Soom Super Gem Discussion (Basic, Limited & Special Order) - Part 12

I hit the matching problem in one order. It was waaay back when Little Gem Nor/Dune were first released. Ordered an extra body to go with the head and it did not match, even though they were in the same package. Yet when I got my Bronze Migma body it happened to match the Bronze Topaz head that had started to age. Very luck of the draw with their resin. Especially since I loved their Bronze, grey and lavender... before they start to yellow.

 

Soom's tan are interesting... my favourite one is Chalco's original release dark brown... the fsc fantasy mashups in tawny (think it was called tawny) are this wiered colour which reminded me of silly putty (if anyone can remember that from a long while back in the UK...). Probably why I have out on display my white and grey skins.

Any suggestions on blushing the tawny tans let me know, I slapped a lot of gold blush on my cuprit head which did actually look ok (the gold powder, not the way it was applied )

 

The new Dia boy is up for sale! Dia - into the Blue - The Gem
His surfer concept is cute, and as usual I'm a sucker for the romantic head. Terrible timing for me, but Dia has been on my mind lately....

 

I can't believe it soom is offering him again
I have been looking for him in the second hand market forever and now he is mine
Already pre ordered him
Can someone tell me how long the Waiting is?

 

The surfer concept is adorable, I love the little scuba mask! I would have been tempted by him if they had offered different colors... phew!

 

Yeah, I've been debating trying to find an old white Dia head to replace my Mecha Angel Deneb or finding a white ID75 body for him instead and I can't decide which to pursue. A new white Dia release would have made that easier. Or maybe toss the whole struggle and just get a new NS Dia since it's the easy way out!

 

Ooooh that's tough! Personally, I almost always choose the easy way out. I'm tired of struggling over dolls Tbh I can't even remember the last time I saw a white Dia head for sale...

 

Yeah, and I have no desire to compete with existing WTBs.

I haven't purchased a new Soom guy since the first release of Sard. Is the newer, taller body better engineered? Easier to find clothing for? Please enable me.

 

Hmmmm I think the arms are better engineered, and are more in proportion with the torso (as opposed to the original SG's kinda skinny arms), and it has magnet hands. I haven't played with the knees much since my new SG guy has hoof legs, but the way the human legs are strung on is horrible. Not only does the elastic cross through the hips, which makes the legs constantly smack together and sag when you pick the doll up, but there's this whole weird mechanism inside the thighs for the elastic. You can't just restring it the normal way. So yeah, uh, pros and cons. It is beautiful though!!! And seems to fit the same size clothes.

Oh and I don't know if you care about this sort of thing, but Soom's packaging has improved since that first Sard! They come with this nice zip-up cushion that has velcro straps inside and lil pillows for the hands. If you ever take your dolls out it would be really nice to keep inside a carrier!

 

You can actually string him the normal way, if you leave the hip pan-things out - did that with my After School Dia. He can't spread his legs easily with this, but he became a very solid poser

Be aware though that the 2012 'new' SG body is a bit different from the 2016 'new' SG body; shoulders are a bit wider and they updated some of the mechanics of some joints. I'mpersonally not a fan of the wider shoulders and pretty happy I got my Dia so long ago :,D That said, heres a picture of him :>

 

once again, I really wish Soom would sell heads separately. I like Dia, I think it works on either a male or female body (I like fierce women with strong features), but I'm not especially interested in paying what Soom charges for a full doll at the moment, even less so for a body I don't intend to keep (too short). Man, if I could get just the heads, I'd buy both in a heartbeat and hybrid myself twin glamazons
@meanae - your Dia is gorgeous! That's such a lovely and well-composed photo

 

Seen amazing male and female Dias... a versatile sculpt mine is on an old body due to being from the fsc fantasy head/body mashup, and really prefer the 2012 male tbh, but think he's ♡ anyway

BTW, does the most recent Dia's sculpt differ to the original (the one with pointy ears)... Looks different and not sure whether it is due to the faceup or not am I imagining things?

