Another Side, Another Story

Brief Update on Führer Aura

Haku1923 — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:32:00 +0000

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….

Full View

Side View

Rear View

The pocket watch is attached to her secondary belt. Pattern looks a little….Turkish?

Was surprised to find that this was actually a working watch. Time can be adjusted by pulling on the knob-button thingy :3

The miniature tobacco. Sorry, too lazy to put the smoke effect on photoshop ;3

Well, that pretty much wraps it up on Aura’s update. Wish me and the girls good luck for the trip …(((；´ω｀)

Keyblade Master Sora Ver.2

Haku1923 — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 08:30:33 +0000

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~

Full view.

Think the color coordination came out pretty good. The golden hilt of the keyblade matches her eyes and the silvery blade part matches her hair and pants. The keychain part for Kingdom Chain was missing so I replaced it with Dark Side’s golden one…looks a bit off but tolerable I guess.

and now for some more poses~

Tried some new poses for Sora and this here is supposed to look like she’s break-dancing^^; The stand kinda ruined it tho. Was also difficult shooting with the new eyes especially when using the silhouette mode on my GF1. This mode basically emphasizes the shadows so I had to struggle with the reflector to get sufficient light into the eyes in some of the shots. And I’m sure those who used metallic type eyes know how difficult it can be to control the light once it gets inside…

Here’s a closer look at her clothing.

On the belt includes this large black pouch that has 2 pockets.

The top sleeveless inner wear has a leather texture and a goes all the way up to her chin like a turtle neck. I think the belt is overdoing it with these silver blocks ^^;

The belt also had this small pouch with this interesting badge. The jeans have zippers here and there too. I first thought it was just in there for the fashion, but this in fact also helped the leg’s mobility.

The jeans was kinda long so I tucked it in the boots I had lying around.

Sora: (..Time to teach that stupid loli a lesson….)

Me: eh…what was that Sora?

Sora: Nothing master…nothing at all…

Belated Encounter

Haku1923 — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 14:59:36 +0000

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: ….

Aura: There! Like I told you, you’re nothing without that Homura cosplay and its power.

*click*

Sora: Meh, I think I need a new arm. The joints are kinda floppy these days and…huh?

Sora&Aura: What????

Sora: Who is she? A new girl? She resembles us but why is she naked?

Aura: I can squeeze the truth out of that good for nothing master.

Aura: but I have a better idea…

Aura: You there, start talking!

Xera: ?
Sora: Don’t frighten her Aura put that away.

Sora: Hey, it’s you in the picture. You’re so…

Sora: Loli…

Sora: Well, being the eldest in the house, I guess I should introduce ourselves to you. I’m Sora.

Sora: And this scary looking person is Aura. I don’t see the similarity but we’re twins, or so the master says.

Aura: Well, aren’t you going to tell us your name runt?

Aura: ?

Xera: Shut up you old hag. Aren’t you too old to be playing around with sticks?

Aura: …

Sora: Calm down Aura. She’s just confused and insecure like you were when we first met. As elder sisters we have obligation to set her right and..

Xera: You’re the one who’s confused you pompous senile hag. Look at yourself, you’re name is Sora when you don’t look like her at all.

Sora: Say, Aura…are dolls flammable trash or recyclable plactic?
Aura: Don’t worry, it won’t matter when we’re done with this jit.

Me: Ugh…tired…I’m home~

Me: Say, what’s with those weapons? Were you girls behaving yourself?
Sora: Master…you’ve got some explaining to do…

Me: Oh, so you’ve met her…

Me: Well you see, you have this long lost sister that was born from you like Aura….so that makes you guys a triplet. Btw, can you explain me why she is crying?

Sora&Aura: Huh???

Xera: *sobsobsob*
Me: Tell me what happened.

Xera: They were bullying me!
Sora&Aura: What…!!

Me: Girls, I’m very dissapointed with you two. You’re going back in the display case until you learned your lessons.
Sora&Aura: NOOOOOOOO!!!

