Best vs worst: Bodies

Dollstown 17 girl body is my best poser because the possibilities of her 3-part torso movement are almost endless. The only thing she's missing is a joint in her thigh. But what she lacks in legs, she easily makes up for with her torso.
Tash (Elfdoll head + DT17 body) by Arengil Tajedinápravá, on Flickr
As far as standing is concerned, my Dikadoll 62 cm ver. II boy points. He can stand on one leg without any problems.
Zaoll is probably the worst poser. Although it's a bit unfair to her since she's only single.
The worst poser among the double bodies is my Nobility female muscle body. I had to heavily modify her to keep her elbows and knees in position, and I'm not talking about her sitting at all...
Dollmore Zihu stands pretty well, but she's single, so she's not very mobile in other ways. But I forgive her for her cuteness.
The Bimong Narae 58 body is the absolute best when it comes to leg bending. But getting this doll on its feet is really a problem.
The Granado nuevo f. body looked great at first glance, but the fact that she keeps breaking in the thighs (especially when I don't want her to) pushes her to the average ranks.

 

I don't have a huge collection and not a great ton of experience, but out of what I have/have had:

Best - Soulkid new double body - even if it doesn't do anything, it still looks natural and fun to look at. While the arms could use a little more motion options, the legs can do everything effortlessly. It's not the perfect body by any means but I find myself loving it despite all the shortcomings.

The worst - sorry not sorry but minifee a-line. The hip caps got to go! I've never been so frustrated about posing, or useless parts just rotating around and I'm so happy I sold it.

The best/worst combo: Dollmore Judith body. The number of joints and options to pose are incredible and it's a solid stander, too. It could do any pose you want if it wasn't for the torso proportions (torso too long, breasts too big). I just wish there was a small boob option! But if one is looking for a sexy body that can do stuff it's great of course, just not what I prefer aesthetically.

 

I am not enjoying my old Dollshe 18M body. It goes bow-legged at the slightest provocation and won't even lie still let alone stand. Plus the wrist ball is part of the hand which limits the range of motion and doesn't look great.
Even worse, the genitals have put holes in two pairs of pants, and this is after a previous owner modded the torso to try and avoid the old Dollshe belly pop.
Very tempted to get my Hound a new body...

 

Yeah, I have an OG SD10 solid torso body and it is... limited. I never knew how spoiled I was by double jointed elbows and knees.

 

My collection isn’t huge and doesn’t represent a whole lot of companies, but of the dolls I have…

The Worst
It pains me to say it’s my Souldoll Katie.A, my beloved first doll. She has the original double jointed Soulkid body, so this may not reflect on newer bodies from them. The body itself is beautiful and very graceful, but it also kind of wants to do its own thing and tends to snap back into the same (albeit graceful) poses. Sueding her helped a lot, but I’ve had to remove the old stuff recently and haven’t gotten around to re-sueding her so I am reminded of how difficult she was to pose. She can stand, but is rather unstable. The range of motion is actually quite nice, but the poses don’t hold at all. Her difficulties with posing aren’t too big of a drawback for me and even if all newer Souldolls were like this, they’d still be my favourite company.

The Best

Soom Rosette Pure Body. That said, sometimes she does fall forward, a problem I don’t think would exist if I had gotten her with the smaller chest piece — the larger one makes balancing more difficult as it makes her a bit top heavy. That said, this body is absolutely wonderful at posing. I don’t think she is as graceful as my Soulkid, but she has an even wider range of motion and doesn’t snap back into specific poses. Her joints also have little grooves in them which aren’t in any of my other dolls — these go a long way with posability.

All Volks bodies — I have four different bodies from them. All of them are limited because of their single jointing, but otherwise excellent at what they do. Special mention for the very old MSD body that they had in 2002, my Shinshiya is so solid and will hold any pose, sit how you want her to, can stand forever. Volks nailed the engineering with single joints early on, and from what I can gather, that hasn’t changed in the least.

 

Some of the worst bodies I have are ones with sort of ratchets/ridges at the shoulder joint. Without sueding/wiring or other sculptural support, I find that arms with these joints at best lock into one of three angles and at worst the joints simply don't work as intended and the arm doesn't stay up at all. The larger and therefore heavier the doll, the worse the problem seems to be.
I've seen other users comment that dollmakers who frequently add new bodies to their lineups may not do a lot of testing of the final resin cast version – I feel there's a big difference between a 3d model, a lighter weight 3d print and a resin cast doll.

I prefer dolls that can reliably stand unassisted over dolls that can do amazing poses with a doll stand.
Every time I handle a frustrating body, I go back to handling one of my Volks dolls – all their bodies since the Pureskin new knees are very stable, reliable standers, and the single-jointed older bodies are very capable posers with the aid of wiring.
Out of my newer bodies, my Bimong Narae 58 and Granado Fortis 70 are both delightful posers.
I also will always prefer a 3-part torso over a 2-part and ribcage joints over underbust – for me, 2-part underbust joints tend to make the doll "rock" when seated and make it more difficult to balance, and underbust joints break up the body's silhouette in an unnatural way

 

The Worst

Nova's Dollzone 45cm body and my Black Cherry Dolls gals' bodies. All of them tend to curl their limbs inward, and even after wiring the latter (my wire doesn't fit in the Dollzone channels) it doesn't help too much. Neither can stand very well, they stay seated in my doll cabinet. I suspect the shape of the joints might be part of it, and the Dollzone body has rather thin limbs. Those legs are sticks! The dolls are all cuties, though.

The "Just That One Pain Point"

Other than this one thing, her body is perfectly fine, but I just needed to say my Ringdoll Nikki's hip joints pop out of the socket nearly every time I go to pose her and it drives me batty.

