Resin.....oooooooooo

[Nelly19]

Ok, I wanted to throw this out there since it came up in one of my own posts. I am afraid of resin bjds. I am currently a bigger obitsu lover, and dollfie dream admirer however, I AM TERRIFIED of the thought of owning a resin because of the potential fragilness of the sculpt and my own clusiness. I love to look at pictures of them though, they seem so person like and beautiful. So can any resin bjd owners recommend:

1. A good starter brand (inexpensive or not, height is a plus)
2. Care and maintence
3. potential prouducts i need to start hoarding for proper face ups
4. stringing.....what is that about
5. posibility

thanks for all responses guys!

[Gift_in_Edge]

It can be a little frightening at first but they can be just as fun to have as vinyl dolls.

1. I recommended Only-Doll and Bobobie/Resinsoul. Both are very nice and reasonable.
2. Just like vinyl dolls be careful with clothes that could stain and don't leave in direct sunlight too long. (brain fart of what else to put.)
3. N/A I don't do face-ups.
4. Stringing is what keeps the doll together and helps them move. (Can't seems to find a good picture of BJD anatomy.)
5. Posibility is totally up to what brand, what sculpt, and double-jointed or single-jointed.

I hope this helps. We have many members here with different kinds of dolls. So feel free to ask questions.

[Linteia]

I recommend Bobobie or Resinsoul for a good starter. They're inexpensive but still very nice and have a complete size range. RS is slimmer than BBB but I think they're branches of a single company or something, because they are usually sold and listed together. If you go that route I would suggest Junkyspot as a great dealer if you don't go through the company.

There's a whole section on care and maintenance with great tips as well as a great list of products that work and products that should never come near resin. The biggest note there is nothing oil based ever. For face ups it depends on your taste. I prefer pastels (hard, soft are oil based and therefor a no-no) but some people prefer acrylic paints. kneeded erasers, fine (30/0) brushes, a sealer (Mr. Super Clear or MSC is the brand of choice, but there are many that work) and magic erasers are also good things to have.

BBB/RS come strung, as far as I know most dolls do, but the elastic is notoriously cheap and will often need replaced when you get them. Aisling, a BBB Ariel (43cm), still has her original elastic after a year and it's doing great, but Cailean (60cm BBB Weylin) and Fionan (70cm RS Long) both had to be restrung. there are lots of tutorials on how to do this on youtube and the tutorial section here on the board. You can buy elastic kits from the company or dealer, or once you get your doll you can take it to Joanns or any craft store that caries elastic cord and buy it there.

Different companies (and stringing) will change the posing abilities. Often people will suede or kip their dolls joints to aid with this and there are tutorials for that here too. They don't pose like Obitsus, though, even with sueding and kipping.

[OkamiKodomo]

Ok, I wanted to throw this out there since it came up in one of my own posts. I am afraid of resin bjds. I am currently a bigger obitsu lover, and dollfie dream admirer however, I AM TERRIFIED of the thought of owning a resin because of the potential fragilness of the sculpt and my own clusiness. I love to look at pictures of them though, they seem so person like and beautiful. So can any resin bjd owners recommend:

1. A good starter brand (inexpensive or not, height is a plus)
2. Care and maintence
3. potential prouducts i need to start hoarding for proper face ups
4. stringing.....what is that about
5. posibility

thanks for all responses guys!

Firstly, I have to say that even though I don't own an obitsu yet, they are wonderful dolls, and can pose circles around resin dolls. If posing is the most important aspect of a doll to you, then stick with them. You can always pop a resin head on an obitsu body.

That being said, as I'm the one that mentioned resin being sturdier than expected...

1. ResinSoul are really great starter dolls. They're one of the least expensive dolls out there, and they come in all kinds of fantasy colors. They aren't the greatest of posers out there, and it's almost a guarantee that one of the first things you'll have to do is to restring it. Sueding and wiring help too, and there are plenty of tutorials floating around for all of the above. They have dolls all the way up to 70cm. I highly recommend looking at owner pictures first, though, because the pictures on ResinSoul's website do NOT do their beautiful sculpts any justice. RS is also really great about replacing ANY part of their dolls, so no matter what you manage to break, you can buy a replacement.

2. Mr Clean Magic Erasers are a must for any resin owner. They can remove minor scuffs and dirt, and even some light staining caused by dark clothes or wigs. Use a wig-cap to protect the doll's head from said staining, but all told, resin stains less readily than vinyl, so if you take the same precautions with your resins that you do with vinyls, you won't have any problems. As for care, do not leave your dolls in direct sunlight. Resin yellows over time, no matter what you do, but sunlight significantly accelerates the process. Smoke is also a bad idea. My poor ResinSoul Ai has awful patterns wherever her skin was exposed because my fiance used to smoke in the living room where I had her on display. A good scrub with the aforementioned magic erasers will probably remove most of it, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

3. Face-up supplies should never contain any kind of oils. Use a good sealant (Mr Super Clear or ZM spray are some of the go-to and preferred sprays. Testors is ok, but it yellows quickly, and collects dust. Good for practice, not good for finished products) Acrylic paints and soft[chalk] pastels should be artist grade, not craft paint, but some student grade supplies can be used for practice if you're not sure you want to invest big bucks into supplies for something you may not want to keep doing. Many good artists are available to commission for face-ups if you decide it's not for you. That's what I did; started with student-grade supplies, and now that I'm sure I want to pursue face-ups, I'm upgrading my stuff to higher qualities.

