#Iza’s BJD Photo

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BJD Box Opening :: Dream Valley Apocalypse Horseman Withered

Last year I got one of my ultimate long time grails, a Soom Heliot unicorn Version! But then Dream Valley came out with the Apocalypse Horseman, whose body suited the character even better than the Soom one…

After much debating and thinking, I decided to order the DV body and get a new head for the Soom Heliot Body. I did upgrade my order to a full doll as I was approached by someone who only needed the head. Fortunately I was able to paint the head for my split partner and he was fun to work on.

But anyway, onto the box opening pictures!

First up, the box, it did suffer some damage in shipping as you can see.

Siggy had to investigate, so far so good on the company box. Let’s open it!

The first look inside the box reveals a foam sheet and a QR code. Nice touch. Let’s continue!

Now for the proper first look inside the box, which shows black foam padding, the headless body completely wrapped in soft packaging foam wrap, CoA on top, and th e Head and tail in an extra compartment. Mind you this doll is huge, he’s 75cm tall, as is the box so it makes sense they sent the head detached.

First investigation revealed the head, the tail (which is way lighter than I thought it would be), and the gift melamine sponge square and some eyes.

Time to unwrap this mummy!

Some monster nails, I’m honestly impressed they arrived in one piece, as they feel rather delicate. Let’s unwrap the tail next!

I giggled more than I think I should have at the butt skull, but it is nicely done! It even has notches to hold the tail in different positions, and it holds with 3 magnets to the butt. The tail itself is follow!

I have no intention of ever using this piece, so it gets to live in one of my spare parts boxes.

Now for a good look at the head. I split it off, but it definitely has nice sculpting to it. The nose is especially nice!

The the rest of the images will stick under a read more break as they include nude full body pictures. Avert thy eyes!

And of course we must appreciate how nicely the body is sculpted here. Just look at those vein lines long the thighs! And every piece is double jointed, which has its pros and cons of course.

Pros:

Super flexible

Smooth engineering

Looks lovely no matter how the joints are engaged

Cons:

There are no locks, so he likes it try and buckle due to the sheer weight of a 75cm doll

the limbs like to spin around a bit too

And there you have him, dressed to impress (or rather travel), and with the tail I made him instead as he’s a unicorn and needed an appropriate tail for that.

By now he has new hands, and a different wig, since the character he represents would never let his nails grow that long… the wig I replaced because this one sat weird with his horn.

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Finally, after a little over 5 months, my long sought after Dream Valley Alter made it home. I’ve literally wanted to order him since like… 2020? He’s perfect for one of my wife’s characters, King Territh of the flame hearts of Diin. He was a partial Christmas gift from my wife, she sent me a good chunk of money to order him as a present. I really have the best wife in the world.

I'm over the moon with this doll, despite being a slippery noodly bean stalk. I fought with him for an hour to get him dressed upon arrival. His noodling finally annoyed me enough that I undressed him after 3 days and wired him. I may need to suede him in parts, but the wiring helped a lot already!

The what is what:

Sculpt: Dream Valley Alter in normal skin

Eyes: 14mm resin eyes from Ashuradark on Etsy

Outfit: eBay

Wig: Dollmore Rapunzel in 7/8in

Faceup: me over at @izasfaceups

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Welcome back Elyra! I bought her secondhand from a good friend of mine this past December 2023.

It's still so surreal to me that I got my dream MNF back in my collection. I had to sell my first one back in 2015 due to needing emergency funds when one of our roommates lost their job and my wife and I (back then fiancee) needed to pay bills.

I had listed a bunch of dolls, and sadly, my MNF Ryeon sold the fastest. It's a sale I have always regretted because I did really like her.

This Ryeon isn't the same one, but is from the same year, but she accepted the old Ryeon's character and name without a hitch! I'm so glad I have my kitty/fox girl back.

More blathering about the doll and such under the break

Elyra is really settling into her new shell and look quite nicely. Let me show a quick comparison of my previous to current one:

I did not ever expect to get her back, especially once Fairyland discontinued the older sculpts, so I didn't keep any of her things. So now she has a new wig, outfits, shoes, eyes, tail, and ears.

The tail and ears are now both made by me, though I do intend to re-buy the ears she had before. I just didn't want her to be without kitty/fox ears until my friend casts a few more of the old ears.

She was a fox in the past, but now I'm undecided on if she should be a cat instead. Her old tail was a big real fox tail, the new one is made of faux fur, and is fully posable thanks to the wire I put in it.

She's also good friends with little Ursa, my old DZ Shoyo, who I got around the same time as I got Elyra 1.0

The what is what:

Sculpt: Fairyland MNF Ryeon on the old A-line girl body

Wig: Fataio in 7-8 (she's got a big head)

Eyes: 14mm Unicorn eyes by Ashuradark on Etsy

Outfit: Top unknown, shorts are from Doll Heart

Ears, Faceup, & Tail: me over at @izasfaceups

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I’m pleased to introduce Zai, doll number 51. He is Jazz’s first mate and lover, and the father of her daughter (Bonnie). I still need to get a picture of the 3 of them together…

Zai is a Dollzone Raymond-1, who took Val’s previous body (B70-003). I knew he’d fit as Raymond had been originally released with that body way back when. I got the head secondhand.

He is normal pink, though the body is the old dark normal yellow from 2015. I knew I’d have to color match no matter what head I decided on. I’ve always liked the Raymond head, just didn’t know which character he suited, but his gaunt features are perfect for Zai!