The Best

Thalassus, my Goblin Tales Cassie, and my two DearSDs. I think it helps that the latter already has kips, but the latter especially stand like rocks and they're not at all fussy to pose. I can play around with them however I please, it's great. At worst, Thalassus sometimes doesn't keep her arm right where I want it when I try to pose it raised up and outwards. Between the Cassie body's lovely sculpting and how huggable the DearSDs are, they're fab.

 

I've handled a lot more doll bodies since I last replied here and thought it would be fun to compare them again (my opinions are in no way objective)

Best poser:
- still the soulkid new double 2019. Anything she does is with grace, the knee joints are long enough for sitting on legs and mobility joints are easy to engage and work well when pulling them up to the chest. Even when it's super loosely strung, it holds a pose well. It's just tons of fun to handle this body for me!
The renewed new double body I have that is made in 2024 does not live up to it at all, though. The knees are kickers, the locks in the thighs only work half-way in one of the legs, it seems like overall there are some QC issues with it. Sometimes you just don't need to update a good thing especially if you don't even improve the elbows to rotate

Another great poser: Old Volks MSD - locks in knees and it'll stand for days. Single jointed but there is so much range in there, a little wiring adds a lot of poses it can do.
However - Volks SDC girl body - how did they make it so bad after nailing the MSDs? kicky, knees don't lock, double jointed elbows are barely functioning as double joints, can't stand without a stand that well (and if you get her to stand her knees will kick and make the doll fall. ALWAYS gotta watch out for her)

Honourable mentions: Souldoll NL (how did they do the elbows so well and then made them less mobile with the new double body is beyond me).
Also BonBon Galaxy Lychee body I had was a great poser! But the resin quality did not feel as nice and hefty as I expect resin to be so it didn't stay with me long.

Biggest disappointment:
Huajing V4 - to have all the tools to make great bodies and then still make the knee peanuts so short they offer less posing range than all my single jointed bodies is so beyond me. The arms and elbows pose so well but everything down from the shoulders is very limited or too smooth to properly hold the pose unfortunately. I'm still yet to manage to use the thigh mobility joints very well and I think they are cut sliiiightly too high below the hip to have enough ledge to work. Stands like a rock and is beautifully sculpted however! Stands on one leg like no biggie.

Worst of the worst: Dollmore Judith body. It's so over engineered - the elbows rotate so there is no need for an extra swivel in the upper arm imo, and a 4-piece torso is mostly just too fiddly (i swapped out a piece with a souldoll torso just to have less joints). Knees buckle a lot and it's generally a balancing act to get it how you envisioned. I love how the head I put on it looks, and I can get some really fun and lively poses out of it, but it handles really poorly without wiring the legs at least.


Verdict: even within companies, the bodies' abilities will vary so much you'll never know what kind of a poser you'll get. Sometimes there are happy accidents! Sometimes things need a lot of work to get where you want them. Mostly less is more

 

Favorite bodies so far would be the Loongsoul B-73-03 or Ringdoll RGM-06, both are so sturdy and easy to pose. They’re smooth and strung beautifully and I’ve never had any issues with them. I also love the muscle definition. Least favorite body would be (holy unpopular opinion) the Minifee Fairyline. Loveeee the magnetic hands/feet but my girl was so floppy and useless I had to sell her.

 

I agree that Dream Valley bodies are really great posers. I love their aesthetics too.
I also love MYou 29 cm special boy body, the only problem are the knees, they make the legs a bit kicky.
I can say Impldoll 75 boy body is very nice too. It can even do a squat.
Xaga Constellation boy body is great too, it has joint locks so it holds poses nicely.

Worst body is Doll Chateau K-body-01, my girl is super kicky and she even damaged her faceup because she constantly slaps her face. However I like the aesthetics so I can forgive her being naughty.

 

Help! I need a body for my Merry Round doll head Tsubaki from the juvenille line. So wound a Dolltown 13 be right? Has anyone tried to find a body for this doll?

 

I own and have handled many doll bodies over the years, and there are lots that I really love for posability and general handling, along with how they look aesthetically. A few standouts would be my Abio Angel boy body. It's old and single jointed but OMG it poses better than many double jointed dolls I have, and HOLDS poses. The elbow joints have crazy range of motion that wows me to this day. For newer bodies, Doll Famly-H is a standout. I have the 72cm soft boy body (as well as the 68 girl and boy body) and they pose amazingly. Large range of motion and easy to get it to do what I want and they hold it well. The thigh joint is A+++. Also need to shoutout Huajing's 46cm heroic bearing boy body. Delightful to handle and pose as well. Very impressed. There are many other great bodies, many of which have been mentioned already so I won't go over them again.

As for the worst bodies...that's sadly easy for me. My Soom Crow's body is terrible. It looks beautiful, but I often say I want to throw it out a window every time I pick it up and that is barely a joke. The elbows are hard to activate and don't hold their pose well, his hands fall off too easily (weak magnets), the torso barely has any movement and the hips....god. He can sit only if he has a backrest, but there is no good way to string this body the way it's designed. And the worst is the legs. Knees don't lock well, and the special crow legs he came with? Literally useless. They don't stay locked at all because the locking ridge is too shallow to actually catch in the groove so he can't stand OR sit OR crouch without immense work. Unless I want him to do this. His legs will need modding to work correctly and that makes me so sad. His arms need wires and sueding does nothing to aid any joint. It's a good thing he's so pretty. But I will rant about this body until the end of time, as I've never been so frustrated over a doll. lol (and yet I refuse to give up and sell him...he really is that pretty.)