Xera: ♪~

So yeah…a good lesson here is that appearances can be deceiving^^; Xera was supposed to be just a shy looking nice girl but then I remembered someone mentioning that her face had a bit of mischevious look to it so I kinda incorporated that into her personality. Quite the two-face she is ;3

You may have noticed from the pics above but I bought new optional hands and clothing for Xera for this post at a doll shop in Nakano Broadway. The hands which contained like 3-4 variations was only 1500 yen and the new wear was like less than 3000 yen. Here’s a couple of photos I took while playing with the new hand part. Used

The “pretty-please” pose ;3

Makise Kurisu’s 知性と恍惚 pose ;3

Solar Flare pose ;3

Ray-Gun pose from YuYu-Hakysho…I think ;3

I don’t know, just some random poses…

Xera: Die W☆RS DIE!!

Me: Umm…Xera? I’m still here you know?

Xera: Oh…you didn’t see or hear anything did you?

Me: (´・ω・｀)

Monochrome (Alluring) Xera and Volks Photobooth

Haku1923 — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 14:59:21 +0000

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.

First form’s frontal view.

Parabox bodies comes in handy when making sitting poses like this :3

Side View.

Her arm is covering it but there are these black ribbons on the sides that allows you to adjust the skirt to the torso.

Dunno what the symbol or the word “coelu” means but it seems fitting for a missionary school. Wish the maker of Aura’s military uniform in the last post was more selective with buttons lol. The chain is also a nice accessory me thinks.

Back View

The beret hat was also kinda cute but I guess her wig was too big for it to fit on Xera completely ;3

Second form.

The white inner dress goes down to the knees. The opening of the skirt, sleeves and collar have these black patterns accompanied by what I think is a flower. I usually keep her in this form more often because it looks better imo.

The third form is NSFW. Not even sure if I should call this a form because all she is wearing are the knee-high socks, shoes and collar ribbon^^;

The DDH01 white head is slightly whiter than Parabox body but hardly noticeable if the lighting and camera’s white balance is in the right setting.

Very, very lolita-ish…

Might get caught taking pics like this in certain countries XD

And that’s pretty much it for Xera’s new clothing.

I’ll leave you guys with a couple of pics I’ve taken in the past couple of weeks at Volks Akihabara photo booths.

The first sets of photos were taken on the first week of January when I first met Kenworks-san. He wasn’t a doll owner so he was just watching me take these photos for most of the time^^;

The remaining pics were taken on the last week of December last year. Met up with Ark-san at Tokyo Dolk and kinda tagged along with him to Volks Akiba. Didn’t have my doll or my camera with me at this time so these were taken on my iPhone^^;

And in case you’re wondering what Sora’s been doing these days…

Been trying out new white wigs and eyes for her recently but without much success. My goal right now is to have all my girls wear white wigs but there simply aren’t white wigs good enough that’ll make Sora better than she was in her gray one….hmm

Sieg Heil Führer Aura!

Haku1923 — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:13:20 +0000

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`)

Full view of Aura’s gear. Red, black and white.

Imo, with clothes coordination, the simpler the color variation the better.

The infamous skull head pendant hat….

Not a military geek, but if memory serves correct, there were supposed to be 4 buttons for the jacket and the belt going around her chest should be on the opposite shoulder…^^; I don’t mind minor flaws but one thing I can’t stand is the inscription on these buttons.

“China Button City”

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU….

The rapier she’s holding was made by the same guy that made Aura’s magical rapier. Really do appreciate him for adding a sheath this time. The red rose ornament on the sheath was originally an eye-patch but it seemed neater used this way ;3

Above: Magical Rapier

Below: Normal Rapier

The blade appears to be made by the same parts so the sheath can be used for both rapiers.

Rear view.

Kind of forgot to mention in the previous post but Aura had her wig changed from the Himekazura (sold in Mandarake) one to Yanechika. Very silky, fine and highly durable.

Closeup on the boots.

Love the details but not suitable for doing dynamic posing as it is hard to bend the knees^^;

In case you’re wondering what I had up for the wallpaper…

It’s not the Swastika one so please don’t throw stones at me^^; Tis the flag of the Republic of Zeon.

Below are just a bunch of random pics I took.

