Saber Alter White Body/Yellowing

On 12/2/2021 at 7:30 PM, ragnamuffin said:

Next, how is the yellowing on these dolls? I’m looking at NIB ones on the usual sites and a lot of them say they’ve got yellowing on their faces/bodies despite being unused(?)

If you are looking at Mandarake listings they might have a belts and braces approach with white skin, since even the most minute thing might show up. in certain light even the thickness of the vinyl might cause uneven color (I have a few normal skin dolls that are really bad with certain LED lights, where their faces have dark splotches.)

Typically the biggest thing will be the wig-line since believe it or not, a Blonde wig will do things if left on for ... 10+ years?

I have a full Saber alter 2nd, and a floating Alter head, but neither have developed any serious defects over the years, then agian they are on display all the time, so I could just have gotten used to the changes over time.

if you want a really long lasting ownership example, there is Bottlefairy on flickr (And twitter, but cant be bothered to dig up the @) who's had a alter for years, and I think he's got ... five of them now?

But its still a discontinued body tone, so if you do run into bad stain issue, getting spares will mean cannibalizing fullsets these days.

so yea, I think a Nero (Sakura Tange voice no less, of CCS fame) or Arturia seconds might be a little more friendly in the long run.

 

11 hours ago, Emil said:

IIRC Altria Alter was upset at her bad image and even went so far as to claim she was from... Finland?

Not surprising, considering we have a santa theme park in Rovaniemi ... then there is also the Rare Exports thing so it does work.

As to why alter is so fun?

There is this: (yea, yea... i've linked it a few times already, but its still one of the best gags ... especially turning back after being drunk like a skunk)

 

23 hours ago, ragnamuffin said:

It’s been almost a year since I made this topic and I’m revisiting the idea of adding Alter to my family again, so I have some more questions.

I’ve been reading a lot about staining and stain treatments for white skin, but there are a lot of conflicting reports on what works and what doesn’t. Someone on the forums said Oxy10 turned the treated area green and someone else said acne cream turned the treated areas brown, but these seem to be isolated incidents? I couldn’t find anyone else with the same issue, and it may be that Volks improved their vinyl formula with later releases.

I guess what I would like to know is, does Dream Rescue work without discoloring the skin? Is there a tried and true “safe” method for treating white skin? I’m not too fussed about yellowing anymore, just stain treating.

Since you have both and it’s been some time since this post, does Santa Alter indeed have the improved shoulder/hip parts? I’m leaning more towards Santa Alter if that’s the case.

That was me 😛 I did some oxy10 treatment on my DDDY White Xmas Alna and saw that the parts where I treated had a hint of green. I don't why but I decided to treated the whole body... 🙄 Anyway I replaced Alna with a DDII body and just put on light coloured clothing. I can show you on the next Zoom meeting.

10 hours ago, XOHimitsuOX said:

That was me 😛 I did some oxy10 treatment on my DDDY White Xmas Alna and saw that the parts where I treated had a hint of green. I don't why but I decided to treated the whole body... 🙄 Anyway I replaced Alna with a DDII body and just put on light coloured clothing. I can show you on the next Zoom meeting.

Actually I think it was this post I was thinking of (but I read so many they all kind of blended together 😅)

But I’m definitely interested in hearing all about your experience at the next Zoom meeting!

Edited October 18, 2022 by ragnamuffin

I stand corrected. I feel like the girls are angry at me now, I took them apart for nothing 😭

Santa Alter in the middle, dddy miko body to the right, and a large unitorso to the left.

They're all double-ringed, it's just harder to see on Rider because of the white frame being so pale. Apologies 😭😭

However I didn't check the hip sockets, so I'm not certain about those. Everyone is wearing tights and I don't feel like redressing them quite yet 😅

Also, I never responded regarding the yellowing. I found that my Santa Alter's head yellows significantly faster than the rest of her body. However, even after being in a room with blinds that don't fully close + non-UV protected windows for over a year, she's honestly doing just fine. I've been debating sticking her large bust in the sun for a few days to try to make it match, I can take some photos to compare her head vs the brand new bust that's been stored in the dark if you want those. 

Edited October 18, 2022 by Emil

Thanks so much for checking @Emil! Santa Alter’s rings look a bit thicker than the other two, but it’s good to know that they are one of the reinforced versions. I’ll assume that since the shoulders are, the hips are too.

