Custom House is one of the first Korean ABJD companies and has been known for their quality and beautiful faceups. For the last year though, there has been a huge hubbub and their name has gone down the tubes because of outstanding orders with almost year long wait times. When I first started buying ABJDs I chanced upon the Custom House website during one of their Timed Events after seeing an owner pic of their doll. I did a quick Wiki search on the company and without knowing their growing reputation for tardy deliveries, I jumped at the incredible prices and ordered.
Needless to say, I was apprehensive after reading an article about CH on BJDCollectasy.com. However, as promised, CH delivered my dolls a little less than two months after the purchase date on March 15. (I had ordered them in late January.) I was pleasantly surprised and pleased to find that even in an unfinished and unstrung state, the resin quality and molding was quite acceptable. The worst dolls are the Juniors, with a bit of chipping and rough resin around the ankles. Junior Ren also had a bunch of pinholes under his jaw, but luckily these were easily sanded away. The resin color is comparable to Dollzone White Skin for the most part with the exception of my Little Junior Mars who is paler and a bit pinker than the rest. I think this might be because he was an older batch in white skin.
(An aside: I didn't realize Ren and Rena were the same sculpt when I ordered....I can't really justify owning two of the same sculpt so I'm probably going to sell Rena as well as Juriel since I really don't like the Juriel face sculpt in real life.)
So, without further ado, here's a lineup of all my CH dolls, a D.I.M. body and my Dikadoll Rena.
Aesthetics and Standing:
Basic Info:
- CH Bisou- One piece torso- Single jointed elbows and knees. No thigh joint.
- CH Ange/Petite/LJ/Junior- Two piece torso- Single jointed elbows, Double jointed knees, Thigh joint.
- D.I.M. Happy Size New Girl body- Two piece torso- Double jointed elbows and knees, Thigh joint.
- DikaDoll Kid- Three piece torso (locking waist joint)- Double jointed elbows and knees, Locking thigh joint.
As you can see, Custom House has one of the largest ranges of sizes from their Bisou to some 50cm SDs which I don't own. My favorite bodies from them are the Bisou and the Junior Boy and Girl. The Bisou has very nice proportions for a 1/12 Tiny. I've seen some very short legs on certain Tinies which I don't like at all. The Junior Girl body is more developed in the overall shape with a beautiful back arch. I'm also quite impressed with how they sculpted the Junior Boy legs to have a slimmer straighter look than the Girl body. (Note: the LJ Girl body is also very developed which is something I don't like since age wise she should be around 10-13 yo while the Junior size is about 14-16 yo)
My one gripe with Custom House is the inconsistency in their head sizes. The Hani head on the Ange is almost the same size as the Junior Ren/Rena heads and larger than the Petite Juriel and LJ Mars heads. I know Hani has a bigger head from other Anges according to DOA, but to be honest I kind of like her oversized head. It fits better with the idea that she is a kid whereas I think Juriel's head looks too small in the lineup. Notice also that the CH Junior heads are smaller than the other MSD heads. In the long run I don't mind so much and once wigs are on the difference is negligible.
The Dika and D.I.M. body has similar proportions and are less developed than the CH body so age wise, these hover around 11-14 yo . The Dika body does have shorter legs which I find unattractive as well as a rather flat butt and fat calves. The Dika body has very very tight parting lines which is quite nice and I love the face sculpt. However in the following pictures, you will see why I'm not a big fan of the body.
The D.I.M. body is very loosely strung. She tends to stand better than she does in these photos and sueding also helps her immensely. She is capable of standing on one foot and these photos don't do the body justice. Although her ankle size is about the same as the Dika, the sculpt of her calf is very graceful and gives her a better shape than the Dika body. Overall, CH has the most beautiful body sculpts out of the three companies.