 

@kyukyukyu The "pointy eared Dia" was Sard. Dia was released in response to a demand for a human version of Sard. I believe they padded out his cheekbones a bit? But otherwise it's the same sculpt with the usual variance/shrinkage that a later mold will have.

 

@St. James of course, Sard! Have been seeing a lot of Dias on my dash recently and whenever I see Sard, I think Dia having a couple of hiatuses have made their impact

 

@meanae Oh really? How does he sit though?? There's no slot in front for the elastic to go in when sitting.

I do think the 2012 version is a little better looking, but I've always avoided it because they crack easily. I can't remember where, the knees maybe? But they had some kind of engineering flaw and it scared me because my original SG also got stress cracks

@St James, my memory is that Dia was first... the girl version. I remember when they released her, my first thought was that she'd make the most beautiful boy. I came on DoA and others were saying the same! When I ordered my Dia in like... 2009 maybe? I had to specially ask Soom to put it on a boy body. I think Sard came soon after because so maybe people were special ordering Dia boys.

 

Nope, Sard came first because I sold mine off to Twigling in 2008 (while we were at the doll-making retreat in Ohio that Dollfair ran) as soon as he arrived. At the time his head was way smaller than any of my other dolls and I thought his open mouth made him look like a drooling idiot. Ah, foolish youth!
Dia was the first doll they allowed a body choice on, though.

 

There are some sculpts which really stand the test of time, Dia is certainly one of them

 

He can sit just fine, the strings are still doing the cross at the hip - just without the extra pan-things.
IE like this

Spoiler: picture of the hip joint

My two 2012 boys (Wolf from a Winter kit event and Dia) don't have cracks anywhere - I think it might have been the knees? This inside extra knee joint thing? My Wolf originally arrived as a kit, so in parts, and he had a broken shoulder and broken knee parts, so I got new ones, but so far I never had problems with them... but I also modded both 2012 bodies knees, so maybe thats why? I've made the notch at the back of the lower leg higher, because their knees kept on buckling in... might not look good, but it works.

Spoiler: knee mod

 

I read it somewhere in the internet (so it must be true) that the Soom Fairy Auber Storm Sprite is a way scaled-down Sard/Dia as far as the face goes. I can't tell (I'm faceblind) but maybe that's why I was so instantly drawn to the Auber (Sleet is an Auber in grey) as I loved the Sard the moment I saw him. One of my friends has one and I've spent a meet or two just sitting with him in my lap *sigh*. I'd love to have a hooved Sard boy with those insanely long fingernail hands. I'd be terrified of breaking the nails but I'd still want them.

 

@Iron_Dog It's true! He's a teeny tiny Sard.
I have those super long fingered hands and they are actually quite sturdy.

 

@St. James That's good to know about the hands. I'd be insanely tempted to snap them up if I saw them somewhere or Soom re-released them at a time when I have money in my pocket. Thanks for confirming about the Sard/Auber connection. I'd post a pic of Sleet here but he's OT for this thread. He's my gorgeous little sociopath.

 

Was Sard's May 2008 release his first one? I actually had this exact conversation with another member here back in 2017. I to thought Sard had come first, but I found a few posts in the Soom Dia Database where people mentioned receiving their Dia's in April & May of 2008, and Sard wasn't released until May 2008. At least that was the earliest release of his I could find at the time. My original convo with dragonofl5, /threads/soom-idealian-72cm-discussion-part-vii.741755/page-4#post-12212744. The Dia Database, /threads/diamond-soom-dia-database.219320/.

Of course I guess we could always just ask Soom who came first.

 

I stand corrected! Serves me right for being lazy and not looking it up. I guess I misremembered because Dia wasn't part of the 3rd land Monthly Doll line up. Beryl was the monthly girl just before Sard. According to the DoA wiki Dia was their first SG girl? No actual release date on her entry, though. I hatethst so many threads were obliterated when we moved to Xenforo.