Here’s some closeups of his Faceup. I’m really proud of his scarring, I always forget how much I love the look of them. They require patience as I use the glue method to apply them, which means I gotta wait for the pva glue to fully dry before I can seal and continue…

The what is what:

Sculpt: Dollzone Raymond-1 in normal pink color matched to normal yellow on a DZ B70-003 body

Eyes: EyesinaBox on Etsy

Wig: Monique Gold 8-9 Reeva in black-brown

Faceup: me over at @izasfaceups

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Reshelled Dolls

Having been in this crazy hobby since May 2011, I have accumulated quite a few dolls (current count as of Nov 12. 2023: 51), but not all have stayed. Some even got reshelled.

Most of my reshelled dolls completely replaced the original shell, except in the case of Ursa and Lily. I have both of their (very different looking) shells still in my collection, with each being a version of the OC they represent. The others were mostly sold, though a few got a different character assigned to them (Val 1.0 Head = Kass, Morgan 1.0 = Viola, Sam 2.0 Head = Ivy). Basically I reshell dolls when their characters outgrow their doll avatars so to say.

I even reshelled my first doll, Melody, who had been an Obitsu 60cm Gretel and is now a Doll Chateau Snow Nymph. The original shell was sold because I found I vastly preferred resin to vinyl, and because the character had fallen out of use/importance. So initially I didn't even intend to reshell her.

It's kind of funny how Melody came about to be reshelled. I instantly fell in love with the DC Snow Nymph upon seeing her pictures, but couldn't afford or justify her yet, but I knew I needed her. It took me a while to figure out why and who she needed to be, and then it clicked, she was Melody.

My wife (then fiancee) surprised me by ordering her on layaway as a wedding gift for me. Which is very special for many reasons, one being that Melody had been the first OC I created specifically to RP with my wife with (though we were only friends at that point, quickly becoming besties though). So it was only fitting that she became a wedding gift in 2015 from my wife (though it took her many more years to finally shell Darten, her husband, in 2019 I think?).

Anyway, do you guys have any reshelled dolls, and if so, why or why not?

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Iza’s Yearly Big BJD Lineup 2023 :: 64 BJDs from 81cm to 12cm (+ pets!)

I finally got around to doing my yearly big BJD lineup in December 2023, für hounding my sister for over a year to give me my two doll bodies back.

This was a 3 day ordeal (2 days of shooting images, and another day of editing, combining, and labeling), but I’m glad I got it done. In total I manually merged 12 photos. 

I excluded 4 dolls, 3 have identical doubles (head and body combos) and 1 was too similar to another (only a different head, but same company head and body combo), so I didn’t feel the need to add them. I also did not add a doll I gifted my wife for Christmas as she hadn’t gotten her yet when I did the lineup. She’ll be included in next year’s lineup though!

If anybody wants specific dolls from above compared (dressed or nude), please let me know and I’ll try to do it in the next week! I can’t do the whole lineup nude as I do not have the energy nor the ambition for that. It was intensive enough to just do them dressed, because I do this without help…

Anyway, I hope this is helpful to at least one person out there!

I’m not gonna tag all the doll sculpts in the lineup, that would just take too long, but I will add a couple of companies in the tags at least.

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Melody finally has a violin again, though she's had it a long time, I just never got around to taking pictures of her with it. So here we have my talented lanky girl playing some tunes.

I got the violin at a little souvenir shop in the 1st district of Vienna.

The what is what:

Sculpt: Doll Chateau Snow Nymph in normal pink

Clothes: Angell-Studio

Eyes: Glib Acrylics in 14mm

Wig: Mohair pelt from Fantasy-Dolls on Etsy, sewn by Hasels-Aesthetics

Faceup: Me over at @izasfaceups

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Mina got a new face up, again. This is her third one so far, because I just can’t make up my mind on whether I’m satisfied or not...

The what is what:

Sculpt: Dollzone Daomiao-2 on B27-004 body in nps

Clothes: Alice Collections

Wig: Licht in 6-7 

Eyes: Me

Face Up: me at @izasfaceups

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My girl Susi finally got one of her arms tattooed, and a manicure on both hands! It’s the first colored tattoo I’ve done like this. It’s been years since I’ve done any tattoos on dolls, and the first on one of my own!

Now I just need to figure out what to do with her second arm... Maybe another sea scape? @hasels-aesthetics suggested I do sea sponges and corals. I like that idea, and maybe add some jellyfish in. Still deciding how detailed I want to go, and whether to put it on the upper or lower arm. So many decisions!

The what is what:

Sculpt: April Story NB-SD16 Betty on the smallest bust

Wig: Monique Beehive (I think) 7-8 in blue

Outfit: Pants-Alice Collections, Top-Unknown

Eyes: Glass Ersa-Flora eyes

Bird Skull necklace: @parliamentrook 

Aesthetics: Me over at @izasfaceups

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Susi got her other arm inked too, but only on the lower part! I’m debating swapping her eyelashes for different ones that look nicer (I got some in from Taobao). 

In wake of the recast happenings, I feel the need to reiterate that I am pro-artist. This girl is available for roughly $300 at April Story... an SD sized doll for less than 400 with shipping! There are so many gorgeous legit dolls available, in all sorts of price ranges, there’s no excuse to buy recasts...

Anyway, the what is what:

Sculpt: April Story Betty on the NB-SD16 body with the smallest bust

Wig: Monique Gold Label 7-8 Beehive in blue

Outfit: Pants from Alice Collections, Top unknown

Eyes: Ersa-Flora Glass eyes

Aesthetics: Me over at @izasfaceups

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My latest doll made it safe and sound to me yesterday (Jan 2nd, 2018) and I’m in love. Please help me welcome Big!Lily to the brood!

I’ll need to get some full body shots of her as she’s got massive paws!

The what is what:

Sculpt: LoongSoul ShenLuo Western White Tiger in normal pink

Wig: Mohair wig from ingriddollyshop on Etsy

Outfit: SartoriaJ

Eyes: Self made acrylics

Face Up: Me over at @izasfaceups