50–65cm Dolls A sleepy head for Syr :: Crobidoll Daydream Lance

Crobidoll Daydream Lance on R-Line Evolve body, soft white skintone. Bought from Yahoo!Japan Auctions via proxy.

Syr is my Crobidoll Lance girl, hybrided on Dollstown 15year girl. She's the doll I've owned the longest (14 years).

I have to thank @nyaaain for putting the idea into my head last year. We'd been chatting about giving our dolls different expressions/looks by getting them alt heads. That got me thinking: of my dolls, Syr is the only one that has an alternate sculpt. It'd be cute to give her a sleepy/romantic expression. Maybe I should try looking for Daydream Lance...

Daydream Lance is a LE doll. While researching its history, I found that there were two versions of this head sculpt -- the original version that had a closed mouth, and a second version (the one currently used in DolkJP collaborations) that had an open mouth with sculpted teeth. I have personal, admittedly irrational reasons for refusing to own a BJD that shows teeth or even an open mouth, so ver.2 was out of question. And it had to be white skintone, preferably "soft white" (Syr's skintone), which I think had fewer releases than normal skin.

I put up WTBs on DoA MP and BJD Discord server, and spent over a year watching 5 marketplaces for a Daydream Lance that met all my criteria. The jackpot finally surfaced in Y!JA and I won the auction! It so happened that the auction ended the day after my birthday (a milestone year), so I got myself a birthday treat

The proxy, DeJapan, packaged everything quite well and shipped promptly. I got excited in the box opening and forgot to take pics for most of it.



The doll was wrapped in bubble wrap and secure inside the pillows and ties. The seller used a plastic cup as a face protector -- needs must, I suppose -- and it did the job.



The auction listing said that this DD Lance was from the NAMELESS ~The one thing you must recall~ otome videogame tie-in -- a 2013 release according to DolkJP, even though the box is from a different, earlier Daydream Lance release that was in normal skin. He didn't come with papers/CoA, but did have official headplate and other marks inside the head that confirmed he's legit.



In spite of the box, this boy IS white skin. He's yellowed and a tiny bit lemony (easier to see with eye than on camera), but overall the body is a good colour. Most importantly, the head is practically the same colour as Syr! He's also the same height as Syr - about 62cm.







Closeup. No teeth whatsoever: he's the OG Daydream sculpt. Seller said the faceup was "dealer painted", not the official Crobi faceup. It's quite well-painted but it'll have to go.


Syr's faceup artist was @ShallowSleep who painted her in 2010. I'm going to try contacting them and see if they're willing to come out of faceup/hobby hiatus and paint Daydream Lance to match Syr. I'd be over the moon if that happened! If not, I'll paint the faceup myself and try to do Syr and ShallowSleep justice.

I plan to sell the R-Line Evolve body since I have no use for it, but it's actually quite nice so I kinda regret that fact. I'll enjoy him for a while by giving him some TLC -- a bath and restring (he's very floppy) -- and play a bit to see what poses an old doll can do.

The long wait and search has paid off and I got exactly what I wanted. I'm glad I was patient, and overjoyed with how everything worked out!



Finally, I have to say big THANK YOU to the folks who helped me in my quest for this doll. @Ashel answered my questions and sent many photos of their own Daydream Lance to help with authentication. @Grimalkin and others in the Crobidoll discussion thread helped me track past releases and compare OG and ver.2 head sculpts. Others on DoA and Discord sent me tips of DD Lance sales in the wild -- I'm amazed that people noticed my WTB and kept an eye open. The BJD community is so generous - thanks everyone!

 

Thanks, everyone, for the kind comments! There are things I can learn from Daydream's faceup so I want to document it before wiping it. The quest for the faceup will be a good one, no matter how it turns out.

@lutke I think Lance nails the anime look while managing to stay in the realm of "stylized but still realistic" BJD sculpting.

Oh, you bet I'm having lots of fun with Syr ... at the expense of a certain brown-haired boy...