Ayumi the Body Snatcher!
Jul 26th, 2008 by corset_kitten
Ok, maybe nothing as dramatic as The Invasion of the Body Snatchers… but still….
I’ve had Fashion Royalty “Miracle Child Ayumi” for a while.
She is without a doubt one of my all-time favorite face molds but due to the crappy Fashion Royalty body she comes with I haven’t done much with her. In fact, to date I have a developed background but that’s about it. I find her a character that I want to use–but– It’s hard to get all excited and jazzed up thinking of stories & plotlines to put her into when I know that her ability to pose (or gods forbid stand) is just above zero. I really like her. She’s nifty (and probably in line for a repaint in the future)
Which means either I have to:
1) accept the fact and find creative ways to shoot her in scenes that minimize the lack of posability (which might not sound like a lot of work except for the fact that I am spoiled and really hate fiddling around with figures that won’t stand on their own. (this is especially so since these days my work room is on a serious slope due to the house’s subsidence into the ground)
OR
2) I can find a replacement body
I’ve been looking for more than a year now, trying to find something I could use and be happy with. I haven’t had a lot of luck. Finding a matching skin-tone body has been a complete wash. There was a possibility that the skin tone might be a match–but frankly, considering the POS that the otaku is, you couldn’t pay me to use one. Not to mention the posability is actually not that much better than the FR body!!!
What can I do?
Only one option I can think of–Find a body and repaint it to be a closer match to the skintone. So with that in mind I looked at what I have on hand that might be usable. I came up with a Volks Dollfie excellent base body & a cy girl 2.0 body.
- They’re both very poseable and are a definite improvement.
- Both bodies would require sanding and probably either chalking & sealing or spraying to be a better match. I’m leaning towards using the Midori 2.0 body as is one of the palest Cy girl bodies and is closest to Ayumi’s skintone.
This is what she looks like on either body:
So… The question now is… Am I going to be able to get the skin tone close enough? I’m seriously leaning toward the CY 2.o since I think it is just a better fit. Plus the girl looks good with some meat on her bones!
Comments??
Hey Erica,
Once you sand down the Midori 2.0, it will look paler, which should make it blend more with her skintone. Also as you mentioned, with the chalking, have you considered after you have sanded the body, rubbing some white or a pale pink chalk onto it… again, in theory (never done it myself) that might bring her skintone up more to match, just a thought.
VolksUSA shows a EB body in a light skin that might be a better skin-tone match: http://www.volksusa.com/2227eb0002.html
I agree with the choice, the head looks a bit like it suffers from Mattel’s disease on the EB.
Just out of curiousity (because I fiddle around with my Ayumi, but actually not doing much with her): how does the head fit on the neckpin? I never took off a FR head… Would one need to modify the neckpin?
I think the CY Girl body is a real good choice.
Will: Yea-once I sand the body I can see what it’s like. The surprise with some of the bodies so far is that when I’ve sanded them they’ve turned either lighter or pinker depending on the body. Weirdness!
I guess Takara has variation in their plastic releases too. If she’s still too bright I’ll chalk her and then try to seal her. I’ve put in an order at HLJ for some MSC so we’ll see how that goes.
Batwrangler: Thanks for the thought.
Unfortunately the volks pale skin tones tend to be more yellow than white or blue-white. I saw your dollfies in flickr– have you got plans for them?
Ursula: Heh hehe *the mattel disease!* LMAO*
I was thinking she looked sort-of, oddly, well anorexic on the dollfie. Although I just swapped Paint it black Erin onto a volks J body and it looks a lot better. As for attaching Ayumi’s head to the cy body it is pretty easy because the neck hole at least is big enough. The bad side is the rebate inside the head isn’t very deep so it doesn’t like to just sit on it. I took a piece of soft plastic off my brush and used it to extend the neck post and it stays on well enough. Let me know if you want me to and I’ll snap a couple of pictures.
Mick: I think I agree
I plan to make dioramas and clothes for them. I put the undressed photos on flickr because I was frustrated by not being able to find much in the way of either comparisons between brands, or good pictures showing the jointing of individual dolls.
Well the more diorama out there the better in my opinion~
I’m not sure if it would help you at all, but this is one of the best websites out there with info on the 1:6 volks dollfies:Volks Perfect File
It won’t give a comparison between doll types, but it does give some pretty clear pictures of the bodies and their jointing. It also doucments old type bodies incase you run across them second-hand.