Dollmore 12'' Basic Gem BJD-ish ABS body (a review, kind of)

Well, I was going to post about a bunch of interesting thrift store stuff from the last two weeks or so, but then my Dollmore package arrived and sort of took precendence. This is the first strung doll I own that I haven't made myself, and one that doesn't seem to be very popular - or at least not widely blogged about in any language I read, so I thought I might as well give her a proper introduction.


So: Dollmore Neo Gem 12'' ABS fashion doll, strung and ball-jointed but ...doesn't qualify as a proper BJD according to hobby purists, apparently? Actually, I'm not even going into that discussion. For the purpose of this blog and my collection, this is a BJD - although not a very good one, that much I'll admit. We'll get there in a minute.

Dollmore free shipping February

Not sure if anyone is interested, but I just found out completely unexpectedly that Dollmore are offering free shipping this month. As you may know, ABJDs aren't my cup of tea - BUT this company also makes a relatively affordable 12'' doll in ABS plastic which has more fashion doll-like properties, except ball-jointed, and which has been on my imaginary wish list for the last year or so. I figure at some point I should probably own a proper ball-jointed doll, to see how they work and learn about stringing and things, and this one seems like a good 1/6 option.

I'm not sure yet if I'll be able to squeeze this into my doll budget (excluding pretty much everything else) before the month ends, but I hope so. You can get the body without a head too, so I'll probably do that and maybe keep an eye out for future promoes in case I decide I really want the head. Otherwise I'll try to find another head for it, although I'm not sure how the connector would work or if any of my floating heads would fit the style, not to mention the complexion. Trying to match skin tones from various photos is really frustrating, and with an investment like that I don't want to guess, so I decided to be clever and order two pairs of flat feet - which I'll need anyway - in each skin tone. Of course I'll end up with a pair of feet I don't need, but it's better than picking one blindly. Plus I ordered a bunch of tiny S-hooks which I haven't been able to find in hardware stores and which I'm certainly not going to pay x10 times their price in shipping for.

ETA: found some comparison pics of the 12'' Gem doll and Barbie. I'm not sure, but going by the outfit she comes in I think that's the doll with the darker skin tone (which is considerably lighter than most Barbies, like with Obitsu).