Posing (unsueded):
CH-Tinies-
The CH Tinies (Ange and Petite) have very similar bodies and the posing ability is about the same. The differences between them and the Bisou is that the Bisou has a one piece torso, no thigh joints and single jointed knees. The Tinies can all sit and stand just fine. The double jointed knees don't do much but the thigh joint allows the two bigger bodies to do a suwarrico pose just fine. As you can see the torso joint is quite nice in that it allows them to slouch and turn the torso from side to side independent of the hips. However, these guys don't have much of a back arch or side bend.
CH Little Junior -
He's quite similar to the Tinies but his torso has a slightly bigger range of movment. His double jointed knees are also not super useful since he can't really kneel. He's strung super tight though so once the elastic loosens a bit, his head should have more movement than it does now. I tried to bend his torso and head joint as far forward as possible in the first pose and then arch it back in the second pose. He's a bit stiff.
CH Juniors, D.I.M. Happy Girl, DikaDoll Kid Girl-
I lined these guys up in a row so you can compare them more easily.
When sitting, DikaDoll has the straightest back while the CH Juniors lean back slightly if they are not adjusted to bring their torso forward. The D.I.M. body sits fine but has to slouch because of how far back she leans. This doesn't bother me because of how natural her body looks.
Kneeling and forward curl-
The CH bodies are great for this since their double jointed knees allow them to bring their calves quite close to their thighs. I don't think their knees look bad at all. They are also quite good at curling up a bit.
The D.I.M. body is pretty good at kneeling too though her elastic is exposed because she is only single jointed there. Her forward curl isn't as good as the CH Juniors but she looks very natural in this pose as well.
Dikadoll had a minor breakdown O_o. They tried to engineer her with a locking waist joint, but the way it's shaped makes her torso look broken if she bends forward or backwards. The chest joint isn't good for much except turning a bit side to side. Her knees are incapable of kneeling.
Back arch-
This is one of my favorite poses and one of the first I tried on my D.I.M girl when I first got her in November 2010. She actually poses just as well as the CH Juniors but I didn't set her up the same way. CH passes with flying colors for the back bend. D.I.M is very good here too and only a smidgen less arched than CH. Again Dikadoll fails. She can bend but it looks broken. Her chest joint is fairly useless here and her knees don't want to support her though this might change if she were sueded.
Side bend- CH and D.I.M all have very nice side bends as you can see here. The CH dolls have a more rounded torso joint so they can kind of bend around at 360 degrees while D.I.M has very nice bends to the front, back and sides. Dika doll...kinda just fails here too since her chest joint doesn't bend (it only swivels a bit) and her waist joint looks ugly like this.
Knees up crouching-
This is the only pose where the CH Juniors fail. Their thigh joints are just not designed for this. D.I.M. and Dikadoll are very similar here but I would say the the D.I.M. body is a bit more aesthetically pleasing. while the Dika doll thighs look too short.
Swarrico- Yay! Everyone succeeds. I also bent their knees and pointed their toes as much as I could. The CH kness are deep and their toes have super nice points, D.I.M. canot bend her knees much and her foot is relaxed but not pointed and Dika...her knee bend is good, she can't point her toes but I checked and she wins for flexing her feet!
Dikadoll locking joints- This can be a good idea, but I think Dikadoll failed here. As you saw from the previous pictures, her torso looks super awkward if I use the locking waist joint so I just didn't bother to show her in such awkward poses. It might be find if she were wearing clothes though. The thigh joint is also locking but as you can see, the placement is awkward so that when she swivels her leg, there is a mismatched edge.
Overall
I love the CH bodies. The aren't as good as Fairyland for posing but aesthetics wise they are beautiful. Compared to Dika and D.I.M., Custom House is clearly superior for posing. D.I.M. is also very good. Considering her knee is single-jointed, she is quite versatile. Dikadoll bodies looked beautiful to me at first glance but after playing with it, I have to say, she's a major disappointment. I still like her face though.
The body I hope to make in the Fall has already been sketched and planned for a while now. She will have more rounded joints like CH and I was considering giving her locking hip and waist joints. After looking at Dika, I'm a bit scared but I think it will still work out. I can only figure it out when I start making it.
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