Rethinking Eiko

I think I mentioned this to Velvet not so long ago, but I was struggling a bit with my Lorina, Eiko. I love that sculpt to bits, but I never seem to do anything with her. I was thinking that it might be partially because I hate the SDGrG body. I just can't get the right tension for that thing for the life of me! It is always floppy, especially in the torso and the neck. It sucks, since I know it has great engineering. The three-part-torso has good notches to it to allow several poses from a slouch to a beautiful back-arc. The neck has an extra-piece  to allow wide range of movement. It just always seems to flop to the back, staring at the ceiling for me >_<



So I was thinking, if the problem I have with the doll is because of the body, lets just try something else with it. So I switched Eiko's body with Fyrd's. So now Eiko has this well-posing, tight-strung body that I'm happy to play with. The resin match with Volks and Little Monica seem very good, actually. Eiko looks a bit bobble-headed without clothes (but she has a large head!), but it's ok with the clothes on. Sad thing is that LM bodies has lowsy neck movement, so that she can only look a bit down, but after the ceiling-staring it is a fresh new thing XD And the funniest part is that now Fyrd has boobs since he's stuck with the SDGr body for now.

So a good body, check. Still not really feeling her. :( So I start to think what it is about all the Lorina's that I really love? Aside from Turbow's Elyse (who is a badass beauty) they all seem to be on the sweeter side, with long hair. And I love Elyze as well, especially when she's styled like this. Also loving this brown-haired beauty (who actually seems to have the same eyes I used to have for my Eiko), this preppy-style and espacially this wig-style on the left.

Better?

Now, when I first started to think about getting a big Volks girl, I was thinking of getting a Souseiseki named Eiko, being all mischievous and Haruhiesque. I dreamed of getting a Lieselotte to be her big sister and she'd be all sweet and blond etc. Well, both of those old limiteds were hard to get and that's when Lorina was released. I fell in love with it. I thought this would make even more perfect 'big sis' for Eiko. But spending that much money on two dolls seemed ridiculous! So I made a compromise and got the Lorina (winning that lottery was sooo lucky!), which I styled like I would have styled Sou-Eiko. She got bright-coloured clothes, dark hair and turquoise eyes. She was to be headstrong, independent girl.

... Yeah, after a while I just couldn't resist that Sou after all, and since she was supposed to be more mischievous than Lorina, she ended up being named after the ultimate mischief from Final Fantasy: Yuffie. But that's getting sidetracked a bit.

Oh, the old Eiko and the nostalgia!

I still stuck with my original image of Eiko, with the Haruhi hoodie, short hair and trying to picture her being head-strong, well like Haruhi. It clearly just isn't working.  Nevermind how much I love that old look of her, it has become outdated. When I now look at her, I want to see a soft alpacca wig framing her lovely face (in chocolate brown). I want her to have fluffy pastel coloured sweaters and a bear-eared hoodie. I have seen so many nice sets on Taobao, which I have passed since 'they won't work with any of my bg dolls'. Yes they will! I just needed to realise what I really wanted. I want pastels for this girl! Yuffie can keep the bright-coloured hooies until maybe RD claims them :P

One set of an outfit collection I put together:



- pink tutu set from GreenTime Taobao
- mint cardigan from CLS Taobao
- bear hoodie from Doll House Taobao
- pink pants from TTYA

The TTYA pants I'm getting from Etsy for the cheap shipping, but if anyone in Finland wants in on a TaoBao order, please let me know! I think I'll be doing this order within a few weeks if not sooner.

About the body issue now. I'll try if I can string the SDGr body tighter using a different elastic. It'd be a bit too much of a hassle to sell the body off and get a LM body for her, since the local doll second hand market really isn't looking for 500€+ doll bodies... ;P And I'm still a bit terrified selling doll parts internationally, especially outside EU, where the shipping costs go up exponentially and trackings might not work.