Alchemic Labo Unoa Discussion Part 8

I'm having a wretched time with my B-El
I've owned him for more than six months and I'm just. Not feeling it.
He's been sueded and restrung and everything but he's still unpleasantly kicky and his elbows wanna velociraptor. It's really frustrating how the body is so cute but then won't Do The Thing.
I guess this is why people hybridize them...

 

I've heard that gently sanding the joints can actually help more than sueding when it comes to unoas! Gives a more rough surface to "grip".
With that said, there's nothing wrong with hybriding! Maybe a minifee moe boy body? I've never handled that body personally but it's got that same cute, slim look as the unoa boy You should be able to be happy with your doll!

 

Does anyone have experience buying Unoa off Y! Auctions? I've been watching Mandarake a few months but nothing tempting has popped up, and I'm used to proxy services for stuff from Y!/Rakuten/Mecari JP so I decided to give it a go. I put in a bid for a set of 3 faceplates (Two Lusis and one Sist, still with their original packaging.) and won them for a good price. I was thinking if anything I could use them to help buff up my faceup skills, and if I become attached I can maybe find a second hand body. It was also a lot lower stakes investment that trying to proxy buy a new unoa off the offical site.

There's a part of me that's nervous I made the wrong decision just because they were there, what if they're in bad condition, or more yellow than the pics, or fakes, or that I'm just going to be stuck with these plates forever without a body!!! I couldn't talk to the seller due to the barrier of language/it being through a proxy. I think I'm just being paranoid, but I'd like to hear other peoples Y!/Mecari/etc experiences!

I guess also hearing from people who bought off Mandarake would help too, as they're also a japanese second hand site.

Thanks!

 

@bliss5 That was kind of my thinking when I bought faceplates as well ... great to be able to practice on and switch out! The one thing that caught me lightly off-guard is that my faceplates came without primer yet. I think this should be the case for yours too if they're in their original packaging. Nothing sticks to them until they have been primered, even sealant coatings. But once you've got that taken care of, it should be smooth sailing for face up practice.

 

No, but I would love to hear more about it. I got what I thought was the Lucis - turns out I got the Sist, and it's the 1.0 version (I was hoping for 1.5) via Mandarake. I've signed up for email notifications for Lucis faceplates, but I'm also interested in other sources, too!

I've never heard of Y! before. I have seen a few BJDs on Mercari, but they're either insanely overpriced or counterfeit (i.e., recasts). And if you try to set up a search, I can tell you from personal experience that you will be bombarded with doll sized "food" crafts. Someone went wild with the resin arts and crafts.

 

Yeah, especially since the unoa plates are so expressive I think building my face-up skills will be fun!

These three plates came blank in their original packaging (The packaging that's the small plastic bags with the bubble wrap/promo picture card and instructions in.) so they definately may have the issue you had! Could you tell me what primer you used to fix it? I have Mr Super Clear, is that what you used or do I need something else below it? Thanks for mentioning this, if it is an issue with my plates and I hadn't known I might have freaked out!

I've heard Mandarake can mislabel sculpts due to them just not being experts, which is annoying. I haven't set up notifications there so maybe when the good stuff pops up I just miss it!

Y! is Yahoo Auctions is basically japanese eBay. I've bought a ton of anime merch from there over the years. If you're into japanese stuff you can get a ton of great deals. I use FromJapan as my proxy and they've been great for me (I've used Buyee too, but FromJapan has a free package consolidation fee. I only use Buyee now if it's for something from JP Mecari.) but keep in mind you have a second payment to pay. FromJapan also includes other sites in their search like Surugaya, OTAMART, Rakuten, Rakuma, and you can request stuff on their custom form from most japanese sites.

I wouldn't say it's the best for dolls/doll stuff. I just happened to find the plates on there. There's definitely some unoa parts on there that look like good deals but the full dolls I'm not sure about...I think I'd rather buy a full doll from the official site or buy second hand from a UK/US/EU seller on here unless something unbeatable came up. You can search 'ユノア' on there wade through to find them, or grab some other keywords from the unoa website in japanese and have a go looking through. I'd definitely be on the look out for recasts on there but there seems to be some legit stuff.

I'll definitely post pics of my own plates when I get them, but it will probably be a few weeks due to shipping!

 

@bliss5 I'm realizing the way I phrased my statement there sounded like I've gone through the whole process! I actually am speaking from a combination of both first & secondhand experience (riding some of the coattails of my husband's knowledge) but hopefully this is enough to be helpful in tracking down a product....

When I got my Unoa faceplates, I went to coat them in sealant (an equivalent to MSC), and it just beaded right off of them... my husband saw it and immediately identified it as them not being primered due to his experience with painting miniatures. I ran right off to Blick art materials and purchased a clear primer.... which I painted on enthusiastically and when it dried, it peeled off in a big layer! Turns out there's specific materials that different primers are made for, and the nice cheap one I had found was for "EVA foam, thermoplastics and 3D prints," so it was this kind of stretchy layer... not what I need.

I've since set them aside, but I "know" what the answer is. Just need to track down a clear primer that is made for resin. MSC is sealant, not a primer. Too many materials to keep track of

 

Well, this is timely, as I am getting ready to do a face-up on mine.

Google says... Krylon? I have a couple cans of clear but I can't promise I'll be trying it out anytime soon. It's either been too humid or too cold where I live for effective adhesion.

