This is a few poses I was able to get my recast minifee to do after restringing. I've been able to get my legits to do most of these too. These are some of the better poses, more sure to follow. Please pardon the crappy lighting as it was very late at night.
All of these poses are unsupported, and the doll is not sueded or wired (but will be soon). This doll doing the poses is a recast. I left hands and head off because they would most likely break or crack if she fell, and it was easier to play with this way.
The purpose of this post is to show some of the wide range of poses minifee are capable of as well as to demonstrate that recasts pose just as well as legitimate minifee.
The trick to getting minifees, and any doll for that matter, is to find their center of gravity. Then, you just start moving little pieces a little bit at a time until you get everything in the pose you want it. Keep hands nearby to catch them in case of a fall!
The cast:
Recast Minifee Body, 100% Legitimate VE Chloe boy, Recast Littlefee Luna
Let's begin!
Friday, November 9, 2012
Restringing A Minifee
Okay, next in my line of restringing tutorials is the minifee tutorial.
Posing pictures can be found here.
Note:
If you are restringing a recast, please be a bit gentle, especially with the thinner areas near the ankles and whatnot.
Materials:
Standard restringing tools, like new elastic, calipers, a chopstick or pencil, a ribbon or cord, etc. An extra pair of hands will always make the job easier!
Posing pictures can be found here.
Note:
If you are restringing a recast, please be a bit gentle, especially with the thinner areas near the ankles and whatnot.
Materials:
Standard restringing tools, like new elastic, calipers, a chopstick or pencil, a ribbon or cord, etc. An extra pair of hands will always make the job easier!
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Recast Minifee vs Legitimate Mnf
It seemed like there were too many pictures already in this post, so I made a follow-up post with some comparison pics of recast vs legitimate minifees. The dolls are a white-skinned recast Rheia, large bust cutie legs, and a normal-skinned legitimate Chloe, large bust cutie legs.
Standing, Front View
Standing, Front View
Spotting a Recast: Fairyland Edition *updated*
I take serious issue with people selling recasts as legitimate dolls. Here are some things to look out for:
1. Resin quality: Recast resin is usually pretty good quality, and there are rarely seam lines if you get them from the right recasters. You need to watch out for extra thin areas, particularly around the eye wells and the hands where magnets often show through. Both recast mnfs I handled had small pinholes in the elbow. Thinner resin may break if you string too tight or are not careful. Most thin areas can be reinforced with epoxy.
2. Weight: My legitimate mnfs are heftier than the recasts, so if the doll feels unusually light you may want to investigate more.
3. Resin Dust: Recasts often have tons of resin dust built up inside. My legits had a little bit occasionally, but with my recasts it was like snow. Recasts will often need to be washed and dried thoroughly to remove this dust.
4. String Channels: Look at the inside of the doll or ask for pictures if possible. Recasts generally have uneven channels, bubbles in the resin, and other small flaws inside. A legitimate doll will have smoother channels.
5. Flashing: Legitimate dolls can sometimes have flashing, but it is usually worse in recasts. For example, a pukifee Pongpong had flashing in his mouth that needed to be removed. Flashing can also occur in eye sockets, between fingers and toes, and inside string channels.
6. Extra Parts Fit: Legitimate parts like hands, feet, face plates, etc will sometimes fit on recasts. In my experience, the legitimate parts were a bit too big for the recast. My littlefee legit face plate did fit on the recast head back, but the color match was off. Sometimes the color will match really well, and it will be hard to tell.
7. Size: Recasts are smaller than legits by virtue of the way they are made. Depending on the generation of the recast, the size difference will be more or less noticeable. A mold is made of a legit doll; dolls cast from this mold will be smaller than the legit doll used to make the mold by virtue of shrinkage. This is a first generation mold. When a mold is made of a recast, the resulting doll is even smaller.
This size difference is most noticeable when the doll stands next to a legitimate doll. The dolls are often shorter and parts are overall smaller.
8. Joint Flush: Often with recasts the joints are not completely flush. This usually isn't the case with recast FL bodies, but if you look at the headcaps you can often see where they don't quite match up. This is isn't a fool-proof way to identify recasts though, as even legitimate dolls can have this problem.
9. Certificates UPDATE: As of January 2014, FL is now sending certificates of authenticity with their dolls (finally, and a good choice on their part imo).
1. Resin quality: Recast resin is usually pretty good quality, and there are rarely seam lines if you get them from the right recasters. You need to watch out for extra thin areas, particularly around the eye wells and the hands where magnets often show through. Both recast mnfs I handled had small pinholes in the elbow. Thinner resin may break if you string too tight or are not careful. Most thin areas can be reinforced with epoxy.
2. Weight: My legitimate mnfs are heftier than the recasts, so if the doll feels unusually light you may want to investigate more.
