Welcome to my blog where you will see dolls, more dolls and maybe a musing or two. Consider this a quick table of contents of sorts to get yourself looking around.
Also, this is a sideblog, intentionally done as I will only be following people I already personally know back through the main account.
The Gundam BJD Meetup: My Very First Attempt Hosting a Meetup!
One day when I was casually talking to my friend who very recently got her very first BJD, a custom Dollfie Dream of Quatre Raberba Winner from Gundam Wing ( the very same one in the photo above! ), we talked about other fanmade Gundam doll owners. This struck an idea in me, and I was like what if we have a Gundam BJD meetup?
And so, mission planning commenced. I rounded up all Gundam BJD owners I am personally mutuals with, and asked if they are interested in a Gundam BJD meetup. They liked it, so we picked a date where we can all meet up, and a location.
Eirin, the owner of the aforementioned custom Dollfie Dream of Quatre, and Kanade, the owner of the custom Lacus Clyne from Gundam SEED attended. It was lovely seeing these two dolls whom I've only seen on the screen in person.
We met up at the cyberpunk themed BJD bar, Anomaly, which is run by the Vocaloid producer & BJD collector Aluvi. Not only was the establishment very futuristic which is what I felt is best for a Gundam themed meetup, but Aluvi himself is quite the avid Gundam fan. Therefore, I felt it would be nice to have someone who is a fan of the franchise see our dolls too.
First things first, we ordered the original cocktails, which means we get a custom cocktail themed after our dolls! Aluvi did an excellent job recreating our dolls in drink form. Lyle got a green cocktail with shimmers in it in which we compared the shimmers to the GN Particles! It had a bittersweet flavor with a rather mature vibe, which is very fitting for the kind of character Lyle is. Quatre got a ginger ale based cocktail with a color scheme similar to Gundam Sandrock, which had a spicy sweet flavor befitting his Arabic roots. Last but not least, Lacus got a sweet yogurt based cocktail with shimmers in it based on her color scheme, befitting a diva like her. We three also exchanged drinks around to give the drinks a test. They all tasted amazing!
We had a chitchat about Gundam for a while, and after that, we got down to take photos. Anomaly is very photogenic, and Aluvi encourages his patrons to take photos around.
Eirin actually bought a bunch of clothing from Volks and managed to put together Quatre's default attire without commissioning anyone. It was impressive.
Well, knowing Gundam Wing's heavy association with BL/Yaoi, these photos of the two G boys became unintentional 1x4....lol
Kanade literally did everything to recreate Lacus. From the head modding, faceup, eyes, wig and eve the outfit! She is incredible.
I obviously had to photograph Lyle and Lacus together, since they are both Haro owners! Did you know that the Haros in Universal Century are the biggest? While the Cosmic Era/SEED Haros are the smallest and the Anno Domini/00 Haros are in between size wise between Universal Century and Cosmic Era. I love how the Haros we brought just happen to reflect the size differences in canon too!
The day after the meetup I met Mugi during an event in person and asked if she was OK with me taking a photo inspired after the said photo in which she gave the okay.
Oh Lyle don't go hitting on Lacus....Kira please go save her! Ahem, so, when I was trying to think of poses between Lyle and Lacus, I suddenly remembered this photo of the cosplayer Mugi who was dressed as Neil ( Lyle's older twin brother ) with Lacus' impersonator Meer Campbell. So I ended up taking a photo inspired by said photo which is what you see above haha.
Being a Host of A Meetup.
Ngl, I never done this before, so I was admittedly a mess. But I tried what I could and overall, everyone seemed pretty satisfied with the outcome. In fact, after going to Anomaly we ended up heading to the BJD friendly maid cafe Tougenkyo for lunch and round two of doll funsies. Both Kanade and Eirin never been to BJD friendly establishments and were happy to experience them, so I am glad I was able to show them around!
We are hoping to run another meetup again in the future, and I am in the end excited to do so again!
Well, I feel it is a good time to reintroduce Lyle Dylandy since I finally got to complete his default casual attire, plus May is the month he came home to me ( last year! ), so the timing is perfect to just reintroduce him in his full glory.
