Manufacturer visit @ Doll Affair - What do you want to know?

Post by **Dollstudio** » Tue Aug 23, 2016 6:07 pm

Hi,

I'll be visiting the doll maker Doll Affair on next Thursday.

André from Doll Affair makes silicone dolls like 164 cm Lana:

: Doll Affair DA-164 with Lana head - Image courtesy of Doll Affair; da164-lana-07.jpg (357.5 KiB) Viewed 3021 times

We will primarily talk about André's current dolls - the 164 and the 145 cm lines -, and about his future plans. One of the things I'm keen to learn is if there is chance to get a modified version of the silicone body with exchangeable head.

Also, if I get the opportunity, I will try to shoot the short breast jiggle video, that was requested multiple times.

If there is anything you want to know - this is your opportunity. What else should I ask André?

Thanks,
Sandro

stones · Post by **stones** » Tue Aug 23, 2016 6:56 pm

I'd like to learn about the 145, how soft is the silicone - breast jiggle would be great way to find out. How does the neck work with the seamless neck? What is the bra size? How is the hand skeleton, oral capability, basically everything!

Post by **Dollstudio** » Fri Aug 26, 2016 10:14 pm

stones wrote:I'd like to learn about the 145, how soft is the silicone - breast jiggle would be great way to find out. How does the neck work with the seamless neck? What is the bra size? How is the hand skeleton, oral capability, basically everything!

Let's see what I can answer after the visit.

First the softness of the silicone; the base silicone is Shore-00 30, blended with some slacker, so this is a soft doll. Other properties of the used silicone: certified by an independent laboratory to ISO 10993-10, Biological evaluation of medical devices, Part 10: Tests for irritation and skin sensitization. So it's a certified skin safe material. Tensile strength ~200 psi, elongation at break ~900%, die B tear strength ~38 pli.

I have made a breast jiggle video, but need to figure out how to upload it.

The surprising part was that we were shown a prototype with hollow breasts - so far, this has been done only in TPE dolls -, and with a harder silicone for the hands and for the feet.

This is how the hand looks like with the harder silicone:

: Doll Affair DA-155 (ca. 145 cm) - Dollstudio; doll-affair-da-155-3391-dollstudio.JPG (398.39 KiB) Viewed 2929 times

The hand skeleton is not much different from other designs; of course the fingers are are poseable. DA uses a thick wire with a loop at the end to avoid finger pokes. André considers to use thinner wire, but I think is is OK as it is - the hand feels rather solid for a 145 cm doll.

And this is the foot with a harder silicone:

: Doll Affair DA-155 (ca. 145 cm) - Dollstudio; doll-affair-da-155-3392-dollstudio.JPG (705.92 KiB) Viewed 2929 times

The different silicones are blended visually almost seamless; you need to look very closely to recognize where they are blended. This was kind of experimental, but the feet should be firm enought to allow standing. However, this doll requires a third point for support for standing, so no free standing in the middle of the room.

The downside of this approach is that the hands and feet feel a bit different on the surface than the rest of the body. I guess some more work is required to make this feature production ready; for now, I'd recommend the default configuration with homogenously soft material.

Interesting side note: Custmizations of the skin tone are possible. I don't know if André would make a blue Andorian, but he is the right guy to ask.

The breasts are round and full; the size is something like a DD. They look like so with the hollow breast design:

: Doll Affair DA-155 (ca. 145 cm) - Dollstudio; doll-affair-da-155-3393-dollstudio.JPG (382.21 KiB) Viewed 2929 times

They can be filled with a soft silicone gel, or with a solid soft silicone. This will increase the weight of the doll by about two kg, and the shape of the breasts will change slightly, so they look less balloony and sag a bit more more realistic.

Oral capability - yes, this doll has it. The direction of the oral cavity is a slightly different than in TPE dolls, but it still faces upwards and does not go into the throat. There is a slight texture in the oral cavity, but nothing fancy.

The neck works surprisingly well with the seamless design. It can rotate sideways and move up and down. And it looks just amazing! View from the side:

: Doll Affair DA-155 (ca. 145 cm) - Dollstudio; doll-affair-da-155-3396-dollstudio.JPG (390.32 KiB) Viewed 2929 times

…and view from behind:

: Doll Affair DA-155 (ca. 145 cm) - Dollstudio; doll-affair-da-155-3397-dollstudio.JPG (400.17 KiB) Viewed 2929 times

Dolls with a seamless neck like this are really rare. At the moment, I am only aware of two similarily seamless designs, JM Doll's Chloe, and Doll Sweet's DS Minis.

