Climbing the Escarpment, 2010

The Texas heat has been putting me off of taking new outdoor photos, so in a moment of weather-nostalgia I starting sorting through some old photos and came across one particular set that I thought I'd share.

These were taken in Kerncliff Park in Burlington, Ontario.  Kerncliff is a trail-head on The Bruce Trail. The Bruce trail is an 800+km trail that runs along the Niagara Escarpment from Niagara Falls in the south to Tobermory in the north, and this particular trail head was less than a kilometre from my house during the 3.5 years that I lived in the area.

Back in the later summer of 2010, I packed up my Iplehouse YID Aaron and took him for a hike  (it's all photos from here):

Dolls and Dogs

After the impression my German Shorthair (Gunterdog) made after his guest appearance in my Dolls in the Snow post, I thought I'd post a few more photos of him with various members of the doll posse (it's all photos after the break).

"Don't look now, but I believe there's a giant dog behind us."
The dolls are Soom London & Souldoll Rouse

Height Comparisons Across Doll and Figure Lines

Earlier this morning a co-worker asked me about the relative sizes of BJDs with American Girl dolls, and at almost the same time I read Vanessa's question about the size of MA's International Travel Friends relative to playline dolls over on Black Doll Collecting.  And since a couple of weeks ago I also received a PM on Den of Angels asking about Teen Trends to MSD comparisons, I decided that I've amassed enough comparison photos to warrant it's own post.

First up is the Travel Friends/Playline line-up:

Back Row (L-R): Disney Classics (Li Sheng), Barbie (Princess of South Africa), Monster High (Clawd Wolf)
Front Row: Bratz (Cameron), International Travel Friends (Namaste), American Girl Mini (Ivy)

 The AG comparison:

 

 

L-R: Iplehouse EID model body (Chase), American Girl Cécile,
Illusion Spirit mini (ZhuQing), Monster High (Jane Boolittle)

The Teen Trends comparison:

L-R: Volks SD13 Long-leg body (Irvin), Soom ID51 (London),
Illusion Spirit Mini (ZhuQing), Teen Trends (Deondra)

And finally, a larger one:

Back Row: Angelheim Elderheim Angelo, Volks SD13 Irvin, Souldoll Vito Rouse, American Girl Cécile
Row 2: Iplehouse JID Boris, Ellowyne Wilde Lizette, Monster High Clawd, Girls of Many Lands Neela, AG mini Samantha
Row 3: Sideshow Toys Krycek, Hot Toys Wolverine, PlayArts Commander Shepard, DC Direct Tali, Figma Yukiko Amagi
Front Row: Hasbro/Marvel's Greatest Battles Captain Britain, Star Wars Black Series Mace Windu, Heroclix Pete Wisdom

Shopping for Dolls: The Volks USA Clearance Sale

Earlier this year, Volks USA closed their California showroom and relaunched their online shop.  During that process, they had a weekend clearance event that saw their stock offered at some impressive discounts.

I tried to grab a number of outfits, wigs and dolls (the Dollfies in particular were steeply discounted), but the competition was fierce, so in the end what came home was two outfits, a random pair of wigs and some paintbrushes.  The wigs turned out to not be to my taste, but the outfits were both ones I'd been wanting, and turned out to fit larger-than-standard dolls, so that's what I'll be sharing.

Outfit number one, called "Hoodie set" is a navy blue track suit with white an lighter blue piping and strips.  It's designed for the Volks SD17 model which is a 65cm, narrow-bodied dolls, so I wouldn't have expected it to fit a broad-bodied 70cm Iplehouse EID, and yet it does.  I've been looking for a track suit for Murad (EID Chase) for years, so I was thrilled to find that it fit.

EID Chase in the SD17 Hoodie Set

The school uniform set - under layers.

The second outfit is called "School Boy Set" and includes a grey tank top, a white uniform shirt, a tie, a camouflage  jacket and black cargo pants.  It's designed for the Volks SD13 doll, which is a 60cm doll.  Being made of less flexible fabrics than the track suit, it can't fit quite as wide a range of sizes, but parts of it do work on André, my Dollzone Alpha which has a 68cm body.

The pants fit this doll perfectly at the waist but are a good 1.5cm too short.  Luckily, this is easy enough to hide with tall boots (this particular doll is quite narrow for his height, so often ready-made 70cm pants are too loose on him).  The tank top is perfect though.

