Oculae's Hybrid Lab!

My collection is pretty eclectic, but it's one I'm very proud of! Almost all of my dolls and parts are secondhand, with a couple of very rare exceptions that I'll point out as part of the doll's introduction! And every single one uses parts from other companies.

First up is Eiran, my #1 favorite boy! He's a Smartdoll Eiji head in Milk, with a factory faceup that I added to slightly. An extremely lucky secondhand find from a collector on Instagram, who had originally got him directly from the outlet store from what Danny now calls the Chaos section!

This head is currently with Synthetic Ephemera for a resin wig commission, so for the time being I'm using an unmodified Suzaku head for him:

He was originally on an Obitsu 50 boy body, but another lucky secondhand find let me snag a like-new 55 body from the owner of a closed-down French toy store, which I then added 60cm arms and legs to in order to make a 60 boy. He uses Dollfie Dream, Smartdoll, and Obitsu 65 hands interchangeably depending on what hand pose I want, so depending on which hands he's using, he often reps all 3 major vinyl companies at once!

Second is my oldest and most sentimental vinyl, Olive!

She is a Gretel47 head (a rare purchase directly from Parabox) with an Azone frankendoll body consisting of the lower half of an AZM3 body, an Azone G bust, and Angel Philia B type arms. The AZM3 abs and the B's buff arms really give her a muscular, outdoorsy look that I love, a vast improvement from the stock Obitsu 50 body I had her on originally. The faceup is my own work, and if she looks a little like Smartdoll's Resilient, that's intentional! I bought her as my first specifically because I really wanted Resilient at the time, but she just financially wasn't doable for me, so I referenced her faceup to make my own! I like Olive a lot more than her inspiration now. ^^

Next is Erato, my demon girl! She's a DDH-01 custom on an Obitsu 50 body!

As you can see, she uses DD hands as well. She's a nice low-budget alternative to a DDP, and wears the same size clothing! She's also the first and only resin character I had that I completely reshelled into vinyl when I switched over.

Next is Ambrosia, the real owner of that Suzaku head Eiran's borrowing!

He's another old character of mine shelled as a doll, and is on what I call my "desperation hybrid" body. When you find an Obitsu 65 torso on Mandarake but only have 60cm limbs available, you make do! I plan on seeing if I can get DD Dynamite thighs to work with the rest of his parts, their thickness would probably save him a bit from his sad "skinny legs" look.

Poppy is next, and notable for being my first foray into modding my own heads!

I bet you can guess what I did to her. 😉 She's a custom Gretel47 on an Obitsu 40 body with an Angel Philia flat bust. The head and body were purchased direct from Parabox, but the bust wasn't!

Last, but certainly not least, is Euphemia, a hybrid with a resin head!

She is a Doll Chateau Snowborn head on the old 3-part Obitsu 60 body before they switched over to the ball jointed version. She was another new purchase,
and I'm extremely grateful Denver Doll Emporium had the head in stock after Snowborn was discontinued by the ccompany. Her body is secondhand from a collector on Ebay. I color matched her blushing and did her faceup myself, it was a real labor of love. If any other resin catches my eye, this is absolutely what I'm going to do with them, because the whole reason I went to vinyl was because of its rock solid posing!

I have a few other dolls, but they're either in pieces and not in a good state for photographs, or in storage and not in a good state for photographs. I'll share them as they're made presentable again. I hope you enjoy my collection!
😄

Go figure, as soon as I make an intro thread, I get the last pieces I need to finish up the build for my latest project. x'D 

Meet Six! Not exactly my most glamorous photo, but for a doll I just put together at like 11pm last night and have no clothes for (//looks despairingly at my in-transit Mandarake order), it'll have to do!

She's a friend of Eiran's, and her character is a wild one, to say the least. She's a DIM Minimee Edward Elric head on a 65cm Obitsu boy body with a modified Dollfie Dream Large Flat bust, DD Large hands, and (though not pictured) Dollfie Dream feet.

One of my friends got the 65 body in a trade, and poor packing left his knee totally destroyed. That and the already broken ankle on the body prompted them to sell it to me instead to see if I could salvage it, as I've been wanting a 65 boy with arms and legs included for a while and the whole transaction had ruined the doll for them. Pleased to report that 60cm knees fit the 65 just fine, and DD feet make a great alternative to the Obitsu ones, though I'm really missing the magnets.

She's not technically done yet - her character's skin is bright red, so I need to somehow develop the courage to dye a rare head and a rare body before she's truly accurate, and her penchant for dark clothes means that I'll have to look into a red bodysuit as well...but as one of my more ambitious hybrids, I'm very pleased with how she's been coming along so far!