The only disadvantage i noticed is that the lower jaw does not move equally as the upper jaw when the head is rotated:

: Doll Affair DA-155 (ca. 145 cm) - Dollstudio; doll-affair-da-155-3404-dollstudio.JPG (375.52 KiB) Viewed 2929 times

However, you get a different facial expression for free if she looks to the side

Obviously, it's debatable it it would be a bigger advantage to have an exchangeable head. I will post more thoughts about this later. It's probably the most the most complicated decision at the moment if we should push André to drop the seamless neck design, or if he should better stick with it as it's so unique.

Earlier builds of the head received some criticism because of the lower teeth; this has been fixed, so the head looks now nicer and a bit softer, and definitely not angry anmyore:

: Doll Affair DA-155 (ca. 145 cm) - Dollstudio; doll-affair-da-155-3390-dollstudio.JPG (439.61 KiB) Viewed 2929 times

I think it's not a bad head at all, though it's clearly a Caucasian type.

Sandro

stones · Post by **stones** » Sat Aug 27, 2016 6:36 am

Thank you for the information and pictures. I look forward to the jiggle video but the breasts look small in the new pictures compared to the ones on the website. You mentioned harder silicone - can she stand?

hollows+fentiman · Post by **hollows+fentiman** » Sat Aug 27, 2016 7:03 am

Hi Sandro! I think seamless necks are something special. I have two DS minis and they are beautiful! However, the downside really would be cleaning if the doll has an oral function! A doll of that size is quite a weight and manoevouring can be a struggle! Although, having said that, many members don't like having to remove the head to clean anyway!

As for questions, my silicone minis are firm and many silicone dolls don't have the 'softness' of TPE but are obviously more durable. How close can silicone get to the softness of TPE in the body overall? You've mentioned quite a lot in your postings about the experimentations they are undertaking and the different 'softness' in the silicone for parts of the body but I wondered if this could be applied over the whole body. That is, if the underlying silicone could be soft and the 'skin' part of the body could be firm? This would give a far more realistic 'feel'!

Post by **Dollstudio** » Sat Aug 27, 2016 8:46 am

@stones: The prototype with silicones of different hardness can stand, yes. For the default configuration with homogenous soft silicone, I wouldn't recommend to make her stand.

hollows+fentiman wrote:I think seamless necks are something special. I have two DS minis and they are beautiful! However, the downside really would be cleaning if the doll has an oral function! A doll of that size is quite a weight and manoevouring can be a struggle! Although, having said that, many members don't like having to remove the head to clean anyway!

As for questions, my silicone minis are firm and many silicone dolls don't have the 'softness' of TPE but are obviously more durable. How close can silicone get to the softness of TPE in the body overall? You've mentioned quite a lot in your postings about the experimentations they are undertaking and the different 'softness' in the silicone for parts of the body but I wondered if this could be applied over the whole body. That is, if the underlying silicone could be soft and the 'skin' part of the body could be firm? This would give a far more realistic 'feel'!

Yes, cleaning a doll properly after you had sex with her can be annoying, unless you limit yourself to the vaginal canal and have a doll with an insert. If you have a small doll, you need to be extra careful during cleaning because she is more delicate, and if the head is removeable, and ripping the head off from a tall after you had oral sex can be emotionally odd. The advantage of a seamless design is that you do not have to protect the neck connector from getting wet; so she can take a shower without additional precautions. However, the cleaning thing is an issue that has not been well solved yet with dolls. I hope that at some point future dolls will learn self-lubrication and self-cleaning.

Regarding the softness of silicone in general, there is no limit. Like TPE, silicone can be blended to a fluid gel, that's what is used for breast implants. There are breasts with a ultra soft consistency, made of a TPE derivate; they are called Busty Ai-chan. They are so soft that they do not keep their shape. Brash from Ruby 13 showed recently a boob pillow made of silicone with similar characteristics. So the task at hand alway is to find a balance between softness and keeping the shape.

Silicone has major advantages over TPE as silicones with different shore hardness can be combined. Many medium range to high end doll makers use this material property already. The best doll of this kind I know is Maidlee Doll's Maid-Fong; she has (from memory) five different silicones blended into each other, and you can not see where they are blended. The current build of Maid-Fong from 2016 has the softest breasts I have ever touched on a doll, be it silicone or TPE. Her other zones with different softness are the butt and lips (softer), and the finger and the ear lobes (harder). The DA-155 design can not compete with this kind of complexity yet.

