Dollzone Discussion ~ 60 and 70cm ~ Part IX

@SteamWitch @Rabbit-moon Virgos unite! Or precisely organize the situation to uniting. Could go either way really.

I don't remember seeing him offered but I also have a mind like a steel sieve so.... I love his huge ears and the 3rd eye. I might have a bit of a thing for dolls with more than 2 eyes. I own 2 (5Star Dark and an OD Il vampire modded to have a 3rd eye). I don't remember the artist/company name but there was a sculpt within the last year or so called Shark that had 6 eyes that I quite liked. And a sculpt who's name I'm completely spacing on that had a LOT of eyes of various sizes on the forehead and one side of the face that came out years and years ago. I think I've only ever seen that head once 2nd hand (but couldn't buy at the time).

 

I'm totally stealing this.

 

@SteamWitch - he's gorgeous! you really did get him so fast! i can't wait to see your vision of him and how he fits in with your crew . i really love the tail on him

i've got just the fox's head in white skin in transit now, hopefully he's not too much longer now.

 

@Cloudedmind Steal away, lol.

@SteamWitch The short (?) order period might be why I don't remember it. Or my attention was distracted elsewhere.

 

LOL! That is so true!

Currently, short ordering periods seem to be a thing with Dollzone. The last two 70cm boys, Mr. Leung Vampire and Lucius, and the two 58cm bunny-girls were offered with limited-time ordering windows. I don't understand why they are doing this. It makes everything basically a "limited doll", and so much harder to get. I really don't see this as a winning sales strategy.

SteamWitch, aside from Kei Kou being gorgeous, what do you think of the Dollzone 68cm body?

 

I can see the "exclusive" kind of angle. Soom has been doing that forever and a day and it works for them. Unfortunately for my resin loving heart, it frequently doesn't work for me as I need to save for each purchase. I usually spend a ridiculous amount of time waffling back and forth over said purchase, too. Mostly because that's a LOT of money to be dropping on a non-essential item. Especially since I have to take the terrible US/Canadian exchange rate into consideration.

Like there's a doll I've seen that I really, really like (not a DZ) and he's at a very good price due to a sale/event (so its a limited time *sigh*). Doll+shipping= $417US which would be about $600CAN at today's rate with PP fees. That's literally 1/2 my rent. And it's 50/50 whether I'd get hit with Customs fees, which would be another $90CAN. So now I'm at almost $700CAN for a $417US doll *winces*. I shall not speak of Mortgage Boy whom I lust after but can't sanely hit the buy button on.

 

(I don't own any DZ dolls nor have bought from them, but I pop into this thread every so often and thought I'd share some thoughts... I hope that's OK!)

I follow the Chinese BJD community on Weibo social media and chat a bit to other EN-speaking owners who also follow Weibo. From what I observe, the BJD community in China is huge compared to the EN-speaking community, and if a maker becomes popular and gets hyped on social media, they can get overwhelmed with orders. So small preorder windows are par for course in the Chinese BJD community, partially to manage demand from local hobbyists and allow the creator (especially if they are single tailors/creators) to manage their own workflow.

Limited order windows can drive hype and exclusivity and end up in a self-reinforcing vicious cycle ... the limited preorder time means more buyers will choose to buy now instead of miss out, which means more orders come to the dollmaker and faster, which makes them shorten their preorder windows even more... and so the FOMO cycle reinforces itself. Some Korean companies such as Soom and Illusion Garden are extremely popular in China, so their limited doll preorders can and have closed early because they got flooded with Chinese orders - they met their manufacturing quotas, or they couldn't handle more demand. (I understand that Illusion Garden has struggled with this - a few months ago they held a preorder for a doll head, and there were so many orders that their website crashed and they sold out of this doll in something like minutes.) But I think some dollmakers exploit this trend in the Chinese BJD community to artificially drum up hype and prices for their dolls -- Soom seems to do this. I don't follow Dollzone too much on Weibo but their dolls seem to sell well in China. Though I don't know if they're trying to do something similar with small preorder times.

