I did pull a muscle in my upper left arm which has been hurting for the past three days but it's the price I'm happy to pay for a more solid posing body.
My biggest problem was the two Yo-SD girls. They liked to do the splits when I tried to stand them and my Bimong Chuu girl (Rune) couldn't even sit up without falling backwards unless propped up by something.
So I bought some thicker string for them both and went to work. My Bluefairy girl (Yadirah) was a lot of fun to restring and glue suede. I love how she poses now although she's still a bit fiddly to stand on her own without some patient tweaking but once I get that sweet spot, she's perfect. I'm also in the process of tweaking their styling (I am endlessly tweaking my dolls!)
Rune on the other hand ... she has a one piece body and whilst aesthetically, it's lovely, to restring it's a nightmare because unlike the two part or even three part bodies, you cannot see where the string is so you have to stick a wire up through one of the holes (the body ends not in one big hole but two holes, one for each leg) grab the ribbon tied to the string and then try to pull it down through the body without the wire losing grip on the ribbon (so the string can come through too). It took several tries for each hole. Add in a drop of frustration and you bet I won't be restringing this body anytime soon again. I like one piece bodies but after this little adventure I refuse to get them again.
But it all ended well and the sueding and new strings really helped both girls.
They are no longer attempting to do the splits so that's a good sign. Now I just need to do some maintenance on the Soom body and the Dollshe body and they will be perfect. I hope. I have never restrung a Dollshe before so that will be an experience.
Wish me luck!
Now for some extra snaps ...
Nameless girl and her pet cat.
Kitana hunting through the wild fields.
Hope everyone has a good week!
Good luck with the Soom and the Dollshe, and I hope your arm doesn't hurt anymore! I love the dress with the bees, it's adorable. The photo of Kitana is awesome! Have a good week as well :-).
ReplyDeleteThe dress with the bees is pretty cute. It was made by a friend of mine. She's a very good seamstress and you can't even tell she sews things by hand! Her stitches are always so perfect.
DeleteHave a good week. I am working all week so I won't get as much doll time again.
Restringing sounds like a horror to me. ;) But I will have to learn it some day.
ReplyDeleteAnd I was wondering if this glue thing really helps. Isn't a good resting enough to make the doll pose better? Can the glue damage the resin? Well, there are a lot of things I have to learn about bjd.
Those little girls look so cute! :) I hope your muscle pain is gone.
I haven't yet restrung any of my Fairyland dolls. To be honest, I am not sure if I am game. I have seen them restrung and it's mostly that neck piece that is a nightmare.
DeleteI use a low temp glue gun. You can get high temp or low temp but I use a low temp one as that's the one I've read the most about when it comes to hot glue sueding. I haven't seen any damage to the resin at all and I've had to remove a few glue sueding to redo it. I fix most dolls using this method. Of course glue sueding will eventually have to be redone as the resin wears away at it and makes it smooth. Which is why I've found my dolls stop posing so well because a smooth piece of resin is rubbing against another smooth piece and there's no friction there to enable them to hold a pose.
I have tried to go up in string thickness (as long as it fits through the holes)and leave it at that but I've found whilst it helps a little, it still doesn't always fix the problems of knees buckling, or dolls bending randomly forward and face planting or falling backwards.
Iplehouse are beautiful dolls but having once owned a JID and I've said this before and I'll say it again, it's absolute crap at posing in anything other than standing and even then, the ankle joints used to be a bit weak. My JID never ever sat upright without having to lean on something. I personally think it was the way they were strung. It was not the traditional method. The string went from a resin hook inside the chest right up to the head. The bottom half was strung separately. I still think this takes away from stability and won't buy dolls that use this method no matter how beautiful. Even glue sueding my JID girl did nothing. Changing to thick strings, nothing. I had her maybe 2-3 months and sold her off pretty quickly. She just annoyed me to no end.
So I guess there are some cases where glue sueding doesn't help after all but for the most part, all the dolls I have used this method have worked a lot better. I would suggest probably not trying on your favourite doll for your first time.
It's a shame about the whole photobucket fiasco as there was a fantastic tutorial on DOA about glue sueding but I doubt it would still be available now. Plus the older websites and blogs when I first started in the hobby have long gone and they were the ones that had some of the really good tutorials for a lot of doll maintenance. It's a shame a lot of those older collectors have gone now.
Thank you for explaining the whole thing to me. :) Well, I don't think I could experiment on my DZ body. On the other hand, it's strung good enough even though sometimes it's not so easy to make my boy pose the way I want. When I gave him jointed hands the strings in his arms became a bit too tight but I hope it gets back to normal as the time passes.
DeleteI often hurt my fingers when working on the stringing. The string can just when ever it feels like, behave like a slingshot. Not fun. I hope that your arm feels better now! :)
ReplyDeleteBeautiful photos, like the one of Kitana!
Have a great new week ahead!
Me too, my fingers always get caught somehow. My arms does feel much better now although it'll feel a bit dead again after next week when I get my flu shot!
DeleteI really need to take more photos of my figures. Maybe I should do a figure blog just of photos to motivate me!
Fist of Katana looks amazing in the field <3
ReplyDeleteI should also glue suede one or two dolls, but I have no glue how *pun intended* ;)
Maybe you could show me/us how?
I can do a tutorial on glue sueding if you like. I still need to do my Soom boy and my Dollshe boy so I will take photos as I go along. It's the easiest method to glue sued I've found and I think it works a treat. You just need to make sure the glue is spread thin enough so the joints fit back together properly but still gives enough friction to aid in posing.
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