Sion's new body | Volks SD17 Hijikata Toshizou 1st box opening

If you saw my previous post detailing my sudden rush of feelings about Sion and ordering him a Volks SD17 body on Mandarake on Monday, you won't be surprised at what this is -

A box opening!

Yes, Mandarake is really fast, and it definitely satisfies the urge to buy and get (almost immediately) rewarded. I'm typing this on a Saturday, but I ordered and paid for the doll on Monday, and the package came on Thursday. 4 days from order to arrival. :0

Anyway, I say I got Sion a SD17 body, but what I actually bought was a full doll - Volks SD17 Hijikata Toshizou (1st). I'll probably put the head on the marketplace after I'm done sorting things out. Along with Sion's old body. But let's move on to the box opening first, shall we?

This is how the box came! The yellow paper is for the GST (goods and service tax) I had to pay because I didn't dare ask Mandarake to underdeclare. ;-; Oh well, it's better to be safe right?

I opened the box from the bottom so that's why this is actually the back of the Hijikata box.

Took it out. Mandarake's shipping and packing is always secure and I'm always really happy when I get their stuff (plus the quick turnover between order to arrival helps).

Without the bubblewrap. The box is actually really nice. A pearly white, which is much nicer than my SDGr Tae Lovely Dress box. And for something from 2010, this is in pretty good condition!

I forgot what exactly was inside and was pleasantly surprised to find a wig! There's also the certificate, and the costume (minus shoes, belt and pocketwatch but that was written in the sales page so I was prepared for it). The bag is a zippered cushioned case which is convenient. I never realised Volks did this type of cushion so early? I got similar cushions from Switch for the Attractive Body. Anyway.

Hello~

He's such a cute doll even though I didn't buy him for the head but just for the body.

His default faceup is quite cute actually. And in like 80-90% good condition? The eyes are still hot-glued in lol. At this point I realise he's pretty unyellowed as well and so out came some other dolls for comparison.

Volks NS 2010 (Hijikata 1st) and 2008 (Olivia 2nd). My Olivia's definitely alot more yellow.

More resin comparisons. Sion (Migidoll Miho) is actually the yellowest here... yes, even compared to Freddie (Volks Olivia)... And I know Elly (Volks Tae) has yellowed slightly because her leg parts are a different colour. But the new SD17 body matches her which means it's pretty unyellowed for its age.

See? Sion is actually yellower lol. Also yea I drew sideburns for him for his wig and it looks dumb like this oops.

Sion's twin, Hew, on the left, is actually less yellow than Sion and would probably match the Volks SD17 body better but I feel weird snatching his brother's head to use for him so... I'll probably leave it as it is. 

Hew (left) on the Little Monica Harmony body vs Sion (right) on the new Volks SD17 body! I love the new proportions Sion has. He used to have a similar body to his twin (type A while Hew uses type B) but eh, the upgrade is wayyyyy better. I don't know what I'll do about Hew but he's staying on his current body for now because I spent too much on Sion...

Ah, so I've mostly been singing praises about the body (super happy with this purchase), but there's some minor flaws, of course. You can't really see it here but his finger tips are kind of dirty/grey. And his forearm is super smooth almost like he's been handled there alot? Which is weird because his forearm is still about the same colour as the rest of his body so I'm not sure why/how that happened but it's not a super big deal. There's also some minor scratches and stuff from handling I guess, which is normal and doesn't bother me now.

And here's Sion :D So cute. I want to redo his faceup so he can be the best version of himself possible but I'll do it when I have more feeling/energy.

Sion feels better now, and damn do I like the Volks SD17 body. Not just because it looks nice and gives Sion better proportions, but also because of it's heft. Like it's heavy, and that's something I like in my dolls like they feel more solid? I feel like I like bodies that are more heavy, and consequently all the dolls high on my list of favourite at home are those with solid feeling bodies... lol.

Lastly, here's a quick height comparison of Alfie (Switch Waseon on Attractive 65 body), Sion (Migidoll Miho on Volks SD17 body) and Gabby (CP dreaming lishe boy on Delf type 3 body).

Sion. I'm having a lot of feels about him since putting him in his old wig yesterday and this might be all over the place but I'm just going to go ahead and write it all down first. Maybe I'll come back to add photos later because I'm typing on mobile.