It's an unpleasant dynamic and unfortunately this all has trickle down effects on the EN-speaking community - we get smaller preorder windows for dolls as well. But, in-demand dolls can sometimes be found on Xianyu Chinese secondhand market, where some owners have bought first "just to not miss out" and are now selling the doll brand new/unopened. (And you get your share of scalpers too.) Learning how to navigate Xianyu is a learning curve, but it can be a good way for buyers based overseas to get dolls they miss out on because the preorder window was too small.

This is mostly my theory from anecdotal observations of Weibo and chatting with other doll owners, so I'm not the definitive word on this... but I hope this helps explain a bit of why Chinese dollmakers are doing things the way they are.

 

Wow! Thanks for your insights Aihre! That explains a lot about what's going on with the short pre-order windows. Really appreciate you dropping in and sharing this information!

 

That does explain a lot. It might also be why the aesthetic of DZ has changed so much over the years. They're responding to what the larger market share wants. Considering that it's in China and more often than not a large part of the English speaking market won't poke around (or know how to poke around) on Chinese speaking sites we won't know what's driving the aesthetic. I heard somewhere recently that the preferred style of doll is different between the two markets.

Or I'm talking out of my hat and making things up to fit the situation.

 

@Rabbit-moon @Iron_Dog You're welcome - glad to help. I'm still learning a lot about the Chinese BJD community myself. It is a whole separate ecosystem ... I felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole when I ventured into BJD Weibo. I've only been poking around there for a few months, but it has opened my eyes to how Chinese dollmakers and crafters promote their work and deal with preorders and deliveries.

China definitely has its own BJD trends - 68-70cm boys and 75cm+ boys are quite popular, as are slightly taller, more mature-bodied 1/4s (45-49cm tall). From what I see on Weibo, Chinese dollmakers do respond to hobbyist tastes. I think you can indirectly observe these trends by looking at the doll companies on Alice's Collections and see what new dolls/bodies are appearing. Like I won't be surprised if Dollzone is trying to capture a bit of that 75cm boy market with their release of Lucius.

 

He's so cute!! I can't wait to see how you blush him!

 

Trying to figure out how to style my Merlin....and then I see all the new stuff DZ is coming out with. I can't help but miss the old DZ (i used to have Shoyo and Tan LE yuu).

 

Yeah I totally feel you on that, I have a bunch of classic DZ dolls at home, a few newer ones, but all are discontinued or were limited to start with… the new sculpts just don’t really read as Dollzone anymore to me.

I have a Chen, April new (elf), Chinese Dragon Girl, Miss Kitty, Moon (Dragon Version), Shoyo, Stramonium, Daomiao, Mann, Sho, Po, Scorpio, Minas, and a Raymond-1 that just arrived yesterday. My wife has an original April, 2 Snow boys, and a Big Dipper.

Ley me just drop a real quick picture of my newly arrived Raymond (who is in need of a color matching and Faceup)


I already put a bae coat of sealant on him so I’m hoping to paint him today

 

Congrats Nearachan on having a DZ Merlin! Merlin is such a handsome sculpt.

I actually really liked his original style. (Love Merlin's pouty lips.)



Like you, I miss the old Dollzone, too. I totally love DZ's older sculpts. I still have my ancient Shoyo and Tan Yuu. I seriously think I could probably part with any of my other dolls before I ever let go of a DZ. I just have so much nostalgia for Old Dollzone sculpts; they really have a hold of my heart.

YAY! Congrats IzabethS on your Raymond's arrival! He's gorgeous even without a face-up!

What body do you have for him? I can't wait to see what you do with him!

 

Thank you! I managed to color match him this morning so far, but I'm not sure if I'll get him done today.
He's actually on Val's old body, the DZ B70-003, which is in the 2015 normal yellow skin. It looks tan honestly with how dark it is. Once I get him painted, I will take a pic of him next to current Val (3.0) and Kassandra (Val 1.0) as a comparison!

 

Eeeeee he's going to look so beautiful once you're finished with him!

 

Thank you for your faith in me! I just got him finished yesterday in the afternoon, and today I put him back on his body.


