Mega Super Happy post

First we'll start with the photos of the items I got from TTYA and JunkySpot. First up is the JunkySpot order.  Here are the eyes as mentioned previously. They are Parabox 10mm anime eyes in blue. They look a lot prettier in my opinion then in the photo.

Here are the Glib Eyes. They look rather nice in right lighting, but kinda dull in certain eye wells because of the heavy shadow produced. These eyes are also prone to cracking, I'm not sure if I'm just handling them poorly or too roughly, but even when I'm be careful, I still manage to find new cracks in them. 

And here's the glow that I'm talking about, that little sheen makes the eyes look quite nice in my opinion. 

And now onto the TTYA order. It was a Happy Box, meaning that it gave me $100 in a random selection of clothes for only $70. It was shipped to me in a red pouch (not shown), and neatly packaged. The clothes were modeled on the Akagidoll body so show a better fit. The jeans are a little loose, but that's because the legs are slightly smaller in girth than most bodies the same size. The details are amazing! I love the little tags and the working pockets and belt loops. The bomber jacket however does not have working pockets but that doesn't bother me too much. Also, I've noticed that the hoodie and shirt only opens in the back. While that does make dressing them easier, I prefer struggling with the shirt while keeping some realism.

And now onto the fun, Yuri's body arriving!!! I'm home because I'm ill, but this was such a nice surprise, I think this made me feel slightly better. The box was large, near;y the size of my leg, I'm 5 feet tall or 151cm. AND WHEN I OPENED IT OMG IT CAME WITH A CARRYING BAG! The body was wrapped around the joints and not a bubble-wrap mummy. They bidy also came with extra eye putty, and a small magic sponge.

I seriously love this bodies engineering. Like, the wrists even have something similar to Volk's One touch system, where instead of the wrist's S-hook shooting back into the body. My only complaint about it is just that the S-hook scratches the ball joint on the inside, so I'm going to be extremely careful about taking the hands off.

Here is  comparison between the  bodies height. Not a really great comparison, but I hope it helps a little.

Also, the body was strung so tightly that I couldn't even pull the S-hook out, instead I stuck the extra putty around his neck and pretend the head kinda fits.

And lastly, the proportions of the head on the body, Its a Migidoll Ell, which matches the Volks 2009 pure skin, and the Akagidoll Version 2 66cm body is slightly more pinker. The match is noticeable, but with a little blushing, he'll be alright.

Face Up Commissions?

This is a bit out of nowhere, but I do want to ask if anyone would be interested in commissioning me for faceup? I won't be taking them now because of the weather, but once it warms up, I'm going to see of I can take a few slots to do for free. Currently I can only do US only. But once it starts getting warmer, I'll list what I can do for these free slots, what materials I use and the amount of time it'll take. Im not sure for how long I'll do free slots till I think I'm ready to take money for the commisions but once the free slots are done I'll list my prices and services! See you soon!

Alice's Collections, JunkySpot, and TTYA order review

I'll be doing the reviews by the order written on the title. Firstly I go over with my experience of ordering the items. and then the wait times to be expected, and finally the quality of the products. Also just to warn you guys, this post is text heavy.

The first company is Alice's Collection, also known as ACBJD. Ordering through the site was fairly easy, but my own personal pet peeve is when ACBJD require you to make an account in order to checkout. However, I can see the benefits of having an account, as the account allows me to see past orders and keep track of them. If I remember correctly, you can make payments with Paypal. They allow you to pay with card or with your account. They sent me the confirmation email promptly and informed me that the tracking will be issued 4-5 days later. About 7 days later I received the email, I don't consider it a problem because you can only give as best as an estimate as possible. The wait time was a bit unpleasant with shipping, but it's not an issue with the company, but rather the shipping company they use which is DHL, I believe that when a package ships out if China, they have to inspect the package and it's held until it's approved. I believe it took a little over a week to arrive, I did not have to sign anything or pay anything for customs, but that could be due to the fact that I live in the US. When the products arrived, I was not disappointed at their quality, it was as the photo shown in my opinion. Here are the photos below.

This was how the package was packed. I don't know why I didnt take photos of the items before tryinh themon but the wig was folded flat in a plastic bag, and the eyes were just wrapped in some bubble wrap.

Man, Yuri looks so different now, like he looks so much more cuter, here he reminds me of an old style J-Pop star.