Aura : 「なぎ払え！」

But of course, how could I forget the alluring pictures XD

(￣ー￣)

(＊´д｀)??

(　ﾟдﾟ　)

／(^o^)＼

Next Post : Xera’s New Clothing

Lolified Xera and Dollpa Goodies

Haku1923 — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 19:10:48 +0000

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｀)

Me : Err…so how do you like your new body Xera?

Xera : …

Xera : ….it’s okay

Me : Thank god, she speaks ;3

Xera : I can even bend my arms like this and do this pose you wanted me to do.

Xera : What does this pose mean?

Me : It’s umm…a way of saying good morning or good night when dolls like yourself greet their masters.

Xera : Really?

Me: Yes really. And when you talk, you’re supposed to add a “~nyan” in the end ;3

Xera : Anyways, Master why did you make me shorter?

Me : Well, since you’re the youngest of the sisters I thought it’d be more fitting if you were like that.

Xera : Sisters?

Me : Oh, right I didn’t introduce you the other girls yet. They’re out in the yard fighting so they should be back soon I think.

Xera: …

Me : Honestly, I don’t know what they’ll do to you when they see you so here’s a halberd to protect yourself.

Xera : i..is this really necessary?

Me : Well, one of them is reasonable but the other one is a complete menace. She began fighting the nice one the minute she laid eyes her so it’s best to be safe^^;

Xera: hmm….

Xera : (…sisters huh…)

Xera : (…I wonder what they look like…)

*Sudden loudness*

Me : Oh hey, Sora, Aura you’re back.

Xera : !!!???

Me : …and from the looks of it I’m guessing that Sora won this time?

Sora : ♪

Aura : Shut up worm. How am I supposed to win when she can stop time and summon machine guns?

Me : You do have a point^^; Anyways , I wanted to introduce you to a new gir…..

Me : Huh? Where’d she go?

Sora & Aura : Where’s who?

Xera : …

Me : um…kay, maybe next time when she’s ready.

Now that you’re here, why don’t you girls show us the new weapons I got for you at Dollpa?

Aura : Don’t you mean “please”?

Me : Y-yes PLEASE (´ω｀;)

(Memory is getting fuzzy so can’t remember the name of the dealer^^; The price was around 5000 yen which is quite reasonable for a weapon this size with this much details. Probably around 80 cm? Shame tho that the rod doesn’t separate like Baradanji-san’s Kyoko’s spear.)

Me : May I?

Sora : Sure.

(This Homura bow is also made by the same dealer whose name I forgot ;3 The price for this one was about 4000 yen and is also a fine replication. One thing that’s bothered me about this was that the paint still hasn’t dried in some areas and leaves marks on Sora’s hand. Easily washable but must be handled with care^^; )

And this pretty much concludes the goodies I’ve bought in Dollpa 26. Not as plenty as it used to be but well enough to last until the next doll event which is in January. Let’s hope Xera will be ready to go to the Doll Show with Sora and Aura by then^^;

This is probably the last post I’ll make for this year so have a happy new year everyone~

皆さん良いお年を～

Xera : My First Custom

Haku1923 — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 20:27:16 +0000

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‐）

Volks Akihabara has a corner in their store where they introduce their customers how they can create their own dollfie dreams and displayed stuff that you used in face-ups. Since it was right after Dollpa, I didn’t have much cash with me atm so I simply bought the minimum materials needed.

DDH01 (White/Yawafuta) , 2 pairs of eyes by Kurokami, eyesizer, paintbrush (0.3), pastel, enamel paint, enamel thinner, ear cleaner, pen, sandpaper and an anti-gloss spray can thingy ;3 I also needed a design knife to carve the eye holes so I borrowed it from my bro.

This is what it looks like after you used the eye sizer, design cutter and sandpaper on the eye hole, nose and lips. Not sure if the eye sizer was meant to scrape places other than the inside of the eye hole but it worked for me :3 I personally hated the drooping eyes, puckered lips (no offense to those who owns a unmodified DDH01 head) so made sure they were carved/sanded down.

