Mini Doll Chateau Violet

Doll Chateau Violet
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I thought I'd share some quick photos and a bit of a review of my recently arrived Doll Chateau Violet.

She's my first doll from Doll Chateau. I'm a sucker for sheep people it seems and I decided to finally add a 1/4 scale girl to the herd.



She's a great stander on hard surfaces as the hooves press up against the ankles so the ankle joints can't flex upward. So put her with a bit of a forward lean and she stands well even with the heavy horns.

Not so great on softer surfaces of course just because the hooves are so small. Not many dolls are great standers on soft surfaces though.

Sadly she's completely unable to sit without leaning against something as she can't bend far enough forward at the hips. Why are so many dolls built this way? Fortunately she can at least kneel.

I augmented her full set outfit with some bottoms. It seemed an odd thing to have left out especially given they felt the need to blur the groin region in all the promo photos.



I replaced the default wig, which wasn't the best quality, with this red fur one. I thought a pixie cut look worked well on her. I debated between this red one and a burgundy one I made that really matched her coloring, but I decided her horns just didn't stand out enough against the darker wig.



And that's saying a lot as her horns are HUGE. A serious lack of engineering was done here sadly. They have a magnet in the base of each horn and two thin magnets were provided to attach them to the head, but there is no sculpting on the head to hold them. The magnets were too large in diameter and too thin (meaning weak in force) to hold the horns from inside the head, and honestly too weak to hold them well through the wig even if attached to the outside of the head. Plus with no sculpting to hold them the horns want to rotate and swing around if you move the doll at all. I seriously think they would scratch her face up if you actually play with the doll.

So I built a holder inside the head to contain two large cylinder magnets. (Without the holder the magnets would just snap to each other inside the head.) I then built a thin holder to hold the two supplied magnets at the right place outside the head so they didn't slide and snap together when fitting wigs, and added additional stronger magnets on top of this holder to provide more hold through the wig. This holder is held to the head by the pull of the magnets inside. Finally I built a connector to form the two horns into one so they won't swing and rotate and scratch the face up. I made the connector to color match the horns more or less, but still combed the wig over it a bit as I feel it looks nicer.

If you're certain you always want the horns you could of course just glue magnets to the outside of the head rather than build the inner/outer holders as I did. You'd probably want to build up something under them though as they're too broad to match the head contour.

The horns are actually three pieces and strung together. I think this was more of a molding/manufacturing thing than to add posing though as they don't really move in any way that would be a pose and weren't blushed to move at all without showing stark white. I used putty inside the pieces to make them more stable as one side wanted to keep rotating in closer to the face.



Other than the horns she's a stable poser, one of the better dolls I've handled as strung from the factory. Other than being unable to sit I think most people would be satisfied with her posing as she holds positions well. I of course wired and sueded her as is normal for me. She is strung VERY tight and her body has very little hollow area so the knot of the head/leg string has to be forced down inside one of the narrow channels making her a bit on the challenging side to restring.



In the end I'm happy with my purchase and think she's a fine addition to my sheep herd. I'm sure the guys will be happy to have her around. She's clearly not shy.



Her outfit, tattoos, and overall look give me a carnival barker feel for some reason. "Step right up! Step right up! Come see the wonders inside..."

 

Thank you.

You're welcome. Yes the ears are also magnetic.

Yeah her non-jointed torso with the severe spine bend gave me concerns before purchasing her as well. I decided to give into the cute though and any replacement body would have to work with the hooves/lower calves for me. I guess she can technically sit if you pose her hands out behind her to the floor as the rear supports. Sadly as I mentioned in my review she's not the first doll I've encountered with this problem.

 

Thanks!

I'm too lazy to plan that far ahead. :P

 

Sorry, having literally just got done styling the hair around the horns and hair spraying the curls I hope not to take her apart in such a way that I could show photos of the horn setup for a long time.

If you plan to just have her on static display you can probably just let the horns hang loose. I just wanted to be able to handle her and not worry about them flopping about or falling off.

If you want to follow my lead, here are some tips provided with no warranty of any kind. I'm not responsible if you hurt yourself or your doll.

Magnets: I buy them from K&J Magnetics online, but used stuff I had on hand in this case. N52 is the strongest grade and the price is so little different from lower grades there's no reason not to use it for a small order like this. I'm not 100% certain the sizes I used since I was using stuff on hand, but I think I used two 3/8x3/8 inch cylinders inside the head and some 1/2x1/8 inch discs on top of the magnets DC supplied on the outside of the back of the head. The DC magnets are definitely bigger than 1/2 but again I used what I had. Note that 3/8x3/8 N52 cylinders are STRONG. They will want very much to snap together when close. They can hurt you. And they are brittle so they can shatter if you let them smack together. Really these warnings apply to all rare earth magnets including the ones you'll get with the doll.

In fact the cylinders are strong enough they cannot stay in the right positions inside the head w/o a mechanical frame to keep them from snapping to each other. Much more easily you could probably just use poster putty to hold magnets to the head back plate in terms of holding the horns on and not put the big magnets inside the head like I did. I just didn't want to deal with the putty possibly slowly sagging over time. And you can use whatever to hold the horns together such as a piece of poster board that you glue or even putty the horn magnets too. You're really just wanting them not to rotate.

I used thermoplastic as I use it often for various things. The plastic I used was Instamorph brand. There are other brands of the same type of plastic for a bit cheaper, but I've found some of them get super gooey and sticky when hot and are a nightmare to work with so I pay the extra $ or 2 for the name brand rather than take the random of chance of off brand poor consistency. I heat it with a heat gun on a low temp not with hot water so I can reheat it as needed as I go.

I personally have never had it stick permanently to resin once cooled. It might stick lightly but you can easily pull it up. But I always test the exact batch of plastic and the exact doll on some place I can accept if it does stick, like say the inside of the head cap. I suggest you do the same if you go this route.

I didn't even bother to protect the blushing at the base of the horns but I'd advice you should by wrapping them in wax paper at least. I heated up a blob of plastic, colored it with pastels mixed into it so it will never chip or rub off on anything, then placed it between the magnets on the back of the head. I spread a thin amount over each magnet with the main blob still in the middle. I attached the horns to the magnets smashing the thin layer of plastic flat, positioned the horns how I wanted them, then pressed the plastic blob down between them to take their shape. I ran the back of the head and the horns/plastic/magnets under cold water to set it. (Only the back of the head, not the face or body.) Then I peeled it off the horns, cleaned it up with dykes, knives, and files and glued the thin areas that I'd spread over the magnets to the horns on the magnets.

 

@Seaweed, I agree it was sad the horns were what they were, but maybe you'll be happier with them as they are than I was. I'm pretty picky mobility-wise.

I want to make sure I haven't confused anything though. The way I put the horns together it's super easy to take them off and put them back on. It's only the wig styling that's a hassle in this case preventing me from wanting to take photos. Part of the reason I mostly avoid curly haired wig styles.