It started from me watching alot of Peppertones music videos. They're a sort of k-indie band that's been around for 15 years and I only just got into them last week but it's pretty much being an obsessive spiral. The best (and worse) kind. Best because hey I feel something and god that's awesome when I've been irritated with work lately, but also worse because I get so engrossed in finding out everything I can about them that sleep becomes secondary. And that's something I don't want because I want to take care of my body so it'll take care of me you know. But sometimes my mind gets obsessed and things like this happen.

Anyway, it was looking at 2012 Jangwon (the bassist) and his sweepy longish emo hair that made me want to... do something. Either go out and get that haircut myself (bad idea, it's hard to maintain; been there, done that), rage/passion draw emo hair (im out of practice but i did try it later at night), or, hey, light bulb moment, didn't Sion used to have a similarly styled emo hair?? So I went to dig out his old wig, and glasses (because Jangwon wore thick glassed and damn am I obsessed with this dude at the moment) and dressed Sion up. I even took photos with my DSLR (mostly because my phone was charging and I couldn't resort to my usual quick phone camera shot) and then I edited the photo over dinner and then damn. It reminds me why I love this dude (Sion, not Jangwon lol) so much. Like over the years I've switched Sion over to a different wig because the emo one was annoying to style but this is giving me all the feels.

And then, night came and I was still listening to Peppertones while drawing Sion, and I had a NEED to find Sion a new body because I think part of the reason I don't play with him as much is because his current body doesn't cooperate with me. Also it's kind of too narrow now that my aesthetics have changed and just. HE NEEDS A NEW BODY, my mind screamed in my head at 11pm. I searched up doa and mandarake, had a long internal debate about whether to get a volks body for him, if sd17 or sdgou is better, and which I could afford because I only have enough to buy one. And then I decided to go to sleep because I wanted to be a responsible adult, sleep on time and not make rash purchases. But oh boy, that was not a well thought out idea because what happened was I spent an hour in bed thinking about this still and not sleeping and even in the middle of the night when I woke up I was Thinking about getting Sion a body. 

(^ the sketch of Sion playing bass here because ahem, of course right? Had to do it even though Sion doesn't play any instruments lol. Also my friend commented "thicc" which like, that's definitely my aesthetic so, it makes sense to buy him a volks body because those are thicc????)

So, come morning which is today, I got up, thought about it some more, and went on Mandarake to put the sd17 body into the cart and now I'm waiting to see if I got it? And I'm thinking also, damn, this is the doll that makes this hobby The Thing for me, you know? My dolly friends and I were talking about it some time back, and I couldn't name a doll that made me super into the hobby, but then I realise it's not cos I don't have this doll but cos I forgot. It's Sion, man.

The awkward thing about this is that Sion has a twin brother, Hew, and I have no idea what to do with the brother. Like I definitely love Sion more than Hew and also, hobby wise, do I need two mihos??????

I don't have an answer to that. All I know is that I'm reminded of why I love Sion and I'm just going to do what I can to get him right.

Also, another thing I've been thinking about is this. Whether I can have less dolls so I can do more for each of them. Like even sew for them, because I do enjoy that, it's just that I'm very slow at it, from making patterns to actual sewing but if I have less dolls it's probably more doable? Ah, I don't know. I ran through the crew yesterday in my head and there's very little potential dolls to cut down on...

I mean I know who are the dolls I'm less in love with but... does that mean they don't make the cut? Idk. For now imma just focus on Sion first.

FACEUP LOG 01: contrast / "instagram" faceup

I started a series called “Faceup Log” to share some of my observations and what I learnt during my own faceup journey. The first log is about contrast, or the “instagram” faceup vs “natural/in person/naked eye” faceup.

 TL;DR: I switched to a heavily blushing to make my faceups look better on camera ~

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I've been wanting to share some of my faceup learnings and I was deciding between a long blog post here, or via multiple youtube videos. I went with videos in the end because I feel like there is more opportunities for people to find it than if I put it on this blog, but if anyone thinks a blogpost would be better, do let me know?