 

Ok now I'm even more curious about their exact release dates!! I wonder if we can use the Wayback Machine on Soom's website? The earliest post I can find on DoA mentioning Dia is March 2008, while Sard is first mentioned in May 2008. Pretty weird that they're so close together- I have this memory of SDink painting the first Dia boy, and I thought it was before Sard's release but that would mean Soom had a pretty fast turnaround time back then!

Edit: Behold, the Wayback Machine reveals all! Wayback Machine
Dia can be first seen on the March 21 snapshot.
May 11th, Beryl is there but not Sard.
May 17th, Sard is there!

Another edit: Excuse me while I walk down memory lane. Here's is SDink's old LJ post where she is auctioning a Dia head which might be the one I'm thinking of, and saying that she had just ordered a Sard! The images are broken but I found him on Pinterest. Hehe!

@meanae Oh, when I said "strung normally" I meant the string going straight down from the torso into the leg The criss-cross is my big issue, I hate it! When he first arrived and I picked him up by the waist, his legs drooped down out of their sockets. I admit I'm kind of old-fashioned in terms of BJDs, I also prefer single joints over double joints

 

@overlordu Excellent sleuthing! Quick, add it to the wiki!

 

I'm reading through the old Dia discussion thread and oh my god this is nostalgic. Someone asked how long it takes to get dolls from Soom and the response was, "Usually they take a week or less preparation time". Ah, the good old days!

I can't find myself in this thread, but I had only been in the hobby for 2 years so perhaps I was too shy and only screamed about it on my livejournal...

 

@St. James Apparently dragonofl5 and had to much time on our hands that night and decided to do a little "Sleuthing: BJD Edition". I know what you mean about the old threads. Sometimes I'll click on a thread link and poof, nothing.

@overlordu Good digging! Using the Wayback Machine to see sculpts I completely forgot about is always fun.

 

This has been a flash from the past!

How did did you (open-general-to-thread) get to notice Soom?

Soom for me in my early days, first dipping toe into the bjd waters was someone on ebay selling off all their Soom gem dolls (the old ones before supers came out) all done in gothic styling which caught my interest... which got me to researching Soom. Didn't win any of the auctions (I wasn't fully on board with the sculpt bodies) and that they would need to be shipped from Norway or nearby country...

Kept an eye out and then came the SG fantasy bodies which were/are absolutely my thing and my interest rocketed but so, so costly and couldn't justify buying... then saw Beryl in real life in a local meet (by that time I had a couple 60cm SDs and a pukipuki) and I knew I really had to get a Soom (fantasy SG), ended up passing on so many (which I regretted and ended buying second hand in full or piece by piece).

Looking back Chalco in brown (gorgeous colour) was my first new/bought direct from Soom, so took a long while!

 

What I meant is that removing the pan-things and then stringing him tighter his legs will actually not flop backward - the reason why they do this is because of the pans, as the nubs thy are 'behind' his crotch are too long and therefore don't slot in properly.

 

For me it was the fantasy styles. I'm a sucker for fantasy (and coloured resin, grey in particular). My first Soom was an Auber Storm Sprite that I bought 2nd hand for a steal. A friend bought me a Boehm Smoke Sprite (2nd hand) for my b'day that I'd whined about seeing in the MP but lacking funds for. I bought an ID51 Gluino as an Xmas kit from Soom and two ID51 London's (The Moor & Steam Engine Rider) at different times 2nd hand. Euclase with fantasy/human parts and a meditation head with an open-eye mod was next and also 2nd hand. The most current addition was Vesuvia Poison Kiss (also 2nd hand) that I had modded FtM.

I'd love to get a Sard. I saw a Saule Willow Sprite for sale at the same time as a Lume Zero and the Zero was a grail and I couldn't afford both so.... I really like The Crow (I seem to have a wing thing even though they're generally a PITA). I'm lustful for an ID51 Hyperon (but I don't want a 75cm) and I'm still mad that I missed the order period for one.

*sigh* So many dolls, so little buying power.

 

Hmmm, I guess I was aware of Soom because a local friend had a Gem Namu. The Gem were very similar to CP Delfs at the time.

Another random question: Are there high heel boy feet for the 2016 boy body? Other than the Euclase feet that are sold out?