So I did a bit of digging, and it seems like the difference between v2 and v3 of the reinforced versions is the slits in the arm pegs. According to this site, the slits release the tension that I assume builds up when fitting the arm peg into the shoulder socket. That would make sense since @Galvatim mentioned the arm locking up and shearing off.

http://blog.livedoor.jp/teaoevo/archives/1750038.html

For the yellowing, I’m not as concerned about that anymore since (1) it’s inevitable due to the nature of the vinyl (even NIB versions seem to have discoloration nowadays), and (2) as a last resort, there are some Japanese users that report having used diluted bleach to successfully restore white skin dolls:

http://hachimistuya.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-646.html?sp&m2=res

I’m a bit wary since there is that person on Weibo who bleached their doll and she ended up in worse shape for it several months later, but since we don’t know what kind of bleach they used it’s hard to tell if the same applies to the method used in the link above.

The above method uses a very popular laundry bleach in Japan called Wide Heiter EX made of hydrogen peroxide (oxygen-based) and surfactant (polyoxyethylene alkyl ether). The head is submerged in the liquid and left out in the sun for 7-8 hours per day, which the blogger did for 30 hours total. In the end, the head was cleaned without damage to the faceup (with the exception of the colouring on the cheeks fading), but I don’t know if there were any adverse effects down the road.

Edited October 18, 2022 by ragnamuffin

16 hours ago, finnleo said:

if you want a really long lasting ownership example, there is Bottlefairy on flickr (And twitter, but cant be bothered to dig up the @) who's had a alter for years, and I think he's got ... five of them now?

I'm not even sure how many bottlefairy has, and I follow him on Flickr! 

Mostly all of his girls are "neko" themed, and they're adorable!

I'm thinking, if worse comes to worse, I'll pick up two of the newer semi-white bodies and find someone who'll be willing to do a total head blushing and repaint to match the SW tone.

(would be awesome to see bottlefairy join here, wouldn't it?) 

5 hours ago, battrastard said:

I'm not even sure how many bottlefairy has, and I follow him on Flickr! 

Mostly all of his girls are "neko" themed, and they're adorable!

The most I've seen in one picture is five of the Arunyans, though I dont know if he has a separate one for the perinne cosplay or not.

5 hours ago, battrastard said:

(would be awesome to see bottlefairy join here, wouldn't it?) 

Probable language barrier ... although the guy does drive a Renault, so cant be sure ... then again I suppose that was probably more inspired by the possobility of driving a car which name translates into "Glasses" in japanese romanji.

Does anyone have a white skin Cool Cats bodysuit? If so, which is the best one to get? There are so many different versions it’s a little overwhelming…

On 10/16/2022 at 2:10 PM, battrastard said:

I'll beg to differ. I took both Alter V2 and Santa Alter apart this morning. There IS a difference in the shoulder joints between them.

(Flickr is definitely NOT playing nice, the crappy phone pics I took haven't appeared yet)

Alter V2 has a decidedly thinner amount of plastic compared to the thicker joint on Santa Alter. 

Edit: Santa Alter on the Left, Alter V2 on the Right:

I will say, whichever one you decide on, I'll recommend the Coolcat reinforcement parts for both the shoulders and hips. 

I'm planning to do that for both of mine.

The thin one on the right is the 3rd and final version. Part of the re-design to address the cracking of the internal frame & the hips was a slit in the arm & hip pegs (you can see in the background if you look) They also re-did the hips & this internal frame area the pegs go into. the thickness will vary on both. The thicker V1 & V2 are prone to breaking, hence the changes. I also agree the reinforcements are a great investment.

5 hours ago, Dollvari said:

The thin one on the right is the 3rd and final version. Part of the re-design to address the cracking of the internal frame & the hips was a slit in the arm & hip pegs (you can see in the background if you look) They also re-did the hips & this internal frame area the pegs go into. the thickness will vary on both. The thicker V1 & V2 are prone to breaking, hence the changes. I also agree the reinforcements are a great investment.

Are you sure about that? My Anastasia was released in 2017, long after Alter V2 (the one with the thinner joints in @battrastard’s photo), and she has the thicker joints comparable to Santa Alter in the photo above. She also has the shoulder pegs with the slits in them, which from everything I’ve read, means she has the latest version of the DDIII body (although she is a DDS, if that changes anything).

