Gamertell

Fans of videogames will go to great lengths to show their devotion to a series or appreciation of a character. People who are especially crafty or handy will create their own homages to games. For example a person may turn Barbie into Lara Croft, make a video game cross stitch or design a pattern for a plush toy.

So it is no surprise that ball jointed dolls are used as a media for fan appreciation. Some of the most gorgeous representations are the Super Dollfie (SD) style dolls which people have customized to look like their favorite characters.

The people who take the time and effort to create a work of art like this not only have a tribute they can display to other fans, but also a work of art. SD style ball jointed dolls are a big investment. For example, the lowest end of the price scale would be Cherish doll ($200~$400) and the highest end would be a Volks ($500~$1,000).

Those willing to save up and take the plunge are able to import a valuable, collectible and customizable work of art. Since the dolls are fully customizable, a single doll is all that is needed to represent practically any character. Well, okay, maybe two - so you can represent male and female characters. Today we’ll look at three different ways people can develop a videogame ball jointed doll.

Direct from the Company
Even though it is extremely rare, occasionally a pre-made SDs from a company can look like a character. The best example of this are Dream of Doll’s (D.O.D) limited edition versions of Lahoo and Shall. Lahoo, a male Dream of Teen (D.O.T) style doll from D.O.D, is a dead ringer for Yazoo from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. The face, hair, eyes and paint job all made him look nearly identical to the game’s villain. The limited edition of Shall, another D.O.T doll, featured clothes strikingly similar to Rinoa from Final Fantasy VIII. If it weren’t for the wig (which can easily be changed), she could definitely pass for Rinoa. While the limited edition versions were the only ones which included the clothes, the regular versions of Lahoo and Shall are still available on D.O.D’s website.

Volks also occasionally releases dolls of characters from official series. Usually these dolls are limited editions only sold during Volks’ Doll Party (DOLPA) events. So far no video game SDs have been released, but there have been a number of dolls Japanese anime/manga series, like Rozen Maiden. For example, the December DOLPA 18 event featured two Rozen Maiden dolls, an SD13 Suigintou and a Yo-SD Hinaichigo. To purchase a DOLPA doll, one must enter a lottery for that specific model. If you win, you get it. If not, then check eBay in a few weeks to buy it for twice its original price.

Faceups
Shaded Mazoku’s Kefka (FFVI) doll. Shaded Mazoku’s favorite old school Final Fantasy was FFVI, which led to the creation of this amazing doll. Shaded Mazoku did all of the facial work to recreate the Yoshitaka Amano vision of the character, and recalled spending between four and five hours perfecting his look..

Christy’s Dante (Devil May Cry) and Kagami’s Renji (Bleach) are also two examples of quality artwork done on dolls. Christy did three faceups on her Dante doll in order to truly capture the character’s appearance. Kagami’s Renji doll is also a wonder to look at, as all of the character’s facial tattoos are perfectly recreated.

Cosplay
The easiest way, and often times least time consuming, is to simply change the doll’s wig, eyes and clothing to make it resemble a favorite character. All major online doll shops sell extra wigs and eyes, and oftentimes official stores will sell clothing and accessories which look similar enough. There are people who do go the extra mile to make their doll’s costume look perfect, and these people will create awesome outfits that are identical to the source material.

In fact, homemade costumes are incredibly prevalent in the SD community. A great example is Elizabeth Dean’s Pyramid Head (Silent Hill 2) doll. She put in almost 30 hours on making the head and the sword to make the doll an exact match of the Silent Hill villain. VtheYoshi’s Link dolls (Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time) are another spectacular case where costumes make the character. Andrea Cook also created a unique and unusual representation of Felicia from Darkstalkers.

The same can be said for creations by Maz, aka_spooky/AMIME and Christy. Maz completed a perfect recreation of her World of Warcraft dark elf character. A jedi cloak, identical to ones worn by characters in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, was made in roughly four hours with a custom pattern by aka_spooky/AMIME. Also Christy, whose Dante head was mentioned earlier, recreated the character’s outfit from Devil May Cry.

Of course the Square-Enix characters can’t be forgotten, as many SDs are created to resemble them. In my quest for images to include with this article, I discovered tons of Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts creations. It is amazing how many people took so much time and effort to create perfect facsimiles of their characters that. Two of the best were Cenarius99’s Sephiroth (FFVII) and Blackwing-Dias’ keyblade wielding Roxas (Kingdom Hearts II), Both feature completely accurate and perfect hair, outfits and accoutrements.

Special Thanks

I’d like to extend a special thanks to Kagami, Shaded Mazoku, Andrea Cook, Christy, Elizabeth Dean (LizzEGirlE), Mystical Maz, Cenarius, VtheYoshi, aka_spooky/AMIME and Blackwing-Dias for their assistance and for allowing me to display their pictures of their dolls.

If you’d like to see full sized images of these dolls with original character reference images, please visit the gallery. You can also visit the Den of Angels forum to see hundreds of other great pictures of dolls.

COMING NEXT WEEK: Important Portables talks about the best classic import games.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Last week Important Importables talked about video game plushies.

Look [Video Game BJD Gallery] Site [Dream of Doll] Site [Volks] Site [Luts] Site [Cherish] Site [Den of Angels]