 

I think I first became aware of Soom Gem as an alternative for Delf boy bodies, even though everyone basically acknowledged they were a rip off of Delf boy bodies But I really liked Namu and intended to get one back then, but never did.

 

Hello everybody!

You bring back so many memories with your talk of Sards, and Beryls, and Dias, and Chalcos, and Euclase (oh my goodness, so many fabulous dolls from 2008 - 2009).

I have trouble posting pictures here, so I apologize for the link. This is Cerulean my blue Soom Sard. I would like to know who else bought the blue Sards and if anyone else got one with hooves.

Orchid's Blog: Cerulean the Blue Sard is Home

 

@Cat ^..^ Your blue Sard is just so gorgeous. I'm low-key jealous.

 

@Iron_Dog Thank you! I bought him so fast, I made Soom's head spin. What I was unable to figure out was: Did Soom remove the option for the horns and hooves from their listing? I think that they did. It was up when I bought, but then I think it was gone. I was never able to be sure.

The poor guy still needs pants. Oh, and he is VERY blue. My husband did this: when I opened the box. He said, "Now how do I know you did not expect him to be THAT color?" The camera refuses to show how blue he is. He is actually peacock colored.

 

Kulfi (Impl Ziv) is a custom green that my camera desperately tries to "correct" to a normal skin tone. He's the colour of pistachio ice cream. It's gorgeous but wasn't the green he was supposed to be (too light). I'm still waiting on Impl to re-make my Ziv in the shade of green I ordered. But, if you put Kulfi next to Iwa-Xine (Soom Boehm Smoke Sprite) who is Soom's idea of green, Iwa-Xine looks incredibly pale nextt to Kulfi.

I love the shade of blue that your Sard look in the photos @Cat ^..^ . If he was even bluer, I'd still be down with that *laughs*. But I'm hideously weak to coloured resin so I have incredible bias. I have dolls in red, translucent blue, pale turquoise (originally RS old blue mellowed), dark ultramarine, multiple shades of grey (I have 12 or 13 grey dolls), multiple shades of green, black and multiple shades of tan.

 

@Iron_Dog I would love to see all of your colored resins together!

I was expecting the shade of blue that the Sard looks in the photos. I think Soom called him "snow blue". He isn't even close to the photos and Soom has obviously never seen snow.

Soom does do translucent resin just so well. The white horns are frosted and just gorgeous.

Fishcake and I are hoping for a purple Beryl from them for Christmas. I have even written to Soom with our request and showed them this:
Sophie Pretends To Be Purple

Sophie is a very (VERY!!) spoiled Beryl painted by SDink.

 

@Cat ^..^ That would be an adventure. I just checked my notes and if I include the tans I'd have 32 dolls in the photo ranging from SD to tiny in size. I forgot to add that I've also got a purple doll with blue glitter in the resin and a seafoam green with silver glitter in the resin (they're artist cast Batchix Clever Littles). I also counted my Souloid as 3/4's of his body is gold resin (he's a Phiel Gold Mechanic) as part of this even though his upper torso and head are WS. I'm honestly not sure I could get all of them in one photo *laughs*. I want to take a pic of all my dolls (71 currently) together but I've been too lazy to do it.

 

When I joined the hobby Soom was (and still is) one of the companies that had consistent releases, people would stay up and wait on the day/night of an MD drop. As such they had one of the more active threads back then. I checked out their thread, and was intrigued by their fantasy dolls. I only recently got a full Soom doll though, an Idealian. Before that I've only had parts of dolls from them. Some fantasy parts, and a head.

 

@Iron_Dog Holy cow! 71! How many are Sooms? I also have a Clever Little. He is a pale normal skin. CandyKitten did his hair, eyes, and wings. I love the glittery ones that Bats did.

@Cloudedmind When Heliot came out I was up all night with the peeps on here waiting for the photos to be released. I still think Heliot was one of the best Sooms evvver.