While I did initially sew up his turtleneck, I ended up using shirousalon's sexy turtleneck ( yes that sexy keyhole one; its apparently reversible according to her! ) since it is pretty much identical in reversed form sans the open back. That being said, I made his trenchcoat, belt and spraypainted the handparts to serve as glove handparts since gloves are a pain to make for dolls.
For information on how I made his trenchcoat using a human sized pattern, see my guide here.
model: Lyle
base doll: Modified DDH07 on a Dollfie Dream Boytype by Volks with Fiorista muscle torso
faceup+mod: shirayuri_dolls @ instagram
skintone: semiwhite
eyes: by pon2yuz6 @ twitter
Well, big huge disclaimer before I start. I am NOT a professional tailor seamstress whatever, and I am only sharing this based on what I have learned as an amateur doll crafter. I am also gonna dive into this with assumptions that you already have a basic knowledge of sewing and all. Now, move along if you understand!
I struggled finding a long coat pattern to use as a base to make the trenchcoat for Lyle's default attire. I looked as far and wide, even considering to purchase an existing pattern to work with. But in the end, I needed to pinch some pennies, so I decided to take the hard way.
The hard way was to look at an existing FREE human sized pattern, size it down to BJD size and modify and adjust as needed to fit the doll. It took me some thinking to see how it would work, but in the end, I figured out a way, and I am here to share what I did to make it work.
OK to add further context, for those who don't know, Lyle is a fandoll of the character Lockon Stratos aka Lyle Dylandy from the anime Mobile Suit Gundam 00. I needed to finish his default casual attire as seen below for a meetup and a doujin event where a friend wanted him to be displayed on her booth.
I tried finding a similar coat online. Felt like it exists, but apparently not so far. So I tried looking for an available pattern to work with, also felt like it exists but nope.....
I was in a last minute pinch, and really needed solutions to really finish this project two weeks away from the event dates. After some personal debating, I finally decided to just grab an existing pattern and just try, somehow try to make it work.
OK now enough babbling lemme actually get to how I did it.
1. Find A Pattern.
A pattern won't magically appear out of nowhere, so you gotta hunt for one. Whatever it is you are gonna work on, try look for a base pattern which looks similar to what you wanna make shape wise and modify it from there.
For the trenchcoat, I used this free long coat pattern from Dr Cos. To make the following steps easier, see if your pattern comes with a guide something like below which comes with measurements for the pattern and all.
This helped me alot when I converted it for doll size! See if you can find something like this with the pattern you are gonna use! Or you can just browse from Dr Cos like I did lol they have all the nooks and crannies.
2. Get Your Doll's Measurements.
Unless you already did that already in that case you can skip this step, take measurements of your doll! Either you can measure them yourself, or check online from the official maker where they may provide measurements for your doll.
Why do you need to do this? Well, in the next step when we start mathing and all, you wanna adjust the numbers to fit your doll. For those who aren't aware already, humans and dolls have wildly different sizes and all as dolls aren't exactly 100% human in proportion. Therefore, we will need these numbers ready to know if it is gonna fit your doll or not....Which is likely not because again humans and dolls are proportionately different.
3. Start Drafting The Pattern.
So with the numbers you see on the original human pattern, divide it by whatever scale your doll is. Got a SD size one? Divide it by three because they are generally 1/3 scale. MSD? 1/4 and so on. Then compare these numbers for your doll's measurements, and adjust the numbers and start drafting.
In my case, I used my past artist skills ( I used to draw alot that past skill helped me ) and eyeballed the pattern while using my measurements. If you are using other methods to copy the pattern into doll size, do tell me!
Drafting the pattern is the longest and hardest part of sewing as far as I am concerned. For the trenchcoat, I took at least over a week to be fully confident that it is the shapeI want, and that it is fitting the doll properly. I def took several rounds of making the pattern longer etc etc to make it the silhouette I want it to be. So take your time when you draft your pattern. You don't wanna waste that fabric you paid your hard earned money for.
A little not so related tip: If you don't wanna go through fabric, you can try using paper towel to use as a dummy fabric. Apparently many doll seamstresses use them to test their patterns out. It works quite well.
4. Start Sewing!
Are you confident that your pattern is fully what you envisioned it to be? Well, it is time to start the fun part of sewing it! I personally find it so fun to be out of the pattern drafting stage and actually sewing the outfit, and seeing your creation fully come to life.