Here he is! I love how moody he turned out, he looks so different from his blank picture. I had a lot of fun doing the scars, at first I thought I'd added too many, but no, it's perfect for a flying and seafaring pirate ship's first mate that can turn into a bear!

Spoiler: Quick picture to show his color matching better compared to his untouched head back

 

he looks fantastic! what a nice job with the colour matching and scars, plus, i love his eyebrows

 

Oh heck yeah!! He's stunning! I really love those scars - the texture is fantastic. And that's a fantastic job with the colour matching.

 

Thank you! My eyebrows always end up more fluffy than the base I do in the beginning haha!

Thank you! I love doing scars, even if they slow me down as I need to wait for the pva glue to dry before I can blush over them and seal to blush more

 

Wow! IzabethS, he looks awesome! He is so perfect; lookin' all smexy, smoldering, and moody. He even looks a little dangerous, which makes him even more hot!

I bow to your mighty face-up talent!

 

Ah thank you! He’s usually quite the sweetheart, but he definitely has a moody streak in him that comes out whenever he’s disgruntled. And being a pirate he is quite dangerous

 

Ooh I totally understand that feeling! It's agony waiting for them to dry when you really just want to paint!

 

DZ NANA has me losing my mind, y'all: Dollzone Official on Instagram: "Crazy！The video from #瑜瑜酱 The new bjd works with 瑜瑜酱 “NANA(mechanical version)” coming soon! #bjd #bjddoll #bjdsale"
She's supposed to be 60 cm. I just can't believe how intricate this doll is.

 

Whoa! That doll looks amazing!

MaleficentMrsofEvil, are you going to order her?

 

Man... I'm so on the fence. It's just amazing, but... I have a plan for 2024, and it did not include her.

 

Oh woooooow!! What a cool doll! Those parts are so intricate, the amount on engineering that went into her must have been phenomenal.

 

I already thought DollZone was amazing, despite only owning one full doll from them and one head (I got the full doll at one point but sold the body). Ancient ones at that! I love their Antu, always been tempted to get one -- or their beautiful Moment, neither which I'll ever own (because I am a weirdo). That mechanical doll however, just dropped my jaw all the way to the floor! If she was smaller, I might have to put my dislike of resin aside and bitten the bullet, but she's proably going to be the most amazing work of art I've ever seen on the internet, in doll form! I look foward to seeing owner photos! (:

 

I’m a big fan of DLace, this collaboration is really neat to see. I want those hands so very much….

 

Oh she is fantastically amazing! I wouldn't know what to do with her though so I will just admire her from afar!

 

For those interested in the new mechanical doll here's the IG for the original sculptor Trey Gegenfu.
https://www.instagram.com/trey.gegenfu/

I'm really liking DZ's collabs lately.

They've also got Hush
Dollzone Official on Instagram: "DollZone × 黑见明 self-restraint“Hush” Collaborations coming soon！ #bjd #bjddoll #bjdsale"

And then their non-collab doll Silwan or Silvan
Sina Visitor System

 

Dollzone has been doing great dolls in collabs. And Silvan has very much a Dream Valley Apocalypse Horseman vibes!

I finally got Zai better eyes in, they’re resin from EyesinaBox on Etsy. I got some new ones for Kass as well!

Spoiler: Can’t forget to post Kass and her new eyes as well!

!

I’ve been toying with the idea of getting Kass a pink wig for fun, as currently she looks like a fancy oversized barbie due to being dressed in all pink and have long blonde hair XD

 

Mm definitely agree there, DZ's collabarations have been on point. I just wish money grew on trees

Oh heck yeah! Those eyes look stunning @IzabethS!

 

@IzabethS, the new eyes look beautiful in Zai and Kass.

I think Kass in a pink wig would be great!

(And YAY! New thread! Number 9, and still hanging in there! )

 

I grabbed Azrael today to change his clothes and boy oh boy do his strings need tightening. Figures...I've nearly had him a decade and not ever tighten him! So that's my little project for this afternoon. I really need to take some new photos of my crew.

