Body Comparison Pose off! Doll Family-A vs. Loongsoul MSD bodies [img heavy]

Hello! This is a set off photos I took a while ago and was unsure if I wanted to upload them or not because the quality is not the best, but I decided I didn't want to retake these photos.

Literally no one asked for this comparison, but I am putting this out there anyway because I personally love the reference sub-forum and am you never know when you'll need something in the future, right?

Onto the subjects:
Doll Family-A (DF-A) 1/4 girl body, version 1. White Skin, 2016. This body has a yellow undertone, and looks yellower than it is in the photos because these photos have a low exposure (sorry about that).
Loongsoul (LS) 1/4 girl body, BG-43-02. White Skin (non-imported), 2017. This body has a pinkish/peachy undertone to it.

Notes about the stringing and engineering:
The DF-A body is strung at a nice balance between tight and loose in my opinion, and posing her is very simple. She is sturdy, and can hold most of her poses pretty well.

The LS body is strung much tighter, and in order to pose her, almost all of her joints engage with a series of notches and locking mechanisms. When posing her, she basically snaps/clicks into a pose, which can make posing her feel less smooth to me, but the benefit to this is that once you get her into a pose she LOCKS into it 100%. Disengaging the joints from these locked poses, because of her tight stringing, can cause her to snap out of them more harshly than the DF-A body, but perhaps I'm just not used to it since I'm rather inexperienced as a BJD owner. I consider her sturdy as well.

The LS body also has thigh mobility joints where the DF-A body does not. The pose off does not include poses involving the thigh mobility joints, since the point is to show of the advantages and disadvantages of different engineering and stringing.

Here we go!

IMG_1982 by Akira Rei, on Flickr

The two wave hello! Here are the two bodies standing together. The LS body has some of the most articulate sculpting I've ever seen. The DF-A body is more childish in proportion, especially the way the hands are sculpted. If you want a less mature looking slim MSD, you might enjoy the DF-A body.
The two of them demonstrate the ability to hold their arms out just fine, and keep them at right angles; here we see the limitations of both elbow joints, most notably Loongsoul; in the elbows, especially with locking mechanisms/notches and the tight stringing, the arm cannot do many inbetween angles. But that is the case with most elbow joints in dolls without any kind of wiring or sueding, as far as I know. Comparitively, the DF-A arm looks more naturally bent, and the wrist has more side to side mobility.
As you can see the LS body was wearing shoes here, and I did not remember I had them on until later; however, the LS body can stand and do all of the poses just fine without shoes.

IMG_1985 by Akira Rei, on Flickr

Profile view.

IMG_1989 by Akira Rei, on Flickr
IMG_1991 by Akira Rei, on Flickr

Sitting.

IMG_2002 by Akira Rei, on Flickr

Elbow joints bent once and twice. Here we see how the elbow joints look bent 90 degrees and bent to their full ability as they are both double jointed. Both of them can reach their face, if they were to have any! The DF-A body's left arm is bent more outwards which is why her elbow can't be seen behind her like on the LS body. She couldn't hold her arm as close to her body while still keeping her hand bent around to the front. The LS body can hold the pose just fine. Holding poses like a champ is the key talent of the LS body. That being said, the LS arm couldn't hold her left arm as far out like the DF-A body is doing and hold it there, probably because of her tighter stringing.

IMG_2004 by Akira Rei, on Flickr

Hands on hips!

IMG_2006 by Akira Rei, on Flickr

Slouching and holding both arms behind their heads. Like before, the LS arms prefer to stick close to her body; I don't remember if I had trouble holding the DF-A body's arms close to her body, but she seems to enjoy holding them out. On a side note, both of them have different ways that you ned to rotate their arms in order to get them to lift their arms up over their heads and whatnot.

IMG_2014 by Akira Rei, on Flickr

Leaning back. I think both chest joints look pretty natural; it's more of a preference of whether or not you like a pronounced curve, I suppose.


Continued in my next post!

 

IMG_2015 by Akira Rei, on Flickr
IMG_2018 by Akira Rei, on Flickr

Kneeling. The DF-A body is better at sitting on her legs. The LS body, not so much. If you want a doll who can do seiza, the LS body is probably out.

IMG_2019 by Akira Rei, on Flickr
IMG_2020 by Akira Rei, on Flickr

Knee joints engaged once. You may notice that they are bent from different points of their knee joints; I did them the way they seemed most intended. The LS body's shins would be unnaturally long looking if I were to bend from the top of the knee joint, and both bodies have the easiest time shifting into their double bent position when bent from these places, it seems. The LS body has notches in the knees, so when you have bent it once from the bottom as I have done above, when you move to bend it again, it will lock into the different notches more smoothly in my experience.

IMG_2021 by Akira Rei, on Flickr
Sitting hunched over, 'suwarikko' position. The DF-A bodies knees allow for some angled bending, which I personally feel make for a much more natural looking suwarikko pose. If a human tried to sit and bend their legs and knees the way the LS body is doing, it would be very uncomfortable to say the least! I also feel like the DF-A body has a more natural looking slouch. In general, chest joints that are cut from the middle of the body are always more natural looking because that's generally where your ribcage ends, and when you bend your entire ribcage moves with you.

IMG_2024 by Akira Rei, on Flickr

Doing the splits. Both can do it no problem, but getting one of them to sit up straight while doing it and hold the position was harder than the other. To be honest, I don't quite remember which, but I think it was the DF-A body.

IMG_2028 by Akira Rei, on Flickr
Standing on one leg, holding it out. Both did this easily! I held out one of their arms in case it would help balance their center of gravity, but it turns out they were able to do this even without holding any of their arms up. I am showing this version of the photos though, because it still demonstrates their ability to hold their arm out like that.

IMG_2034 by Akira Rei, on Flickr

Other poses! Again, the chest joint of the DF-A body looks so much more natural, and the way it poses with the legs makes for some nice contrapposto! The LS body has a better time with manipulating the arms into a wider variety of positions, especially because of the notches in the armpit.

IMG_2044 by Akira Rei, on Flickr

More poses. I have similar sentiments to what I wrote above, but in this case the LS body's arms lose to DF-A. The delicate hands, while beautiful, make it harder for her to reliably lean on her hand, and she cannot hold her arm well in the position that the DF-A body is doing. Her legs look very graceful, and maybe she could bend at an acute angle like the DF-A legs if I used her thigh mobility joints.

IMG_2041 by Akira Rei, on Flickr

Relaxing on the stomach. Neither of them can prop themselves up too high, but the DF-A body can't even bend her arms anymore than she's doing while in this position.

Concluding thoughts:
Both bodies have their good and bad. I have things I like and dislike about them both on subjective levels, too. This is likely useful to absolutely no one, but I hope it helps someone out there! Thanks for looking.

 

I'm glad this was of use to you! I love the Loongsoul body. The resin feels so smooth but in a way that makes it feel soft, somehow. Based on what I've seen of other MSD bodies, I would say the LS body is one of the best posing and best sculpted options out there.

I'm so sorry to hear that! I hope you were able to repair him or at the very least get the cracked parts replaced...
At any rate, I am glad you enjoyed this post, thank you for reading!

 

@puffin463 I'm glad to hear it was helpful! I still love the body even now. I can pick her up and shake her around, place her down anywhere without worrying about completely losing her pose. One thing I didn't mention here is that the thigh mobility joints can swivel, but when they're facing the front they are actually locked in, so in order to swivel the joint you have to gently pull it out of the dent it's locked into and turn it into the grooves inside the joint that let it rotate freely. I personally really like that engineering since it means the legs will stay still if I want them to.