Large Fans (Vings Seira, feat. jointed hands)

Gael Seraph (Vings Seira) is wearing the first pair of jointed hands I've ever owned. The anpiel (DV Achelous) joins in the fun - it has nice static hands for holding a fan too!

























More pics (and if they're broken) on my BJD blog. I also blogged my review of them - it's fairly lengthy and has lots to do with personal taste, but the TL;DR is ...

Vings hands are more visually pleasing than most other jointed hands I've seen. They're fun to play with and I like the challenge of posing them realistically. But they'll never be as aesthetically pleasing as a well-sculpted pair of static hands, and they don't always jive with my playstyle (I play a lot with my dolls and I don't always want to spend time posing jointed hands). I don't plan to buy jointed hands for my other dolls, but I'm glad I have one doll that has them.

Thanks for looking!

 

Thanks! My dolls live in a happy calm home, hehe - I'm glad to know that it comes through in the pics

Thanks. I think 1/4 hands would function just as effectively as 1/3 hands? The elastic diameter may be smaller but the resin pieces in 1/4 jointed hands are also smaller than 1/3, and the props are smaller and lighter too. So it might work out fine!
If the hands end up too weak, you can wire the fingers. I used Gael's hands out-of-the-box for this photoshoot (I was surprised they could hold the fan without trouble), but I've since wired the fingers with 24-gauge jeweller's wire, and they're less fiddly and hold poses more stably now.

Thanks! I've wanted to give the anpiel a fan for the longest time, and now it has one, yay Haha yes, I can spend ages fiddling with Gael's hands... but it's probably also me being really OCD about keeping a doll posed realistically. Hands are one of those important body parts ... when the hand isn't in a human pose it looks really really wrong. Or at least it does to my eye. Before I wired Gael's fingers they were fiddly and fell out of pose quite easily... it drove me crazy! But they're stable now that I've wired them.

 

Thank you @Jay. I can completely understand how these hands can drive you crazy, I got frustrated when they went out of position and stopped looking natural -- which happened so much until I wired them. Now they're more stable and I don't go nuts so quickly! Jointed hands are fun but they sure can be fussy

 

Gael's hands came already assembled from Vings. (I believe that is the norm for most companies; Soom is one of the few who sends you unassembled parts.) I used 24gauge jeweller's wire - mine is cheap coated wire that bends easily and holds the bend. I cut 5 pieces of wire, one for each digit, long enough to pass through the whole digit and into the palm. Then I inserted the wire from the finger end - pulled out the fingertip and carefully pushed the wire towards the palm, while checking at each joint that the wire is passing through properly and not snarling with the elastic.

It's definitely fiddly work since everything is tiny, but no need unstring the parts like you do to wire a whole BJD body. Shouldn't be too difficult to wiggle the wire out with fingers or narrow tweezers, especially if you cut it long enough to extend well into the palm. Anything to avoid unstringing these hands - I'll let future me deal with it.

 

Thanks @chrstphrl - I enjoyed doing this photoshoot. ^^ And yes, wiring them is worth the hassle!