Visiting Switch Platina showroom in Seoul | 2018.11.01

In my recent trip to Seoul, I had the chance to visit Switch's Platina Showroom, so I thought I'll do a post on my experience~

Before I start, I should mention that just before I went, a dolly friend of mine (dtpconcepts on instagram) had just visited Platina. Her photos from Platina are here. She was the one who shared that Platina was not just a showroom, which was what I thought, but also a shop. They had wigs, clothes, doll heads (blank), doll bodies, and also raffle dolls (if any, depending on when you visit). After she told me that, I was really tempted to go. I knew it'll cost my wallet (lol) but I have also always wanted a Waseon, but never managed to buy him online, so I thought, why not?

So after that, I decided to go visit Platina, and here's how it went~~


1. RSVP via email
First of all, Switch has instructions on how overseas guests can write in to visit Platina on their website here. The website actually says to "Please RSVP at least one month in advance. No visits are guaranteed otherwise". I was hesitant to email them at first because I only had two weeks to my trip in Seoul (it was a last minute trip to catch a concert), but I decided to try and see if they could accommodate me. Luckily, they accepted my request :D

Switch gave me a date and time for the visit, and also a rough list of items available on the day I'll visit. Of course, the items available is subject to change, and I didn't see Waseon on the list, but (spoiler alert) he was available when I went. So yeah. If you have anything specific in mind, you can always consider asking Switch. They were really helpful in replying any queries I had. :)


2. Getting to Platina
Switch has provided a map, which I followed. I went by subway, so I exited Pyeongchon Station, Exit 3.

This is the building you will see at the first traffic crossing, which is the "NEON" building in the map. The crossings are further apart than I thought from the map, but they should be the most helpful in judging where you are, especially if you can't read Korean at all. There might have been smaller crossings (without traffic lights) in between, but just look out for the two main traffic crossings with traffic lights, and you should be fine.

The second crossing:

This is what the "KIA MOTORS" building look like. The logo was quite high up so it took me a while to recognise the building, haha.

After that, the map from Switch seems to show that the building immediately next to "KIA MOTORS" should be the correct building, but it wasn't. I got confused climbing up a random building, but eventually I went back down and walked a little further, and viola, I finally see the correct building. You should be able to see the "PLATINA" signboard on the 2nd storey from the streets. This is what the building looks like:

There is a convenience store on the first storey. The elevator is behind the store (you don't have to go through the convenience store). There was a sign for Platina on the side of the elevator door when I went, showing that it's on the 2nd storey:

Press 2 and we're ready to go:

You'll see the Platina poster once you exit the lift.

I didn't take photos of the dolls in the front display because I went in fairly quickly. I can't remember if I knocked first, or if the staff opened the door first, but either way, I went in before I looked at the display at all lol. There were two staff there that day, one was a lady with chin-length hair and she spoke to me in English, while the other lady stayed at the back for most of the time I visited (I think she might not speak much English?). Anyway, they were really nice and welcomed me in.


3. Inside Platina
Once inside, the first thing they did was bring me to a table in the middle of the room to show me the catalogue. They let me sit down to look through the catalogue, and the lady who spoke English sat behind the counter, and told me I can just ask for her when I have any questions.

Anyway, I wanted to quickly see all the dolls on display first, so I did a quick round around the room. The showroom is not super big, about 5m by 5m or so, with a storage/staff room next to the counter. It's a good thing I quickly took some photos before I sat down to look through the catalogue, because I realised afterwards that I didn't really take any photos inside! OTL I was too excited about buying things from Switch lol. The lack of photos means I'm going to be just describing some things, but hopefully it's still useful or interesting, haha.

So, displays first. There were 4 when I went. The first one was some art students kind of setting:

This boy is so pretty. I forgot to ask what sculpt he is (or if I did ask, I forgot what sculpt he is already ah... haha).

The second display.

The third display:


The fourth one which actually has one more doll but I wanted a closer photo of the Mocha skinned Waseon. He's so gorgeous ahh~

A further shot of the room from left to right when I was seated. There's drawings from various artists hanging on the walls. I think one was done by laminarflow.

If you see behind, there are those tall display cases right next to the walls/windows. Those had the raffle dolls when dtpconcepts went (in Oct 2018), but they were already empty when I got there because the raffle event has ended. It was a pity I couldn't see those, but oh well.

This is the cashier/counter. You can see a bit of the corner of the table I was browsing the catalogue at on the bottom of this photo.

