Out of the box

My newest (and probably final) factory girl is here! Unlike Ash, I kind of like her straight away, even though her catalogue of faults is far more extensive. I wonder why that is....

She has the obligatory ick matted hair. There was actually melty rubber band in it! Thankfully it hadn't bonded into her hair at all and I could just pull it out. She's had a hair treatment and is looking better already.
Her scalp is a very different skin tone to her face - that I'm not very pleased about at all as obviously it isn't something that can be fixed! I'm wondering if I should just put her reroot on a coolcat scalp instead or maybe try to swap it for a scalp of the same skintone. She also has a bit of a gap between her scalp and faceplate. You can see from the pic how nasty looking her hair was.





The poor girl got saddled with a bad body too (maybe that's why I feel a connection with her :P). Different coloured torso and legs, a few little black marks here and there, a little gap in the join where none should be. A shame because she has the pink nailpolish arms that I like so much. I'm thinking of popping her on a Pure Neemo Flection - yeah baby!
She has a wonky eyelash (saw that in her auction pic).
Her mech works beautifully, and the special green chips are really lovely. I don't like the ambers or the pinks, so I'll change them out ASAP.
Most annoyingly (as I wanted to preserve her makeup because I liked it), she has some unexpected flaws on her face. There are a few little speckles of blush here and there - even in her eyelashes. Her blush is uneven and she has some flaws in the glossy finish on the plastic on her forehead. *sigh* Lena, you really need to take better photographs! I scrutinised the auction pics for ages without seeing these problems :( I was tempted to see if I could send her back, but the postage is so expensive it really makes it impractical.

I'm wondering if I might be able to somehow sand her while carefully preserving her makeup or if it's a lost cause. Such a shame, because I'm finding her cute in the extreme which I was not expecting at all! She immediately told me her name is Roxy and I think I'm going to like her :)

Hot water - the miracle treatment!

I cannot believe that it's Thursday already. This is insane! I've got to work on my group assignment (otherwise known as "I must do all of the assignment because the rest of the goup are complete losers that don't care if they fail"), but I was feeling a bit stressed out about it all, so I took a little bit of time out to do an experiment on my newest victim, Ashling.

As anyone who reads this blog or follows me on Flickr will know, I hate her hair. Horrible horrible carrot red frizz. I tried to curl it to no avail, the frizz returned within minutes. Since I'm planning to chop it all off and reroot her anyway, I thought I might attempt a hot water treatment on it. I've always thought it seemed like such a risky thing in that there's a chance the hair could melt if it's not done properly, and also once the curl is gone it's gone for good. Only a boil perm will get it back and those can have unpredictable results. So anyway, off I went and did it, and you know what....it's tamed it. It's still wringing wet, but it's much much longer and the curl is only on the ends. She seems much less Susan Boyle and more Nicole Kidman now. If it looks ok when it's dried completely, I may even keep it. Who knew that a bit of hot water and a brush could do that! On the down side, it's still falling out :(

Deboxing a factory girl...not quite the same

I ran into the post office in my lunch break to pick up my red haired factory girl and I was dying for the day to end so I could go home and see what she looked like in person. So here it is - the great deboxing.



The box got damaged but she was OK.

Mostly because she was wrapped in bubble wrap like some kind of coccoon.



And here she is in all her glory



You can't quite tell from the photographs, but she has most of the faults that I warned of in my Factory Girls post (ironic huh?), none of which were disclosed. Still, I bought her to customise and for that she will be fine. Here's her list of "issues".

Bad hair - it looked ok in the auction pic, but it's kinda ratty. A lot came out from just running my hands through her hair. Her curls have crispy ends - to be honest I think my Basaak had better hair, albeit thinly rooted. I don't know if she'll be keeping it. I've just given it a quick wash and put it in curlers, but if it keeps coming out it will have to go.

Mixed body parts - she has transluscent legs and a dark smudge on her back. On the upside, she has pink nailpolish - pretty!

Scratched face - I tried to photograph it, but couldn't capture it. She has a scuff on her forhead and a green scratch near her eye. Hopefully they will both sand out.

Scratched eyelids - her lids both have a line of "wear" on them where they have been rubbing on something inside her head.

On the bright side, her eyes do work, and I still got a great doll to customise, which is what I wanted her for. I kinda hope her hair turns out to be ok and stops shedding all over the place as I don't mind the colour. On the other hand, I've seen some very beautiful red wenslydale locks that would look amazing...and also some gorgeous white mohair of the shiny variety (mmmm shiny!)



Right now she's in curlers, waiting her turn to get prettied up. I don't even have anything much for her to wear that doesn't clash horribly with her hair! I will need to sew her something just for her I think. She'll have to be patient as I'm very busy this weekend. Besides, I still have a blue bob to cut.

So close, yet so far...

My redhead factory girl is trapped at the post office. Oh why did I not take a sickie today as I was considering?! For the record, I am actually not 100%...and worse still is that I can pinpoint the exact moment I came into contact with this lergy - a boy coughed in my face (so disgusting - who does that??) at the supermarket and I thought to myself "yep, bet I get sick" and a few days later here I am all icky and blocked up.

