Doll Leaves Mini [45 cm] Discussion part 4

Yay for more boy Lans!

 

oh yes! I am shelling the antagonist of my novel. I have some silver and gold eyes to go with a black sorta bowl cut wig… I don’t have image hosting at this moment but I will find some and show his faceup in progress :3

he was going to be a girl but he showed up and was like “ah so I want to be a boy” and now he is

 

Sounds cool!

Yeah, dolls do that. I have one who was supposed to be a healthy, active, optimistic surfer dude kind of guy, who ended up dessing in all black, vain as a peakock and listening to black metal.
The original character morphed into a chill bohemian guy and is now shelled by a doll leaves Wish. I think it turned out for the better.

 

Hey, does anyone know which wig size works best for Gabriel? 6-7 or 7-8? I'm getting conflicting answers from her listings on DDE and Doll Leaves' site. xD;

 

@TurtleJen Gabriel seems to be having same head as my Lan [18.5cm] - I use for Lan Minifee sized wig [7], I've even tried once 6 and it was a snugly fit too!

On the other hand I have a 6.5-7 wig with stretchy cap and it's just tiny bit too big. So I'd go for 6-7 and not 7-8.

And here's my cutie Lan [hybrid on DC body]. Resin match is perfect and I love how this body poses. Lan has so much character and can easily be a boy or a girl, her face is also quite mature for an elf MSD Now I need to actually start working on face-up but have to practice on some spare heads first.

4D80D69F-8136-487A-A393-636C379F7318 by silmaryel, on Flickr
D7CFF42B-14C1-44E5-9319-CE4D1F7D9287 by silmaryel, on Flickr

 

Hello, I am going to be ordering the Doll Leaves body in white for females here in a few days as well as my minifee Mirwen head. I was wondering if the combination works or not. I really love Mirwen and while she will come with a body I did plan on selling it to someone who needed a Minifee body and just using the Doll Leaves one. I am also curious about hands for her. I would want some with other poses and after seeing the deal about the chip in the wrist I'm scared. This will be my first BJD and I don't want to mess up.

 

I'm sure there are others who can give you better answers, but if nothing else you will have to find a work around for the head conection mecanism. Doll Leaves use a traditional S-hook for connecting the head.

I haven't experienced the chipping myself, but I have restrung my Wish many times without any issue.
I pull the hand straight out until a bit of the elastic is exposed. While holding the hand away from the arm I push a wooden dowel into the elastic loop. Note that this is done "in the air" so to speak, it sould not be used to lever the elastic further out or anything like that.
Once the dowel is well in there I gently let the elasic back. Now the hand can be safely removed from the hook.
To put the hand back on, simply hook the new hand on to the hook, pull the hand out far enough that the dowel no longer rests on the arm part, pull the dowel out and gently let the hand back into place.
If the doll is very tightly strung, a second pair of hands can be helpful for pulling on the hand in a controlled way, but for most dolls you can get away with doing it one-handed to leave your other hand free for placing the dowel.

Here is an image of what it looks like, mid process.


The hook should never come into contact with the edge of the arm, so I am a little bit baffled py the earlier comments about the hook causing damage. The only potential for damage that I can see is if something harder is used in place of the dowel or if the elastic isn't pulled far enough for the dowel to be puched in without putting force on the thin edge of the arm, but that is easily avoided as long as you pay attention to what you do.
Changng hands like this takes minutes once you've got the hang of it and is nothing to be afraid of.

 

I didn't know that the head mechanism was different between the minifee and the realfee or even littlefee. Darn it. I really love the sleeping heads for the fairyland dolls. Perhaps I should look into the littlefee head though the only place I can get that now is on the fairyland website since they are currently on hiatus.
I looked again at the heads offered from Doll Leaves and would have to buy 2 in order to have both the sleeping head and the normal head. Thank you for the information. I will see what I can find.

 

Fairyland is a bit of the odd one out when it comes to attaching heads, but there are workarounds. That's the beauty of the BJD as a doll type, there is almost always a way to make it work, whatever you have in mind.

 

Between the Minifee head workaround I'm still trying to decide if jointed hands would give me the best option for what I want to do with the multiple poses or if I should just find one of the other creators that makes the different hands and just order them all. I've so many ideas for pictures that my notebook is becoming full.

I know she's a reaper which means I will be either making or finding her a good scythe for when she's 'working' so having a hand that will be able to curl around it to hold it up properly would be great, especially since I want to do some kind of action like poses with her.

The poseability is what drew me to the doll leaves body in the first place. From everything I've seen it's the only one that will allow me to do the one picture I really want to do which is kind of her origin picture for her story. It involves on her knees, hunched over with her arms holding herself, head down, eyes closed and tears falling. I cant decide if she's going to be by a gravestone or another body.

If anyone here has a workaround for the head vs body between Minifee and Doll Leaves please let me know. I've asked on the Minifee forum as well.

2 days until I put everything on layaway! I can't wait.

 

When it comes to closed eyes, a lot can be done with camera angles and strategic placement of things blocking the view. It won't work for a close up, obviously, but for a full figure photo, posing her in such a way that the viewer expect the eyes to be closed goes a long way. Maybe check out these games threads about sleeping dolls?
https://denofangels.com/threads/show-your-sleeping-doll.801369/
https://denofangels.com/threads/catch-your-abjd-sleeping-photo-theme-challenge.89077/
Some of them have closed eyes, but far from all and in some there is no way to tell. It may give some ideas, is nothing else.

Buying an extra head and either modding it yourself , or comission someone to do it is also a possibilitiy but it seems like a lot of work for a single photo. If it was me I'd probably start out by getting her "everyday" look down first and work from there.

 

In case you haven't gotten an answer yet: when I see people do hybrids with Fairyland heads + other company's bodies, they usually have to restring the body to put on one of the neck mechanisms that FL uses. You can buy the MNF ones separately here from FL, though I've seen some custom 3D printed ones as well. I'm not sure about the neck size of Doll Leaves vs MNF bodies, but I hope this helps! Good luck with your doll project.

 

I went ahead and ordered the neck mechanism for her and decided to go with the Lami head as it looks more in line with how Kenzie looks as well. It's all preordered so I'm excited. I am going to go ahead and get the DK jointed hands for her and now just need to find the different feet like heels and pointed toes.
I sure am picky lol.

 

Well, dolls are expensive, you have every right to be picky in your choices. Best of luck getting your doll to be everything you hope for it to be!

 

Congrats! Lami is pretty high up there on my wishlist, she's so lovely. I hope your hybrid turns out nicely! And I'm terribly picky about my dolls too, no reason not to be when shelling particular characters.

 

Oh yeah baby. A little while back I got my hands on a Lan in grey skin (the person who bought her e-mailed DL to get her casted in gray) and since I am a fiend for colored resin AND was kinda looking for a project doll... Here she is, after some slight modding of the eyes to make them more symmetrical and a faceup!

 

@LittleProblem she's gorgeous!

 

@LittleProblem I love her faceup! She's so cool!

 

@LittleProblem Love your girl! Like you, I’m crazy for colored resin too, and I managed to find my second-hand Doll Leaves Hily (with a perfect company faceup) in gray. In person, the Doll Leaves gray is so pretty and soft, with bluish mint undertones. I was quite pleasantly surprised with the shade when I received her. And I’ve likewise adorned her in blue eyes and wig. I simply couldn’t resist her for my gaming barbarian character, Xandria.

 

@LittleProblem ahhh, she's amazing!
I've been wanting a Lan for some time, and as much as I adore her company face-up, she can look so differently with a custom one and it's also tempting...