The head with a rough sketch of how I’ll paint the make-up. The pen that was sold in Volks was kinda useless so I just used a pencil. The cheeks were looking puffy so I sanded that down too. Took me forever to sand them down with this eye sizer and almost drove me mad XP

This was how it looked like after working on it for X hours. Ugly I know…. :/

I was beginning to lose hope but after I carved in the mouth, painted the makeup, changed the wig and eyes, everything changed.

Without further ado, I give you my official third daughter, Xera (pronouced cera)! She’s a betwixt of Sora and Aura and came to existence when the two met conciliation……or so I heard :3

Xera: …

As you can probably tell from her expression, she’s extremely shy and often hides behind someone or something when she sees someone new^^; A fitting character for the youngest daughter I guess…

Didn’t have any clothing for her atm so she’s wearing Aura’s previous wig and Sora’s default clothing. The white body was something I had lying around for occasions like this.

The make-up is a little shaky here and there but hardly noticeable thanks to the hair covering it^^; May need to change the color of the eyebrow since there’d been a change of plans for her wig. It’s hard to see from these pics but I also have to carve the mouth with a better tool.

Gonna need to buy more option hands for white body as well.

And not to mention more clothes….

Oh…boy…(‘A`)

Xera: ???

Dollpa 26 Display Table

Haku1923 — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:11:54 +0000

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）

Had to arrive at the Kokusai Tenjijyou station by 7:00 am so we left the house around 5:00 am. Sleepless X3

Hall 1 and 2 was used for Dollpa and the space was divided mainly into 3 areas. The dealer’s table, participant’s display table, photobooth and stage. The podium you see here is where they do bingo, auctions and where the president of Volks gives out a long boring speech XP

Me and my friend’s display table. The members were Baradanji-san, Monokok-san, SOS-san, Bashou-san and a new member Arab-san. Bashou-san and Arab-san doesn’t have a doll yet but are slowly and carefully being converted to the darkside XD

Like the Idoll and Doll Show you can either sit at a free table or a paid table like this one here. Rental fee for 1 table for the entire day is like 5000 yen so it’s best to rally as many DD comrades to lessen each people’s payment^^;

Sora and Aura with their new acquired weapons~. Can you guess what they are?

Baradanji-san’s new daughter Black Rose (name undecided) and renewed White Rose (Lukanis). These 2 beauties are twins where one side is good and the other side evil very much like Sora and Aura :3 Their dresses has the most exquisite detail and you can find out more about them over at his blog.

Silinder-san’s Erika-chan! If I recall correctly she was originally DD Sendo Erika but had a face lift done by Silinder-san himself. She’s quite popular in places like 2ch VIP and is a really talented idol :3

Monokok-san’s Inya in her new winter clothes~. Quite like the color coordination and the zettai-ryouiki

Monokok-san’s DD Kudryavka and baradanji-san’s Custom Another Blood. Was interesting to hear how the wig maker shop Dollce x Dollce did a haircut for Another Blood’s new wig here. Think I’ll try their service for my daughters one of these days.

Monokok-san’s waifu, Eifey is looking beautiful as ever. Not sure if he noticed it or was doing it intentionally but her skirt was lifted up all the way by the tail for all to see^^;

Monokok-san’s Fear-chan with a newly custom made weapon. Monokok-san stayed up all night to finish making this before coming to Dollpa and I must say what fine work this is :3 Kinda hard to tell from the blurry picture but the weapon had that weathered look just like Black Rock Shooter’s Rock Cannon.

Baradanji-san’s Kyoko posing with her custom made spear and Crazy Diamond stand.

SOS-san’s Feena cosplaying as a bunny rabbit doing an ecchi pose^^; He had more dolls displayed in the table but were still under preparation so no pics of them this time.

Can’t remember the name of Sayaka’s owner who dropped by our table but I remember that he was one of the lucky winner of the Miki Sayaka dress back in Wonder Festival 2011 Summer. It’s made by the same seamstress as Baradanji-san’s Kyoko dress and is literally one of a kind since she only made 1 of each outfit. Talk about coincidence :3

Now moving on to the other table….