 

@MaleficentMrsofEvil If you get antsy, I think you might be able to do a quick run of a hairdryer over your plates to heat them up and then a quick spray. Obvs no pressure - haha - but I recently took a face-up class where the instructor was actually heating their resin heads on low in a toaster oven to help with adhesion of their sealant as well! I've yet to try it myself, but evidently it also serves the purpose of eliminating fogginess on darker-toned resins, which I thought was awesome! I'd never heard a workaround for some of the "residue" on tans and dark skin tones.

 

Interesting.... I just happen to have a tan Iplehouse Mari, and I was thinking of tackling her body blushing after I finish the Unoa face up.

Thanks for the suggestion - I may try it tonight! I've been impatiently checking the weather, waiting for the right conditions.

 

Thanks for this info! I might try a normal spray when my plates come, and if not I’ll try your suggestion! If you find a definite solution for this please post it back hear for others, I’d love to hear about it.

Sorry to always be on this thread but is there a way to guess by eye if a second hand unoa on places like Mandarake etc, where that info sometimes isn’t there, are a yellowed fairy skin or a yellowed fresh skin?

I’m looking for fresh skin dolls and plates but it seems fairy is the more popular one over in Japan. I was wondering if anyone had some comparisons or ways you would guess. Like, are yellowed white skins more ‘luminous’ yellow etc?

 

@bliss5 @MaleficentMrsofEvil I wanted to follow up on the sealant discussion - after spending a couple more days on some on and off research, I'm starting to think that the base sealant thing is ... not right. Also, I see too many people reporting that Krylon Matte gets sticky a few months down the road which isn't something I am personally willing to risk.

At this moment in time, now I'm really not sure why my typical faceup sealant was beading off the faceplates, but I have at least one conjecture. My thought is that the face plates may not have been cleaned when removed from their molds, so they may be covered in mold release, which would also cause most anything to not stick to them. When I have a spare bit of time I'm going to try cleaning one of my "untouched" faceplates and try sealing again. I'll report back.

 

Feeling a little sheepish, because I still haven't gotten to the doll yet. I'm painting a BIG toy horse as a prop, and it's taking forever. It's there biggest toy horse I've ever seen...

My Unoa is super yellowed. Originally, I was thinking that I would keep her that way, but after putting a white wig on her head and realizing I'm seeing some sort of blue fairy, I'm going to try lightly sanding her to remove a wee bit of the yellowing. So thanks for the update. Sticky face would make me sad.

 

Thanks for the update!! I actually received my plates in the mail yesterday.





I had to take an scalpel and a magnifier and gently shave off some excess resin around the eyes and open mouths. I panicked a bit but upon reading a thread on here I saw that some unassembled full kits come with these and instructions about shaving them off. I think they're a mellowed out normal skin but I'm not sure.

The only problem is one of the mouth pieces just doesn't seem to sit to well in the face. It seems to struggle to get in a good position. (I think it's the lusis wink face piece.) I might have a go shaving or sanding it until it fits better!

I'm thinking of washing them incase they have the sealant problem. I saw someone in the Unoa assembly point out that the instructions on the kits say to wash them before assembly, so maybe your residue mold release idea is correct!

 

I'm not sure how much I can help, but after reading the conversation here, I dug out my Unoa Freaks and checked it (I thought, "hey, if there's anyone, they should know it").
There is a page in one of the volumes where a Lusis faceplate gets a faceup. It says (in Japanese) that the faceplate was first washed in a "resin wash, (G-color series, T-03)". Then, it got primer, which was a Volks spray (GK surfacer). I'm afraid Volks no longer sells such because I couldn't find it on their homepage and, well, the Unoa Freaks are a bit old...

I will do a bit more research when I have some time, but I hope this information could help.

 

Hey guys, I've had my L-bi, B-el and Lusis for years but got a Chibi from Dollyteria last year and I've had so much trouble finding shoes. The feet are a bit big for my Yosds shoes but too small for my minifee/MSD shoes. Do they fit moe line shoes or anything else standard? She fita a lot of the new Barbie clothes so well (example of my cheeky girl here: Login • Instagram ) and most slim mini clothes everything else is hit or miss but it's fun to experiment.

 

Don’t take my word for it, but I’ve heard they might fit Mini Dolfie Dream shoes. They both have the same foot length but I’m not sure about width. Some mini dolfie dream shoes are labelled ‘MDD’ but not ‘MSD’ because they’re small and thus don’t show up in MSD searches. Maybe something to consider if you can find out about the width of MDD vs Chibi Unoa feet! I would be interested too since I want a chibi one day.

 

Hey all! I am considering getting a Unoa Lusis ^^ Is there anything I should know about the body?

 

Eyes can be a pain to find, between the eyewells being 12mm but her having heavy eyelids, 10mm leave a litlte gapping, 14mm don't really fit at all.
Large bust can be hard to find clothes for. The hands are beautiful, but because they're posed as they are, it can be hard to dress, many sleeves won't fit over them. I've seen people mod their dolls to have magnet systems, or make littler hand filler things to hold the string while dressing.
A lot of people find the body floppy, which I suppose it is! I haven't done it myself because I like the body, but I've heard that instead of sueding, the body reacts better to sanding the inside of the joints to add texture/grip
Unoas are such fun, versatile and classic little dolls! If you have any questions, please do ask

 

Thank you! This is super helpful! I've always loved Lusis but have been scared to get her because I don't know where from, with all the recasts out there. Seems unoalchemy is down.
Do they come with CoA's, or is it just the box? Where can I buy legit and avoid a recast?