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Shelling Characters help shelling my Dragon Age Rook?

Apr 28, 2025

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    1. First time posting here because this is the first time I've actually needed help shelling a character? How about that.
      I've been back in the Dragon Age Pit since Veilguard came out on Halloween (don't want to hear about it if you hated it; I loved it, I've logged 400+ hours in it) and I think the time is nigh to shell my beloved Rook, Nova de Riva. Y'know, barring tariffs and whatever. To say I'm obsessed with her is putting it lightly.

      Some images of her:
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      [​IMG]

      [​IMG]

      Unfortunately, I think I'm setting myself up for failure due to the combination of tan skin + elf ears + her facial features and my general....pickiness about the types of dolls that I like. She has a very long/narrow face and a pretty distinct nose bump. I'm accepting the fact that I'll have to compromise on that nose bump. I've got a couple of basic criteria I'm trying to meet, as well:

      - I'd prefer to stick with slim/mature 1/4 range, and have been eyeballing a few minifees.....with one major exception below.
      - I don't really care for realistic sculpts, seeing as how the majority of my collection is Volks and Fairyland anything more realistic won't necessarily fit in well. This means commissioning someone for a custom Minimee-style head is out.
      - the body sculpt has to be mature, but with a small bust option. Nova is not a busty video game babe
      - posability of the body is not a very high priority for me. I enjoy bodies that look nice and can hold a pose, I don't need them to be able to compete in Olympic gymnastics.

      For minifees, I have narrowed it down to a few contenders (but am tentatively open to suggestions?)

      - Minifee Sircca in tan skin
      pros: easily attainable from Denver Doll (y'know, barring tariffs and whatever!!!), I can get the bust size I want for the body.
      cons: she'll need an elf ear additive modification because I don't think anyone is going to part with their tan skin Minifee Sircca elf head for anything less than an arm and a leg. Overall, I...like Sircca? but I do feel it will take a lot of work and styling to make sure she looks like my girl, and not a youtube makeup artist circa 2018. I don't know if I'll feel that Spark taking her out of the box, and it makes me hesitate. Given the state of the economy/tariffs and whatever/the wait time involved for ordering a new Minifee through Denver Doll, I don't want to order something I'm less than 100% in love with.

      - Minifee Lishe Lookback in tan skin
      pros: she's got nearly the right face and eye shape, plus a general attitude that I've always loved.
      cons: Finding a secondhand minifee Lishe in tan skin is going to be very difficult, and again, probably won't cost anything less than an arm and a leg. In addition, she'll need the additive ear mod. Buying a secondhand Minifee Lishe in a different skin tone and dyeing her is an option, but perhaps more work than I'm willing to do right now - not to mention the trouble of finding a faceup artist willing to work on dyed dolls.

      - Minifee Nanuri 2017
      cons first: all of the cons listed above for a secondhand Minifee Lishe. she'll need a dye job to be matched with whatever body she ends up on, in addition to the additive elf ear mod and finding a faceup artist who's willing to work on dyed resin. That is a whole lot of hassle I don't feel like I'm up to.
      pros: out of all the Minifees, I feel like Nanuri 2017

      The Big Exception?
      As I was typing this (and maybe scrolling through the in-stock dolls on DDE) I realized...Feeple60 Mirwen in tan skin comes the closest to what I want.
      Pros: Look at her. She's beautiful. She's got the closest facial features to Nova and wouldn't need any resin matching. and there just so happens to be one in stock on DDE. Take that, tariffs.
      Just a few cons: the F60 body is boob city and I wouldn't want to do a reductive mod on tan resin. It's also been some time since I've had a large mature girl, so I'd be starting at square one for her....but hey, at least it's a little easier to craft for 1/3 scale. And...well, 1/3 dolls are just so damn heavy and take up a lot of space, but hey, someone has to do it all for her.
      There's also the fact that my last corvid-themed garbage girl is a Minifee Mirwen....but Mirwen is my favorite Fairyland sculpt. Maybe having two wouldn't be such a hardship.

      I'm nowhere near ready to pull the trigger on ordering a doll, but my inability to pick a sculpt that really feels true to her character/accurate to how she looks has been driving me up the wall for the last two months. Any help or input is very much appreciated!
       
      #1 Ferret-hime, Apr 28, 2025
      Last edited: Apr 28, 2025
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    2. I have a few suggestions as I really like your girl's facial features and I'd like for them to be captured faithfully. Most of these heads may be a little more realistic than you'd like....:sweat
      I feel like if you're willing to wait, sartoria j's elves come around annually and could be a very pretty choice for her. There's smaller bust options as well.
      Raccoon Doll also offer mature bodied msd girl elves with a smaller bust option, and you don't have to wait to get them, they're permanent. I kinda forgot they had them in all honesty :doh
      My other idea that may be more viable to fit your collection's style is a supia doll SD head or full doll. I personally while the ballerina body looks very pretty and can fit SD13 clothes fine, I do not recommend the posing. It doesn't even like sitting very much. Restringing is frustrating, and I like restringing.
      All companies offer a tan as well.
       