(And yes, she's bald for character reasons as well. When you're a dangerously ambitious alchemist who's DIYing the transition process, sometimes you craft a body hair removal spell that works a little too well. She has to draw her own eyebrows on every morning, poor thing, but she digs the egghead look enough to roll with it.)

Your dolls are all so cool and unique!! I especially love Poppy, I'm a sucker for cyclops girls : >

Really into the use of secondhand parts and franken-doll projects! ✨

My gosh, I'm positively blown away!! Your sheer creativity is astounding, all of your dolls are so unique and bursting at their joints with personality. I can't stop looking at Erato lol. Thank you so much for sharing! 

Aww, thanks! There's a lot of big personalities in my crew, so I'm glad to hear they're shining through in photos too!

I love seeing what I can do with secondhand stuff, and seeing what I can reuse out of project dolls or failed mods! Poppy actually came about because of a failed eye mod I did on one of my many attempts to make Eiran before I settled on an Eiji head. I made the eyes too big, gave up and stuck it in storage...and then several months later after getting a bad new doll craving, I picked the failed head back up and had a crazy idea.

Erato's got me thinking of another crazy idea too, as technically, there is one more bit of modding to do before she's what I'd consider a perfect reshell of her character in resin...

Miracledoll Jing's cool extra eye holes haunt me. I want Erato to have forehead rocks again. I just gotta be brave and try some dremel practice on my spare parts soon, which is easier said than done, as I've only used it on resin before and am a bit intimidated by how in might act on softer vinyl. 😅

Really cool photo’s. Love the custom doll Euphemia with DC Snowborn head (besides the fact that most of my girls are vinyl BJD’s I also have weak spot for the Dollzone/DollChateau BJD’s 😁 ) impressive result of using parts from multiple brands. The Face up for Olive is very good. And it indeed has the same style as Reselient. 😁 The shoulder joint looks a bit big. Could be because of the photo’s angle. 

On 8/14/2021 at 9:54 AM, Rajke said:

The shoulder joint looks a bit big.

The Angel Philia B arm vinyl attaches strangely to the shoulder joint, which leaves a lot more of it exposed than the stock Obitsu 50 arms that most Obitsu-based 50cms use. Maybe that's why? 🤔

I did notice it while assembling though, I just ignored it because I kinda like the big shoulder look! It adds nicely to her form, I think. 😁

Also, Eiran got a new sheepy hood in the mail yesterday:

The lighting on him got a little weird, so it's not my favorite greenscreen edit I've done, but he still looks so cute. 💖

On 8/17/2021 at 7:02 PM, Oculae said:

The Angel Philia B arm vinyl attaches strangely to the shoulder joint, which leaves a lot more of it exposed than the stock Obitsu 50 arms that most Obitsu-based 50cms use. Maybe that's why? 🤔

I did notice it while assembling though, I just ignored it because I kinda like the big shoulder look! It adds nicely to her form, I think. 😁

Also, Eiran got a new sheepy hood in the mail yesterday:

The lighting on him got a little weird, so it's not my favorite greenscreen edit I've done, but he still looks so cute. 💖

Looked it up and the obitsu 50 joint and a bit ashamed that i never noticed it before. 😅 The sheepy hood is nice. 😀

Much to the delight of my 1/6 collector friend, I finally caved over a pure neemo on Mandarake. 😅

Look at him. He's beautiful. If he's still in stock once Manda checks for me, I'll need to make a 1/6 Eiran so he'll have someone to hang out with! I'm going to call him Sable for now.

I absolutely love your Gretel hybrid. I hope to some fast get to the level of compatability intuition that I have with resin BJD hybriding and you seem to have with vinyl dolls.
 

I wish more dolls had this muscular aesthetic now. I didn’t pay attention to vinyl dolls for years and I come back and the muscular Angelphilias and bigger male Obitsu are all gone! 

Looks like I’m going to have to get smart quick!

28 minutes ago, muphryslaw said:

compatability intuition

My secret is that I'm a massive Obitsu fan. 😉

The frames for the "1/3" (though at 40-50cm, they're 1/4 if you ask me) Obitsus are pretty much identical, and what doesn't fit can be sanded or built up with epoxy or replaced with something that does! Any vinyl that's 40-50cm has a good chance of being on the Obitsu frame - like all of the dolls that make up Olive - which means that building a hybrid is a matter of making the frame the right size and then swapping the vinyl shells around until it looks good. If you like another company's pieces and wanna put those on your doll somehow, you still just have to figure out how to get peg A in slot B, for the most part. It's not too hard once you get past the initial learning curve!

