Meet Mai (and Mochi)!

1 hour ago, Tierparkzone said:

If you have enough wrist joints for every hand, there are few reasons to ever take the hands off again.

Cannot recommend doing this enough.  It's what I do and it makes changing out the hands take less than five seconds and I never have to worry about damaging the vinyl trying to get it on and off.  

3 hours ago, chef_mai said:

After much delay, I finally got the spare wrist joints today, but to my dismay, while some slip on relatively easily, some of the hands have too small a hole to slip on. In fact, I notice that for these, I can't even get them to the half-on position without some heat, let alone entirely on.

Should I start using a knife to scrape the holes bigger?

If using a hair dryer, you might have to heat them for 3 to 5 minutes, depending on the strength of the device. Everyone says 30 seconds to a couple of minutes, but that’s not nearly long enough in my experience. They’re super pliable and easy to get onto the rods when hot enough, so if you’re still having trouble it just means they need more heat. They’ll go back to their original shape as they cool down.

Supposedly you can also boil them, but I’ve never tried. They can take a lot of heat so you don’t have to worry about overdoing it unless you’re setting them on fire or something.

You could cut them with an xacto knife if you want, but if you think that might bother you after the fact (maybe the cut is uneven or you didn’t want to modify them after all), then I would stick to the blow dryer method, but it’s up to you.

Here’s a post I made in my early days when I had the same issue:

 

Thanks everyone! I'll give it another go this week. Thankfully, I have enough pairs of wrists for a 1:1 pairing.

I used the edge of a small pair of scissors to scrape just a little bit of the excess vinyl off (it comes off in tiny shavings similar to micro-planed parmesan) and hope that it makes the process a little easier.

I found an old kitchen timer that works well as a doll-sized pot.

Mai hasn't figured out yet why the top doesn't come off...

Edited May 20, 2022 by chef_mai

I've alluded a bunch to a second girl I've been working on for quite some time now, and it's finally time to pull back the curtain!

This is Mochi, Mai's younger sister. While Mai's all about cooking, Mochi's into baking and sweets. Although she appears shy and reserved in contrast to Mai's bubbly demeanor, she's actually quite mischievous, which can get her into trouble at school.

While she's dressed in her school uniform here, in contrast to Mai's tomboyish style, Mochi is a bit more fashion-conscious and daring with her style choices. Once I build up her wardrobe more, she'll show off more of that.

She'll show up a bunch in the cooking webcomic as the deuteragonist, showing up frequently and sometimes starring in her own comics when something baked or sweet comes up.

(Does anyone have tips on how I can manage her hair better? It doesn't show up much IRL, but I find it hard for photos to deal with those stray bits.)

 

The Nitty Gritty

Mochi is a hybrid in all respects. Her base is an Azone 45cm, but I swapped her lower torso to AP-C for better flexibility and plan to swap her bust in the future to an AP-C1 to maintain the size but visually match better (the skin tone's off rn). AP-C is similar in size to the lower torso of AZT-45 but with the soft feel and nicer sculpting.

Her upper arms are Obitsu 48/50 length, which makes her fit better in tops without looking too wrong. I got the mixed-arm piece idea from a Japanese owner.

Mochi's head is a custom DDH-27. Eyes are done by ivoryteal. Her wig is from Pengin Workshop.

Edited May 20, 2022 by chef_mai

Oh my gosh, Mochi is so adorable! I was worried you were going to leave the forums after you said you were done getting everything for Mai, but it sounds like you have a new pet project 🥳

For the flyaways, you could try Volks’ Angel Hairbrush, or just a normal toothbrush, but it looks like some of the strands are too long and some came out of the twin tails. In that case, you could pull them out or cut them, if you feel comfortable doing that.

8 hours ago, ragnamuffin said:

Oh my gosh, Mochi is so adorable! I was worried you were going to leave the forums after you said you were done getting everything for Mai, but it sounds like you have a new pet project 🥳

Aww thanks! I wasn't planning on leaving but am enjoying things at a slower pace. Mai won't be getting anything new for a while, but I'll be slowly adding pieces to Mochi's wardrobe.

I have almost enough spare parts to complete a third body sans head, but 2's honestly all the space and attention I can offer. 😁

I've thought about maybe using that extra body to let Mai hot swap to a body with smaller legs, so she can fit into a few outfits she'd look really cute in, like overalls.

 

8 hours ago, ragnamuffin said:

For the flyaways, you could try Volks’ Angel Hairbrush, or just a normal toothbrush, but it looks like some of the strands are too long and some came out of the twin tails. In that case, you could pull them out or cut them, if you feel comfortable doing that.

Thanks! I'll give this a try.

On 5/20/2022 at 3:15 AM, chef_mai said:

Does anyone have tips on how I can manage her hair better?

You can use water wax to tame flyaways. 

For those who own 45cm both and 48/50cm Obitsus... are you actually buying a second set of wrist joints (that you trim) + a second set of hands? 

