Meet Halcyon
Halcyon is Dollstown Rhea on Ariadoll 14-year girl (small bust) body. After waiting 10 years for a body, she is finally complete and herself!
Doll nudity at the bottom of the post.
Her body was delivered at the same time as another BJD purchase - so she got an outfit and a wig. Thank goodness she didn't have to borrow anything from Syr or Justinian...
I love her profile!
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Awkward family photo.
Halcyon: hey guys~
Syr: Um, do we know you?
Justinian (thinking): too many girls in the room...
Halcyon: psst... who is he?~
Syr: ...
Justinian: I didn't hear anything.
Now for a bit of rambling about Halcyon...
Dollstown is the umbrella company for two Korean doll sculptors, An Jonghak and Torre. I first crossed paths with Dollstown when looking for a girl body to hybrid with Crobidoll Lance (Syr); the 15year girl turned out to be perfect. At the same time, I'd been looking for male sculpts that are realistic but idealized; most males being sculpted by Asian BJD studios in the late '00s/early '10s were either too grown-up or too anime-esque for my liking. An Jonghak's design aesthetic was exactly what I wanted: youthful and idealized beauty with a bit more "Western" sensibility. I liked most of his male and female sculpts, but Mui really stood out from the rest. He looked like no other boys I'd seen, from Dollstown and elsewhere. I got Mui in 2011, who's become Justinian. I've been a Dollstown fan ever since!
Rhea was sculpted by Torre, and available sometime in 2008-2010. I much prefer An Jonghak's aesthetic, but didn't find Torre's girls all that attractive. But then I saw Rhea with a custom faceup while browsing Den of Angels, and somehow really liked this sculpt. That was in 2012, Rhea had already been discontinued by Dollstown, and her sculpt seemed less popular and hard to find. But I put out a WTB on Den of Angels, and managed to acquire Rhea shortly afterwards.
Unfortunately, about this time I was starting to lose interest in the BJD hobby. I managed to commission a stopgap faceup for Rhea (which has since been wiped), and then stored my dolls away and went on hiatus in 2013.
So this head sculpt has been waiting over 10 years for a body and to be completed as my character, Halcyon. Now that I've returned to the hobby and my dolls are out of storage, my first priority was to get a body for her. Thankfully I'd done some research and made notes before I went on hiatus: I had picked Ariadoll 14year in white resin as the best body for colour-matching and proportions.
I believe Ariadoll 14year was one of the earlier double-jointed bodies, with additional pieces in arms and legs that allow them to be bent at acute angles and have bigger movement range. A lot has improved in ball-jointed engineering and perhaps there are more "updated" bodies now. But I was most concerned about the resin match: Rhea is an unusual colour that's somewhere between Dollstown fresh skin (Syr's body) and oriental skin (Justinian). Furthermore, while I was on hiatus, both Switch (which absorbed the Ariadoll brand and body design) and Dollstown changed their resin formulations, so I couldn't rely on current photo references to find a suitable newer body. So I stuck with my choice of Ariadoll and managed to secure one from the secondhand market.
Ariadoll white skin turned out a perfect colour match, and 14year has nicely sculpted limbs and torso. The proportions aren't as good: the Ariadoll neck is quite long, and Rhea has a shallow neck hole. Dollstown heads all tend to run large, so the shoulders are also a bit narrow for her head size. But I can hide both issues under clothing, although I might eventually mod the neck to be a wee bit shorter.
Comparison between Syr (62cm tall; her chest has been modded to a smaller bust size) and Halcyon (58cm tall; unmodded body). I'm very pleased with the height difference.
I'm quite happy that Halcyon is complete. I've only handled single-jointed bodies so the Ariadoll body will take some getting used to, but I'm looking forward to tinkering with that. Welcome, Halcyon, to the family.