3. Resin Dust: Recasts often have tons of resin dust built up inside. My legits had a little bit occasionally, but with my recasts it was like snow. Recasts will often need to be washed and dried thoroughly to remove this dust.
4. String Channels: Look at the inside of the doll or ask for pictures if possible. Recasts generally have uneven channels, bubbles in the resin, and other small flaws inside. A legitimate doll will have smoother channels.
5. Flashing: Legitimate dolls can sometimes have flashing, but it is usually worse in recasts. For example, a pukifee Pongpong had flashing in his mouth that needed to be removed. Flashing can also occur in eye sockets, between fingers and toes, and inside string channels.
6. Extra Parts Fit: Legitimate parts like hands, feet, face plates, etc will sometimes fit on recasts. In my experience, the legitimate parts were a bit too big for the recast. My littlefee legit face plate did fit on the recast head back, but the color match was off. Sometimes the color will match really well, and it will be hard to tell.
7. Size: Recasts are smaller than legits by virtue of the way they are made. Depending on the generation of the recast, the size difference will be more or less noticeable. A mold is made of a legit doll; dolls cast from this mold will be smaller than the legit doll used to make the mold by virtue of shrinkage. This is a first generation mold. When a mold is made of a recast, the resulting doll is even smaller.
This size difference is most noticeable when the doll stands next to a legitimate doll. The dolls are often shorter and parts are overall smaller.
8. Joint Flush: Often with recasts the joints are not completely flush. This usually isn't the case with recast FL bodies, but if you look at the headcaps you can often see where they don't quite match up. This is isn't a fool-proof way to identify recasts though, as even legitimate dolls can have this problem.
9. Certificates UPDATE: As of January 2014, FL is now sending certificates of authenticity with their dolls (finally, and a good choice on their part imo).
- Any doll produced before this will NOT have a certificate.
- While I have not yet seen any fake FL certificates, this does not mean there won't be in the future. I'll update if I come across this and see pictures.
A Mostly Text BJD Dyeing Tutorial
This is a mostly text tutorial for how I dyed a recast Pipos Cheshire cat, named Grimalkin, or Big Brother Grim. He began white-skinned:
Littlefee Poses!
Fairyland's engineering is second to none, and their dolls are wonderful posers. I can confirm that the recasts pose just as well the legit versions. The model here is Odelia, a recast littlefee Luna. I used my restringing tutorial located here to fix her up and get her posing right.
These poses are completely unsupported, and there is only a bit of sueding at her neck and lower torso. I need to suede her arms and stuff, but for now this is pretty awesome. There are a few more on my flikr that never want to show up, no matter how many times I post them onto a forum or blog. >.<
We'll start with the least impressive and move on to the most.
Suwarico Sitting
Casual
(she can grab her knees, but I forgot to photograph this.)
Restringing a Recast Littlefee (should also be compatible with legit littlefee)
Originally posted on Castaways here: http://castawaydolls.com//index.php?topic=2596.0
(Pictures have been removed from my Flickr for various reasons and hosted here, so Castaways thread may die.)
[Please excuse my tacky crumbling nail polish. I never seem to take photos when I have nice nail polish. I'm just classy like that. T_T]
Alright, so I'll be up front and say that this is only the second time I've strung a littlefee, and I'm not very good at restringing in general. I spent several hours pouring over other forums and any online pictures I could find of how littlefee are actually strung so I could fix my girl. So! There may be a few errors in here, and please feel free to correct them.
Note: Before you can restring a recast littlefee with the clicky pieces (and thus the way Fairyland does it), you will need to open up the spot for them in the pelvis. I was able to do this with an exacto knife (but you can also probably poke it through with a pencil or even a toothpick). Please keep an eye on the size of the opening you are making, and rest your clicky piece there often to make sure they aren't opened too big (mine are a tad too big).
(Pictures have been removed from my Flickr for various reasons and hosted here, so Castaways thread may die.)
[Please excuse my tacky crumbling nail polish. I never seem to take photos when I have nice nail polish. I'm just classy like that. T_T]
Alright, so I'll be up front and say that this is only the second time I've strung a littlefee, and I'm not very good at restringing in general. I spent several hours pouring over other forums and any online pictures I could find of how littlefee are actually strung so I could fix my girl. So! There may be a few errors in here, and please feel free to correct them.
Note: Before you can restring a recast littlefee with the clicky pieces (and thus the way Fairyland does it), you will need to open up the spot for them in the pelvis. I was able to do this with an exacto knife (but you can also probably poke it through with a pencil or even a toothpick). Please keep an eye on the size of the opening you are making, and rest your clicky piece there often to make sure they aren't opened too big (mine are a tad too big).
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