 

This is the story of my doll life right now. Moswen (AoD Chi) is my first, favourite and most heavily played with doll. He's 15 years old now and he's still rocking his original AoD elastic and it's finally starting to show. I 1,000% need to re-string Aischylous (RS Yao boy) as I think his elastic simply doesn't elastic anymore. Dakarai (Akhmel Nathan) actually had the elastic break in his hands so he needs to be re-strung completely but I've been putting that off for like a year as he's strung with beading elastic and I'm nervous about re-stringing him. The list really does go on and on.

I haven't checked recently, but Fei-Lau could likely use either a tightening or a full re-string as he's still got his original DZ elastic, too. Khale is likely in the same boat as he's got his original Leeke elastic, too. Re-stringing is one of my least favourite doll things to do and there's many a day when my hands are having none of that foolishness (like today, yea arthritis!).

 

I don't mind restringing dolls - some of mine are done in neat ways so that I avoid having to take them apart, like my old Dollshes, but Azrael has really narrow channels so he's much more fiddly. But I got him done! This time with help from my partner, because while I can do it alone, last time I restrung Azrael specifically, one of his s-hooks snapped out of place and caught my finger. Big ouch! I wasn't keen to do it again.

 

Congrats on getting him successfully re-strung!

I find the SD's harder to do just because of the extra physical effort necessary to pull the elastic tight enough over what's needed for an MSD or tiny. We've had a lot of rain in my neck of the woods lately (although it's snow today) and the damp bothers my arthritis enough that doing something with hand strength is probably not a good idea.

 

Mmm, that's perfectly understandable!!
I work at a very physically demanding job, so I'm lucky that I have the strength to do it myself - often at meets I find myself being handed big floppy dolls in need of a little tightening. It's weirdly something I enjoy doing. I find pulling them apart and putting them back together to be quite meditative (when they're not trying to snap their joints on my fingers!)

 

Getting older is not as fun as advertised. I have a friend that sometimes handed dolls to tighten up at meets. She has a lot of hand strength. Some dolls just seem bitey. I had one of my boys get me good on the leg as I was pulling the elastic and S-hook up through his head hole. Left a huge, ugly bruise on my thigh roughly the size of a toonie from where his torso pieces caught me.

 

Has anyone successfully ordered a doll from DZ's taobao store? I want to order through taobao and do a deposit payment, but I'm afraid they will tell me to use the international site if I contact them.

 

Ouch! I do agree though, some dolls are definitely more bitey than others!

 

I have, but I did full payment and not deposit. I ordered their B68-001 body through them in 2019. The only issue, which was completely my fault was that TB's warehouses, at least back then, had size restrictions. So the body ended up being sent back to DZ. Thankfully, I was able to speak with a DZ rep and they shipped the body out to me personally.

Now, I just have all my TB orders shipped to a forwarding service regardless of size.

 

@Cloudedmind Oh shoot, I forgot about the size restrictions because I usually don't order something big but this time I want to get Silvan so that's definitely an issue. Thanks for mentioning that! Can I ask what forwarding service you've been using?

Also, I'm so glad DZ was able to work it out with you! That's a total nightmare scenario. Glad you got him okay.

 

@aestellica I've been using Bhiner's warehouse, and haven't had any problems. They did stop taking PayPal as a payment option a few months ago though, so it's pretty much card only. I've done some orders since then, and while having to input my card information each time I want to pay is less then ideal, I haven't had any problems so far. From what I understand they're using a third party processing system for all payments and your information isn't saved to their website.

If them not taking PayPal is an issue for you I've heard other people say they use Superbuy I think, but I don't know if Superbuy also acts like a forwarding service or if you have to buy your items through them.

 

@Cloudedmind @aestellica Superbuy has parcel forwarding, as well as being a shopping agent. They automatically provide a unique warehouse address for you, and you input that as your domestic shipping address for the seller, when buying direct off Taobao. You will have to submit a parcel forwarding order to Superbuy (including the domestic tracking number) for every item you buy, if it's off Taobao they will open up and check/take pics as they do for their own shopping service.

I've been using them as parcel forwarding for some time - I buy direct off Taobao and ship to their warehouse, including preorder BJDs (though not from DZ) and other non-resin stuff. The process is straightforward and I've had no issues.