The second company is JunkySpot. To be honest, I was really excited to order from them only because it seemed like a fun experience, and because so many people have ordered from them before and got some kind of freebie. I had gotten a shipping confirmation the day of ordering, which was a nice surprise. Shipping wasn't too long, just a few days. Shipping was slightly delayed for two days, but that was only because of bad weather. When I received the items, the web photos were an accurate representation of the products in my opinion. The parabox eyes were a lot nicer than I expected. Glib on the other hand, while okay quality, they are not eyes I would recommend only because of problems I've experience with them and please remember that the quality of the product reflects Glib and NOT JunkySpot. One of the issues I've noticed is that Glib eyes are prone to cracking due to handling. The cornea isn't round, instead it comes to a soft point, which has effected the fit in Yuri. The color and reflection of light isn't the greatest due to the lighting, but by them selves, the eyes reflect rather nicely. JunkySpot also includes freebies with their orders which is nice because I like free anything free. For some reason I can't find the photos for either TTYA or JunkySpot, but I will take photos of the items when I can get the time.

And last but not least, TTYA. If there is one company that I would buy from over and over again, it would have to be TTYA. Their clothes are great quality, the stitching is wonderful and detailed, and worth the price. The package was well done, In all honesty I don't remember how long it took to ship, but it didn't feel like a long time. Through their etsy shop, they use registered mail, which you do have to sign for when it arrives or pick it up from the post office if you live in the US. The Happy Box was either purely luck of it was just that great of a deal, because I was able to get one t-shirt, one hoodie, a nice pair of jeans, and one bomber jacket which was honestly the nicest surprise I've gotten when it comes to random merchandise. And for some odd reason the pants are the same length as Yuri's Migidoll body, and then I tried them on, and the pants fit. Like they actually fit which I was surprised about, but the legs on that body are incredibly thick, so much so that in certain areas, the pants started to stretch out and I didn't want to damage them and make sure they aren't stretched out for the Akagi Doll body.

Speaking  of which, I decided to finish paying off my lay away for the remaining amount and now I'm just waiting for him to be made and to be shipped!!!

omake: Remember when he used to look like this!! I kinda miss this version, I think I should get him a blond wig in the future.

Anime Head?!?!!?!

WHAT'S UP GUYS WOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Man, am I excited to share this with you. Okay, so I started making another head and yes I didn't finish the last one, but boiiii, am I excited to show you guys this. I have the photos uploaded to my instagram natsukip_madhudoll, but I'm just going to go ahead with my text post rambles. I'll still upload them here, but all my real life updates happen there. 

Okay, so when I first thought about sculpting dolls, I actually wanted to sculpt Anime style dolls instead of realistic looking ones, but I changed ideas and went with realistic ones instead. The concept of the company is sweets, but for the anime dolls, their concepts are inspired by manga and anime characters that I commonly found in the media I watched and read.  

To be more specific, character tropes that were common in the shoujo I read. S-san's name is a reference to the main love interest, where he would constantly tease and make fun of her at his own pleasure, so his name stands for sadistic. For C-san, he is suppose to be the kind friend who is always looking out for his friends, so his name means Childhood Friend. M-san was made to represent the mature type of boy so it's Mature. For H-chan, her name means Happy, so she represents an optimistic character. Right now, I've only started sculpting S-san, and have yet to finish the other head. I'm going to try and focus on them first and finish them so then I can get them casted soon. Although, I don't know if I'm going to do a pre-order or get the heads ready made. 

But, I have to admit, I've been weirdly nervous ever since I made the anime style head, I guess it has a lot to do with not wanting to be accused of making a recast. There are tons of anime heads available on the market, to name a few, there is Smart Doll, Volks, Sq Lab, and quite a few bjd companies who made a few heads. I seriously hope it does not look like one sculpt too much. Of course it would be unreasonable to hope that my sculpt looks completely original, since even sculpts for different characters share certain features such as similar nose shape or eye shape. I'm going to look on the brighter side since moping around doesn't get things done and if anyone has a problem, then we can duke it out, but like responsible adults but I have to admit I'm a petty person... Anyways, on to the photos of making the head.

When I made the base for the head, I made it too big again, but I didn't really check the size too thoroughly, so after making the head I realized that it was too big. also I change from making a basic sphere for the base, to adding a piece of foil to the end of it. It'll help lessen the amount of clay needed and the head won't be as bulky. It's suppose to be like craving the head out of Styrofoam, like how I've seen other artist use.

After making the head to big, I decided to start over and this time he ended up alright. the head didn't have thick layers of clay, but, I can easily add layers to the inside when necessary. So here I made the chin pointy, but the rest of the head was extremely uneven.

Ii then added the basic shape of the nose, first a tiny triangle, but I later lengthened it and made it more like the drawing. I also started on the lips, he looks a bit opened mouthed here, but for his head, i wanted a closed mouth. I also added more clay to shape and define his checks.