Sandro

Everhard · Post by **Everhard** » Sun Aug 28, 2016 8:05 am

The doll in the first photo is one of the best looking bodies I have see: So realistic! The face is OK, too. However...

This is maybe a whacky observation, but here it is anyway: I really like the Dreamdoll Jessyca head (see for example bertiethedog's Jessyca Wilson - Pictures topic) but I do not fancy the Dreamdoll body anywhere near as much as the Doll Affair 164 body. A Doll Affair body like that with a Dreamdoll Jessyca head would be fantastic! (Both manufacturers are in Germany, I believe.)

Post by **Dollstudio** » Sun Aug 28, 2016 8:59 am

Everhard wrote:The doll in the first photo is one of the best looking bodies I have see: So realistic! The face is OK, too. […] A Doll Affair body like that with a Dreamdoll Jessyca head would be fantastic! (Both manufacturers are in Germany, I believe.)

Dreamdoll is in France, Doll Affair is in Germany.

Considering your comprehensive experience with dolls, your praise for the DA-164 body weights heavy. Though - no pun intended - her weight of ~38 kg is an issue.

Dreamdoll has this design for heads; this is from a "Hermaphrodite Custom" doll from last November:

: Dreamdoll Hermaphrodia Custom - seamlines between head and body; unboxing-ddc-hermaphrodia-custom-1467-dollstudio.JPG (461.31 KiB) Viewed 2815 times

The head and even the ears are molded separately and then glued together, so there are visible seamlines everywhere. I haven't seen the (newer) Jessyca Wilson doll yet, so I can't tell if she has an exchangeable head.

However, I guess your vote would be to drop the fixed head and make it exchangeable?

Sandro

Everhard · Post by **Everhard** » Mon Aug 29, 2016 11:38 am

Dollstudio wrote: Dreamdoll is in France, Doll Affair is in Germany.

Thanks for the correction.

Dollstudio wrote: ...her weight of ~38 kg is an issue.

Heavy dolls have an obvious disadvantage, but they have a big advantage that is not so obvious: Realism. This is just my theory on how it works, but I suspect that the way a heavy doll sits or lies down, squashing whatever she is sitting or lying on (cushions or a soft chair or bedding) and and even flattening the relevant parts of herself, the human observer notices subconsciously. In contrast, the less heavy doll kind of 'floats' on top of things in an unrealistic way. (I think that is one of the reasons why my first doll, Rebecca, a body 4 Realdoll made in 2000, seems so real. At least to me. She is amazingly heavy for such a small person.)

Dollstudio wrote:I haven't seen the (newer) Jessyca Wilson doll yet, so I can't tell if she has an exchangeable head.

What I particularly like about the Dreamdoll Jessyca head is the overall look of her face. I was not referring to the details of construction.

Dollstudio wrote: However, I guess your vote would be to drop the fixed head and make it exchangeable?

Not necessarily. Again, exchangeable heads/faces have an obvious advantage, but the improved realism of a fixed head makes me undecided about that.

Post by **Dollstudio** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 8:26 am

Hi,

here is the breast jiggle video. It shows the hollow breasts without gel filling.

MAH03388.MP4: Breast jiggle video; (24.3 MiB) Downloaded 2192 times

Sandro

stones · Post by **stones** » Wed Sep 07, 2016 5:57 pm

Thank you for the video, they don't really jiggle like the TPE ones. Maybe if they were about twice as big?

Post by **Dollstudio** » Thu Sep 08, 2016 6:50 pm

stones wrote:[…] they don't really jiggle like the TPE ones. Maybe if they were about twice as big?

No, they don't, as the one's in the video are not filled with silicone gel. They are just hollow (air filled). We need to make a video with a doll which has solid breasts.

The size is not what matters here. It's the silicone skin (layer thickness, silicone blend) and what's beyond the surface (properties of the silicone gel, and it's encapsulation).

I'll meet on Saturday with André again, and we'll talk about this. Maybe he can make toso breasts. Or I do some experiments myself with these DD puppies:

: DSC02663.JPG (97.5 KiB) Viewed 2616 times

Sandro

stones · Post by **stones** » Fri Sep 09, 2016 4:06 am

Thank you again for the response. Yes, please let's see the different system, but maybe he'd still make them a little bigger! There are already torsos but there are no other dolls with aluminum skeletons and seamless necks?