Brief Update on Führer Aura

Will be heading to an Onsen hotel in Kamisuwa this coming weekend with bunch of DD comrades and since I heard the winter cold can get nasty up there, I thought I prep Aura with a jacket and few props to go with her military uniform I found at Tokyo Dolk. The jacket was a little no more than a few thousand yen, the tobacco in her hands 150 yen, and the pocket watch 1000-something yen. They were pretty nice addition to Aura as it gives her a more intimidating authoritative look but I dunno…maybe the tobacco was overdoing it ;3 I personally don’t smoke and prefer to stay away from places with smokers because it stains doll yellow with its nicotine and smell….hope you’re not one of them X3

The jacket set came with a hat but was rather flimsy and lame looking (the type that came before WWII?) so I removed its eagle badge and replaced it onto the hat Aura had before. Should make it closer to the real thing. I prefer staring at her miniskirt more so the pants that came with the set will be incorporated later in the future…or more like never :3  You may also have noticed that the bulk of her gauntlet is gone leaving only the hand part. This was because the thorns protruding from it kept making the jacket come off and really limited her poses.

Quite satisfied with the results and excited about the trip but to think that I have to carry all this plus Sora and Xera each with their own set of stands is quite discouraging^^; Hope I can get some nice pics and get back in one piece as well….

Keyblade Master Sora Ver.2

I have to admit, the “Keyblade Master Sora” post I wrote over a year ago was a fail with a capital F. I knew something wasn’t right and couldn’t help but feel the awkwardness of the mix between the Kingdom Chain keyblade and a miko outfit as well as all the other clothes Sora has worn last year. I did best with what I had lying around the house but being an avid Kingdom Hearts fan, I didn’t want it to end it like that^^; There was this seamstress who made an authentic Sora outfit but that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind…what I wanted was to create my own original KH character that could or might’ve been in the game. So I lurked and lurked and lurked around YJA until I came upon this interesting looking piece.

The outfit I’ll be reviewing for this post was created by a Korean maker called DOD (Dream of Dolls) and was originally meant for DOT 64 cm boys. The price was around 10000 yen when I purchased it about half a year ago (should be cheaper now). It comes with an inner black jacket, outer gray jacket  gray pants, belt, handgloves and this arm-clinging pocket thingy that quite didn’t make its way into today’s photo session. The gray jacket, although exceptional in size,  didn’t make its way either because it kinda made her look fat :/ Took me a while to take care of the issues concerning the difference in proportion between DD and DOT (changing bust and whatnot). These adjustment I had to do was what partly caused the delay in this project. Additionally, Sora’s wig and eyes has also been changed from black eye/white wig to golden eye/silver wig for this occasion. Almost makes her look like a kin to Xehanort kinda…?

Anyhow…here’s the update on Sora’s keyblade cosplay~

Belated Encounter

I don’t write stories on dollfies as often as I did back when I was posting on figure.fm because I wanted to focus more on the quality of each pictures (posing, lighting…etc). Looking back at the past stories, I also feel embarrassed reading some of them^^;  Still, it’s nice doing them occasionally because it feels like I’m getting back to the starting point (原点回帰). Indeed, I wouldn’t have gotten far on DD photography without going through this process of thinking up of poses that’ll make doll more “lively/natural” in a way. Even if you’re not going to write a story, training yourself to create a “flow” of poses can be helpful in nurturing your improvising skill during photo sessions. Imo you’re much better off starting off with these instead of reading every inch of the manual on your camera or buying expensive camera/lens/photo developing software.

Well, anyways it was about time I brought up the story of the meeting between Sora, Aura and Xera so here they are. Was hoping for a more peaceful encounter this time but it seems it’s  customary for my girls to quarrel with their new member…(kinda like Toy Story lol).

Aura: You’re getting soft Sora. Soft and slack like Master’s belly.
Sora: ….

Monochrome (Alluring) Xera and Volks Photobooth

All I’ve purchased for my girls in the last couple of months (or more like a year) were clothing like maid outfit and puella magi cosplay so I thought it was time I tried something more “casual” this time. Not that I have anything against it but casual clothing compared to other fantasy-ish ones often lack detail or information and there isn’t much you can get out of it in terms of photography. That might be just because of my lack of imagination and normal props though (ﾉД`) I look around and all I see are guns, swords, lances and keyblades…lol.

(Speaking of keyblades, have any of you played the new Kingdom Hearts game in 3DS, the “Dream Drop Distance“? Heard that this was supposed to be a sequel to Kingdom Hearts II or Re:Coded and involves Sora and Riku traveling/revisiting other worlds AGAIN while fighting this new enemy called “dream eaters”. Been a Kingdom Hearts fan for about a decade now but following these spin-off titles has been tiring since Square Enix release it in all kind of consoles. I’m also losing my patience because it’ been 7 years since they released Kingdom Hearts 2 and still no news of Kingdom Hearts 3 being developed. Really do hate that company hinting a development of a game years ahead it’s completion date and release it when I’ve lost all interest. Same could be said for the remake of FFVII and FFXIII Versus. Anyways…enough rambling…)

The new dress Xera is wearing here is called in English the “4 way school uniform-ish dress” which consists of a white one piece dress, grey cape, long pleat skirt, beret, black ribbon and knee-thigh socks. It’s monochromatic as with most clothes I buy and is reminiscent of  the uniform girls wear in a missionary school. Could probably also pass for a casual wear to go with a city background since it also features this fashionable beret too. “4 way” might be a bit of an exaggeration but as the product name suggests, the convertible dress parts allows you to enjoy several coordination patterns (some NSFW) which we will look into further in the post.