Conclusion.
The finished trenchcoat! Was all worth the frustration never working on a collar in a good while though lol
Honestly. I am glad I figured out a way to convert human sized patterns to doll size and actually made it to work and fit my doll. Didn't need to spend a single penny on a pay to use pattern and just used a free resource and worked around it to work on my doll. Plus, I was able to finish my project in time for two events I needed as I needed Lyle to be in his canon attire.
The BJD hobby is already expensive, and being able to make things from scratch can really save you money in the long run. The outfits are never cheap to the point they are around the same price if not more expensive than their human sized counterparts. Thus, it is useful to be able to just make things on your own to preserve our already suffering bank accounts. They will be annoying and full of suffering, cuz creating things have the not so secret ingredient of blood sweat and tears anyways. But in the end, the labor is all worth it.
I had a day of spring break for myself with my cousin, and there was this gorgeous infinity pool overlooking the ocean, so I got Fionn prepared in his swimsuit and took some lovely photos of him relaxing by the pool.
This was my first time taking photos right next to a body of water! I will have to admit this was one of my scariest photoshoots yet because of the fact I was so nervous about dropping my camera into the water ( which would mean gameover! ). Aside that, it was rather windy, so I struggled to take a solid shot where his bangs weren't covering his face.
model: Fionn
base doll: DCH26 on a Dollfie Dream Boytype by Volks
faceup: default M02
skintone: semiwhite
eyes: maigirl_puppy @ twitter
Buying a new lens; my thoughts on what it is like to photograph with a new lens.
For quite some time ever since I took my BJD photography hobby to the next level, I realized one thing. I wanted a prime lens, or what some others call a fixed lens. It is a type of lens which does not zoom in or out and as its alternate name suggests, fixed to a specific focal length. They are well known for their wide aperture ( the pupil like thing in the lens which shrinks and expands, letting in as much light or less depending on the setting you set ) allowing it to capture more light, make a sharper focus on the subject while blurring the background nicely making a beautiful bokeh.
Well, guess what I finally got? A prime lens! Its a bit of a late birthday gift to myself after alot of things which made it difficult to celebrate my birthday back in January. But hey, I finally got one!
For those who are wondering what specific lens I got, I got a Nikkor Z mount 40mm f2. The price was not bad especially for a Z mount, and was in a range I could afford, and does exactly what I dreamed of.
See the cut below to see why I wanted this lens, and why you should get a prime lens if you wanna do BJD photography!
So, the thing about prime lenses which are in the 40 ~ 50mm f2 ~ f1 range is that they are great for capturing miniatures because of their ability to blur the background to make things feel more in scale with the miniature. You can even take photos of things even smaller than BJDs like playscale sized dolls, action figures, nendoroids and honestly anything because of this unique capacity these lenses have.
Oh, and because of their wider f stop aka aperture, do the math here ya? Wider aperture, more light is captured. This makes them quite ideal for taking photos in the dark, which can help you take really interesting photos especially those involving lots of lights. If you wanna take these neon fantasy vaporwave or cyberpunk themed photos, more reasons why you need a prime lens!
So the bottom line is, while I now consider a prime lens a literal must have alongside your kit lens which comes with your camera, I highly recommend playing around with other lenses if you can. You might find something which suits the way you photograph your dolls by expanding what sort of lens you have.
Well, its the Lockon Stratos twin's ( Neil and Lyle ) birthday which is March 3rd, so I just had to take these photos and post em. Its already March 4th by the time I am making this post here on my tumblr, but hey its still March 3rd in some areas so why not?
model: Lyle
base doll: Modified DDH07 on a Dollfie Dream Boytype by Volks with Fiorista muscle torso
faceup+mod: shirayuri_dolls @ instagram
skintone: semiwhite
eyes: by pon2yuz6 @ twitter
Well, it was snowing in where I lived and it was the perfect opportunity to take Heero out for photos because of Frozen Teardrop haha. Snow + angel feathers is what literally makes Heero so I couldn't miss out on the opportunity for a snowy dolly pic! I actually like how this resembles one of Asagi Sakura's artworks of Heero for Frozen Teardrop so I am happy with how this turned out!
model: Heero
base doll: DDH07 on a Dollfie Dream Sister Boytype by Volks
faceup: aridede_faceup @ instagram
skintone: flesh
eyes: By yours, truly
outfit: Tanktop by yours truly, jeans and jacket from Volks
Well, it is Christmas and we only have less than week till 2026 is it. I hope you all are having an amazing Christmas! I am actually celebrating Christmas at the comforts of my own home this year, rather than going out away overseas like the last two years. So I am quite happy I can do this, and put out my main four in my collection for a group shoot like this.
