Quality of Sculpts?

I don't have a Doll Legend doll, so I won't be able to discuss it specifically. I'm a bit of a beginner with resin BJDs myself, and I think it comes down to personal views at times. I would say for me it comes down to joints being able to move well, doll is pretty smooth feeling, can tell where lips/eyes so forth are, posing ability, stringing should be good when new doll arrives, and long lasting doll in general.

 

Quality of sculpt is about many things: aesthetics of doll/sculpt, working of the joints, working of other parts (like the eye wells), quality of resin itself and quality of finishing of the doll (like sanding seams). I think it's considered good quality doll if joints work well (the doll poses well), doll looks good (this is matter of taste, mostly) and it's made of good resin.

The thing with eye wells is not uncommon. I own some dolls (none from Doll Legend, though) that have either too deep or too low eye wells, so eyes don't fit well into them. That make positioning the eyes harder, and often results eye putty (general term for various stuff we use to stick eyes in) showing from gaps. It's one of the smallest faults in a doll, in my opinion. Bad posing or ugly sculpting are far, far worse in my books. But having badly made eye wells can be really frustrating - specially if you have to change and/or re-position eyes often.

I hope this helps you with your question!

 

All resin dolls yellow with age - keeping them out of sunlight just slows the process. So I'd guess that your yellowing is just normal aging. And exposing the doll briefly to direct sunlight doesn't make doll yellow instantly. If you keep your doll on display somewhere where sun hits them daily, that will speed up aging. But one trip from hotel to con is not that harmful.

 

The stringing may also be personal tastes, since mine was too loose lol.

 

It's difference in resin. Some companies use French resin, which yellows fast, some companies have UV resistant resin (like Withdoll) - the UV resin yellows still, but slower, and some resin just yellows more quickly than others.

My Resin Soul Yao in White Skin yellowed really fast, and my Resin Soul Ju in Pink Skin (purchased two months apart from Yao) has no visible yellowing at all - both dolls are three years of age. I guess that the color of resin makes it yellowing more slowly in that case, as the resin should be same as the dolls are from same company.

 

I have a Doll Legend You Shang and had no problems with the eye wells, the eyes popped in perfectly first try. The eye wells are quite shallow at the top compared to my Migidoll Ell head which has quite deep, very defined eye wells. However the lat Ell head I can't get any eyes in my collection to fit so more pronounced eye wells doesn't always mean better fitting XD
But I find eye wells/ fitting can vary greatly from sculpt to sculpt so can't say in regards to other DL dolls ^^

Not to go too off topic but you have any photos of the Doll Legend white skin? I'm think of getting some DL jointed hands but not sure if the white would match either of the dolls i'd like them for (Myou ws & Loong Soul ws) and struggling to find any pics of DL white! (My You Shang is imported white so not sure how much it differs from the regular white...)

 

It could be a couple of different things, actually -- it could just be that the WS doll is showing yellowing more obviously than the pink doll is (which is really, really common -- it's so much easier to see yellowing on a WS doll than it is on a NS doll). It could be that RS changed resin batches in those two months (sometimes different resin batches can yellow differently even within the same company -- I have two WS Delfs from Luts and they yellowed very differently). My guess is that it's just because it's WS and yellowing is more obvious on a WS doll. My WS dolls are much more obviously yellowed than my NS dolls, although they're not butter-colored or anything.

Re: eyewells -- these can differ vastly from company to company, and it really depends on what you mean by "lackluster". Of all the dolls I've ever owned the only one I ever had issues with was my DoC Kirill -- he had seriously deep eyewells so I had some problems finding eyes that fit him properly without gapping. (The solution? Silicone. They squish.)

 

If it's any help here's what my COA says-

Cool, good to know I can use the imported white as a guide for the normal white. *LOL* As someone who's also very pale due to health reasons I find it reassuring to have dolls that are whiter than me XD

As I had the camera out here's a pic of the eye wells on the Migi Ell head and the Doll Legend You Shang head-

The problem with the Ell head is the narrow eyes means it needs low dome but even with those there is gaping at the edges, But because if the defined round eye wells I can't get oval eyes to fit either. While the You Shang eyes are really big and open so easy to use a variety of eyes.

However if you compare the faces-

the You Shang sculpt and faceup looks more 'amateur' in comparison due to being less detailed (I've also added a bit more colour & detail to the You Shang faceup). So if you're considering 'quality' then I think the level of detail in the sculpt is a factor along with the overall look, poseability engineering and resin.

 

Another thing that can really help with odd-ball eye wells is to bevel them a bit... You use a tool like this in the size you need, and it can deepen shallow ones, even out uneven ones and widen narrow ones with a little work.