Some of the stuff at the cashier/counter area. They have things behind the counter, and also in the room that is to the side of the counter (I didn't take any photo of this haha). I think the room is where they store their bodies because the lady went into it when I asked to see the Switch Attractive 65 body. And for dtpconcepts, she mentioned that someone was inside the room painting when she went (probably their faceup artist?).

This was what was on my table after a while. The catalogue on the bottom, and a bunch of wigs and the Waseon head in the back. I did end up buying most of the stuff I asked to see... hahahaha

Okay, that's all the photos I have inside the shop. I'll be describing the rest in words~

So when I first got to the shop, I took a look at all the dolls on display. The 2 staff stayed behind the counter to let me roam (lol), and I was free to see all the dolls on display. There are signs saying do not touch, if I remember correctly. I only had my phone, so I took photos with those.

At the table, there were a few things:

1. The clear file with the main catalogue showing a photo of the product and the price in Korean won. There were clothes, wigs, shoes and other miscellaneous items. In my photo above, you can see the misc items in the catalogue.
2. A page showing the wigs available (style, size, colours). I suppose this is because the wig stock changes often, so they prepared a separate sheet to show the wigs they have.
3. A stack of photocards/postcard-sized photos of the doll heads that are available. 

I immediately started finding Waseon in the list of photos (lol). The staff left me alone to browse, and I could just wave/motion to get them if I have any questions. It was a very pleasant experience overall. Anyway, I asked for the price of the blank head, which she informed was only available in Normal skin. The head was 160,000won blank. I'm not sure if they might have other colours because I didn't think to ask (I just assumed they don't, since Mocha and white skin were limited edition).

Anyway, I also asked to see a bunch of wigs in various sizes. Switch wigs are available in 3 sizes, M, B and L. I can't remember the exact sizing but L is closest to 9inch, while B and M are slightly smaller, to fit the various sized Switch heads better, I think. Since there was more size choices than the usual 8-9inch I was expecting, I decided to ask which size they thought would be better for my incoming Kanadoll Adrian. They were very helpful and searched up the doll for me to see the head size (which just wrote 8-9inch lol). Although the lady spoke English, I found it better to speak simple English to avoid confusion., and to show any photos for clarification. I ended up showing a photo of Kanadoll to help her understand what I was asking, and we realised Kanadoll didn't have a more specific head size so I just bought some L wigs thinking I can have someone else in my crew wear it if it didn't fit. I also picked up some wigs for Waseon, who wears M sized wigs.

For clothing, I didn't have much cash budgeted for spending after the head and wigs, so I just bought a Soave (turtleneck) in an olive green colour. They have more colours than on the Switch website, but I think you can also find these colours on Faythz (according to another dolly friend), so there's that. Regardless, Platina has items that were out of stock on the online Switch website, so I was super tempted to buy alot of things. The prices are also slightly lower than the English Switch website. For example, the wigs were 27,000won in Platina while they sell for 30USD on the website.

But alas, my wallet has a limit, so I just bought a Waseon head (blank), 5 wigs, and a Soave top. They're the items shown in the top row. The striped top in the bottom row was a gift, and the silver package had my ticket for visiting Platina and some photos of their dolls.

The ticket for my visit:

For all the items above, I paid in cash. I also bought a Switch Attractive 65 body, which I paid with a debit card. In the first RSVP email, Switch did mention that they accept credit card, but may not be able to accept all cards. Mine was a VISA and it worked, so there's that, if anyone is interested in getting things by card. The staff actually brought out both the old body and the Attractive body when I asked what the differences in the bodies were, because I couldn't tell from the photos on the website. Apparently the hands and feet are bigger, and there are slight updates to the detailing of the body overall, the back being the most obvious one. It's not so easy to tell unless you have both bodies side by side!

They left the bodies for me to look at, and unlike Volks (when I visited Volks Korea in 2014), they didn't need me to wear gloves or anything to handle the body. Side note, Volks Korea has either moved, or the shop is no longer there... because I went to find it on this trip but there was another shop in its location :(

Anyway, Switch let me handle the 2 bodies but I didn't move the dolls too much because I was worried my hands were leaving prints (I am a bit paranoid when it's not my own dolls xD). I ended up getting the new body (aka the Attractive body), and asked if they could ship it back by EMS. They said it's okay, and I paid for the body and shipping (555,000won total). I forgot the exact cost of each, but I think the body was 525,000won? Anyway, it's cheaper than the online price ahhh. The body has arrived on the day I'm typing this (9 Nov 2018), and overall it's been a very pleasant and lovely experience going to Platina. They were super helpful and nice, both in person and on email, and I really had fun~

Back to the visit, in total I spent about 1.5-2 hours there. I brought the head, wigs and clothes home with my luggage, and only the body was shipped via EMS.