Sieg Heil Führer Aura!

Sieg Heil Führer Aura! Well…maybe that’s not the right thing to say since she doesn’t have the lapel badge, aiguillette or other decoration to prove her rank in the military and most of all because this blog does NOT support Nazism. I just thought this uniform would look bad ass on Aura and fitting for her evil character setting. There were also these inspirational characters I’ve seen while I was in my hiatus like Selvaria Bles, Lertih Adolf and this DD blog that made me want my girls to wear a military uniform too. Took me a while to come to appreciate its nature but girls in military uniforms are so moe…..I can’t believe I’ve been missing out on this all this time. They’ve elegance, displays power with a hint of sexiness which is what Aura’s clothes been all about.

Aura’s new military uniform (designed for L bust) here was sold during Doll Show during last month by a dealer called SEN for about 10000 yen. The product name was “German Military Uniform”, but this is obviously a Nazi uniform^^; Was a bit lazy to take pics of it while it was still in its package, but if I recall correctly, the set consisted of a hat, blazer, shirt, necktie, skirt, belt and an arm band. Wasn’t exactly the best uniform set I’ve seen so I added a couple of accessories to the bunch to make her look more presentable. The long black boots were purchased at Dollce Akihabara, the rapier+sheath was from a different dealer, the black pantyhose  from Azone, the cross pendant from Aura’s monotone gothic lolita dress and the gauntlet she has on her left arm is something which I’m sure you’re all familiar with by now^^; Might add badges in the future like the blog I mentioned above.

Something to mention about the photography this time too. Was kinda bored of taking the same old pics so I used the “silhouette” filter on my GF1 for most of the photos on this set. It’s a nice feature but kinda made it hard to see the details of the uniform. Do apologize in advance (‘A`)

Lolified Xera and Dollpa Goodies

As much as I appreciate Volks for releasing their doll related products, one thing that I’ve always  found irritating is the fact that it takes them forever to release spare parts like the DD inner-frames should a girl with one break, or a MDD white bodies in case somebody with a limited/custom white DD starts needing them. Sora has broken both her arm and back in the past but because of the scarcity of inner frames in the market, I had to buy a whole new body from Volks to replace them. Xera additionally will have to wait until somebody puts their MDD white bodies on sale at YJA since her face-up was designed to fit a MDD. While we can still keep hopes up for the DD inner-frames due to increasing demand, the chance of MDD white bodies coming out is pretty slim given Volk’s poor reputation for after sales service and the fact that the there were only 2 limited MDDs with white bodies (Al Azif and Etheldreda).

Wish I’d known this ahead of time but thanks to my followers on twitter, I’ve found an alternate solution for a MDD white bodies. The process is quite simple too :3 All you need is a 40 cm body from a manufacturer called Parabox (related to Obitsu?) and a DD Head/Obitsu (40cm) neck joint converter which looks something like this. Although it’s from a different company, Parabox 40cm bodies are about the same height as an MDD and the skin tone is lighter than a MDD normal skin bodies (See comparison here). The body structure is also slightly different but fits MSD and MDD sized clothing (Was warned by an owner of a DD head/Parabox40 body doll that MDD sized ones might be tight around the legs).

Fortunately enough they had one stock left in their store in Yokohama and even discounted it by 15% rounding the price to around 17000 yen. Added with a MSD dress I found at Tokyo Dolk Akihabara, Xera here is finally completed…(*´ω｀)

Xera : My First Custom

Custom face-up for dollfie dreams. If you’ve been in the hobby long enough, you’ve probably heard at least one or two of your comrades who went and customized their own DD heads from scratch. And if you took time to research its process, I’m sure you’d be astounded by just how much time and effort went into these dollfie heads. First comes the sanding, then the spraying, moar sanding, rough drafting, painting, moar spraying, moar painting and on and on and on. Couple of articles I found useful in grasping this process are here, here and here. Never being the crafty type, I didn’t bother with these custom face-ups and decided to leave the face-up business to someone else if I ever wanted a third daughter. However, after discovering how long it took for some face-ups artists to get done with their job  (Not to mention how high the price for some custom face-up fetches up^^;) and hearing how more and more of my Japanese DD twitter mates have gone on to do their own face-ups, I figured what the hell and jumped to this face-up materials sold in Volks Akihabara.