      #2 Haven_Of_Dolls336, Apr 29, 2025
      Last edited: Apr 29, 2025
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    3. Seconding Supia, I feel they really go between the more realistic companies (ie: Iplehouse) and a more cartoonish face. Plus, they have elf ears available for all of their sculpts. The issue there is that I don't really see a sculpt in their minisup line that fits her face, but it may be worth investigating!
      I always push for checking out Resinsoul's sculpts, they will add elf ears onto their regular heads and their tan resin is dyed all the way though, so doing subtractive/additive mods is a piece of cake. Their sculpts tend to have longer noses like how your Rook does, and it is closer to Volks/Fairyland than Supia would be in terms of aesthetics.Their "coffee" resin color may be a bit cooler toned (in terms of undertones) than you want, but they also offer custom colors if you reach out to them and ask! Their dolls are super lightweight too (even the 1/3 ones) so that could also broaden your horizons. They have multiple chest/body options for 1/4, and with a bit of adjustments, they pose really well (all of mine are sueded and pose really well).
      Other companies that may be worth checking out would be Maskcat (similar aesthetic, tan resin option) and MYOU Doll (lot of bust options, tan resin option, similar aesthetic).
      As for the Fairyland sculpts, it may be worth seeing if you can find an artist that will do both mods and a faceup, if you're willing to shell out extra money for that, so then it all gets done in the same place. If that artist would also be willing to dye the doll, it would be a really easy fix that would broaden your horizons with which sculpts you are interested in facially.
      I looked through some sculpts on ACBJD (focusing on the face shape > if they have the elf ears, as that usually wouldn't be as hard of a mod as getting the face to fit), I feel that DF-A Cyril (while 1/3) has a pretty close eye and lip shape; if you modified the eye shape a tiny bit, an Angel of Dream Yu Luo (1/4) fits a lot of the features well, and in their 1/3 scale, the Zixi sculpt feels close.
       
      #3 Emmacandyapple, Apr 29, 2025
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    4. Lost Chronicles Naris is far from the Fairyland aesthetic but the tan is beautiful, and I think captures the more realistic vibe from Dragon Age.
       
      #4 Anneke, Apr 29, 2025
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    5. I agree that Resinsoul has some good sculpt options. I think their dolls are stylized enough that they would match the rest of your collection, but they have sculpts with longer faces and more prominent noses like your character. Rui in particular stands out as the best match, although she's not the scale you're looking for. (You could probably get her on a 60cm body if you wanted, though.) In 1/4 scale, maybe Yao on a human body?
       
      #5 Tira-chan, Apr 29, 2025
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    6. You can actually switch out the chest with minimal work. Supia’s ballerina body has a really small small bust, and works on a feeple60 body with just a little bit of apoxie to shrink the arm holes.

      for a comparison, here is the Supia ballerina body with the regular bust, then a regular bust f60, then a f60 long leg with a Supia ballerina small chest on her.

      [​IMG]Feeple comparisons by Indifferent Red, on Flickr

      I could get pics of how Milk Brown from Supia matches fairyland tan, because I still have the tan body in that pic, and I have a milk brown head from 2022.

      Much, much bigger than you’re looking for, but I might also look at Twigling Elbe. She’s a little stylized, and she already has elf ears, and can come with a small bust. Only problem is, she’s also between 68-60 cm depending on the body options you choose, and a lot pricier than the other options on this thread!
       
      #6 Chameleon, Apr 29, 2025
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    7. Thank you for your input, everyone! All these options are giving me a lot to think about - I am quite intrigued by the idea of popping a Supia bust piece onto a F60 body? I will state for the record that I am not the biggest fan of resinsoul's sculpts :sweat but i think more companies should follow their example and add more elf ears and a wider variety of skintones! If only to make life easier for dopes like me tearing their hair out trying to find the right sculpt.

      Thanks again to those who have responded!
       
      #7 Ferret-hime, Apr 29, 2025
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    8. It's funny I wasn't sure if any of the minisup faces would fit but this new release might be perfect /threads/sup...up-leah-43cm-elf-type-promotion-event.887689/
       
      #8 Haven_Of_Dolls336, May 6, 2025
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    9. Who says the head you use has to be a ‘female’ one! I think you’re more likely to find a suitable face sculpt if you look at ‘male’ ones especially as most stylised sculpt female ones tend to be too rounded to do your Rook justice and certainly don’t have the nose shape you need. A face shape is just that, a shape or at least a series of them so to find what you need you may well have to look outside of the gender label or even at companies you normally wouldn’t even give a second glance such as the previously mentioned Resinsoul.

      I love the game too btw, everyone needs a Manfred!
       
      #9 Blodeuwedd, May 18, 2025
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    10. I just wanted to pop back in here and once again thank everyone for their suggestions - and give an update that, amazingly, I was able to find a sculpt that wasn't even on my original list!

      I ended up ordering a Muse ZhuoYu head from Dollsphere in the Soom Light Tan resin tone on Tuesday evening and just got a shipping notification tonight. It meets most of my criteria, has an incredibly charming nose that works for Nova, and I'll be able to order a DF-H body in the same resin tone with a suitable bust size. Even though I'll still need to figure out the elf ear mod, I'm beyond stoked that I managed to find an unexpected option that I liked way more than all of my other ideas. Time to start another workshop thread for her project!
       
      #10 Ferret-hime, Jun 26, 2025
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