The drawing earlier did not seem like it was enough to go off of, so I made a more detailed sketch to help me better and show me how I want the shadows to lay on his face.

 
I began to also add clay to his brow bone to make the shadows near his eyes more definable. I also placed a rough outline of the eyes, but I ended up erasing them.

He soon began to come together quickly. I started by making the head wider and making the jaw line more defined. I also fixed up some unevenness on the head so I wouldn't have to worry about it later or have to spend extra time redoing the same area because I didn't fix it before hand.

That's it for my sculpting updates, but not the end of this post yet. I do have some great news, my TTYA Happy Box may be shipped sooner than expected because a large number of them have been sold out so TTYA moved up the end of sale date from the 23rd to the 18th 5pm Korean time. And my Junkyspot order is coming as predicted, so that review will be up soon.

Omake: While at the mall with friends, my Friend found a One Punch Man blind bag at think geek. I thought I was going to get either Saitama or Genos, since there were a lot of chances to get them. But instead I get Lord Boros, I was laughing so much since the chances of getting him was about 1/10, but I guess it must be fate that I get this pastel space pirate.

   

Fun load of updates

What's up guys, boy do I have another load of updates for you!! First being my news on an order from Junkyspot.com. I have to say, ordering from them was a lovely experience, and it came to my surprise that the package was shipped the day of the order!! Like I got a shipping confirmation literally a few minutes after placing the order. And boy was that amazing. The items I ordered are three pairs of eyes. Two are 12mm produced by Glib, and the last pair is 10mm by Parabox. I'll also give you the links to the companies if that helps you out. To be honest, I kinda forgot which pairs I ordered so I guess that'll be a surprise whenever the package arrives.

• Junkyspot.com
• Glib also known as MUdoll.com
• Parabox

I ordered the eyes to make sculpting the eyes easier. And to see if 12mm acrylics would work in Yuri, since I honestly don't believe the eyes he has in currently are actually 12mm. I mean they work well in him, I just want to see other sizes too. The 10mm is just something I wanted to order to see how small  could go with Yuri's eyes and for another package thats pending. 

The second update is about TTYA. I'm no sure if I even posted about Yuri's old clothes, but his teddy bear hoodie and his khaki colored pants are from TTYA, their etsy store. They do have their own website, but I just prefer etsy. The clothes are great quality for a great price, well an equal price in my opinion. To be honest I wasn't expecting to spend money until I heard about their Happy Box...

 There are two types in multiple sizes, the first type is the $120 one. It is suppose to contain items that total $150 and the second one is the $70 one which contains $100 worth of items. 

The boxes come in a variety of sizes they sell clothes for. I ended up choosing the SD17 size one for the Akagi Doll body. 

Man, I'm seriously excited because it sounds like a legitimetly good deal because I might get actual clothes instead of random part taken from random outfits. YEA I'M LOOKING AT YOU DOLLHEART. There was also the SWITCH Jijimi Bag, but the only thing that would fit Yuri are the wigs.

And spending $60 dollars for a bag that'll probably have one thing for my doll doesn't seem worth the money. I also won't link to it because it lists as sold out on their website. My Happy Box is said to be shipped on the 23rd, so I hope it comes soon. 

And I realize that I have yet to show my order for Alice's collections about his wig and eyes, but I'm a little to lazy to do that right now. I'll see of I can get to it soon, if not I'll combine it with the Junkyspot order. 

Omake: Yuri did not in fact get his name from Yuri On Ice, but from a friend who thought his name was Yuri, but then she said it and I thought that it was the perfect name for him. It was during the time he had no name and I let go of the Celestin's character. This is what he currently looks like with alice collections items, with the wig slightly trimmed as well. I also added more bottom lashes to his faceup in the picture above. Will forever keep his eyes glancing to the side......see you guys soon!

Loads of sculpting updates

Woot woot! The first post of the year and I have some fun updates too. Firstly, i wanted to address the Alice's Collection's order. I had no problem with it, but I did want to correct some misinformation I provided about their shipping. They no longer offer free shipping except on orders of clothing or accessories totaling over $100. I had chosen the free shipping and everything went through, but they later emailed me about the shipping cost. They were super nice about it and even refunded some of the money to allow me to do a layaway.

The next update is about sculpting, and I've decided to record my progress on the head instead of keeping it a secret. In all honesty, I enjoy sharing my progress with others since that seems more fun and I hope that the stuff or techniques I've used are helpful to others, anyways there are more photos after the cut.