 

@Cat ^..^ I love how you've styled your Sard! That coat suits him so perfectly. I bought a blue Sard secondhand very recently! I only know of yours, the one I bought, and I think one other person said they ordered him. So only 3 blue Sards that I'm aware of- quite rare! My Sard has humans legs. But I'm not sure if the hoof legs and horns were an option when the previous owner ordered him.

He does not have a name or his own clothes or eyes yet. But this wig is here to stay, since I tried to match his eyebrows to it

 

@Cat ^..^ I have 7 Sooms: Euclase Last Judgement (grey), Vesuvia Poison Kiss (FtM, NY), ID51 Gluino (grey), ID51 London The Moor (ebony), ID51 London Steam Engine Rider (ebony), Auber Storm Sprite (grey) and Boehm Smoke Sprite (green).

Collection-wise I have dolls from 38 companies and some of the companies no longer exist (like Unidoll). Some of my guys are also very rare to the point that some people have never even heard of them (like my Akhmel Nathan who is LE20). I gravitate to all the weird/unusual dolls and sometimes that means they're of a limited nature as well. I never intended for that to be the case but that's the way it unfolded.

 

@overlordu Oh my god! He is friggin' gorgeous! I am loving his paint and hair. I never thought to go blue on the lips. But then I gave Pepstar "artist's choice" on the paint because I wanted her to have some fun with him. Yours came out just so gorgeous. Did you do the paint?

edited to add: @Iron_Dog I always liked the oddball rarer dolls, too. But I have discovered that I really enjoy multiples of the same old doll. SardSardSard, BerylBerylBeryl, GlorydollLucyGlorydollLucy. I love seeing how different the same doll can be next to each other.

 

Goodness, yes. Ondraeden and Sancire, my two ID51 London's, don't look alike at all. Very different vibes to them. I anticipate that when I get Malachite (Impl Ziv), despite him being the same sculpt as Kulfi (and both will have the default Impl face-up), their vibe will be quite different. I do have twins (RS Bao's in WS & DG) but even then they're not really alike as far as styling/personality goes. I think that shows through but they're also my dolls so...

 

@Cat ^..^ Thank you! I did paint him myself I only have a few fantasy skin color dolls, so I'm still learning what works on their faceups. For this guy I wanted to keep him with a pretty homogeneous color scheme, but he will have very bright eyes that stand out against all the cool tones! I love how our Sards are both this wild blue color but they look sooo different! I hope someone else turns up with a blue Sard and we can see how they painted & styled him.

 

@Iron_Dog You have me laughing that the twins are not the same. What happened with my Glorydoll twins is: I give them to Luckyl to paint and she says, "Cat, you told me these are Glorydoll Orchids. They are not Orchids at all. They are not even 'twins'. They are a Glorydoll Something and a Glorydoll Somethingelse. Couldn't you see that? I said, "Nope. Blank dolls do not interest me at all. I thought they were twin Orchids. I will probably always think they are twin Orchids. Just do them as twins and I will be happy."

@overlordu I am really jealous of your skill. I do not paint at all (I am all about beads and fabric when it comes to the dolls.) I had a very hard time with his color. I thought of "pink hair" but then I discarded that idea because my gray Sard has pink hair. Then I thought, "A blue Sard should be blue." And that is what I went with. It is a shame that his coat does not photograph better. It is a beautiful glittery blue green peacock looking motif. It is quite stunning inn person. There is also all beadwork up the sleeves. He does still need pants. Pants are my downfall. There are a lot of pantsless guys around here.

 

@Cat ^..^ I also thought of pink hair for mine! Pink and light blue are so good together (but so is pink and gray, ooooh). Omg pants are such a problem for these hoof guys I have another Sard with Benmore legs and he has a gorgeous shirt but- no pants! Nothing will fit over those thunder thighs. But the legs are beautiful so I'm not sure I should cover them up... maybe he has to wear a little skirt. Hehehe!

 

@fishcake gave me a pattern for "hoofie pants". Basically what happens is the pants tie up the sides and Voila! they go right on.