So anyway, I have to wait until tomorrow after work to pick her up and the suspense is killing me! Zumpf and Sadifairy from Plastic Paradise have bought her sisters and I think it's so cool that this online Blythe community make it possible for me to know that! They both live in the US, so it's extremely unlikely that I'd come across this info if it weren't for the magic of forums and Flickr.

I've got some ideas from the community about the bits that make up my blonde girl too. Rumour has it that her eyes belong to Q-pot or possibly Christina the Bride and her face is either Mango's (most likey I suppose) or excitingly, the not yet released Nicky Lad. I don't know that I will keep her as a blonde with that colour eye shadow now... I think a deeper colour would suit her better. I'm open to suggestions if you have any! I want to get the saran ordered straight away so I can get started.

A new girl on her way....

What can I say? I am weak in the face of a potential bargain and for some reason I seem to be preferring my Blythes ghetto these days. I've bought another factory girl (I have justfied it to myself as she's to be my Mothers Day present - even though I know she won't be here in time). One look at that peachy skin and bright blue eyes and I could not help myself - she's super sweet!

I'm itching to do another reroot and I needed a victim that has awful hair as I'd like to do one on a stock scalp this time and can't quite bring myself to chop off a nice head of hair. As you can see my new factory girl certainly fits the bill. Her hair is revolting, but her face and eyes are quite nice so I'm thinking I'll keep her mostly stock and just give her some new chips in place of the pinks and yellows. I really love those green chips! I wish I knew which face and mech she has - I have no idea. I might have to put a few feelers out into the community and see if anyone can shed some light on this.

I'm leaning towards giving her platinum blonde saran possibly with bangs...but that could change. I really do need a blonde in my collection.

I can't quite fathom what the appeal of these dolls is. An offical NRFB Blythe arrives in a beautiful box, dressed nicely and once her hair is given a quick brush is near perfection. These girls turn up wrapped in newspaper in a scruffy old cardboard box with their dreaded hair, scratched make-up and mismatched body parts. I think part of it (appart from the greatly reduced price) is that there's that feeling that you can take this tatty doll and make her into something beautiful and unique. Take a look at the Flickr group created just for these rejects and you'll see what I mean. http://www.flickr.com/groups/1344817@N24/pool/

Factory Girls on Ebay

It's a scary thing buying your first Blythe, and now it looks as though there are even more pitfalls for a new collector to avoid with the arrival of the latest fakes (that are sometimes incorrectly listed as being Blythes) and now the "factory girls".

The Factory girls are a bit of a mystery - nobody knows exactly where they come from and there are several theories. I've heard that they are prototypes of new Blythes that Takara are considering making (some don't make it to production), that they are made of stolen parts, that they are made of parts rescued from bins (which would account for some of the very bad scalps I've seen). While I don't know for certain which theory is true, what I can tell you is that they seem to be made from a mix of parts from different dolls. You might get Mango's face plates, an eye mech from Nostalgic Pop and hair and body from Simply Peppermint. When all the parts are in good shape and the skin tones match, you can find some really beautiful and unusual girls for a good price.

Lately though, I've been seeing a lot of Blythes from a certain ebay seller that are clearly very poor quality and I considered how easy it would be for a new collector to be ripped off. Unfortunately, until you have a bit of knowledge about these dolls they all tend to look much the same and many of the Blythes on offer at the moment for bargain basement prices have some really bad faults that are sneakily disclosed by photo only, not in the text of the listing. Unless you knew what to look for, it would be all too easy to hit the Buy It Now button while you were all excited about the seemingly too good to be true price and end up with a bit of a misfit as your first Blythe.

These are a few things that I've noticed in these listings:

1. Really really bad hair. Knots, frizzies, melted(!), no thatching (partline), lots of missing plugs, very odd colour (greenish streaks), extremely thin (ie you can clearly see the scalp), very bad and uneven haircuts.

2. The scalp is a different skin tone to the face.

3. Grab bag of body skin tones. Arms, torso, pelvis and legs - a lot of the time there is more than one skin tone mixed up, often they are not the same colour as the face. Sometimes both arms or both legs are different colours.

4. Front and back face plates are different skin tones. Not always obvious in the pics - look closely.

5. Obvious downward gaze - would require repair.

6. Big gaps between joins on body.

7. Sneaky photos. One seller in particular has two sets of photos on some of their listings. One is the actual set (the top left hand ones), the other is in the text of the listing and are photos of a lovely freshly deboxed stock Blythe. Be careful to note that the doll you are bidding on is the one at the top, not the one in the description.

8. You may not even get the doll you think you are bidding on. One seller states that you will get a doll with the hair and makeup of his choosing. This means that he will send you a Blythe, but not necessarily the one in the photos. Given that most of his stock appear to be flawed, this means that the doll you receive may have flaws that you find unacceptable.

That said, I've heard of people getting some really beautiful and unique dolls this way. Many have received perfect Blythes, others were happy to get a doll suitable to customise at a great price (which is what I'm hoping will be the case with mine), or even just a source of parts for other customs or repairs.

If you are at all unsure, ask around in the Blythe forums or on Flickr to see if others have had good experiences buying from the particular seller you are thinking of purchasing from. You might get a bargain, but there is always an element of risk involved in purchasing items that don't pass through quality assurance.