If anyone is going to Korea and is considering visiting Switch, I hope this post has been informative! Or at least entertaining in some way, haha. I recommend visiting if you like Switch dolls and have time when you go to Seoul, but do budget for the amount you'll spend because it's super tempting to just buy everything when you're inside.... ahhhh. Well, it's money spent without regrets, so I really don't mind.

Anyway, the next part would be after visiting Platina, aka the box opening photos of my loot from Korea, which I'll do as a separate blog post :) I'll have a link here when it's up~

Thank you for reading~ :)

In the middle of cutting down my collection and basically, I'm constantly stuck in indecision at who to sell.

I've sold Tiyana, while Nat and Jack are both for sale on DoA at the moment. I'm staring at the rest who are on the potential cut list - Kristolf, Caillen, Zeke, Freddie - and wondering if I am willing to part with them.

The thing is. I love parts of the doll, like Caillen I love his face, I love how his nose is roundish (modded) and his smile but his body? I'm not such a fan. It looks good enough but eh. I think I just prefer shorter dolls (~60-65cm) while Caillen's 68cm Popodoll body is a bit too much legs for me to play comfortably. Or maybe it's because he's loose so he keeps flopping. I'm not sure. But I am definitely more comfortable with dolls that are under 65cm tall.

Well. I don't know. I really really want to thin down my collection so I can focus my limited amount of time on the rest I have left but it's so hard to cut down, like choose who to sell. And let's not even start on all the clothes and wigs etc. that I should sort out to list for sale :/

Man. I'm lazy.

2nd doll to potentially faceup - Joe. It's on a whim, I think, but I'm searching up images right now. The usual bunch, search for mood images, makeup images/tutorials, search for bjd faceups in general (switch's photos have been particularly high on the list also because Ching loves switch faceups and we talk about faceups so you know, I get influenced), search for the sculpt name. The funny thing is now, when I type esthy peroth into google, I see some of my own photos as results and -

1) I'm kind of happy and it's kind of cute because I remember when I was a newbie I would search up my first doll (CP lishe aka Gabby), type in 'luts lishe boy' and see if any of my photos would turn up. They didn't back then, but it's also good because looking back now, my photos then were kind of terrible.

2) But also, when my purpose of searching up sculpt name is to look for potential reference images for faceups, it kind of defeats the purpose to see my own photos lol.

Anyway, the urge to faceup Joe is kind of stronger than my urge to faceup Nat even though Nat is the one that probably needs a faceup more (but then again, Joe's wearing my 2? 3? years old faceup so who's saying?) so I'm going to go unbox him from when I packed him to move, and maybe I'll actually just remove his faceup first even though my doll stuff haven't been all unpacked. It's just one of those rare moods, you know.

I just realise this is the first post of 2017, which means I've not posted here for ages. Oops. Anyway, I moved, and I haven't unpacked all my dolls, but there's 7 of the SDs sitting around and most of the small ones except Pebbles and Foggy (my Blythe) are out, so that's still better than nothing. I took Nat out today, remembering that his faceup needs to be redone, and it kind of pains me because the cats10 faceup is still nice although there are yellow spots on it. Sigh. But well, I'm going to be searching up ideas on how I want to redo his faceup, so hopefully that will get me back on track in doing something doll-related. I've not really been touching my dolls lately.

I'm gearing towards something with nicely blushed cheeks. Something a little more oomph than the rest of my dolls would be fun. Most of these would be makeup tutorials, because there's some nice ideas there. Maybe if I come across nice reference of faceup ideas I'll add links at the bottom.







The question now is also, besides the blushed cheeks, if there's a way to make the eyes more glittery. There's pearlescent powder, of course, but I'm wondering if that might be too subtle (also the containers sold are in pretty large quantities). Or maybe I can stick nail art type of glitter? If I can find anything small? Or maybe even those for makeup though that might be more expensive.