@overlordu I also have a Sard with Benmore legs. How is yours strung? I have a terrible problem with the top of the legs popping out of the hip sockets. It is so bad that I have literally thought about putting duct tape around his hips. I just don't know what to do. And the legs pop out and spin around! It is awful.

 

@Cat ^..^ Oddly I have a lot of characters that are twins (or more!) but none of the dolls I have of my characters that are twins look identical. I do have identical twin characters just not in doll form. Tohan and Tyhlian are triplets but all non-identical. In doll form they are an AoD Min in tan and an OrientDoll Tae vampire in NY respectively. I do have another AoD Min in NY, Jaiseki, who is the nephew to Tohan and Tyhlian. Jaiseki and Tohan do not look alike even though they're the same sculpt.

In RL, I'm face-blind (prosopagnosia/amnesia) and usually don't have trouble telling twins apart as long as they're in front of me. They can be identical but they don't look identical to me. This is likely connected to my proso.

 

Oh, well, he's a work in progress... That Sard is the 1st version body, and the Benmore legs were made for the newer version, so they don't even fit in his hip sockets LOL. I actually just shipped him off to be modded to make the legs fit

 

Yes. That is the combination I came up with. I did not know that Benmore was the newer body. I was so thrilled to have the legs, I never noticed that "oh, they do not fit!" Modding them seems an excellent solution!

 

@overlordu That explains why I'd forgotten blue Sards existed! Only three!

@Iron_Dog I'll see your Akhmel Nathan (my wife has a black one) and raise you a Psyche X!

I think I can tolerate the new stringing weirdness on a new NS guy, but I might regret not being able to use all of the exotic Cream White parts I've accumulated.

 

@Cat ^..^ I kind of miss those days when we'd all hover in the Soom thread waiting for a release.

 

@St. James My Nathan is black, too!

Ok, hmmm. How about an LE Doll/AoD Collaboration Adonis (LE38)? Not quite as rare but I've also got an Impl Doll Miguel The Demon Hunter (LE100) in grey. I've got a Camilla Dynasty Longaway as well although I'm unsure of how many of him were actually made (I've never seen another). I'm not sure if my Vita Magica Lucine boy counts here (I think he's OT by DoA rules but I'm not sure), but he is extremely rare as he is a literal OOAK created by the artist herself and the only one cast in dark aquamarine.

More on topic for this thread, I too remember waiting to see what new doll Soom would come out with and sighing heavily because I'd never be able to afford one (at least that was the case back then). If someone had told me the me of back then I'd end up with 7 of them later I'd have laughed myself silly and asked them how drunk they were. Honestly, just the fact that they said I'd have 7 dolls would've made me wonder how high the person was. Soom is possibly the one responsible for my adoration of oddly footed dolls.

 

@St. James Any chance you could airbrush or even dye the white parts to match NS? It's really frustrating when you reshell and their old stuff doesn't work anymore...

 

It really is. And it's part of what makes me lean toward buying a Dia and starting over entirely rather than trying to find an ID75 body for my Deneb. A whole new wardrobe. Dyeing his white Mecha Angel girl heel feet sounds easier. But are the new feet still attached by resin hooks? My guess is no because of the new stringing.

 

The new feet have a hook built into the foot, with a separate ankle cap on top, kind of like the old Delfs. So if you had spare hooks for the feet you could still use them!

 

Ah, okay, so it's still the same basic principle of a hook foot and an ankle cap to cover the connection. Whew!

 

I'm seriously contemplating a Dia, in tawny. Not that Soom is consistent in their resin colors At All, but Dia/tawny resin spam would be quite helpful
One big hesitation is that Soom'll do a Vesuvia rerelease right after this (relatively speaking) and I'll have to miss out on getting one of my actual grails (Dia is lovely and all, but Vesuvia is the #1 Soom sculpt I've always wanted)

 

Vesuvia is a beautiful sculpt but I'm heavily biased as I have one (mine is male though). Soom does like to tease on their re-releases. I've found that they'll do a release of a sculpt I like and then a month or two later they'll pop out another I like. They usually do this when I have no money, too.