Reviews on Elfdoll Rainys?

Because I know it does my own heart good if more than one person answers my question:

1) How much taller are Elfdoll girls than, say, CP girls?
No clue, I know that Elfdolls are frequently called 'short', but I don't think it's a radical difference, especially given the demensions listed by others in this thread.

2) What is the resin like? Is it easily damaged or excessively rough?
I own a Red, a Sooah, and a Min Del Re. Aside from getting a few scratches on my girl's thighs from sitting on rough objects, she's just fine. The resin is smooth, not as textured Elysium or Dollshe resin, but it's not plasticy either.

3) Can Elfdoll girls wear SD sized shoes?
I've had great luck buying "SD13" boy shoes for both my Rainydolls. I'm sure you know this already, but Elfdoll Rainydolls all have the same feet, regardless of gender, which has lead to lots of people saying the boy's feet are too small. I don't know, they don't look 'too small' to me, I like his feet just fine, but I love Elfdoll, just in general. Always read the insole measurement, because many shoes are labeled one thing, but are in fact another...sometimes a shoe is much smaller or larger than a simple 'sd' tag would imply.

4) What size wigs do Elfdoll girls wear?
I actually only buy 8-9 wigs for my Elfdolls, male and female. I never read the 'sd', 'msd' listing, because those don't make sense to me, I'd rather work with actual measurements.

5) How is Elfdoll's service
Aside from a minor language barrier, it's quite nice. It can sometimes take them a few days to answer a question, and sometimes the question is answered incorrectly because of the langauge barrier. Apart from that, they want your business and will treat you well.

6) How fragile is the doll over all? Does she break easier than other BJDs?
I don't own any whole dolls by other companies, but I don't perceive them as being fragile at all, really. I started out quite nervous when I got my first abjd, and now I'm a bit fearless about it. Caution always helps, though.

7) Does anyone by chance have a picture of an Elfdoll girl with body blushing (any bust size is fine)

I actually have The Elf Piper's body blushed torso saved to my hard drive. I use it when I want to show off just how beautiful a large busted Elfdoll girl can be, sooo, compliments to The Elf Piper.

 

I'm actually in that group but because there's a lot of chatting about clothes and meetups and so forth, which I'm not as interested in, it's a little hard to just find the info I want. plus DoA is generally larger than Yahoo Groups and might include more people with knowledge.

Also, as a general thing, Yahoo can be wonkier than DoA when it comes to ease of use. I'm in several Yahoo Groups for dolls and other things I enjoy, but have the same problems with all of them - it's hard to search the messages, posts I make can take many minutes or even hours to pop up on the message list, the pictures have to go in a special album place instead of being right in the messages, and so on. I might add that since I switched to digest on there Yahoo has sent me the same digest like three times today, which is a problem with Yahoo not the group, but is just another reason I prefer the boards - less spam to clean out of my box.

p.s. By the way, since there's obviously some group members over here, would anyone like to answer my question about what product is best to take off the faceup on a Rainy?

 

I'll be doing that tonight/tomorrow. I assumed it was like any other doll, magic eraser or brush cleaner. The 'painting/customizing' forum has useful advice on that sort of thing, and the advice there generally applies to all dolls -- Elfdolls aren't so wildly different, that they require something special to remove and apply faceup.

I'll be boning up there tonight, as a matter of fact, with about a million search strings and google-advance.

 

This doesn't solve all the problems, but I've gone to reading on the Web for all my yahoo groups. I set it to "Show message summaries" and I can read through everything pretty quickly that way. There is the drawback that if anyone attaches anything you can't see it, but I've learned to live with it.

As far as taking off the faceup, I don't know if this is best, but I tried non-acetone nail polish remover. I found it slow, and I'm impatient. Then I tried regular nail poslish remover, that worked well for everything but the deep crevices. For that, I used some acetone on a toothpick and/or a soft toothbrush. Then I washed it in soap and water.

 

Aw, that's so sweet! Thanks! I should take some better ones but Idris won't let me show her face on her naked body.

 

Thank you Until recently I wasn't aware that you couldn't use, say, Volks products on everything due to the differences in the resin. I also used to think one could just use acetone for everything if you got it on and off quickly but that doesn't seem to be the case either. Now I'm leery of using anything on a doll brand that I haven't owned before unless i ask more experienced people about it first. Better to be safe than sorry, you know?

 

I didn't think so either but seemed safer to make absolutely sure before I tried to put makeup or body blush on and off of one.

 

If you are worried about re-doing faceups on your girl, don't be. I did 3 faceups on my own, using chalk pastels and watercolour pencils. Each time i removed them with rubbing alcohol. The fourth time I sent her of for a professional faceup.