The shirt and jacket are really too tight around the shoulders, so they'll be moving on to a different doll, but André did get to try them on.  All of the pieces in this outfit are of really fantastic quality, so I'm quite pleased with this outfit (and with the number of pieces included in it).

The camouflage jacket.

The shirt and tie.

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Out of the Box: West (Iplehouse EID Arvid)

I've talked about Iplehouse's massive (70+cm, 2.5kg) EID line when I unpacked my Chase, Murad, but there are a few differences between that doll and this one.  Unlike my Chase, I ordered my EID Arvid direct from Iplehouse when he was first released, so any damage to this doll is 100% my fault.

He was also ordered in a different colour (Lt Brown) and has the default faceup that was offered with that particular Limited release (from their 2011 cowboy themed series, although I didn't purchase any of the outfit or accessories that made up the rest of his listing).  Like most of my other Iplehouse dolls, his colour is solid and even, and unlike my older Lt tan Cocori, his colour has stayed even and not greened.  In fact, I would say that it hasn't even mellowed - I purchased a back-up pair of hands with him, and also removed his left leg when I originally restrung him (for character reasons), and when I packed him up for the move I compared him to those pieces (which were hidden away inside the box in the dark) and everything was still a perfect match nearly 3 years later.

With my Limhwa tan half-elf, Laura

With an older wig

  In fact, the only issue I've ever had with this doll is from my recent move: his faceup started to flake a bit.  Given the changes in humidity and temperature that were involved in a long-distance truck-based move that's not necessarily unexpected, but he's also the only doll out the 20+ that made the move that had the issue, and I know that the original owner of my Chase removed his original faceup after it flaked during a seasonal shift (although to be fair, my other three - older and more recent - Iple dolls are fine after going through the same temperature shifts).

As an amusing side story, I have a couple of friends who are generally not doll people who have called this guy the exception to their doll-hating rule.  One of them even calls him "the hot one"! ;)

With EID Chase

Cross-Company Comparison: Tan Resins

One of the big challenges that I hear about from people who want to hybrid tan dolls is the near-impossibility of finding matching colours without having to resort to custom batches or blushing an entire body to match a head.  With that in mind, here are a couple of references based on my own collection:

1. Illusion Spirit tan (ZhuQing, 2011)
2. Secretdoll tan (Binu, 2008)
3. Dollmore Suntan (Mettaa, 2010)
4. Iplehouse Ebony (Chase, 2009)
5. Iplehouse old Dark tan (Aaron, 2007)
6. Soom Dark Brown (London, 2011)
7. Iplehouse Light Brown (Arvid, 2011)
8. Limhwa tan (Half-Elf, 2011)
9. Dollzone tan (Alpha, 2011)
10. Volks ebony (Irvin, 2008)
11. Island Doll tan (Kevin, 2011)
12. Iplehouse old light tan (Cocori, 2008)
13. ResinSoul coffee/light tan (2010)

Clockwise, starting with the feet:

1. FantasyDoll Dark tan (Charlotte, 2013)
2. Iplehouse ebony (Boris, 2013)
3. Soom dark brown (London, 2011)
4. Dollmore suntan (Mettaa ),
5. Island doll tan (Kevin, 2011)
6. Illusion Spirit tan (ZhuQing, 2011)
7. Souldoll tan (Rouse, 2010), 
8. Iplehouse light brown (Arvid, 2011)
9. Limhwa tan (Half-eld, 2011)
10. Dollzone tan (Alpha, 2011)

Personally, I thought the biggest find was the similarity between Iplehouse's light brown and Island
Doll's tan (although the IS tan does have slightly more red to it).

That's EID Arvid in light brown holding Island doll Kevin in tan on the left.

Out of the box: Mmabatho (Iplehouse YID Lt Cocori)

I love how ridiculous this hat is.

This girl was the first female BJD to join my collection, and she was my first attempt at a hybrid.  She was actually my reason for joining the Den of Angels forum - I told a doll-owning friend that I regretted missing the general order period and she told me that there was a head for sale on DoA.

The head wasn't in perfect shape - the original owner had left the head on display in a lit cabinet and it had significant greening, but at the time there weren't any other options for getting the doll (outside of the normal skin pre-orders), so I decided to chance it.  And honestly, the green is apparent in person, but generally she still photographs well.

The second challenge was finding a matching body.  At the time I hadn't done nearly as much exploring into the options, and ended up going with the lowest priced option and put her on a Resinsoul body.  People who love the whole sueding-and-wiring process generally rave about these bodies, but being lazy I honestly think it's way too light and floppy.

