By Emory Sung of the Junkyspot
Photos by Emory Sung
Additional photos by Wendy Bailey(Half Elf) and Cindi Stowell (Elly)
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Limhwa 57cm Girl Review
The first thought that comes to mind when looking at doll artist Ji‐Youn Jung’s Limhwa 57cm girl is “Elegance”. The lines of the doll are smooth and proportional, the torso nicely contoured, the legs are shapely. While the doll is delicately detailed, she also feels solidly constructed. The doll stands very well out of the box, requiring no fussy tweaking or twiddling to stand firm and upright. Stringing from Limhwa is spot on to allow for smooth movement with firm tension. She comes in Limhwa’s green box with 2 wonderfully padded cushions.
Limhwa 57cm girls are available in urethane resin only at this time as Limhwa no longer offers them in French resin. They are available in Normal Beige and White. Current in-production models are the Half-Elf, Luna, and Elly. Limhwa has also recently re-released the Dreaming Half-Elf sculpt, which features slightly closed eyes. (Besides their 57cm lineup, Limhwa also offers 43cm, 27cm, and 26cm dolls.)
Limhwa uses a faceplate system for their doll heads. This makes changing eyes (and face-plates) very easy and quick. However, please be careful when tilting the doll’s head too far forward, as jostling the faceplate against the neck or chest can cause it to unseat. Limhwa’s system of elastic is held tightly with a horizontal metal rod inside the neck. This rod is held in place via a notch in the bottom of the faceplate shelf piece. There is a set of notches around the rod that matches slots in the faceplate to hold it snug. There is also a magnet at the top of the faceplate shelf that pairs with the magnet at the top of the faceplate. Overall, you need not worry about dropping the faceplate unless you tilt it too far forward as mentioned above, or if your doll is doing a handstand!
The torso is a 2-part torso system. The sculpting is quite nice with pleasant, shapely lines and full rounded breasts. The arms are composed of 3 pieces: the shoulders and upper arms are a single piece, as are the elbows and lower arms, and the wrist and hands. While some prefer separate shoulder, elbow, and wrist joints, each joint socket is sculpted deeply to allow for a good range of motion. This doll can touch its face without a problem. She can bend her elbow well, although will not usually hold a hyper-extended pose much past 90 to 100 degrees. She can however, easily hold and keep any normal human pose. The hands are exquisitely sculpted with finely detailed features and long nails. They are artfully posed and quite natural.
As with the arms, the legs are comprised of 3 pieces: the hip and upper thighs are a single unit, the knees and calves, and the ankles and feet. The knees have a shelf notch structure to them to allow the doll to raise each knee and it will lock into place when bent. The opposite side also has notches to line up with the knee and prevent the knee from bending the wrong way. The feet are as delicately sculpted as the hands, with each toe looking individual with petite toenails. The mobility of the hips and feet are rather limited however. The feet can only arch forward somewhat and hold a pose of about 20-30 degrees. Again, you can hyper-extend the foot much further, however it will return to a 20-30 degree pose when released. The hips can rotate up to around 75 degrees before hitting a hyper-extended tension on the elastic. This unfortunately makes the doll harder to pose seated. Combined with the upper and lower torso tension and shaping, the doll will stay seated, but the upper torso needs to hunch forward to balance the doll correctly. By design, the doll will want to arch her back a bit.
The resin is urethane resin and has a tactile tooth to it which I rather enjoy as it leads to a more organic feel. There are noticeable seam lines to the doll as well. This is not an assembly line style of slickly polished doll. This is much more of a beautifully sculpted artist doll, with obvious finishes done by hand. There are often slightly irregularities to the surface of the doll which add character in my point of view. In addition, you will want to note that color differences can also change from batch to batch. These distinct properties of the dolls are important to note: if you are looking for a mass manufactured doll with a assembly-line production style and perfectly sanded seams, you will want to look elsewhere. Each doll is unique in his/her own way and no two are exactly alike.
