Dollshe boys - pros & cons

He's huge!

That's the only down side I know of. He's about 71cm tall. Clothing was hard to come by if you didn't sew. Now CherryDoll has clothing. I know Anu will have clothing, soon.

He's older looking than the other dolls.....eye size 14mm about.

 

I haven't seen him in person, but someone on my f-list over on LJ has a Bermann, and says one drawback is a floppy waist joint that makes him kind of hard to stand up well. But I don't know if that translates to Hound or not, as I know some modifications were made to his design. Sorry, but that's all the help I can offer! ops:

 

Well, I just got Nic very recently, and one of my traits (sadly) is that when I get a new doll, all sorts of flaws jump out at me. But please, don't take this as only complaints. I love him and would have gotten him even if I'd known these beforehand.

Bad things:
1) The hip-abdomen joint is so shallow that it might as well be a single piece, because it pops apart if you look at it funny. If I can think of a glue that will hold, but can be removed later if desired, I'm tempted to glue them together.
2) All arm twisting is done at the wrist. (The arms bend wonderfully; it's just twisting they have problems with.) Rose (DD body) and Tim (DoD Yen) can both twist their forearm when posing, but Nic cannot. The hand has to be twisted around at the wrist to get it facing how you want. (This doesn't look too bad, mind.)
3) He doesn't stand very well. I've yet to get him to do it alone, actually, although in shoes it might work better. His legs are a bit kicky. (In all fairness, Laura changed his stringing schema when she customized him for me, so that might have an effect, but I think he was kicky when he arrived.) The knee joints don't lock as well as Rose's and Tim's do.
4) The hip joint won't let him sit up straight. At least, that's what I think the cause is. The hip can't bend enough to get him into a straight-up sitting position.
5) As he comes, only 14mm and smaller eyes will fit into his head. The eye sockets are quite tight. This can be fixed, but needs work. Laura enlarged the sockets for me with an eye beveler and now he wears 16mm just fine and looks quite good in them. Also, I'm not sure how well you could do sideways glances or other eye positions with the close sockets (I didn't try it before he was altered.)
6) His feet are rather wobbly and will twist backwards if you let them.
7) Laura says that unstringing his is a pain in the butt. No hooks in the ankles and wrists, they're closed loops and elastic goes through it. I'm not sure of all the details, but she hated it so much that she completely changed how he was strung when she put him back together for me.


Good things:
1) Double joints rock the house. He can kneel! He can bend his arm back and rest it on the edge of the doll futon just like a real guy would. He can touch his face all by himself, and almost cross his arms.
2) He has such a handsome face mold, and rather versatile. Nic has this nice, quietly contented look on his face now.
3) His hands are beautiful. They're so detailed and graceful.
4) Who am I kidding? His whole sculpt is exquisite.
5) Nicely balanced magnet strength on his headcap. The one in Laura's SDC's head was really strong. I don't think we would have been able to put jewelry on her before it was removed, because it attracted anything close to the back of her head. Nic's are smaller, and much better. They hold his headcap on securely, but I had to put a paperclip right next to his head for it to attract and I don't think it would have held there.
6) The resin "key" that holds his head on to his body is quite nice. It's easy to take his head off.

 

Laura put a loop of a twine-like substance through, kind of like old SDs had a long time ago. The elastic is then connected to the twine loops with a lark's head. S-hooks could be used, but we don't keep them running around, so she used what was on hand.

Yup, she wired him. I actually had her take the wires back out of his arms, because I really liked how flexible they are and it stiffened them more than I liked. The wires helped his legs a lot, although he is still a little kicky and wobbly. A thicker guage might help (think we have 12g running around), or maybe sueding.

He can put his hands on his hip, you'll just need to twist his hand around to do it instead of twisting the forearm like a human would. The hand will twist around 360 degrees, and the foream sculpt is non-descript enough that it doesn't look too odd unless you look at the elbow and you're looking for something off. Because the hand is so moveable, it's not really a detriment to posing; I just wasn't expecting it, so it threw me a bit. It makes sense now that I think about it, since I knew there's a hinge joint there instead of a ball joint. It just hadn't occured to me before he arrived.

And you're welcome! I love talking about my dolls.

The one thing I don't understand is that he came with an extra resin cap for his foot, and an S-hook. I assumed it was a spare for a limb, but since they don't use hooks, I wonder what it's for?

 

Woahhhh you have a magnet in your hound's headcap??? That must be a new feature....

The hip joint is shallow...they need to push the resin up a bit more into the stomache piece to solve that...and I believe they may be making improvements as we speak!

I have sueded that area which helped. I also created a tutorial about wiring....
see this group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/houndcalling/
( you have to register with Yahoo first...)
Then under
Files/Wiring Tutorial.