Ark-san’s Alna and…

DD Mari~. Quite the alluring bust they had. Was my first time meeting this guy who follows me on twitter and I soon found out that he belonged to the Itasha DD group who took me and Iris-san to a outdoor photoshoot location all those months ago^^;

Lovely Albino Rin :3

Can’t remember the name of the owner but I remember he was also pretty famous on the internet. The yellow one (Cure Muse?) was gone somewhere but this bunch is still looking grand^^

Triple Saber.

Ruise-san’s Saryan and what I think is Ronronshuka-san’s custom girl.

Aoibotan-san’s lovely custom girl, Airi. She’s one of the few DDs out there with glass eyes. Was interesting to see how her eyes seemed to follow me whatever the angle although I prefer eyes with bigger pupils^^;

Phalppe-san’s custom girl with cute hand gloves She has a glass eye too.

Akiy-san’s custom girl and her sister? Didn’t have a chance to talk to him so forgot to ask^^;

Sanmaru-san’s self-made custom Yukino. I’m not a huge fan of DDH03 head but this is just gorgeous :0

Lots and lots of MDDs…..crazy! XP

Cute twin Mashiro.

Custom DD Sena and Yozora from Haganai.

Suzuhico-san’s Shiiko~. Really do admire the dress he and his wifey makes not to mention his photography skills =D

Azure-san’s Rina. I always wonder just where on earth he gets all these cool casual dresses for her^^;

Borderline-san’s customized Haruhi~.

Borderline-san is quite dextrous and can make pretty much any kind of clothing since his profession is fashion related. He’s also an active figure.fm user and a great guy to talk to too!

I usually don’t take photos of the dealer’s booths since it’s so crowded but when I saw this I knew just HAD to. Can’t remember the name of the dealer but this has got to be one of the best custom Kasugano Sora doll I’ve ever seen. So good that I was burning with jealousy^^; No offense to Sorahomu.

Well, that pretty much covers my experience at Dollpa 26. Might do a short review of the weapons Sora and Aura acquired in the coming days but right now I need sleep….

Another Side : Homura Magica

Haku1923 — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 12:40:25 +0000

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`;)

Even though the proxy guy was an ass, the seamstress, Twilight Moon, whom I’ve used for many a time has never let me down. The package was sturdy, the wrappings neat and the content of course was superb

Btw, the bow and arrows you saw in the pictures above weren’t part of the set. I bought them in Tokyo Dolk: Akihabara which opened in October and I have my friend Baradanji-san to thank for letting me know of this store’s existence :3 They have tons of clothing and miniature accessory (mostly 1/3 scale) and I recommend it to doll owners visiting Japan.

The dress consists of skirt, outer layer skirt, knee socks, upper-wear, hair ornament, choker and the overall design is quite similar to Aura’s red dress. One thing I noticed different was the crease the seamstress pressed on the outer layer skirt to give it a more natural look.

The collar part also kinda resembled Sorahomu’s Puella Magi outfit so thus this title^^;

Another thing I admired about this dress is the part where it allows the stomach to peek without showing
the joint lines. This might be different with a DDS or DDIII tho.

The back side. Plain looking but Sorahomu’s hair covers it all anyway so I don’t mind ;3

Sorahomu without weapons.

The cuffs, collar and outer layer skirt are detachable for more fun in later time…? X3

Good Zettai-ryouiki (絶対領域) is good.

It was only until after processing these images but I noticed that the knee socks had a diamond patterns which reminds me of Homura’s black panty-hose.

And that pretty much wraps up Sorahomu’s new dress. Wish I took more pictures but coming up with a pose for bows and arrows proved to be a lot harder than it was with swords, spears and guns for some reason^^;

Idoll 33 Collection Booth

Haku1923 — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 12:34:57 +0000

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^^; The grand gathering at table No.9. Baradanji-san was thoughtful enough to bring a clothe to cover the ugly table. No one seemed to notice but this sheet was actually a bed sheet with ecchi character printed on the other side^^; And speaking of familiar faces, I met up with PuppyChun-san from figure.fm! I was kinda surprised when I saw her take her beautiful daughters (Taiga and Aki) out of this small tote bag^^; I didn’t know DDs could be stored in such a way XD

Taiga! with what I think is her new face-up.