Alice Kuonji (also DDS), released in 2013 which is not too long after Alter V2, also has the thicker shoulder joints, but no slits in the shoulder pegs.

I assumed this meant that Alice Kuonji was V2 and Anastasia was V3, making @battrastard’s Alter V2 the V1 version of the DDIII body.

Somewhat related, and further complicating things, I suspect that Rider/Santa Alter is in fact the old Saber Alter V1 from 2008, or at least the head is. A YJA listing for Santa Alter a few months back had a picture of the back of her head which read “2008 Volks Japan”. That would explain why the blushing is so much fainter on her despite being released later. From everything I’ve read though, even in Japanese, Rider/Santa Alter shoulder have the updated joints.

17 minutes ago, ragnamuffin said:

Somewhat related, and further complicating things, I suspect that Rider/Santa Alter is in fact the old Saber Alter V1 from 2008, or at least the head is. A YJA listing for Santa Alter a few months back had a picture of the back of her head which read “2008 Volks Japan”. That would explain why the blushing is so much fainter on her despite being released later. From everything I’ve read though, even in Japanese, Rider/Santa Alter shoulder have the updated joints.

I think that just indicates when the head mold was made, not the specific doll.

13 minutes ago, ragnamuffin said:

Somewhat related, and further complicating things, I suspect that Rider/Santa Alter is in fact the old Saber Alter V1 from 2008, or at least the head is. A YJA listing for Santa Alter a few months back had a picture of the back of her head which read “2008 Volks Japan”. That would explain why the blushing is so much fainter on her despite being released later. From everything I’ve read though, even in Japanese, Rider/Santa Alter shoulder have the updated joints.

When a head sculpt is re-released it means they are using the original design, but will be casting new heads. It will still show the original date from when the sculpt was made, but that does not mean that that is when the head was cast. You'll see old dates listed on the back of brand new option heads since the lower numbered heads are quite old now. The original Alter v1 heads would have had a hard head cap, and the new Alter v2 heads have the soft cap. They had faint blushing even when new since that was just the design choice.

On the frames, I can't find anything proving it but my memory was that the Saber Extra and Alter v2 preorder was the first release of the DDIII body announced, though I'm sure they probably did some lottery releases that people received first. They also had many breakage issues, with a few people receiving brand new already broken dolls, so they were likely the earliest version.

6 hours ago, Jezrah said:

They had faint blushing even when new since that was just the design choice.

Oh I didn’t mean it was fainter due to aging, I meant that Alter V2’s faceup was redesigned to have pinker cheeks—something Rider/Santa Alter doesn’t seem to have as much.

6 hours ago, Jezrah said:

On the frames, I can't find anything proving it but my memory was that the Saber Extra and Alter v2 preorder was the first release of the DDIII body announced, though I'm sure they probably did some lottery releases that people received first. They also had many breakage issues, with a few people receiving brand new already broken dolls, so they were likely the earliest version.

Yes, from your previous reply on page 1, it sounded like Saber Alter V2’s internal frame had a redesign between waves, so she could have the V1 frame or the V2 frame depending on when someone got her.

In that case, maybe @battrastard got the bodies mixed up in his post? That would make the thinner joints actually Rider/Santa Alter’s and would explain why my dolls, which came out long after Saber Alter V2, have the thicker (older?) joints, since Rider/Santa Alter came out the latest of all of them in 2017. It would also substantiate everything you and @Dollvari wrote.

In that case, I’m curious if the Cool Cat reinforcers fit the V3 joints, since they seem to have been made specifically for the V1 and V2 joints.

Edited November 9, 2022 by ragnamuffin

6 minutes ago, ragnamuffin said:

In that case, I’m curious if the Cool Cat reinforcers fit the V3 joints, since they seem to have been made specifically for the V1 and V2 joints.

In my experience the bigger size of the reinforcement parts does still fit the third version of the frame. The center area is thinner but the outer rings are the same diameter as the second version.

3 hours ago, ragnamuffin said:

In that case, maybe @battrastard got the bodies mixed up in his post?

That is entirely possible, when I got their TTYA outfits and their new eyes, there was much moving bodies and heads around. 

If so, ooopps! 

But...... I also appreciate the references everyone has put up here. Thanks!

 

Rick