Reynardine Dolls

Well, both the Volks Rose and Bluefairy Xiao arrived and are in good shape. Rose needs some cleaning up and she was sent unstrung, so that saves me a step--I can clean her up, sand the seams, and restring her. The face-up is original but seems to be in good shape. Just need to take a day to sort out my modding materials and get to work. Her new name with be Sakura. I usually use Japanese names for my SD-sized Volks dolls and was shocked that I didn't have a Sakura already, as I do love that name.

The Bluefairy Xiao 1st arrived earlier this week. I was worried because of the absolutely frigid temperatures, but she came through okay. For a doll her age (she's from 2007), she is in fantastic shape, and the custom face-up by Mingyi (Deadly Nightshade) is stunning. I will eventually take her apart to sand her seams, but otherwise she's in great shape. I named her Kaisu after a doll collecting friend of mine from Finland (Xaya), who happens to have a number of the Bluefairy Xiao/Lin sculpts. They are so stylish that any time I think of Xiao, I'm reminded of her, and I thought her name is really pretty.

Wonder of wonders, the light was right today for me to take a few pictures of Kaisu! Photography is one of my favorite hobbies within the doll hobby, and I haven't had much time to indulge lately.



I really like this look with the blonde hair. Her eyes, which came with her, are Enchanted Doll Urethane ED #29 (a sort of hazel green), 16mm. Not a color I would have thought to pick myself, but they go very well with her, so I think she'll keep them.



The seller included a dress from Volks, and Luts shoes that matched it perfectly.



This was the seller's default wig for her, a very cute bob (also Leekeworld, I think?). The hair color goes very well with her eyes.



And the default Bluefairy Bang Sauvage black wig.



And the oldstyle Bluefairy default school outfit. I think they changed it in 2009 or so? I have a few dolls that came with this one. Not the original white socks but the black tights work well with the look.

I'm absolutely delighted with her, and look forward to more photo sessions, maybe with some of my other Xiao dolls!

Bob ended up sleeping in late, so I ran some errands (no ice on the roads, hallelujah!). I recently found a Bluefairy Kyle (bjd ball-jointed doll) on Ebay for cheap, and it arrived today. Kyle is typically a male sculpt, but this one was on a female "blossom" body (ie more mature than the usual girl body).

The seller did a crappy packing job, and it turns out she didn't disclose some of the damage to the doll. Fortunately, I've been collecting Bluefairy dolls for several years and have had to do repairs before. And since Bob was sleeping in, I went ahead and took the doll apart to repair and clean.

I'll link to my doll blog with some pictures later. I took a few as I was setting up (and to document the damage), but once I get into working, I don't have time to stop and take photos. In two places, the o-hook (which are the hooks screwed into the hands, feet, and head) had come out. One was stuck halfway up the calf of the doll. The other had come off the headcap.

Fortunately, I've run into both situations before, so I was able to retrieve the errant o-hooks (with patience) and screw them back in, this time with superglue to set them.

There was also some undisclosed chipping in a few places--which shows the previous owner didn't take very good care of the doll. Again, I've run into that with other used dolls. The chips can be sanded smooth. There was one small crack at the bottom of the leg joint, but as I am not very hard on my dolls, I didn't want to have to patch and sand that sucker.

Most BJD's have seam lines, from when the resin is cast. Some companies, like Volks, will sand down seams (for a fee). Some companies used to just do it. Most of the Bluefairy dolls I've seen have not had their seams sanded. I learned how to do that a few years ago, so I decided to go ahead and sand this doll's seams, since I was smoothing out those rough spots anyway.

At some point, the doll had gotten wet and the elastic was moldy, with a couple of the s-hooks rusting. Ick. All that had to go, but I keep aside some replacement elastic/s-hooks for restringing dolls.

Since I was doing this anyway, and I had to leave some time for things to dry, I took out another doll I'd been intending to work on (poor Sophie has been in pieces for at least a year), and sanded her seams as well.

So all's well that ends well. Both dolls are back together. The new doll (I named her Vivian), didn't come with eyes, but I tend to keep extra around, so found her a set of eyes. I actually didn't intend to use these eyes (they came in a grab bag, and I don't care for dark sclera), but for narrow-eyed Vivian, these worked.



(It's a dark sclera with a light, glittering iris. And it seems to work for her.)

Pictures tomorrow-it was too dark to get proper ones by the time I was done. I'll try to get some tomorrow. All told, it took me about 8 hours to clean and repair both dolls. I'm really proud of how they came out! And the time flew by.

One of the reasons I like the bjd hobby is that I don't feel the weight of expectations. I can do whatever I want customizing these dolls, no documentation, no answering to anyone else (except maybe Bob for the cost), and at the end I have something pretty.

Thus went my day off. I'm a bit sore from working so intensely, but also very relaxed. :-)