Dollieh Sanctuary

While I'm glad to see more companies entering the large vinyl doll arena and I applaud their efforts, I'm very disappointed with Granado's choice of joint engineering on the elbows and knees of this new vinyl doll. Instead of smoothly incorporating the joint structure as part of the knee, (which other manufacturers have done) Granado fell back on the style of their similar resin joints; a small double joint part hinged to the "bones" buried inside the thick skin on either side of the joint. These joints are only attractive when not bent and the two skin parts are together. When these joints are bent, it appears the appendage has been split apart or the skin is a thick plate armor covering a very thin inner appendage. These types of joints are very unattractive even with the slightest bend, giving the joint/limb a broken appearance. The thick, blunt ends of these skin parts are necessary for their more brittle resin versions, but with vinyl they could be thinned and tapered and incorporate the double joint part to render a much smoother look when bent. In retaining the heavy handed "straight cut joint" look of their bent elbows and knees, I don't think Granado is taking full advantage of the vinyl/plastic medium.

On the whole, one of my concerns is the hip/crotch joints and the arm/shoulder socket. My Obi50 manage to wear out the hip socket no matter how many rounds of nail polish and the odd museum grade scotch tape i add on. I do wonder if they would sell parts at a later date

Soo... if anyone here would like to beta test him at introduction price from 26 Jan to 26 Fen
Internal Frame
Just body
Full doll Udell

Video of his movement on FB

I'm kind of sad that they didn't make his knees double jointed like his arms. The lack of posability in his legs is, well, kind of a major turn off. He really can't bend them very far. Also... his manly bits are way too out there.

Dark Angel wrote:I'm kind of sad that they didn't make his knees double jointed like his arms. The lack of posability in his legs is, well, kind of a major turn off. He really can't bend them very far. Also... his manly bits are way too out there.

Some of those angles make them look very out there!

They might have tried them in prototypes and they just weren't stable. Looking at him he might have been sculpted as a solid form then cut apart and had joints added, a common way to make a jointed doll.

Having tried and not quite engineered successful jointed dolls and figures working knees can be tricky. One of my critters had the hips figured out but I could never get the knees to lock strait and bend at 90 degrees, it was one or the other.

DollyKim wrote:They might have tried them in prototypes and they just weren't stable.

Or more likely they didn't.

Looking at him he might have been sculpted as a solid form then cut apart and had joints added, a common way to make a jointed doll.

This is clearly their Evol body. They probably used the same positives to create the new molds needed for the vinyl casting process. With the availability of modern CAD software and 3D printing, there is no good reason they couldn't have developed a better, more attractive joint solution. Smart Doll did. Danny Chou very publicly developed his start up Smart Doll body/skeleton over the course of several years on a shoestring. I would expect an already established doll company to put in at least as much effort.

Having tried and not quite engineered successful jointed dolls and figures working knees can be tricky. One of my critters had the hips figured out but I could never get the knees to lock strait and bend at 90 degrees, it was one or the other.

This is a successful commercial doll manufacturing company with equipment and resources. If one is to embark into a new medium, you would think the first place to look is at what has already been done. Obitsu and Volks have been successfully creating soft vinyl/hard plastic doll bodies for well over a decade. Smart Doll leapt into the vinyl/plastic arena several years ago with several new innovations to the current technology. I would expect no less from anyone else.

That Granado decided to fall back on an easy known joint solution rather than developing something better just seems lazy.

I updated my original post to add the links for the dolls now that they're available. There's the option to get just the body but the resin heads don't fit, according to a FB post, so I don't know why you'd want it without the head. (I'm sure one could rig it if they wanted.)

The introductory prices seem a lot lower than I'd anticipated. I won't be buying one right away but maybe around May this year I'll plunk down some cash for one.

Looks like you can't select but three skin color options right now. Shame. I'd want chocolate. Maybe they'll recast Mars and offer it in chocolate. That would be pretty cool.

So. Has anyone decided to buy the new Granado vinyl?

Afraid not, but I really hope other people have! I'm really looking forward to seeing owner's photos of these guys turning up.

(I was very very tempted but between the unexpected expense of getting in on a 1/6 scale group order, and the fact that the only sealant that I've got access to that I know works on vinyl is MSC (and it's notorious clouding issues on tan-skin) I decided to be sensible (I'd have wanted him in tan skin - since he's very similar in look/style to a planned copper character I've actually sort-of already got a head for).)

I did. Curiosity mostly.
With that look he's got one thing written all over him: villain.
Normal skin tone so I can try and mod those ugly knees and elbows with Obitsu and/or DD parts.
If he can't be fixed he's going to be stuck in baggy pants and shirts in the "super villain monologuing" pose.