…and is awesome.
(initial review crossposted rom DoA)
I’m at work, so I haven’t really looked at him in his entirety yet – he’s still bubblewrapped, but I’ve peeked at everything. I have to say, if I had any lingering hesitation or buyer’s remorse, it would have vanish as soon as I opened the outer shipper. (I REALLY wish I would have had enough money to order a fullset for myself rather than doing a split! Man, if I had the money I’d do another split so I could have the armored body!)
The more fragile armor bits, headgear, and sword come in a long, slender box alongside the SSDF box. Everything is carefully wrapped and packaged. The armor pieces are a deep, almost black, blue… it really is a lot like the night sky. The resin itself is very slightly translucent with some subtle pearl sheen within… it gives it a lot of depth, so it’s not just some flat, opaque resin. Even unpainted, it’s beautiful. I think even just rubbing some gold powder in to highlight the relief would make it really gorgeous. The sword is three kinds of resin – the hilt is the blue-black and an opaque white. The blade is opaque white with an inlaid transparent pale blue edging.
I haven’t taken the costume out of the package, but it looks to be really well made and much more detailed than it appeared in the LUTS photos. It’s got some pretty cool bling, too… nice little high-quality rhinestones and some little cast metal or plastic branch/leaves design pieces that seems to match the detailing on the armor.
I only unwrapped one arm, but the detail on the gauntlet is amazing in person.
The faceups are… wow. The photos on LUTS (and no doubt the photos I’ll take) seriously don’t do the faceups justice. The linework is fine and precise, but heavy enough to be seen clearly even if you’re not right up close to it. The colors are very rich and beautiful. There is also a light dusting of pearl powder that just gives it a little more life. Since the heads are the only part of the actual doll that I’m keeping, I’m over the moon that they are so beautiful. I am so excited about them… and I wish I could paint like that to make the rest of my dolls match… ;_;
The presentation in general is wonderful. He comes in a standard-sized SSDF box, but the box is unique to him. It’s a pale tan with a slightly darker linework patterning (it looks a little like peacock feathers) and it looks like the dragon motif from his armor is on the box. He came with a little certificate of authenticity that has my name handwritten on it as owner. He also seems to come with a little rolled up poster, but I think that may be assembly instructions. (I haven’t opened it and might not, since it should by rights go to the owner of the body.) They really went all-out on him.
Anyway, I’m totally thrilled with him.
Here are my pictures of the DOA anniversary LE… he’s so much better than my pictures show! Unfortunately, though, with working on my new house there is nowhere to take pictures with good lighting… so this is the best I could do.
The pieces are all well-designed… most of them snap together and are reinforced by magnets. For example, the coronet is 3 pieces – the main part and two wing/ear pieces. The ear pieces are held on by magnets! They stay really well. They also have elastic stitches that hold the main pieces together so that there is a lot of give… and there seem to be three little foam pieces to sick inside to protect the doll’s faceup while wearing the headpiece!
The wig is really fun. I decided to keep it in my split because it looked neat, but I think I’ll actually end up using it pretty often.
The outfit is really nicely made too… I was surprised by how easy it was to put on the glove!
Here is a bigger pic if anyone wants to see the faceup closer…
Of course, the only parts of the doll that are actually mine are the eyes, wig, and heads. Here is a quick picture of General Vanilla, the character who actually gets the heads!
showering. Man, that’s nice.