So effectively, 10 pairs of hands + 10 pairs of wrists total?

Edited May 31, 2022 by chef_mai

On 5/31/2022 at 7:30 AM, chef_mai said:

For those who own 45cm both and 48/50cm Obitsus... are you actually buying a second set of wrist joints (that you trim) + a second set of hands? 

So effectively, 10 pairs of hands + 10 pairs of wrists total?

I don’t own the 45, but if the hands don’t look weird with the body, I wouldn’t bother getting a whole second set (unless for whatever reason you need them to have the same hands e.g., for a photo story or something).

I’d probably give one of them the Gensodoll articulated hands and let the other use the spare hands/wrist joints, but that’s just me.

23 hours ago, ragnamuffin said:

I don’t own the 45, but if the hands don’t look weird with the body, I wouldn’t bother getting a whole second set (unless for whatever reason you need them to have the same hands e.g., for a photo story or something).

I’d probably give one of them the Gensodoll articulated hands and let the other use the spare hands/wrist joints, but that’s just me.

The issue is that the lower arms on the 45 are of a shorter length, so each wrist joint that's attached must be trimmed by about 1 cm. Unfortunately, this also applies to the articulated hands too.

I've tried attaching the lower arms from an Obitsu 48/50, and it ends up looking really off, whether I make both the upper and lower arms long or just the lower. The only combo that looks decent is making the upper arms longer because it's obscured by sleeves. 

2 hours ago, chef_mai said:

The issue is that the lower arms on the 45 are of a shorter length, so each wrist joint that's attached must be trimmed by about 1 cm. Unfortunately, this also applies to the articulated hands too.

I've tried attaching the lower arms from an Obitsu 48/50, and it ends up looking really off, whether I make both the upper and lower arms long or just the lower. The only combo that looks decent is making the upper arms longer because it's obscured by sleeves. 

Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah, that complicates things. The economical thing might be to get the Gensodoll MDD hands (40 or 45) and just use those, unless you’re okay with buying everything again and trimming the rods.

Edited June 6, 2022 by ragnamuffin

This time, Mai's wearing a blazer school uniform and the darker socks that stained her feet a while ago but haven't done since.

A wig for Mochi that I ordered way back in January finally arrived! To be honest, I was already happy with Mochi's existing twintails wig, but this one's a little more versatile. 

(I put on the wig a bit hastily and will pull it lower & straighten it out next time!)

Last but not least, Mai & Mochi together

Edited June 15, 2022 by chef_mai

3 hours ago, chef_mai said:

Awww... So cute!

I finally got hold of the lighter summer uniform I'd been looking for after Azone unexpectedly restocked their backcatalog.

Mai's wearing a cardigan over it to loosely mimic the high school uniforms from Gochiusa.

Totally cute pics.

 

Do those ap thighs go well on a 47 parabox body and would you need the shins too from an ap doll?

21 minutes ago, RozensMaidens said:

Totally cute pics.

 

Do those ap thighs go well on a 47 parabox body and would you need the shins too from an ap doll?

AP parts are made for the 48cm Obitsu frame, so you might have to trim the rods to get everything to fit right.

20 minutes ago, ragnamuffin said:

AP parts are made for the 48cm Obitsu frame, so you might have to trim the rods to get everything to fit right.

 sadness

Mochi's back wearing an outfit for the beach and borrowed Mai's cardigan for a playful look.

Edited July 15, 2022 by chef_mai
Added a second pic with better posing.

The moe sleeves!! I've also been meaning to say that Mai with the thicker thighs is super duper cute! She looks just right with them.

I wasn't using this Volks long-sleeved MDD shirt (from the high school set) because the hem's too short, and it was difficult to button the middle button.

But with a little tweaking and using the cardigan to cover up where it's short, I came up with this gyaru(ish) school look today.

Edited July 20, 2022 by chef_mai

It's casual Friday! Mai's wearing a raglan from TTYA that I received this week.

 

Mochi's also gone casual with a pair of TTYA shorts.

Edited July 23, 2022 by chef_mai
Added Mochi

Mochi is back with a fresh new uniform and backpack!

Mai's trying out a slimmer body on a trial basis, so she can fit into outfits she otherwise wouldn't have access to. This Volks MDD outfit is exactly the kind of cute-casual outfit that I feel suits her well.

Her body's an Angel Philia H2 + C up top and regular O48 legs below. I might experiment with type-C legs (whenever they restock...) to see if I can retain some of the thickness without breaking compatibility. 

So far, with this combo, her compatibility with MDD outfits is close to 100%. It's a pretty big size difference between the two AP busts (H2 vs. H) as far as MDD clothing compatibility is concerned. She looks better in her original body in uniforms and some other outfits, so it's a tradeoff between aesthetics vs. compatibility.

It's something I'll have to weigh since I don't want to get too much into the habit of switching the head around after I had a mishap the other day when the connector dislodged and stuck with the body.