 

@aihre Good to know! I might create an account on Superbuy and do a few test sends to see what the shipping quotes are like through them.

What happens if you forget to submit a forwarding ticket? Will Superbuy not contact you about an item unless you do?

 

Superbuy will not contact you, but will hold your item for a certain number of days (IIRC it's 30 days, the info is in their customer service FAQs), after which it's considered unclaimed. I have submitted my forwarding ticket a day or two late (ie. After it's marked as received by the warehouse - something got shipped while I wasn't paying attention to my TB account) and they've matched my shipments without issues.

(edited to add before I forget...) I apologise if this is a self evident statement.

You can definitely order direct from Taobao as an international customer with a domestic shipping address (warehouse). But if you do this, I would strongly recommend communicating to the seller in Chinese. You are accessing a domestic market after all, so I would use the domestic etiquette and write to sellers in their preferred language. Machine translation is pretty good these days, both translating to and back from CN, and if you are polite, make your requests/questions clear and generally behave like a respectful and polite buyer, sellers are quite happy to oblige and respond to machine translated CN. But if communicating in CN is not in your comfort zone, that's what the international website is for.

I know a bit of Chinese but I still do machine translation to CN, and I do say upfront that I'm an international buyer using a local warehouse as my address. (I also say that if I make any mistakes or if payment doesn't go through, please let me know and I will fix it ASAP - basically to take a respectful tone.) So far, sellers have been pretty communicative.

Again I apologise if language use is self evident but I feel like it needs to be said, since we're dealing with international commerce.

 

Hmm, good to know. Bhiner doesn't have a system like that. They just use the unique address they give you to track all incoming packages, and once your package arrives they usually contact you within a few days as long as they're not on holiday. And, as I'm a set and forget type person that's worked for me. But, if Superbuys shipping prices are better, it might be worth switching over.

 

I'm afraid I don't know if Superbuy will contact you if you don't submit a ticket, but the CS FAQs suggest they won't. I'm the opposite - I obsessively watch everything I buy - so I have not given them the chance to contact me first... nor do I want to take that risk.

 

Hey guys! Have you seen Dollzone's latest limited gorgeous boy?

Sylvan is for sale until 21 Jan 2024, per Alice's Collection.





Wow! I love those antlers!

 

He's beautiful. I haz no money though *sigh and no character for him. My wallet is thrilled about that. I'd also be hesitant to get a 75cm doll. That's a lot of doll for me.

 

Whoa, Sylvan is SO handsome!!! And I'm still madly in love with that body... wish it was just a few cms smaller though...

 

Oh yeah Sylvan/Silvan/Silwan (Thank google translate for those last two). I posted about him several days ago. If I didn't already have Lucius on layaway I would probably go for him. I love his ears.

Actually, if I wasn't planning on going for the upcoming Volks Williams I would probably go for him.

 

Iron_Dog, I haz no money either. *sigh* But, he is pretty spectacular. I agree, I'm reluctant, as well, to buy a boy that big. That much resin would be so heavy. That's one of the reasons I really don't play that much with my Iplehouse EID boys; those boys iz hefty!

I totally agree Overlordu. I wonder if his head would fit a 68cm body?

Cloudedmind, sorry I missed your earlier post on Sylvan. Yes, his ears are amazing.

But, lucky you! You have a Lucius coming! He's totally gorgeous.

 

Unfortunately, unless the 68cm body has a 12 or 13cm neck they'll be a lot of gapping. I think most 68cm bodies that I've seen their neck size tends to tap out at 11cm at the largest size. I think there are a few 70/71cm bodies that have 12cm necks though.

And, no problem! I didn't add any pictures, so it's easy to miss, so thank you for adding those so others could see.

 

Wow! Cloudedmind, I didn't realize how thick the neck was on that 75cm body. Thanks for the clarification. That head will never work on a 68cm body.

Since Dollzone does not keep a company archive of past sculpts, it's nice to post pictures here for everyone to see. Because, you know, once Sylvan's purchase date passes, all his pictures will disappear from their site.