Oh dear, his highness of Fanelia, Van is def struggling to reach for the star up there in order to put it in the correct position....While is dragon companion watches on
This is speaking from experience as a BJD photographer, but putting multiple dolls together for one photo is seriously a tough feat, and I can never get used to it for a billion reasons. From posing to making sure their gaze is in contact with the camera and alot of other factors, its fun but also extremely challenging!!
Anyways....Lets hope to more fun BJD adventures in the next year!
Lets hope the word self destruct is not in Heero's mind here....At least lil' Wing Zero EW is being helpful decorating.
Growing up, Christmas has always been my favorite holiday, because....Presents! I was definitely a spoiled kid I can confirm haha. And lots of food. Yes I love food alot, esp holiday roasts like roast beef, beef wellington, turkey, you name it.
Is Fionn decorating or is he just aura farming for the sake of it? We will never know.....
Lyle and his faithful little haro thinking what to put up on the tree.
Have a happy holiday everyone!
model: Van
base doll: DCH16 on a Dollfie Dream Sister Boytype by Volks
faceup: default M02
skintone: flesh
eyes: original resin eyes made by yours, truly
model: Heero
base doll: DDH07 on a Dollfie Dream Sister Boytype by Volks
faceup: aridede_faceup @ instagram
skintone: flesh
eyes: original resin eyes made by yours, truly
model: Fionn
base doll: DCH26 on a Dollfie Dream Boytype by Volks
faceup: default M02
skintone: semiwhite
eyes: original resin eyes made by yours, truly
model: Lyle
base doll: Modified DDH07 on a Dollfie Dream Boytype by Volks with Fiorista muscle torso
faceup+mod: shirayuri_dolls @ instagram
skintone: semiwhite
eyes: by pon2yuz6 @ twitter
Its....This time of the year because Endless Waltz is the universally agreed Gundam Christmas movie alongside the other one from UC era. Inspired by the drawing of Asagi Sakura's artwork of Heero for the Gundam Wing artbook. Honestly, he may be a human in canon, but it just makes so much sense why even in official media he is often depicted with angel wings. I guess it comes naturally he is an angel in many ways, and then there is Wing Zero which is an angel themed gundam too. Its a beautiful combination.
Fun fact, the above is exactly why I asked the faceup artist Aridede to give him angel feathers in his eyeline!
model: Heero
base doll: DDH07 on a Dollfie Dream Sister Boytype by Volks
faceup: aridede_faceup @ instagram
skintone: flesh
eyes: By yours, truly
outfit: By yours truly, wings from taobao
The crazy fact about this is....This isn't outdoors at some random street in Japan. This is literally indoors. What is even crazier is, this is actually part of the entrance of Zingaro Yokocho, an office for the art company Kaikai Kiki, which is owned by the renowned artist Murakami Takashi.
Yes, you read it right. This is the entrance of an office! You can find this beautiful artistic office entrance at Nakano Broadway.
model: Lyle
base doll: Modified DDH07 on a Dollfie Dream Boytype by Volks with Fiorista muscle torso
faceup+mod: shirayuri_dolls @ instagram
skintone: semiwhite
eyes: By yours, truly
outfit: Volks coat, turtleneck by yours truly, jeans from TTYA, shoes unknown
....Or more like A BJD Owner's Attempt to Describe What They are to an Ordinary Layman. I am not exactly the biggest expert with ball-jointed dolls, but being in the hobby for ten years should probably suffice for me to be in position to explain in this post for those who aren't familiar with what they are.
I tried my best to make this post concise to a complete newbie to the hobby, so I hope this post helps!
OK so What Exactly ARE BJDs?!
BJD, or ABJD, is an acronym for Ball-Jointed Dolls or Asian Ball-Jointed Dolls. As the name suggests, they are basically a modern spin on the articulated dolls created by the German artist Hans Bellmer in the 1930s which involves using balls as joints to make the dolls posable. As you can guess by the word Asian, ABJDs are more or less an modern spin on the 1930s creation done by Asian folks.