I joined the vinyl game late too - my muscular dolls and boys are all extremely lucky secondhand finds. I check Instagram hashtags and Mandarake searches RELIGIOUSLY. And for my 55, I blindly Googled. There's always a chance to snag one if you're patient and persistent!

(As an aside, Sable's definitely coming home. Mandarake sent me the invoice. Yay!)

Thanks for the support! I guess I didn’t realize that all sizes of the Obitsu skeleton are compatible—I’m an Obitsu fan too. 
 

I do check the secondhand market pretty regularly, especially Mandarake (although I feel like I haven’t quite figured out Dollyteria yet—I need to find the right section here to ask how the heck you find categories so I don’t have to know the item name or scroll endlessly through doll clothes!) 

Congrats on your Sable.

as for me, I know it’ll work out eventually, I just wasn’t counting on having to be as patient as I’m ending up having to be. Darn!

Haven't updated this in a while! Here's my newest friend!

Nova! She's definitely a delinquent, and already crabby at me for taking so long to get her dressed. After an extremely long and very stressful secondhand buying experience that I won't get into here, she finally showed up yesterday. Dollfie Icons are just as gorgeous in person as everyone's been saying!

I definitely want to add some custom touches, but my favorite idea would be a bit of a huge and stressful undertaking. Her metallic skin would make for a great android look, especially with carved seamlines like in MH's Elle Eedee (who is my favorite of all MH dolls ever made, tbh)

That's gonna involve some familarity with the dremel, though, and I'm not sure I have the guts for that yet. 😅

Her fun quirk is that she wears exclusively white, silver, or holo. No colors allowed! I plan on replacing those boots she has ASAP to fit that theme.

10 hours ago, Oculae said:

Haven't updated this in a while! Here's my newest friend!

Nova! She's definitely a delinquent, and already crabby at me for taking so long to get her dressed. After an extremely long and very stressful secondhand buying experience that I won't get into here, she finally showed up yesterday. Dollfie Icons are just as gorgeous in person as everyone's been saying!

I definitely want to add some custom touches, but my favorite idea would be a bit of a huge and stressful undertaking. Her metallic skin would make for a great android look, especially with carved seamlines like in MH's Elle Eedee (who is my favorite of all MH dolls ever made, tbh)

That's gonna involve some familarity with the dremel, though, and I'm not sure I have the guts for that yet. 😅

Her fun quirk is that she wears exclusively white, silver, or holo. No colors allowed! I plan on replacing those boots she has ASAP to fit that theme.

 

Congrats on your icon!

I've never seen a custom one before and I think she'd make a lovely android girl. Maybe you can practice the Dremel on spare parts or another dolly who won't mind? 😄

Considering how many obitsu bits I have laying around? I totally should. 😂

That's a great idea!

It's been a while, so here's a pile of photos I've taken recently!

First off - Eiran updates!

He's back! Kind of! I still don't have him back from his wig commission, but one of my friends sold me a second painted milk Eiji head that I was able to recreate his faceup on:

Very pleased that I was able to get his smile and blush looking the same.

He also got a hand-crocheted sweater for Christmas this year. Crochet is hard, but not nearly as hard as getting good lighting in my room! 😂

Speaking of Christmas, he was featured in the photocard I made and sent to the lucky recipient of my Secret Santa gift this year! The vinyl Discord server I'm in runs one every year and it's very fun. He's got a hat for cats on his head, and the bird and holly sprig both came from a local craft supply store.

I also was lucky enough to finally, finally put this boy in my absolute "when pigs fly" grail, which is this awesome outfit from Liebestod called "Calling the Thunder"! The preorder for this set was very limited due to an unexpected scandal with the designer that cut the preorder period short, so I doubted I'd ever get it...and then one of my friends just happened to spot a listing for it on Mercari. Fastest damage I've ever done to my poor wallet. It's meant for a 70cm boy, but careful styling made it work just fine on him!

Here's another one of him, at home once more on my desk in the office. He's got some Nakayoshi hands on - eventually they'll be used so he can hold hands with his boyfriend (when I get around to building that doll of him...) but for now he's able to nervously wring his hands all by his lonesome!