The original thread cause a lot of controversy at the time. In my opinion, given the fact that it was a complete one off - the "melting" was more likely to be cause by the actions of the owner rather than any fault of elfdoll. I also believe they replaced the head for her despite that, which is customer servive above and beyond what was necessary given it was her removing the faceup that cause the problem!

Elfdoll's also come beautifully finished - one of the only dolls that comes with seams sanded perfectly.

Shoes wise, dollheart sd13 and luts sd13 shoes fit well.

 

I only own Elfdoll's Special Red and a Reminsce Ryung head, so I can't answer the girl-body-specific questions, but I'll answer the other questions.

2) What is the resin like? Is it easily damaged or excessively rough?

Wow. Beautiful resin for both the girls and boys in my opinion.

Elfdoll's dolls come to you all sanded smooth - and trust me when I say it's SMOOTH - and thorough examination of the resin showed no cracks, chips, air bubbles, or color inconsistencies. Also, the feel of the resin is consistent and overall, the doll feels VERY solid.

Some people have complained about the shiny-ness of the resin, but it's not something I personally find to be worth complaining about because the silky smooth feel of smoothly sanded resin is worth it. But then again, I haven't noticed much shine on my boy, either, and my Ryung head didn't have a 'shine' problem either.

And a random squee - I looooove Elfdoll ears; they're so detailed and my Red has a pierced ear and I love how it looks on him. Also, the male hands are beautifully sculpted as well.

As for the problem with the resin melting or something... except for that one person, no one else I've read about or heard of has had this happen. I've used both rubbing alcohol and non-acetone nail polish remover on my girl's headcap (to test) and she's perfectly fine.

Overall, I have no complaints in this regard.

About damage to the resin... please read my later comment about my boy's spectacular fall.

3) Can Elfdoll girls wear SD sized shoes?

Elfdoll girls and boys share the same foot size, and my boy fits DollHeart's boy boots for 60cm boys with a bit of room to spare in both the toes and around the actual calf! Unfortunately, I have yet to try SD girls' shoes on him.

A word of advice in this regard; search the threads for any of the girls' names or even Elfdoll and shoes. Also, check the measurements of the shoes against the measurements of the feet.

A quick measurement for you: the feet length are 7.5cm.

4) What size wigs do Elfdoll girls wear?

I own two long wigs from Cancan - one 7/8" and one 8/9" - and have tried both of them on my Elfdoll boy and girl heads.

The 8/9" fits in the way that it drops right on and sort of just... fits there with mininal to no 'bagginess', but there is no stretching even though there's a stretchy wigcap, so if the head is overturned, the wig will probably come off.

The 7/8" one actually fits very snugly, but sits higher on the crown/headcap, so depending on the style, it might look odd or it might not.

My best bet would be an 8" wig, but different companies fit differently, so it's sort of a trial and error in that regard. I'll be getting an SD-sized Leeke wig soonish so I'll have to see how that goes.

5) How is Elfdoll's service

For me, Elfdoll has provided me with nothing but the best service. (I think a lot of times, a customer's experience with a company is proportional to the combined politeness and patience factor, but that's another story for another time.)

I ordered my Special Red directly from them and politely (and privately I might add!) asked if I might have green eyes for my boy and they were very nice in responding back and telling me that yes, they would support me in my desire to have green eyes.

Later, when the shipping date was arriving and I was still out of town, I told them about my situation and they told me that they'd be more than happy to hold my boy for a little longer and ship him when I give them notice that I was ready to receive him.

And once he WAS shipped, I had a total of at most 3 days to wait for him to arrive. Shipping from them for both Red and the Ryung head was FAST. Also, for Red, the shipping was free, which was a much appreciated bonus.

He arrived home in a completely undamaged box and was appropriately tucked into a form-fitting foam 'frame' and covered with another foam sheet from above and underneath. I got a free cup as a gift along with the green eyes and a signed postcard by Rainman, telling me I was the very first owner of the Special Red.

Really, I'm rather impressed.

Shipping, of course, kills the pocketbook, but it's the same way with all companies, really, unless they're running a shipping promo. ^^;;;

6) How fragile is the doll over all? Does she break easier than other BJDs?

When I first got my Red and didn't quite get a hang of posing him steadily, Red took an impromptu somersault and dive off of the keyboard tray part of my desk.

He landed facedown with a very solid sounding THUNK as his arms and legs went spread-eagled and POP as his magnetic headcap popped off and flew across the carpet about 10 feet away and spun.

I was terrified that he had, at the VERY least, broken his nose or his fingers and when I picked him up, he was clean of any damage. The only damage done was to his pride; the fall hadn't even made so much as a scratch on his faceup nor knocked his eyes around!

Thankfully, such an incident has happened only once and on carpet, but I can attest that after such a nasty sounding fall from over 3 feet, he's perfectly fine.