The Asian take on Hans Bellmer's creation all started with the Japanese hobby company Volks which originally sold garage kits and model kits of all sorts. Wanting to make a kit of sorts which is aimed towards the female audience, Volks created the Super Dollfie line of dolls. Highly customizable dolls made out of polyurethane resin where you can pick out their eyes, wig and paint their facial expression ( known as faceups ) to whatever the owner desires.
Just before we continue, I wanna add a small little trivia here. Sometimes BJDs get erroneously called Dollfie and get used as a generic blanket term for ABJDs. Dollfie is Volks' brand of playscale dolls which are highly articulated and highly customizable. Therefore, while they have similarities to BJDs with their high customization, they are not BJDs!
This then lead to inspiring other artists who followed suit to making their own take of modern ball-jointed dolls, leading to the birth of other prominent BJD makers such as Araki Gentaro's U-noa line ( which he collaborated with Volks to make the Unoss dolls! ) and Cerberus Project's Delf ( now Luts! Cerberus Project now makes FairyLand line of dolls ). All of the older BJD makers are anime & manga inspired aesthetically, as all of these artists including Volks originally produced anime figurines in the form of garage kits.
OK now that is enough touch upon the history of ABJDs, now lets talk about the common characteristics they have.
The Characteristics Which Make Them BJDs.
ABJDs have a few things which make them, well, ABJDs. They are made out of polyurethane resin, highly detailed to the point they are anatomically correct ( read they often come with genitals! Unless they are the asexual dolls which do not have any defining characteristics! ), are made articulate and posable through an elastic cord holding them together. Another key factor is most basic ABJDs are sold blank, as in they don't come with a faceup, set of eyes or wigs ( this depends on the company where they may offer a default faceup for an extra cost, and sometimes even include a random set of eyes and/or wig ), and you must do all the customization on your own to bring your doll to life. The exception to coming blank is the limited fullset dolls who come with a complete faceup, a pair of eyes, wig and an entire outfit set making them ready to pose, display and photograph to your heart's wish.
And the other big characteristic....Is that they can cost quite alot. Its an expensive hobby. Expect yourself to shell hundreds of dollars in this.
But wait, the dolls you mostly post and collect are vinyl though Neige?!
....This can have its whole entire post which I will write in the future, but yes. The dolls I usually collect which are Volks' Dollfie Dream line of dolls are not true BJDs as they are made out of vinyl and held together and made articulate with an inner frame within.
However, Dollfie Dream and other large vinyl dolls such as Obitsus and Smart Doll do share alot of similarities with true BJDs due to the fact their eyes and wig can be changed, and can have their faces repainted to suit the owner's desires. The similarity in customization makes them popular with many resin BJD owners, and they are often included in alot of BJD communities and events as a result.
I can go on and on about this topic but as I said this will be another post for another day.
Conclusion.
I am pretty sure there are important stuff I missed out and whatnot, so feel free to say your word if you wish! That being said, I hope this post was useful to anyone who has no idea about these dolls, and maybe even inspire you to consider getting one for yourself.
Is it Considered Rude to Photograph your BJDs in The Public?
In my eyes, I believe part of the fun of the BJD hobby ( or any doll really ) is taking them out, photographing the fun moments you have on your adventure. Dress them up for that particular moment, and take an awesome pic to memorialize so long as the photo exists. What seems to be ordinary, or even not noteworthy to the human eye might as well be the perfect backdrop in terms of doll scale. It is a little artistic scavenger hunt on its own to find a fun spot to photograph your dolls.
But, knowing how there are people uncomfortable with dolls, even moreso with the scale most BJDs are, is it considered inconsiderate to photograph your dolls in public?