EOSDoll 60.5cm Girl Review and Comparison
The EOSDoll 60.5cm body is quite a bit more statuesque than the Limhwa 57cm body. It features not just 3.5cm of additional height, but also more generous curves. While the 57cm body has general body outline measurements of 24.8-17-26, the EOS 60.5cm body is 27.5-18-28.5 (See measurement chart above). However, what is very interesting to see is that the body is not simply a taller and more curved version of the Limhwa 57cm body; it has been designed quite differently than the Limhwa 57cm body, and it also gives the appearance of a more mature, womanly body.
The EOSDoll models come in the same Limhwa box as the Limwa 57cm box, with the Limhwa logo on the outside, and with 2 plush pillows inside. She can stand very easily right out of the box with no fussing needed.
As with the 57cm body, the 60.5cm EOS body is has a 2 part torso, however the top portion of the torso is articulated directly underneath the breasts, compared to the 57cm’s top portion which articulates near the top of the diaphragm. This results in a much more natural appearance; from a direct straight on viewpoint, you do not see this line of separation. The bust itself is much larger in proportion to the 57cm body, and the general positioning is also different; the breasts themselves are pushed together somewhat. While this may look a little strange to people when the doll is nude, in clothing it will give the impression of a brassiere being used in terms of support and shaping of the bust line.
The hip line of articulation is also cut quite differently in the EOS body compared to the Limhwa 57cm body, with the line forming almost a T, curving up from the groin to near the top of the hip bones. This new cut allows the doll to now pose with the legs at 90 degrees easily and smoothly. This also allows the EOSDoll body to sit upright easily with her back straight. Compared to the Limwha 57cm body, the EOSDoll body does not need to hunch or arch her back when seated. However, the hip articulation does have a drawback compared to the Limhwa 57cm body in that the legs cannot spread apart. The hips are locked into position as they are designed to allow for forward and back motion but not side to side.
To compensate for this, the upper leg is segmented into two parts with a cut in the upper inner thigh area that can separate if needed for dressing or posing…in this way the legs can be spread apart if needed, however the line will start at the upper thigh. This again is quite different than the Limhwa 57cm body in that EOSDoll hips can rotate upward and downward further than the Limhwa hips, but the Limhwa hips can also rotate side to side while the EOSDoll hips cannot.
The knees are double-jointed in the EOSDoll 60.5cm body, but retain the locking “shelf” features of the Limhwa 57cm body. The lower legs can bend easily to the ninety degree mark, but can also additionally reach all the way back to have the heel touch the doll’s back with the double-jointing. The ankles are single jointed, with the ball of the ankle and the foot being a single piece. The toes and toenails, as with the Limhwa 57cm body, are finely sculpted in minute detail where each toe is distinct from its neighbor.
Moving back up to the arms, the arms are composed of 4 pieces: the shoulders and upper arm are one piece, the elbow is a double-jointed separate piece, the forearm is another piece, and the wrists and hands are a single piece. This is different than the Limhwa 57cm arms, which is made up of 3 pieces. This new elbow joint allows the doll to comfortably bend and hold a pose at 90 degrees, but by changing the pivoting joint, it can now also hold a bend at around 145 degrees. The wrists can bend upward to about 75-80 degrees and downward about 20-30 degrees. The hands themselves are again artfully posed and wonderfully sculpted.
As with the Limhwa 57cm dolls, the same uniqueness of each doll pertains to the EOSDoll lineup, with each doll possessing slight irregularities which are inherent in the finishing process done by the artist herself.
Wrapping up, my first thought was to compose a comparative list of pros and cons for these two bodies, however each body is structured so differently that a comparison list is almost quite meaningless. Each body does have its own set of limitations, just as each has its own set of positive features. Both are incredibly detailed and beautifully sculpted, from the realistic spine indentations to each fingernail and toenail. But at their core, while these dolls do come from a mold, they have a feel more akin to works of art. And as with all art, it really does depend on your own subjective judgment on what appeals to you personally.
Photos above: Knee joint for Limhwa doll, back view of EOS doll.
Junkyspot retailer for Limhwa and EOSdolls
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