He has, however, been elbowed in the face and had his arm squashed up against his side (I was shopping at Michael's and a kid tripped and I happened to catch her and she had a run-in with Red as a result), and both incidents produced no injuries.

I HAVE heard, however, that split fingers make the hand molds more delicate (especially if the fingers have more variant poses) and are more prone to breaking, but I've heard this same word of caution for EVERY doll.

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So now you've heard me ramble on about Elfdoll; I'm sorry the post was so long, but there's just so much I love about Elfdoll and their sculpts.

I am a newer owner and Red was my first venture into BJDs and I couldn't be happier. Red is just an absolute joy to pose and play with and I hope you find a similar joy, too, in whichever doll you decide to go with.

PS: I forgot to add that they seem to photograph beautifully as well.

 

Hehehehe.... I'm glad you've found more to squee over! I had fun writing my post because it really made me think about what exactly I think of Elfdoll and their dolls and gave me a chance to squee.

As for the pierced ears bit... Special Red came home to me with specially pierced ears as part of his full package, so I know it's possible for Elfdoll to pierce ears. Whether this is something done on a regular basis, I don't know, BUT it never hurts to nicely ask.

Best of luck!

 

I'm sure you'll be glad to hear that Volks products may be used sucessfully on Rainydolls - my darling Shiori's faceup was done with mainly Volks pastels, Liquitex acrylics and sealed with MSC. Corrections were accomplished with the use of rubbing alcohol.

Good luck with your girl!

 

FYI - these two pair of Dollheart shoes fit my Lydia and my Sooah, so I thought
I would mention them here:

http://www.dollheart.com/shop/shoes/LS_170d1.jpg
http://www.dollheart.com/shop/shoes/LS_138d1.jpg

This last is sold out now, but I figured I mention it anyway, incase someone was looking at them on the secondary market..

Maggie

 

1) How much taller are Elfdoll girls than, say, CP girls?

Elfdoll girls are quite a bit taller than CP girls. Wider, too. They can't always fit into clothes that other SD girls can wear because they have wide torsos and hips.

2) What is the resin like? Is it easily damaged or excessively rough?

The resin is really smooth. Elfdoll sands their dolls so they are very beautiful. ^_^ It's not very easily damaged. Of course it can be but one time my girl did a summersault and landed face first off of the desk and onto a stereo and nothing happened to her at all. o_o;

3) Can Elfdoll girls wear SD sized shoes?

Not all of them, no. You really should check the measurements on the shoes before buying them. Some Luts shoes and most shoes labled for Rainydolls will work. Some Dollheart shoes work nicely. My Sooah wears SD13 boy boots.

4) What size wigs do Elfdoll girls wear?

Regular 8-9 wigs usually work just fine.

5) How is Elfdoll's service

They have been very kind and will fix problems that you have. Shipping is pretty fast, too. ^_^

6) How fragile is the doll over all? Does she break easier than other BJDs?

I think that they are tough dolls. The only thing I'd worry about is the fingers but I've never had a problem. Replacement hands are rather cheep, though. Our of all of my dolls I worry about her breaking the least.

I've never heard of this melting Soah situation. o_o; I'm sure it was just some freak incident.

 

What's up with the summersaulting Elfdolls? Mind did that when I first got her, too. XD She also came away unharmed.

 

Actually, I recently aquired my Rainy Sooah, and the size 8-9 wig I'd bought is too big, so I measured her head, and it's only 8-inches. As for quality, OHM'GOSH! She's AMAZING! I cannot tell where the seams must have been, and she's a pure delight to hold and admire!

 

Really? Maybe they like to take one big leap for joy once they're out of their boxes? </random musing>

I've now had my lovely boy for 4+ months now and he hasn't somersaulted or nosedived even once ever since that first incident!

He still poses beautifully and has yet to kick me or show any signs of 'attitude' though I think that since I've played with and posed him so much, I should seriously consider restringing within this month or so...

 

I am quickly falling in love with Elfdoll's Ruru that's coming out Friday but, before I decide to try for her or not, I was wondering if anyone could direct me to reviews on Elfdoll Rainys. I did a search, but nothing really came up except a couple posts with vague references to posing problems. Does anyone have a review for Rainman's dolls or know of a link to one?

Thanks very much!

 

I'm not really sure what you're looking for here, but I'll jump.

I own a first edition Ryung, named Nan.

She has the usual limitations of single joints, so 90 degrees is the limit her knees and elbows can bend.
She has the three-part large bust torso; some bending and twisting is possible at each joint.

Nan can stand on her own barefoot, boots, or heels, and sit up straight easily.

She has a flawless finish with no seams left behind.

I'm hoping that money will become available for a standard RuRu for me to get in the future.

Ann in CT
with assistance from Nan