DollZone Moment and Anson discussion part 1

I got my Anson on Wednesday night, opened her yesterday, and today I gave her a bath because she felt a little oily and opened her eyes up a little (I'll provide photos tomorrow). Tonight I leave you with this photo, I love the way she looks with the light source behind her.

 

This is a photo of the eye opening I did. The pink eye is from the pair I got with her and the honey colored eye is what I'm probably going to use for her.

 

I was surprised by the eye I got since I bought a similar pair (darker pink though) for my mermaid last week. Thanks everyone for the complements on the opening, it was the first time I did it and was super nervous until I actually started sanding.... Probably not my best idea to try my first eye opening on this mold haha...

 

akikazu - that was pretty brave of you trying your first eye opening on a doll head that you could never replace. I bet you were very slow about proceeding with it. In hindsight you should have tried it on a cheap head you didn't care much about but it all worked out well in the end. So what kind of a paint job are you going to go with? I guess if you had ruined the head you could have ordered a whole new doll and sold the body to someone who wanted just one of those bodies. Of course that would have to be done in the next week or so. So how did you open the eyes. Is it just sanding or some kind of cutting with a knife type of tool. I won't ever do it but just interested to know what the process is. Poor pitiful me is still nervous about stringing the arms. I won't ever be putting any kind of cutting tool near my dolls. I tried to get hands off of a Dollstown doll one time and couldn't do that although in my defense the S hook seemed to be kind of tight together plus the doll was very tightly strung. I opened the seam to the outfit instead.

 

I've done one mod before, but nothing with the eyes, so I wasn't going in there completely inexperienced just mostly. I was considering sending her out to get it done but I was majorly worried that her petals wouldn't mmake it (conversely, if I really screwed up her eyes I was just going to send her away to be fixed).

First thing I did was use a watercolor pencil to mark how much I was going to take out. Then I sanded the upper lid of each eye back, going back and forth between eyes to try to keep them even. When they were opened as much as I wanted I used my dremel to thin out the lid (there was only one little part that got a little thick, not the whole thing). Then I buffed the work area with increasingly finer sandpaper.

To me it was really important to just go slowly and carefully.

I got my girl in normal yellow and I'm almost certain that she's going to be based off an image of some orange ranunculus flowers I found. I just want something really bright and happy.

I'm looking forward to it

 

Everyone's dolls look so great! I'm going to order Anson tomorrow I think. I caved. I can't resist her! I think she is gorgeous without painting! (Though she's a beauty with it too, but I'd want her in blue!)

A quick question...How much is shipping from Dollzone? And how much DDE...?

And how fragile are they? Are they the 'break in your hand' type, or are they stronger than they seem? Sorry for all of the questions!

 

Animethemed, she's stronger than she seems. I wouldn't want to be taking mine on outings that often because she'd have to be packed with great care for longer distance travel because of those head petals. But for around the house or yard she'd be just fine. I plan to costume mine routinely and keep her on open display in my home (so I'm not overly concerned obviously.) Dollzone doesn't sell directly...you must go through a dealer to get their dolls. I used DDE myself and I used their convenient layaway plan to do it (so handy!) And I think my shipping was about $20 or something close to that. I thought that was very reasonable since they come in a big SD size box.

 

She is stronger then she seems but the resin on mine is thin in certain places. As in light shines through it. Normally of send spots like that to be reinforced so I wouldn't worry about it, but I think it would detract from her aesthetically so this time I wont. (especially since there are many spots like that) but since I'm not rough with my dolls I'm not worried about it. Like I said before, unless you drop her from a distance onto a hard surface she should be fine. :3

Did anyone notice that on MOC you can order these bodies? I think I will order one for the head I'm getting in the event.

 

Animethemed: DDE has variable shipping depends on which you chose. I chose best and cheapest I think it came out to $24 had to back calculate based on the layaway payments and the total.

 

I got my Anson. Took me awhile to string I wasn't sure which side was which and accidentally assembled the parts in wrong order. I'm so glad I opted for DongDong freebie she's definitely going to fit in here better.