Aki with her cute skirt outfit. Chun-san was nice enough to present me with 2 of her cool pin badge too :3 Can’t wait to try it on Sora and maybe Aura when she is in a good mood^^; Thanks again! Baradanji-san’s renewed Kyoko! The spear head for her weapon was designed and crafted by Monokok-san from scratch. Impressive craftsmanship I must say :0 Can’t quite recall what he used, but I think it was made mostly by plaplate to reduce the overall weight while keeping it’s proportions. Monokok-san’s daughters. (The red Another Blood is Baradanji-san’s doll btw) Fia from c3 is looking adorable as ever :3 And so is Bara-san’s Another Blood from Demonbane~ SOS-san’s Kud was the lolicious of them all I think X3 Monokok-san’s Inya from Muvluv. I wish I could do a more proper introduction about her since it’s her first appearance in this blog bu alas I know nothing of Muvluv^^; All I can say is that her High Color fashion is quite unique and elegant at the same time :3 Monokok-san’s Majo-sama~ SOS-san’s Akira cosplaying as Konata from Lucky star lol SOS-san’s Escalayer cosplaying as Miyuki from Lucky Star? SOS-san’s Sonico cosplaying as Makise Kurisu from Steins Gate. Well, not actually because all of the stuff she has on are make-dos from other dress sets but close :3 Baradanji-san’s Lukanis in her new gear. The black rose dress she has on was on sale during this Idoll and was around 15000 yen. Elegant dress it is. Kinda hard to tell from the pics here but the dress is HUGE ^^;My Sora or Sorahomu with a nendo self. And Aura back in her monotone gothic dress. I thought of putting up this for sale as well but didn’t because of it’s rarity. Haven’t seen the seamstress in YJA for like forever

Below are pics of daughters at other tables.

DD Yui dressing up as Madoka, DD Sasara dressing up as Homura and DD Nemu (?) dressing up as Mami. Forgot to ask the name of the owner^^;
Thought Gordan-san was around since this one looked exactly like his homuhomu.

Ruise-san’s custom DDH-06. Heard he did the make-up all by himself at a doll make-up meet he attended. Impresive work!
Akkii-san’s daughter. Twas my first time seeing him and his daughter in person but if I remember correctly, he was the guy that won one of the awards for Volks Miss Akihabara Contest. I could be wrong tho since there are so many Akkii-sans XP Phalppe-san’s custom girl. The head I think was a custom DDH-01 with a glass eye and obitsu body? The guy only recently began DD hobby but you’d be surprised by how active he is^^; You might see his awesome photography in the internet.The event ended a lot quicker than we thought and we had to pack up our things by 15:00. After we left the facility, we headed to Volks Akihabara to take some pics at the photobooth there and headed to a Izakaya (bar) in the nearby area.
SOS-san’s Miyuki is trying out her new Sister outfit. Had this urge to clean up his daughter’s awfully messy hair^^; Baradanji-san’s Lukanis again :3 I’m not partial to these realistic face-ups but seeing this beauty made me think different recently. Pure beauty. Sorahomu looking out the window making a wish or something?

Aura being a Kuudere didn’t really blend in with the gangs^^;
Had plenty of money this time around but couldn’t find a whole lot of things to buy so I simply bought these 2 white wigs and a doll photo calender (2012) taken by Azure-san. There was this gray seifuku made by Suzuhico-san and his wife that I really liked but it was gone before I came back from the 2nd floor orz

12000 yen was the price and well worth it considering the details and quality.

If you’re interested you can try checking out his blog or mailing them.

Hope I’ll get lucky the next time they are around ;3

Oh, and in case you haven’t noticed from the pics above, Aura recently had her second eye surgery^^;

I had this new eye since the last Dollpa back in April but was unsure if it’d look good on Aura. This red eye made by Kurokami has a metallic shine to it and will only look decent when it’s lit with substantial light.

Had to turn the reflector this way and that to get the shine in the right spot^^;
Photoshooting is undoubtedly gonna be more challenging but I like this eyes much better than the animetic eyes by Volks. Has more depth to it I think.

What do you think Aura?

Aura: Hmm…?