It’s been almost a month since my Volks SDGr Mytyl arrived. She came during my busiest period, so I have only been able to work on her in parts, and today, I’d like to show you my little journey with her so far. She was my first SDGr-sized doll (57cm tall) which makes her officially my largest dolly to date – but…. her head is still smaller than Pullip and Blythes! Handy, when it comes to customising. So, lets meet Mytyl.
Curently, yes, I am still calling her Mytyl. As she morphs in her various transformations with me, her identity is still shaping, and as such I am still testing little names on her – until one sticks! I will try to give a run down on this girl, as I’m a beginner BJD collector after having mostly Blythe’s and Pullips, so I’ll try to show what I picked up while looking for her. You might have seen little peeks of her on my Instagram as I’ve been working on her.
Mytyl was a release by Volks. I was researching Volks as I was learning about BJD’s, as they are the first to create the resin-large ball jointed dolls. I thought I would pick up a doll from the mothership sooner or later – it turned out it was sooner.
My favourite Volks sculpt (the face/head blank) is still Volks Saki. I have a Saki on the way, as she is one of their always-in-stock girls, but she is on an SD10 body. SD10, meaning to resemble a 10 year old girl. I’m not a huge fan of the body myself, (I prefer my dolls older) so I went in search for a body for my Volks Saki. I was tossing up between an SDGr body (a more mature body – hard to find as they’re only limited releases) or one from Switch. Here’s the Volks guide to all the Super Dollfie sizes. After this adventure though, I might need to look for a Switch body again, and hope the resin colours match!
I found a second hand Volks SDGr Mytyl on the Den of Angels Marketplace. I was lucky, the seller was awesome, and she had her for a very good price. Mytyl was probably one of the recent Volks releases that I liked a bit more, but I still wasn’t too sure of her face sculpt. I figured though, if I didn’t like her that much I could take her body and just sell her head on.
She arrived in lots of bubbles and in her full set, with all these extra pieces.
Here’s a photo of what she’s meant to look like. She’s a character from the play “The Bluebird” and is part of Volks’ series of characters released under fairy tales. They call these series of dolls, “Journey to Dream Nights”.
As such, she came with the most ridiculous and over the top outfit, as well as extra leg pieces for flat-feet and high-heeled feet. The stock was frilly, heavy, lined, beaded, laced, and all around intense.
Here’s the size comparison between my Minifee Chloe and an SD girl. She’s big!
I popped her in all her stock and promptly giggled a bit at how overdressed she was in comparison to all my other girls. The little bonnet was the clincher. At this point, I wasn’t too sure about her, so I popped her into another outfit that I had (I only had one SD outfit unfortunately) to see maybe if she was dressed in more modern clothes she’d look different?
Better! Except she’s wearing her stock boots and they don’t quite match the outfit. She definitely wasn’t appropriately dressed for winter though.
I decided she had a lot of potential after this photo though. I was really impressed at how lovely the body was straight out of the box – no seam lines to be seen, velvety smooth, gorgeous soft curves and details (look at her tummy here!). She doesn’t pose as well as my minifee though but that may be due to her weight. Another thing I realised while holding up this dolly for a picture – heavy. She’s SO HEAVY. New biceps for Jann, as I lug this girl around! So, she came with me for a few days in my studio.
My studio is where I work, but also where I do my dolly things. I was having a ridiculous work week when I decided I needed some dolly time, so I looked over… and thought… Maybe the reason I hadn’t completely bonded with Mytyl yet was her face? I couldn’t find many faceups of Mytyl at all online, as she was a relatively new doll, so I just took the plunge, and wiped off the company faceup, freaking out the whole time (was I doing the right thing?)
Here’s my WIP before the finishing touches of the faceup I was giving her. I realised then her sculpt was kind of gorgeous – and she was the same size as a Pullip! It was like I was home!
Here she is just after I put gloss on her lips, and popped on a Pullip wig (same size, woot!). I then decided that I will slowly need to get her a new outfit, and some new eyes, and probably new hair. But, I was slowly loving her more. I kept her little Bluebird necklace from her full set though, It’s kind of part of her identity.
Here she is in her more season-appropriate clothing. I bought some things from my favourite Nine9Style. I got her new black boots, leggings, a little skirt, a turtleneck, and new hair from Lullaby Poem.
Most lovely though, are her new eyes from Enchanted Doll. I also bought these from Nine9Style thinking that it would take 6 weeks, but they arrived under a week!
And… I now feel like I’ve really made her mind, and just LOVE taking photos of her.
Wig fly-aways are almost impossible to avoid if you’re taking photos windy outside… But its okay. She’s still fab.
Except I think I need to go to the gym more if I keep wanting to lift her up with one hand. Heavy. Very. Whatever resin Volks uses, they use a lot of it, and the girl is solid haha!
And finally, I worked out how to get her eyes just right for photography. The Enchanted doll urethane eyes just capture some life, just right. I love them!
So there’s my little update on my Mytyl. I think I’m really enjoying the SD size, theres just something about them in terms of detail that is just lovely to photograph and capture, and there’s a certain heft to them as well. Unfortunately, you can’t have many due to them taking up most of the shelf space… I also love how easy it is to buy clothes for a standard Volks size! Her selection of wardrobe is almost as wide as a human’s, and I’ll have to slowly get her all fabulous things to wear.
I hope everyone has been awesome! I have a few customs I am working on soon/finishing up, so, I’ll post those soon too 🙂
Project Doll House 