The OHC Rebody Project feat. my lost Volks package

Lo and behold, the package I thought was lost arrived today! Apparently a whole bag of mail had gone missing over the weekend, so at least it wasn't personal. I did have to pay VAT though, so I suspect they've started being more careful when checking the smaller/lower value packages. Oh well, at least I can finally show you what I bought and what I did with it.

Stuff from Volks

Doll talk...

Never mind me, just talking about doll stuff... (and dumping some photos).

Fall is here, and that means it's time to dress your dolls in warm clothes and arrange them in a cosy, fall-like diorama! I'm lazy, so I just put mine (or as many as can fit) in the IKEA Huset couch and pretend it's facing a fireplace.

In which case construction paper would be a really bad choice of flooring.

The little doll on the right is Evi Love, little sister (or something?) of Steffi Love. I got her from a friend - unlike Steffi she has a great facemold, perfect for a kid doll. There's a new version now that's more bland, but I still look for them in thrift stores to mug for clothes and shoes. The clothes are usually very simple and kind of ugly - I copied the pattern of one dress and made the one she's wearing here. I tend to get stuck on details when I sew doll clothes, so to combat that I try to make something really quick and simple once in a while.

Lottie and Evi

If you squint they almost look like school uniforms - fitting, since it's fall and all!

Also, I decided to give the Super Model Bel body back to DeeDee since it fits her much better than OHC Briana Joy. I'll have to come up with something else for her.

Also, I need to buy a bigger couch.

DeeDee looks a bit cold in that summer dress, but at least she got Momoko's heavy boots.

Speaking of Only Hearts Club - I just discovered that those pink tights from the party dress fashion pack fits my Volks mini guy perfectly!

Left: Volks mini with OHC tights, Right: OHC doll

I forgot to take pic, but the dress fits him really well too. Kind of typical, considering this is my only boy doll and the one doll I thought I'd dress in something other than pink dresses for a change. Oh well, it's good news since I'm planning to rebody the OHC doll next to him on a Volks EB-mini A (if I can ever get my hands on one - they seem to be perpetually out of stock) so it's nice to know some OHC clothes will fit. Most of them are a pretty loose fit on the original body and way too big for the Volks kid. 

Oh, and I finally had a go at Disney Store Rapunzel's hair:

Yes, this is the "after".

Fabric softener, conditioner, hot water... I did manage to get it mostly untangled, but large sections are damaged beyond repair, so I'm not sure recycling it for rerooting would be worth the effort. I also had a closer look at the hip joints and it seem like switching out the legs would be harder than I thought, so maybe I'll just give her a haircut and release her into the wild again. Or I could keep her around as the resident Cousin It.

Steffi stuff!

All my loot from the big Steffi Love sale arrived and I've been meaning to write about it, but I want to take some photos first and I keep forgetting to charge the phone before it gets too dark, so that'll have to wait. Just a few quick observations:

• The articulated Steffi is very pink - or rather, normal Steffi pink. It might have worked with the head I had in mind, except:
• this body still has the old Steffi type of neck: a round knob with a molded plate on top. I'm not sure it can be modified to take a Barbie head (in contrast, Super Model has new plate-and-anchor construction which is more or less identical to Mattel's). Articulated Steffi will remain her own doll for now, until I decide whether I need her limbs for someone else.
• Poseability is basically like Fashionista but with a Liv-style waist instead. Plus for turning, minus for the usual visual weirdness.
• Elbow joint folds further than Fashionista. Not quite as much as Liv, but can at least attempt to cross arms over chest. Wrists don't bend as far, but that could easily be fixed.
• For some reason can't hold her arms straight out to the sides. It's either slightly up or slightly down. Odd.
• The clothes and shoes (3 pairs, PINK.) aren't much to write home about, except the pants which are simple but nice.
•  Ugly feet. The Super Star body wins that one. Actually, I can't think of any doll I own that has uglier feet than this body. 

Also I finally got the Scary Couple set, since it was half price, which is about what I feel they're worth. The only arrived today so I haven't had a chance to give them a thorough look yet - but if you're getting them, beware: they are both wearing dark clothing and both of mine had stains. The Kevin fortunately only had a couple light ones, but the Steffi had a few bad ones on her bendy gumby arms.

The good news is that her head seems to match Volks skintone quite well! I was going to rebody her anyway and was thinking of an Obitsu, but the normal/fleshtone is too pink and the neck is too narrow to look good. There's still the fact that her head has lots of space for the round knob, so the Volks neck connector doesn't quite reach the lip inside the head. I'll have to improvise a bigger adaptor, but that shouldn't be impossible.

A Simple Dress for a Busty Lady (Volks EB-Beauty type E)

Finally got my first Volks body. Since the old EB model was discontinued and the international site was constantly out of stock on the EB-Beauty model, I was starting to worry I'd never get a hold of one. But, here she is! This is EB-Beauty Type E, the one with the rather large "tracts of land". They just didn't have Barbies like this when I was a kid! :D 

The body came with a head, but it's very anime-looking and not really my taste. It has the pointiest nose I've ever seen. Instead I used a head from a thrift-store find I was planning to rebody. This is Claire - and yes, the eyeprint is more than a bit wonky. She was cheap and I liked her anyway, particularly for the hair color, but she's definitely getting a new face as soon as possible. (She's... a secret agent who is having a bit of a silicone mask failure. Yes, that's it.)

Claire and her eyes

 The skin tones don't quite match: the body is a bit more neutral beige, almost grey in comparison. Different parts that are made of different types of plastic have slightly different shades - and of course the vinyl bust part has to be the worst match for the head... Still, I think an Obitsu would be an even worse match. As always it depends largely on the lighting.

  

Due to her generous cup-size no barbie clothes fit her, so I had to make her a dress. I'm trying to be less of a perfectionist and actually get stuff done instead of getting hung up on details, so the hems are simple "up-and-down stitch" and nothing is particularly neat and/or tidy. Took about 2 hours or possibly a bit more, divided on two nights. As usual I think "I'll make a better version later" but I'm not sure that will happen. This will have to do for now.

Behold my glorious photo studio: an old pillowcase in front of the window!

  

I actually had two pairs of shoes that fit her, more or less: a random pair of gold colored ones that are made of some sort of plastic that smells really bad and which I'd rather not use, and this pair of repro Francie shoes. They're a bit too long and too narrow, and of course it's the wrong shade of blue, but it's better than nothing.

  

The dress sags a bit in the back. Maybe two snaps would have made it fit better, but the waistline is so high that there wasn't room for more than one.

 

 

Looks a bit weird when she bends over.

 

The dress in all its glory

Closeup of the messy insides of the dress. The straps (or whatever you would call it) took a lot of tweaking to get the right shape, so there are lots of extra stitches all over the place.