4. Stringing is, very simply, the stuff that holds a doll together. Usually it's 2 pieces, one for the length of the body, including the legs, and one for the arms. The tension and thickness of the string effects how well the doll poses. Luckily, stringing is one of those things that is virtually impossible to permanently do damage with. I think every doll owner out there has, at some point, strung limbs on the wrong side (fixed, obviously, by restringing again) tried using a string that was too tight (get more string, or loosen the knot) or strung too loose (tighten the strings). Again, lots of great tutorials for restringing.

5. Posing ability depends on too many factors to give a general statement, other than the fact that vinyl poses better than resin. Different companies have different abilities. So do different joint structures. String tension. Number of articulation points: 3 torso pieces, or 2, or just 1. Double jointed or single jointed. You get the idea.

[famedglory]

Grrr. Totally had a decent response typed up and it disapeared. Lets try again:
1. A good starter brand (inexpensive or not, height is a plus)
I really recommend Bobobie and Resinsoul. They had a wide variety of colors and sculpts, they sand the seams which is not something most companies do, they're easy to work with and friendly, and they're inexpensive as far as resin bjd's are concerned.
2. Care and maintence
You shouldn't expose them to direct sunlight(a rule that I constantly break so far without any yellowing consequences) don't touch them with dirty/oily hands etc. They do stain although not nearly as easily as vinyl but you should keep an eye on dark wigs/clothes. Most staining is very easy to fix with a magic eraser.
3. potential prouducts i need to start hoarding for proper face ups
I like watercolor pencils, soft pastels, acrylic paints and gloss and Mr. Super Clear as the sealer.
4. stringing.....what is that about
It holds the together and the tension of the elastic allows them to pose. BBB and RS dolls do tend to come loosely strung. This is a very easy fix. You just need to pull on the elastic and tie a new knot. Restringing a doll is typicaly very easy but takes a while the first time you do it. There's a small learning curve. First time I restrung a doll, it took me two hours. Second time with the same doll, it took 15 minutes. I recommend getting a pair of hemostats to help hold the elastic in place. It's not necassry but it does help a lot.
5. posibility
Varies greatly by company but typically not as good as you find with the vinyl Obistus. Generally way better than you find with the Dolfie Dreams. I love my DD but geez.

Hot glue sueding the joints helps hold poses and is incredibly easy to do and won't damage the resin. I'm sure there's at least one tutorial around here but if not I'll be sueding my new girl sometime this weekend and can make one then.

[Evelien]

I prefer pastels (hard, soft are oil based and therefor a no-no)

Wait, what..? I always learned I AM supposed to use soft pastels?!

[Llwynog]

I prefer pastels (hard, soft are oil based and therefor a no-no)

Wait, what..? I always learned I AM supposed to use soft pastels?!

The important part is no oil. I look for a good quality chalk pastel. Generally he higher the pigment content of the chalk the softer it is, so in that sense softer is better. But it's still harder than oil pastels.

[twiddle66]

Yes- Soft Pastels. Genreally soft pastels are soft because they have less binder and are not oil based. Hard pastels have more binders and are often oil based although there are binders besides oild out there. Most retailers like Pearl and Dick Blick give very good descriptions of their pastels contents and seperate clearly the oil based from the non oil based because they have VERY different blending attributes and the artists that are the main customers (surprisingly us doll face-up folks are NOT the main consumer of pastels! Shudder-- LOL) need to know how they will be blending.

There are some soft oil based pastels so just make sure you read the descriptions, BUT for the most part, the softer the pastel the less chance it is oil based because oil is a binder which basicaly dampens and holds the pigment together---think of dry arrid sand which flows and is soft to the foot and damp compacted sand which is hard and easier to walk along. the water acts like the oil in the pastel and binds it together but also makes it harder.

[kurosu.chan]

Alex is a Resinsoul Mai, and I got him to hold a Bobobie tiny with his original stringing, no sueding, and very little assistance. Elastic all comes down to taste, really. All my dolls still have their original Resinsoul/Bobbie stringing, and I'm quite happy with it.

Also, if you order from Junkyspot, the dolls are Resinsoul sculpts, though they're listed as Bobobie. The only difference is the bodies; Resinsoul are skinnier, but both companies sell the same face sculpts, I think.

[kurosu.chan]

I forgot to mention, fragility isn't really too big an issue. Resin, while more delicate than vinyl, is still surprisingly sturdy. Mihika has taken quite a few tumbles onto hard surfaces, and the only damage is a tiny tiny chip in one ear (which she may have gotten when she fell on something sharp hidden in my carpet >.<). She has those beautiful pointy elf ears, too, and those tend to be the most fragile, because they stick out so much more than human ears. Usually, damage can be repaired with super glue or epoxy, and a clever blushing. My advice is "be careful, but don't worry too much".