What happens after more time playing with her

A day after getting her, and a crack has appeared on her right wrist, The crack has a tendency to enlarge if you apply some pressure to it, but reaches a limit. This crack is a curiosity to me, although I have been moving her outside the recommended ranges, I have not moved it all that much further than recommended at that joint.


The pose I left her in overnight


New crack at arm pit

I committed the faux pas of trying to repair it with superglue and discovered the following day that the crack has not stayed close. But because of the pose I left her in overnight, I now have another crack at her right armpit too.

A while ago I did some research in my attempt to make a silicone doll. It turns out nothing sticks to silicone except silicone (and dust...). And so I should not be all that surprised that the superglue did not work so well.


http://www.artetokio.com/english/order02.html

Well in light of that, I've decided to purchase 'Hyper Repair Kit for Professional'. Basically my order cleared on a Friday, and it's supposed to have shipped on the following Monday, but I've yet to hear confirmation of this. It has been nearly a week after the order cleared.


So 3 days after getting her, and because of the tears, I've decided not to pose her for photographs yet. Instead I played with her eyes. Not knowing what I am doing has been detrimental to her. In my impatience I exerted more force than was necessary and caused damage particularly to her right eye. Her beautiful eye lash is not out of whack, and there are minor tears on her lower eye lid.




Paint on lower part of eyelid peeled off as well





image showing groove on eyeball that can be hooked onto to change the direction the eye is facing

Here you can see the shape of the 'eyeball'. They sit in the socket, and there is a hole at the back of the socket that limits the eyeballs range of motion. What you need to do is amply gentle pressure to the eyeball in the direction you want the eye to face; using a small implement that can hook on to the groove on the eyeball. An example of such an implement is the tool you can buy on the website (not shown here). Whilst doing that you apply gentle pressure on the eyeball itself so as to encourage it to move in the direction you want. I've found a drop of baby oil helps overcome the otherwise significant friction the eye socket has on the eyeball.












The 'user pdf' on the Sidh dolls discourages removing the eyes on your own. Quite by accident I found removing the eyes to actually be easier than moving them. Just apply gradual pressure to the side of the eyes and they pop right out.



Joint manipulated to show wires and urethane part of skeleton

5 days after getting Felice I've had my first wire break of sorts. Mind you, I've been playing with her kinda like an action figure and moving the joints outside the recommended ranges. What's happened is that the wire has broken at the wrist, but it's broken in 2 separate places (something I could observe due to the crack at the same wrist). Since the wire break occurred at 2 different places, it still holds a pose somewhat.

As a side note the forearm joint strikes me as being pretty neat. I'm not sure how it's done, put the joint actually turns very well, like there is something special that allows rotational movement at that joint.




Also on the same day; since Felice arrived I've been having her occasionally stand on her feet. This means that sometimes grit might get embedded there. That and putting the shoes on roughly has made little dings. I suspect using a generous dose of Talcum powder, or perhaps baby oil would help shoes go on better.




More on the same day, the paint that covers her right nipple has faded away. An effect in part due to having rubbed the area a lot; the area being raised and due to the strength of the paint there. Rubbing the right inner elbow corner to purposely fade the darker paint there has yielded no effect. And 8 days after getting her from constant play, her left nipple has faded away too.

So the material while soft, is a little less robust than I anticipated it to be. Arte Tokio dolls are made as works of art that are made to have their poses be changed occasionally; as opposed to a toy that is made to be played with frequently.

I'd recommend that if you are planning on getting an Arte Tokio Doll, get one of the repair kits as well (oh and be careful to pick the correct skin colour when getting it, a mistake that seems quite easy to miss).



So until her wounds get better Felice won't be able to do any modeling which has her feeling a little down.

Nit picking

The casting seams along the body are actually apparent (click on the images for a closer look).




The breasts seems larger than the impression I got from the images online (that's not a complaint though :) ). They are a little oddly shaped though.



I suppose this may be something that you wouldn't see in real breasts as they sag, and have a different movement altogether. But sagging on a doll would be something that may be detrimental. I modified the image, the right side showing what I figure the boob shape should look more like.




The body paint is pretty good, but the shade in the inside corner of her right elbow is slightly darker than on her left.



The material is, I imagine difficult to work with, the bottom lid of her eyes are cut slightly irregularly.




The neck was kinked when I opened the box, which could have happened during shipping. Nonetheless the head is heavier than the joint supports well, and so when you move her, the neck can sag back, or wobble a little.



As a result the head deviates a little on the joint, breaking the illusion occasionally.




As expected, dirt sticks to silicone. There is a powder included with the doll that when applied reduces how much dirt sticks to her. I suspect it's talcum powder or talcum powder like.




The arms hold posses very well, but the legs are a bit too heavy for the hip joint, so tend to fall when outside a particular range.




Based on what I've learned about proportions her limbs are disproportionately long, but I can't say I actually mind this fact. The image on the right would be closer to 'usual' proportions, and it begins to resemble ARTE 055.

She does have a bit of a chemical smell, but I couldn't tell you what it is. It has faded a little over time though.

My Felice has arrived

a month after I first placed an order, 3 weeks after I changed my order then paid for it. A month is probably the upper regions of how long an order might take as this was during a busy period for Arte Tokio.







Well the box is HUGE, I anticipated the box being large, but I figured it would more closely match the size of the doll. The pack of CD's has been included as a scale reference.

The box was a little dinged up, but that's fine.





The box is pretty well padded up, so you can be reassured that the doll is well packed and protected for shipping.


The contents of the box.




Doll body, wig, doll head, powder and brush, clothes, shoes information sheet.

The information sheet is in Japanese...




It is important to note here that this is a CUSTOM order, so it is not a default doll that you can get from Arte Tokio. The order is for Felice An but the body had been changed to ARTE 060 aka a6 aka ARTE 060 NB.

Speaking of the body.





the neck was bent to the side when I unwrapped it, seems likely this happened during shipping.


A better look at the head







The 'glastic' eyes are amazing, I chose Green Blue as the eye colour, and as a quirk of my order, I paid for an extra set of brown eyes. They are reflective and have a sense of depth similar to real eyes. They also have the illusion of being a wet surface. And yes, she has eye lashes attached!




The top of the head, where the wig would cover has curious, cut shapes. An artifact of the casting process I figure. I first noticed this in

http://rinkokonoe.blogspot.com

I thought it was a curiosity of perhaps a plastic skull coming to the surface, or about holes that you might insert eyes through. The head is made almost entirely of silicone that's just like the silicone of they body.


The neck head joint





The male part of the neck head joint needs to be attached to the neck with a tiny skew that is provided.




Once inserted, it holds on through friction.






Now the Wig



It comes packaged in a little hair net.





Can see a little brand name.






I found the wig a little hard to manage, not having experience with this sorta thing, I think I got used to it quickly enough.






The clothes are of a good workmanship, especially the panties. The skirt and camisole I later found out wrinkle quickly. I left her lying down, and several hours later found the clothes wrinkled, it may be necessary to iron them to keep a neat appearance.














The colour of the actual doll matches well with the images found on the website. She is a little larger than I anticipated. She is beautiful though and amazingly soft. Shall endeavor to create images that may better explain how soft later.

And there is a sense of her fairy origins.

Sumary of Findings

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