And here's one more of him in the office with me, featuring one of my favorite outfits for him - it's a holographic candy-toned mess, and I love it! The pendant he's got on is a Chinese good luck charm specifically meant to bless the wearer with a long life. Obitsu 60s are notoriously fragile, so he wears it constantly for a bit of extra protection. 😆

I'll be sharing some newcomers next!

Edited December 27, 2021 by Oculae

Time for some newcomers! We'll go smallest to largest here.

First - my custom Picco Neemos!

Look familiar? That's right - it's Eiran and Sable! They're dating now, so I had to get them both as a set. Both are custom Nendoroid heads that I commissioned an Etsy artist for, and both are on Picco Neemo D boy bodies. I wasn't entirely satisfied with Eiran's face, so I learned how to use the official Nendoroid Face Maker with a proxy...

Much better! I'll add more blush to him later.

I also got some of these hybrids in a more...licensed flavor.

Hanji Zoe queen of my heart I'm so sorry you're from an anime I hate. 😭 You're my doll now, so I can make better stories with you!

Mami from Madoka Magica (with my little resin dino) and Akechi from Persona 5!

More Mami, and Ryuji from Persona 5!

I see why people collect nendos now, it's so fun to have tiny anime friends. 😊💖

Speaking of tiny friends, I added Sable to my collection, but I also got my hands on another of the very small list of 1/6 dolls I like - the special Dollybird Obitsu School collabs, Miss Shino Yaesaka! Here she is with Sable.

Obitsu 1/6 dolls are way more posable than their Azone counterparts, I see why so many rebody their Azones onto them! Sable will stay as-is though, he and Shino will probably spend most of their time as display dollies. I like them too much to do anything custom with them beyond changing a pose every so often. It's rare for me, but it does happen, and I'm learning to be okay with that!

Edited April 7, 2022 by Oculae

I've had her for a few months, but a stain incident and a surprise Manda find kept me from posting her until now...BEHOLD! MISS SONICO! 🎉🎉🎉

She's VERY special, because while I originally had a custom Parabox May head for her, I found an official head with a nicely done eyehole mod on Manda just last week! Those are Madoka eyes from Ersaflora in there!

She's using MDD Large hands, and is on an Angel Philia H body, but I swapped out the bust for a G bust to get both the proper Sonico cup size and the AP squishy thighs that I'm so fond of. Sexy value aside, I like them because they're just so huggable! She's also got her official headphones and the necklace from the Tiger parka set, which I got in a very lucky trade! I DID find out that the official headphones are a stain risk, though, if you use the included LED lights. The wires attached to them are HORRIBLE, deeply staining her hard vinyl calves just by coming in contact with them for a few hours. I'm still treating those stains. 😔

Thankfully, the wires are removable and don't match most of her official art anyway, so I'll be leaving them off unless I want to enjoy the novelty of the lights.

My eventual goal now that I have both her fullset outfits (that bikini for her first vmf50 release doesn't count) is to recreate my favorite figures of her! I'm starting with the SQ one, because it's very simple.

All I need is the shoes, pin, corset, and microphone now, because I was able to find "close enoughs" for the jacket and skirt on Etsy. 😁

Sonico's Tiger Parka set came in the mail on Thursday, just in time for Anime Central on Saturday! I had to make her a slip out of a paper towel so she could go out in public, though - I get that she's a gravure model, but I really did not appreciate how THIN the tiger parka's shirt is! Even with her sanded bust, you could see everything through that shirt, it was not at all what I wanted. Thankfully, the makeshift slip fixed the translucency, and her hair hid the resulting "boob wrinkles". I'll have to look into either modifying the shirt to add some more fabric to the front, or finding a suitable lookalike for future outfits.

Shirt problems aside, Sonico looked great at the con and I got a lot of nice reactions from people who saw her! Tons of fun!

19 minutes ago, Oculae said:

I'll have to look into either modifying the shirt to add some more fabric to the front, or finding a suitable lookalike for future outfits.

Azone is releasing these camisoles in June.

Ooh, that might work! I saw the announcement about them but hadn't put 2 and 2 together until now. 😅

Long time no post! Been busy lately, so I've been focusing more on my resin tardigrade, but I do have a couple pics of some new additions I never shared!

First though, a look at the newly-reorganized doll cabinet:

It took a while to get everyone visible, but I now have most of my dolls in there! I love this cabinet.

Not pictured is my newest character doll, the one and only Hanji Zoe!

She goes on my Hanji shelf, newly made as well after I got really into the character again after divorcing her from AoT. She's now using the muscular body I had Olive using, with a modified 50cm male bust on there.