Recently in the Japanese BJD side of X ( or we might as well just call it twitter for a billion fricks sake ), there is discussion abuzz in regards to Lockhart Castle, an actual real castle located in Gunma prefecture, Japan where they very recently banned photographing dolls regardless of size within their venue. The details of what exactly went down is very hazy at best, but according to a twitter account who contacted the staff, there seems to have been an incident involving an altercation between a visitor and a life-sized doll owner which ultimately lead to the ban of photographing dolls. This launched a discussion within the BJD community, where they debated if it is considered rude to take your dolls out in the public and photograph them. People have compared this incident to the Japanese BJD event IDoll's ban on bringing in dolls over 100cm tall, as well as Volks' ban on bringing in Dollfie Dreams to their museum/shop Tenshi no Sato. One thing I see in common with the incident as far as my own knowledge goes for these incidents is often included but not limited to trespassing, not following rules, and dressing their dolls in rather inappropriate attire which I heard is the main reason why even the BJD maker themselves banned Dollfie Dreams on the Tenshi no Sato premises.
One argues that you should only photograph your dolls outdoor in places away from other people. Others suggest to just follow common sense, follow rules don't trespass and if photos are banned don't take any photos. Another thing I have noticed with some of my BJD friends, especially with my male friends ( because apparently male doll owners are creep something something....Which is a pretty unfair label to make ) is that they feel self conscious about bringing out their doll as it can indeed draw attention, and I know too well from my own experience of photographing my dolls publicly, which I will touch upon a bit a little later.
My opinion in all this? The general consensus is, I don't care, albeit within reason. Rules are to be followed even if they sound asinine ( yes there are rules I don't agree with but I follow them because whatever ), and as long as we don't cause trouble to people surrounding us like taking photos of our dolls with tripods out and all in busy bustling crowded places and just following TPO, we should be fine.
The real source of the problem is, that one bad apple spoils the rest, just like with the situation with Lockhart Castle where people can no longer take photos of their dolls at this beautiful venue. Being able to take photos of our dolls in a public space is definitely a privilege, a privilege which can be taken away from us any time someone in our circles misbehaves.
We should remind ourselves that BJDs are a niche within the doll hobby. 1/3 and 1/4 scale dolls ( or even bigger ) are not sizes you would see everyday in the public. They can really garner attention to the everyday layman who has never seen them, whether we like it or not. The fact that BJDs tend to stand out more than the average sized playscale dolls most are more accustomed to means that we should take extra steps in making sure we don't cause trouble to our surroundings. If one bad apple spoils the niche, the rest of the niche can seriously be affected just like with this situation. BJDs do draw attention, and do we want a positive or negative image? We obviously know the answer, and we should do our best to act like part of society and put up the best representation of our niche community as much as we can.
So guys, lets behave, follow the rules, don't cause trouble to others, and let us maintain that privilege.
I am just gonna share this because it is so darn cute.
I went with my friend who also happens to be an oshi of Lyle the other day to a really cute cafe for oshikatsu. Not only they had colored sodas matching your oshi's color, but they even offered a free rental of the Angel Champagne bottles to make your oshi display even cuter for your duration of your stay in the cafe! I had a huge blast displaying me and my friends' Lyle goodies all up and making a massive Lockon swarm <3
model: Lyle
base doll: Modified DDH07 on a Dollfie Dream Boytype by Volks with Fiorista muscle torso
faceup+mod: shirayuri_dolls @ instagram
skintone: semiwhite
eyes: By yours, truly
outfit: Volks jacket, turtleneck by yours truly, jeans from TTYA, shoes unknown
Haven't posted in a while, but might as well make a post because I am absolutely stunned at how gorgeous Dollfie Dream Alphinaud is!!!
I received him on August 16th via direct pickup at my closest Volks store and got to dress him up and pose him and take pics of him instore! I will be posting the photos I taken at the photobooth at a different date.
That being said, please enjoy the photos I have where I am playing with his nouliths. They are so easy to use to recreate stuff ingame!
model: Alphinaud
base doll: Dollfie Dream Sister Boytype Alphinaud by Volks
skintone: flesh
eyes: Alphinaud default eyes
outfit: default outfit
My first post since someone wanted me to post these pics here for the Escaflowne community here on tumblr.
My photos of my custom fan Dollfie Dream of Van Fanel from the 1996 anime Vision of Escaflowne! I hope you guys like him.
model: Van
base doll: DCH16 on a Dollfie Dream Sister Boytype by Volks
skintone: tan
eyes: original resin eyes made by yours, truly
wig: base wig sewn by yours, truly. styled by Ren of Fuwat.
outfit: sewn by yours, truly.
