Out of the Box: Laura (Limhwa half-elf)

Her current look.

Time to unpack the last of the big dolls! Or at least the last of current big dolls. ;)

Laura is a limhwa half-elf in tan resin.  Limhwa is a one-person operation (the arist's name is Jung Ji Youn), and the dolls sculpted with fairly soft facial features.  The joint engineering is fairly simple (and not my favourite to pose, if I'm honest), but they more than make up for that with their charm, and with the impressively detailed sculpting of the hands and feet.

The resin has a solid weight to it, with a nice natural grain (I'm not a fan of sanding, so I prefer that slightly rough feel).  This batch of tan was rather orange, but I've seen others that turned out in more of a brown - but that's not an unusual thing to see from a tiny producer like this.

I bought her back in 2011, but it took me a good two years to find a final look for her - and as soon as I settled on one, I accidentally ripped out her eyelashes, so now she's back in the work-in-progress pile!  Still, that's an easy one to finish (as long as I don't decide she needs a new faceup in the meantime!).

Resin comparison: with Island Doll tan.
I had too-small eyes in both dolls at this point.

Resin comparison: with Iplehouse Lt Brown

On her own.
You can see some of the hand and finger sculpt details here.

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.