearing them. I’m a bit worried the material will eventually fall apart like my Mariko’s shoes. Her eyes were still hot glued in but much easier to remove compared to SDs as her head can flex.

I’m planning to test out some shoes and wigs for her when I have time. Unfortunately the pair of eyes I thought would suit her has gone sticky, ewww. Maybe the coating has degraded, they were fine when new and basically untouched.

Hello 2021! So it seems my annual updates are turning into biennial. 2 weeks ago I welcomed 2 new dolls, my fingers still hurt from digging out their hot glue, ouch. I don’t buy boys very often but I really loved these 2’s entire set, the faces, wigs, outfits, I’m quite a fan of the Interstellar Dormitory series’ designs. The only thing I wish was different is their shoes, because I like the clown style shoes the other big boys come with much more. I had thought Volks already made a MSD sized version previously too.

I was slightly worried about Gilbert because in some photos his face looks quite weird, but I’m glad they are both cute in person. The biggest surprise was how their personalities are the opposite of what I expected. Eric looks quite sweet and gentle in photos, but in person he has a sharp face like a hawk. Gilbert too looks kind of serious in photos, but in person he is the more gentle and dopey one. I was originally planning to call them Dmitri and Thomas, but once I saw them in person those names just didn’t suit at all, so Dionysus and Hephaestus it is. Unexpectedly I ended up choosing names that match my other Interstellar Dormitory boy, Artemis. One more nice surprise is that Volks is allowing international orders for the owner parts.

I also purchased DWC 04 and 05 in the DWC event last year. I had heard School A’s head is quite big but wow, it is quite big. Compared to DWC 01 however, I think DWC 04 is cuter after all.

Last set of doll meet photos from my backlog, horray!

Took some photos as a height reference for myself. I never noticed before that the MSD body is shorter than the SDM body. It was interesting to see all the skin tones are different too.

Went to a mini meet yesterday at the Auburn Botanic Gardens with 4 Lieselottes! We have even more Lieselottes in Sydney so hopefully we can organise an even bigger meet next time.

Initially I had dressed my girls in a style to match the cherry blossoms that are blooming right now, however it was so crowded my motivation to take cherry blossom photos quickly drained away. They were very beautiful though.

In the end I took some photos in a quiet area in the garden, and then again outside the entrance with the camellias.

This was the first version I made. I’m very happy with the colours, they change a bit depending on the angle you are looking at the eyes from, so for example the red colour is only visible from the side and not from the front. However, I wanted to make the dots smaller and neater next time, and the iris lines are almost invisible so I wanted to make those thicker as well:

This was the second version. I tried a few more colours which all came out nicely, but I think the iris lines are a bit too thick this time:

This was the third version. I wanted to try copper coloured dots, I didn’t expect them to be almost invisible in the pink pair. Looks like white is the best after all:

Since the last update I’m improving on getting those pupils in the centre, and I’ve managed to avoid big bubbles (although I still can’t get rid of all the small bubbles).

The white part of the resin I’m using currently yellows pretty quickly, so reducing that will be my next experiment :)

Went to a small doll meet yesterday at the Paddington Reservoir Gardens. This was my first time testing out these eyes in the wild! What I didn’t notice until I was editing the photos was that Artemis was in fact cross-eyed the entire time.

My Michele has arrived, I really love this version’s outfit and style X3. Eventually I will swap him to a girl body so I’ve named her Artemis.

My camera’s screen broke. It will take one month to fix, but at least it’s still under warranty.