To re-shell, or not to re-shell?

[Jobee]

Lately I've been pondering the idea of re-shelling Lola and Gabby to some nicer dolls, maybe finally get into resin. I've never done it before and I'm not sure how well it would work. Would the girls move to their new bodies? Or would new little personalities take over? Maybe it's like them growing up.

Have you ever re-shelled a doll?
Why did you do it?
How well did it go?
Any advice?

[Iwa_Hoshi]

Why you do it -
To (semi)retire a well played doll, because I want a character I'm familiar with, instead of creating a totally new character. Entire team except Kula have previous forms as plushies and action figures


How it went -
It went various ways
I suppose it depends on whether the resin doll feels right. At one point in time, I had wanted an Iplehouse Luna to be 1/3 Chun Li (before Megu-Chun showed up). I was looking at how close she resembles 1/6 Obi-Chun. Somehow Megu-Chun just ended up being a younger version instead. All my Chun Lis are indivdual dolls with slight different characteristic
- They are all Chun Li, but they are not each other exactly (Something like Jango Fett Clone troopers and Boba Feet)
- All my Ryus are slightly different aspect of Ryu as well.

Now that I have both of them. Helen (the Iple Luna) is allow to cosplay my older Chun Lis
assimilation

Helen, herself, manages to switch between her Iple 1/3 form, Her 1/6 Volks Type C, Parabox Neko and Hujoo Freya cat form since I find the resemblance strong enough to be herself still. I think she's trying to replicate herself to catch up with all my individual Chun Lis
- They are all Helen and Helen is all (Agent Smith army?)
- Jack, Mini Jack and default plushie Jack are this as well
- Neemo Taki and Hujoo Taki are this


- April, Casey, Erika, Erisa and Randall were damaged action figure and plushies respectively, April reshelled well and likes her new form, the sisters are amused by their new doll form. All three of them except Randall have got new heads (replacing grubby doll version 1) and still continues on as themselves.


Advice
- Depends on how much new doll would look like character
- willingness to accept slight personality quirks

[Jobee]

Thank you Iwa Hoshi!

[MitisFeles]

Have you ever re-shelled a doll?
Only once, at least until now. I reshelled Faye, my 27 cm Obitsu Fairy, in a bigger doll, a MNF Elf Yder on a Withdoll girl body.
I also plan to reshell my 25 cm Obitsu Gretel, Kiriane, using a Gretel 47.

Why did you do it?
I realized, after getting my first MSD, that I enjoy a lot more bigger sized dolls. Also Faye was intended to be a D&D character but I never managed to sew her fantasy clothing because of her small size, that makes this really hard for me and my limited sewing skills. Finally, I found a resin MSD boy, Uliat, my grey Withdoll Juwel, that was perfect to incarnate (inresinate?) Faye's fiancee that was an albino tiefling sorceror and I didn't want to left him alone.

How well did it go?
Well, I think it went well. Big Faye looks very well with her fiancee...even if she still doesn't wear fantasy clothing...(and neither Uliat)


And Small Faye still doesn't look at all like her character...


Any advice?
Do it only if you're really sure it's time to upgrade your dollieh shell and you have find the perfect doll to do it.

[richila]

Have you ever re-shelled a doll? Yes, Shriara - Shriara is an original character and the main character of a novel series that I am writing-slowly
Shriara -resin to resin - doll change and size increase

Why did you do it? Shriara fell in love with a friend's doll after seeing him on the computer. She thought they were the same size and decided to "grow" when she found out they weren't. I had discovered the joy of Planet Doll and their beautiful posing and wanted Shriara to be easier to wig, dress and photograph. Tiny sewing was hard for me then and I didn't know how to make my own wigs.

How well did it go? I did a lot of modding on the Planet Doll before she felt like Shriara and then there was no problem despite the difference in resin color. I found a wig in the same color family and that helped a lot. Planet Doll was my doll of choice because they had a 27 cm and a 43 cm with the same face.

Any advice? Be sure it is what you want and why you want it. The MSD size was too big for me-Planet Doll MSD girl was a lot bigger than the Resin Soul MSD girl that I had. I ended up sending her to her Jake and she looks happier than she ever did for me. The dolls ended up being identical twins who fell in love with two different men with the same face. They were part of triplets-My explanation for the different skintone of the first Shriara. All of them had the same first name, Shriara-different middle names-only the eldest, my 27 cm, was called by the name Shriara.

First incarnation of Shriara



Second incarnation



Second and third after face ups by Setsunakou



Shriara with Jake,the one who started the transformation

[Trethowan]

I reshelled Patrick. His original head was really nice but it was a bit yellow. I thought I'd go cheap by getting a Mirodoll body but it didn't suit the character at all. I switched him over to an Akagi Ban with the matching Akagi body and I'm super happy. It's a skinnier model so it suits the character way better.

[Tasuke]

if this means moving the heads over to new doll bodies, then this is pretty much standard practice for me.

i focus on 1/6 Anime dolls, with a collection so far highly weighted with older 90's examples.
it has become standard procedure to move them to OBITSU bodies in the desired/appropriate
bust size and/or skin tone. no stock 1/6 doll body from that era is even a quarter as good.

alas, two of my girls are from a couple of TSUKUDA HOBBY's odd-size 1/5 Anime doll lines of the late-90's,
and, while their stock bodies are above average for a 20th century Anime doll, the nevertheless pale before the OBITSU.
unfortunately, since OBITSU does not seem to make doll bodies in appropriate size for them, there's little i've been able to do for those two...

[embyquinn]

It would be easier for me to say which dolls I haven't reshelled. All for different reasons, though.

I had no choice to reshell Megumi because my original Megumi was stolen one night from the laundromat where I worked then. Thankfully, for me the doll characters are not totally dependent on their plastic bodies, so it wasn't really Megumi that I lost, just a hunk of plastic.

Ashe was originally a rerooted MyScene with a new faceup, but I didn't seal it properly and it started to bleed, so I got a new Ashe (rerooted Shakira head on a Fashionista body).

Miya has been reshelled several times. She started out as an Obitsu, then she was a Moxie Teenz, and I might have left her that way except when I got Joe (her love interest), I rescaled her down to Barbie size (a Palm Beach Midge head on a Fashionista body).

I have even reshelled my darling Cherry. Her original form was as a Liv Daniela, then I got a Moxie Teenz Melrose and Tristen and swapped the eyes (the blue-eyed Tristen was the second Miya) and put the Melrose head with violet eyes on the Liv body. Then the foot broke on the Liv and I got a Volks Tan EB for her. But the Volks body, while very poseable, is way too floppy for my tastes. So, for now, Cherry is a Melrose head with Tristen's eyes on a Fashionista body.