It's 12 pages long!!! But I wrote it keeping in mind those who have never taken apart a doll. It also talks about re-stringing and putting loops to his hands and feet....because when he arrives the elastic goes through his body and directly into his hands and feet which makes it more cumbersome to do maintenance on him...(ie esp. in the arms...tightening tension if need be).

The new body is a great improvement. I love the locking knee joints! But the hip is the biggest problem. That's where he needs the support because he's so tall. But I would still prefer a joint there so he can realistically bend his torso back and forth and slump.

This actually goes back to the original style bermann if you want to set up his head this way. It's not for the foot, it's for his head...see this pic....


The left is the new design, the right is the old and that's what those extra pieces are for that you got. I actually removed my SA Bermann's 'new design' and re-did it like my Bermann, using those pieces because I notice it gives his head a little more mobility....esp. in tilting side to side. But the new design is cool too in that you can take the head off so easily now. It's up to you what you think is more important.

It is a little difficult putting the "old style" piece in a first....because the hound is really designed for the piece on the left. But it will work...it just takes alot of 'tension'....and well...'work'....lol!

 

Christy wrote:

This is GREAT! Thank you Christy for putting this together. I will definitely go over there and read up for when my regular Hound arrives. I am one of those that hasn't done any rewiring on dolls before. Does it mention any tools that one might need? Will just have to remember the part about the 'work'. ops:

*smiles*

 

Mine doesn't have a magnet... but I really wish he did. I have terrible trouble keeping his head cap on, I've taken to taping it down. ^^ ; That little joint thingy just doesn't cut it.

OMG! XD When I took Shun out of his bag I looked at that little piece and went. "hmm... and extra head thingy..." and set it aside. It never even connected in my mind that his head wasn't even set up that way! XD I'm so with it! I'm gonna have to switch that now. The new design is really easy to remove his head, but there's not much posability there. :/

And his hips give me an awful time too. That joint just flops all over, (my sister says he "buddha bellies" XD) so it's hard to get him to stand properly. But once he's up he's very stable!

I had also noticed the non-twisting of the elbows... but it's not too bad. But I haven't had any problems getting him to sit up straight.

I have a love/hate relationship with his double joints. They allow for great poses, but they're hard to get into those poses, the one end doesn't seem to want to cooperate with the other. I'm hoping sueding will help with that though.

I almost didn't bond with him, but once his clothes, eyes, and wig got here and I had redone his faceup, I was totally in love.

 

Oh! Neat! *is such a newb* It looked similar to the cover for the foot, so I just sort of assumed. That's good to know. I haven't really noticed any problems with the head posability on Nic, but I'll keep that in mind nonetheless.

With the headcap magnets, I'll be curious now if some of the people just getting theirs from Tensiya or Dollmore(?) have magnets or not. Nic came from Luts, so I'm curious if maybe there's differences in sources, like maybe they're coming from different runs or something.

 

BUH!? Shun came from Luts too! How long ago did you get him? I just got Shun a little over a month ago.

I WANT MAGNETS! Hajime (Souldoll Paris) has magnets holding his headcap on and I LOVE how easy it is to get it on and off.

 

Oh, dammit, now I'll have to register with Yahoo again.

I REALLY need restringing tips, as I've just sanded Hound, & am going to take him apart to MSC him as soon as my MSC arrives (any time now) & then do his blushing & face-up.

I'm a rank amateur: it's scary!

 

Nic just arrived last week. It must be a brand new thing, then.

 

Mine came in a bag, I thought they didn't do boxes anymore? or that was only from Dollmore.

 

Bags are never a bad thing!

However, I think Gayle was saying that the Dollshe bags are a little too long to travel with (silly Hounds with their basketball player legs, I tell ya!). So if you plan to fly with your boy, you might have to come up with something creative for travelling on flights.

Myself, I'd likely carry Sai in the bag until I got to my seat, at which point I'd pull him out and let him sit on my lap so that the bag can fold up and go under the chair by my feet or overhead. I've yet to see anyone forced to put their teddy bear into a compartment, so this should work!

 

The magnet thing--that's to improve the safety of the head when shipped.

My Hound, Peter, came with a great huge chip out of the back of his head, taking part of the rabbet, so his head cap wouldn't stay on.
(An elastic around his headcap line & one under his chin work to hold his head together, but is not the most attractive design statement in the universe.)

My replacement head came with the new magnets design.

I got Peter through Luts.

He came in a big white vinyl bag, not in the wooden box like earlier Hounds and like my Salubia.


Ann in CT

 

Yeah, the bags are HUGE and not really very... protective. I wouldn't trust it for any kind of heavy traveling. Great for short car trips or something, but nowhere I'd expect the bag to actually protect him.