Her current wig

If I were buying a body now, I'd probably get an Island doll tan body instead:  I prefer the engineering on that one, and I believe the colour would be equally close in that it would be slightly too dark rather than the slightly too light colour of the RS Coffee body (Island doll tan is actually very close to the newer Iplehouse Lt brown).  But since she's been on the floppy body for nearly 4 years now, I'll probably just leave her as she is.

Out of the box: Murad (Iplehouse EID NC Shadow Chase)

I missed this guy when Iplehouse first released him, and pre-CDS, that meant watching the secondary market for ages - I actually missed this very doll once (I messaged the owner just hours after she accepted an offer from someone else), but then that owner later sold him and so he came to join my doll posse (minus his chimera parts at that point, but I wouldn't have used those anyway, so I wasn't complaining).

Despite being third-hand, he's actually in very good shape still - the hook on one ankle broke, but that's a common issue with the EIDs, and so it's not really cause for concern.  Everything else is near-perfect.  I've heard of dolls from this same release who went purple, but his colour is actually near-identical to my 2012 JID Boris, so I think it's safe to say that it's aging quite well.

He's become the doll that I've put through the most reinventions as well, so let's take a look at them:

Day 1: Painted as the last owner's character ("censored" with a cigar, because ha!)

I actually loved how owner #2 had painted the eyebrows, so the real challenge was trying to keep them while taking off the rest of the face - it worked reasonably well, I feel.

Look #1

Look #1:   big blue eyes and orange-red hair (the default wig from my SD13 Heath - despite the huge size difference, they actually wear the same wig size).

At this point I had no EID-size clothing, so I had to squeeze him into anything that fit (the pants I'd made based on online measurements ended up being a good size too small).

Look 2 (with Angelheim Venetio)

Look #2: Same blue eyes, but now with a white fur wig.  Same clothing issues too, since my attempts at getting him into Angelheim's Elderheim sizes and Dollmore's Glamor Model clothes had a 90% failure rate.





Several more failed attempts at other-company clothing and weak attempts at sewing (finally foiled when the tension on my ancient sewing machine finally died), but this guy was finally saved when I ordered another EID (an Arvid) and bought a selection of clothes along with him.  Around the same time I snagged some smaller brown eyes as well, and thus was his look finalized (although the clothes still rotate, of course).

Final look (with Lt brown EID Arivd)

Fifth out of the box: Osman (Iplehouse JID Boris)

One of my newest dolls, I've still not figured out exactly how to style this guy, but he's an attractive doll and a good size, so he still got to be one of the first on display.

I ordered him via Iplehouse's Custom Doll System (which I believe has since been renamed) after noticing that the blank sculpt had more than a passing resemblance to their EID Chase.  And since I already had a Chase, it seemed like it would be promoting cohesion in my collection by bringing home a doll that looks like family.

I'm normally not a fan of ordering a sculpt in a colour for which there are no examples, but given the resemblance, I figured that an ebony Boris would still be a safe buy - and I was pleased to discover it was true (I was even more pleased to see how close the colour was to my Chase, who - being a NC Shadow Chase - was from the first batch of ebony after Iple stopped doing the old dark tan).

The JIDs aren't really in scale with the EIDs, so I don't frequently photograph the two together, but there they are on the right (along with my dog, because why not).

The JID body is not the most natural of posers, but it has fantastic detail, stands like a rock and has a nice weighty resin, so I give it top marks.

Second out of the box: Tshepo (Iplehouse YID Dk Aaron)

With a casting date of 2007, this guy is one of the senior statesmen of the doll posse - only two dolls are older - and he's probably the one I'd keep if I had to give the rest up (although my Volks Heath would probably be running neck-and-neck).

The old YID bodies are less realistic and more traditionally SD-sized than Iplehouse's later EID/SID/JID lines, but it's still a solid piece of engineering.  Not the most natural of posers, but not bad by any means - and capable of holding a pose, which I always appreciate.

Much has been made of colour-shifts in early tan dolls, but this one has held his colour beautifully - no greening or purple-ing here (unlike a Lt Cocori that I'll have to show off another time - she is looking a bit seasick these days).


Being one of their older dolls, this guy also game with a full set of clothing, which was also quite good quality - his default leather jacket (pictured on the right) is actually one of my favourite pieces of doll clothing overall.