I’d been wanting to modify Sora and Aura’s make-up for some time now so I thought this would be a good opportunity to practice. Additionally, I’ve secretly tried buying a DDH01 (normal) from one of the sellers in YJA recently and was somewhat disappointed so the timing was right too I guess. When there’s a will, there’s a way.

Given that this was my first time doing a face-up, I hardly took pictures during the process but I hope that this would enlighten you on how much you can get out from these DD heads (´‐ω‐）

Dollpa 26 Display Table

Those following me on twitter may have already heard the news but Sora, Aura and I took a trip to Doll Party (Dollpa) 26 last Sunday taking place at Tokyo Big Site. Had a wonderful time meeting, talking and exchanging name cards with comrades from various communities as well as buying doll related goods and taking pics of other people’s daughters. Doll Show and Idoll which preceded this event was great and all but it’s scale is nothing compared to Dollpa and unfortunately for those who are relatively new to this event, there are also hundreds of things to learn about it^^; Despite having attended to this event for 3 consecutive times, I was once again baffled by their convoluted rules and had to learn a couple of things the hard way.

One thing I learned is that the guidebooks (entrance ticket) that are sold in Volks stores sells out pretty quick and their stock is unpredictable. The last time I bought guidebooks for Dollpa, the Yokohama store had stocks left even in the day before the event. This time, both the Yokohama and Akihabara store’s guidebooks were sold out 4-5 days before the event :/ This partly due to the fact that the guidebook also contain lottery tickets to get in line to purchase the limited dollfies. Participants buy them in dozens to get a good number as did one of my comrades as did one of my comrades. Another thing I learned was that the lottery tickets you draw at the limited line alone will not get you inside the stadium and that you’ll have to line up again in the regular line and draw a ticket their again. There was a total of 3 different lines to determine what order those people will line up. So confusing lol…(´・ω・`)

If you’re planning on attending Dollpa, do make sure you do extensive research before coming to Japan. Well, now that’s out of the way here are the photos I took at the Dollpa 26.

（もし写真の掲載で不都合がある場合には即刻削除しますのでご連絡ください）

Another Side : Homura Magica

Well, it’s been 3 good months since I last a bought clothing for my daughters and was about to run out of ideas for these posts but just last week I was fortunate enough to come by one that suited my daughters taste in fashion ; fashion which isn’t all that casual and has a mixture of fantasy-like (?) atmosphere to it. The moment I saw it on YJA, intuition told me that it would be a perfect alternative dress for Sorahomu (Sora cosplaying as Homura) and a perfect matching dress for Aura’s puella magi-ish dress. The bid war ended earlier than I expected pricing around 17000 yen and the sending country was Shanghai which meant that it’d only take 2 days for it to arrive. Sadly the proxy guy who was in charge of taking contact turned out to be a lazy bum who neglected to respond to my mail for 4 days delaying the arrival of the clothes by nearly a week :/

I’ve had worse though. The guy who sold me Aura’s head (DD Mio head) didn’t respond to my mail for a week and when the package arrived, I was aghast by the sight of Aura’s bare head covered in newspaper. The head was miraculously not stained but any doll owner with a common sense should know better than to wrap the head in such a thing. The wig that came with the head was crumpled in the bottom of the box rendering it useless leaving me no choice but to throw it away. What’s more is that when I gave this seller the evaluation he deserves, he went berserk calling me all kind of names and giving me the worst grade as a bidder. (This is where Aura’s twisted personality came from sorta XD) Did you ever encounter troubles in YJA?

Nowadays, I try to be more careful by checking the seller’s evaluation but there’s no can do if the seamstress picks proxy guy with poor service like this time. Thank god the dress was well worth the wait (‘A`;)

Idoll 33 Collection Booth

For those that aren’t familiar with I・doll, it’s basically a doll event that’s taken in parts of Japan starting with Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka every once in a few month. The most frequent one being Tokyo, this is my second time attending this event and I must say our doll display table sure has become more livelier since the last time we were here ;3 At around 8:00 AM me and 4 other usual guys from the Yahoo Japan blog doll community (Baradanji-san, Monokok-san, Bashou-san and SOS-san) gathered at Hamamatsuchou station to line up for the event. Unlike other doll events, Idoll doesn’t hand out numbered tickets for the pamphlet to get inside the facility so stuff sold here were basically first come first serve. People started making lines around 7~8 o’clock and the staff started moving people around 10:00 so 8:00 is probably the best time to get there if you’re interested in buying something in short stock.

The dealer (seamstress) were in the 3rd, 4th, 5th floor and the 2nd floor was for people to display their daughters and sons.  In this recreational floor there were 2 kinds of display tables you could rent. One was a free display table that you can use up to 30 minutes and the other was this collection booth which you pay 1000 yen each hour to display your dolls. Rip offs….(｀・д・´)

The variety of DD clothing and accessories are hardly as extensive as that of Doll Show’s or Doll Party’s so most of the guys including myself were here just to enjoy the atmosphere and meeting up with familiar faces. The pics are kinda blurry here and there so bear with me^^;