I made the armholes bigger to fit the exposed shoulder joints of the AP B arms, as they bothered me, and went with the male bust as it was the smallest bust I had that still showed off the abs! Her head is an AP type G, custom painted by me using one of my keychains of her as a reference.

In addition to her, I also now have two Tinyfox babies, with one more (a Tiny Fox that Watashidoll is customizing into Sucrose for me) incoming!

Meteion is on the left here, and is still a work in progress, as I need to dye her head wings and sculpt her bird feet. Étoile, on the right, is also a WIP, but it's not my fault this time because all their clothing, their wig, AND their shoes just shipped today. From China. It's gonna be a bit of a wait. 😔

...They do have their cool eyes though. And this pic lets you see why I bought them in the first place. That faceup is GORGEOUS!

The couch they're both on has since been co-opted by the tardigrades, Klaud on the left and Klarenz on the right. If you're following my Instagram, you've seen plenty more of Klaud, so this is the last I'll mention him here. 😂

Though since resin's been posted, I can now share some more on-topic resin...Eiran's wig FINALLY showed up! Over a year later, but well worth the wait imo.

I've painted his hair clip the proper color since taking this pic, but it shows the wig off best, so out of date photo it is! 😁

SE seems to be really busy lately, so I'll probably wait a bit until I get my next wig commission from them (as these results make me really want to get Solemn a proper wig), but I do really want another one soon. Solid wigs are so nice when your doll has weird fluffy hair!

New project incoming! While I was on vacation a couple weeks ago, I happened across a head on an Instagram sales tag that I instantly fell in love with: Pipos Raoh!

"But Oc, that doll is resin...and 70cm..." Yeah, but I'm stubborn. 😆

Raoh looks to be on the larger end of 8/9 (despite Pipos not providing wig measurements), so I'm finally gonna get a DDS!

Shitty edit GO!!!

Meet Feloya Felinius, Witch of the Black Sands! Since she's going to be living in a stain-prevention suit anyways to help simulate the famous Sphynx wrinkles, I figured the time was right for a goth girl to join the lab. 😁

She'll be wearing an old Wrap Skirt set from Volks and this really cool long coat, both of which are from Mandarake:

(The tie is from Eiran, graciously donated because it matches better than the black ribbon tie included with the set.)

She's also got shoes from Volks incoming, as well as socks that I expect to take a while, as the only shops that had them were based in China. 😔

And here's a closeup of all of the accessories she's getting:

From Night Market BJD, a kickass thigh belt with potions  that match her color scheme nicely! From Skullery (my favorite place for resin skulls for jewelry and display), a pair of sparrow skull earrings and a lacy magpie skull that's going on a staff I'm making for her. And finally, her beautiful golden eyes from Mandarake, who didn't list the maker.

...And one last picture of the head itself, for fun. I'm so excited to see her all together. 😁

On 7/15/2022 at 12:45 PM, Oculae said:

New project incoming! While I was on vacation a couple weeks ago, I happened across a head on an Instagram sales tag that I instantly fell in love with: Pipos Raoh!

"But Oc, that doll is resin...and 70cm..." Yeah, but I'm stubborn. 😆

Raoh looks to be on the larger end of 8/9 (despite Pipos not providing wig measurements), so I'm finally gonna get a DDS!

Shitty edit GO!!!

Meet Feloya Felinius, Witch of the Black Sands! Since she's going to be living in a stain-prevention suit anyways to help simulate the famous Sphynx wrinkles, I figured the time was right for a goth girl to join the lab. 😁

She'll be wearing an old Wrap Skirt set from Volks and this really cool long coat, both of which are from Mandarake:

(The tie is from Eiran, graciously donated because it matches better than the black ribbon tie included with the set.)

She's also got shoes from Volks incoming, as well as socks that I expect to take a while, as the only shops that had them were based in China. 😔

And here's a closeup of all of the accessories she's getting:

From Night Market BJD, a kickass thigh belt with potions  that match her color scheme nicely! From Skullery (my favorite place for resin skulls for jewelry and display), a pair of sparrow skull earrings and a lacy magpie skull that's going on a staff I'm making for her. And finally, her beautiful golden eyes from Mandarake, who didn't list the maker.

...And one last picture of the head itself, for fun. I'm so excited to see her all together. 😁

 

@Oculaes she's going to be so gorgeous 🤩

Wow, your hybrids are so unique! I'm really interested in hybrids so it's crazy cool to see what kinds of doll pieces can be frankenstein'd together. Also holy moly I'm in love with Étoile's eyes! Did you make them or buy them?