Decided to name Anson, Hibiscus. I think later I may do some extra faceup enhancement on her. Her eyes and lips are a bit bland. She got swarmed...

 

AgreeElf - Your Anson is gorgeous and the little ones with her are so cute. I see you got them to paint her. It looks like they did a really nice job. Are you happy with the painting they did. I was so tempted to have them do it for me but really wanted to try this myself.

 

Here's a closer picture of her faceup.

Invie: Thanks. it was tricky to pose all of them together, her arms stayed posed once I got the balance all correct.

whitewolf: My husband gets the same way about the dolls.

Shashy: Thanks, I'm pretty happy with the body llushing it's nice and really brings out her muscle tone on her torso. The arms are a nice shade of pearlescent pink that goes well with the Normal skin yellow. At first I thought her faceup was very bland but the simplicity of it is growing on me. I still may do some faceup enhancement just so she's more customized.

NannaElle: No it's the default outfit for Soom Sueve. The default outfit she came with covered too much of her arms and was too ruffly on the neck once you gathered it I thought it was competing with her petal limbs.

Animethemed: Considering how much stringing and unstringing I did she's sturdier than she looks. She does seem thin resin wise on certain parts but the parts seem stong. The second petals on her arm can act a bit like a stand to distribute her weight. The pose kind of reminds me of an organic flying buttress. I'll try to take a picture tonight.

 

Ohhh congratulations to the new arrivals!!

Let me just say that a 4D care ring, or Kips, or other silicone disk (I know Cool Cat has them too) DOES WONDERS for these dolls! I put one small one in the neck of my Anson and suddenly it is much easier for me to pose her head. I'm going to put some in her arms tonight.

 

FunnyLori: yup the kip works well on her neck. I found it didnt work as well on her shoulders though. One of the reasons I did so much stringing and unstringing of her when she arrived.

Shashy: real puki works really well with Anson. It's a cute size Posed on her leaves and head.

 

AreeElf, I just finished restringing the arms with small 4D care rings and I find they help immensely. I think I've restrung this girl a dozen times in the short time she's been here, and this is the best I've had her posing yet.

I also don't like the Dollzone S hooks. The direction seems to matter, if I get the larger end accidentally up into her petal arm it sticks and then she doesn't pose worth a hoot. I've tried smaller hooks and ribbon with mixed results. I probably won't make a final decision until I've finished painting her. In the mean time she's gotten an entire cabinet to herself. I just have to start decorating it.

Last night I had just finished putting her back together (I've been storing her in pieces in her box) and put her in the cabinet when we had a small earthquake. It wasn't until this evening that I had the guts to check on her. She was fine, thankfully.

*sniff*

 

She's gorgeous FunnyLori. It seems she can actually hold her petal-arm in that pose? Wow, I never expected that, as they seem so heavy.

Everytime I think of Moment and Anson I think back at the first computergame I have ever seriously played: Myst, and later Riven, Myst Exile etc. They just seem perfect characters to inhabit a world like that. Small humanoid flower creatures living in the forest parts of the main island, intelligent yet oh so different from us.
What I like is that they would also fit very well in a Victorian/steampunk greenhouse, which would make it possible for them to stay in the inhabited parts of the same world. They need the forest, but can travel if kept moist, and stay somewhere else as long as they have a little greenhouse guesthouse to temporary live in.

Still thinking about the color, white or pink. As I am notoriously bad at making decisions like that I guess I keep fretting about it right up until the 29th or so .

 

AreeElf: I love your anson! What skin color is she? =)

 

Weeee! just ordered a BW Moment (along with a nsp boy body (just like moment's) to go with the MSD Rapheal head im getting in the event.) from Mint on Card, on a 6 month layaway. im planning on paying biweekly if i can so it shouldnt be that long... but either way im super stoked to meet my new boys!

 

Oh, yay Kittywolf13!! We will be able to share notes on our Moments together! That came out strange...

 

That's so exciting Kittywolf13!! I don't think i'd be able to stand having a Layaway for that long. Im the type of person who if they have the money for it, buy it and if i don't, I don't buy it. Its horrible when into this hobby! xD