[DOLL] Pullip MIO Make It Own

How exciting~ Today I received my Pullip MIO kit and eyechips. I got them from amiami. If you search Pullip in the search bar, you can find the MIO stuff as well as the Pullips they have currently. Watch out because a lot of the listed items are actually marked as 'sold out'. So try not to get too excited until you've checked that! (voice of experience) You can find the wigs by searching "wig selection". I actually didn't buy a wig from them because I didn't find the wigs until after I had ordered. The listings aren't marked with Pullip for some reason.... so I ended up getting a wig from eBay! Actually, I'm super pleased with this wig. It's different from the standard MIO wigs and it's really nice quality. I thought it might be shiny but the feel of it is just like the normal Pullip hair that come on the standard dolls. I haven't bought any clothes because I plan to make some myself, but I do have some spare ones from my Mami doll, so for now I'll be dressing her in school uniform!

Without further ado, here are some pictures of everything!

Pullip MIO Tanned Skin unboxed and eye chips (see above for product links)

 Here's the box! The packaging is really pretty, and it has a little window so you can see the doll's skin colour too. I bought the Tanned Skin version, because I thought it would be nice to have some variety within my dolls, since all the official ones I have are very pale. I thought it would actually be darker than this, it's really not very tan at all! The body and head are a good colour match though, although it doesn't look like they are in that photo.

Back of the box - instructions in English and Japanese

Here's a close up of the face.. unpainted and waiting for AWESOME MAKE UP!

Eye chip mechanism, eye lids etc

Here's the wig I bought on eBay (see above for link) I love the colours of quality of this so much! It needs a bit of styling help but it's over all a very neat and pretty wig.

Close up of the colours

So that's everything! I'm really excited to start my MIO kit. I live in the UK, so you might be wondering what it cost me to buy all this. It works out as quite a bit cheaper than a regular Pullip, although I haven't bought any clothes for her.

MIO kit and eye chips with air mail shipping to the UK: ~£38
UK customs charge: ~£13
Wig from UK seller: ~£17

Over all cost:  ~£68


With the customising supplies and purchasing clothes, you are starting to look at paying the same as a lower priced Pullip, so while it is cheaper in some ways, if you're not sure then it may be worth getting your favourite Pullip doll instead!

I'll be doing blog posts about my customisation, but for more information on putting the doll together and customising, I recommend this blog post!

Thanks everyone! See you in future for customisation adventure~ I'll hopefully be doing some Monster High updates soon too.

New doll, customising materials + update

Hey everybody! It's been a while since I posted on my blog, but I'm back now... and there are a lot of cool doll happenings going on in my world at the moment. 

1. I ordered Pullip Mami Tomoe from Amazon US and I have received her!~  There's a photo I took of her up at the top there. I'll be doing a more in depth review soon :D

2. I've ordered a Pullip MIO kit, eye chips and a wig. I should have everything this week, so I'll be documenting my process for that too.

3. My Monster High customs are coming along too. I've had a lot of set backs trying to find a good surface primer and sealant, but I've found something that works well now that I can buy in this country. Sadly Mr Super Clear isn't sold here and you can't import aerosols into the UK where I live. I've been using Tamiya Acrylic Color Clear Matte after trying a few other options. I tried Game Workshop's Purity Seal but I found it left a sticky residue and didn't have a good 'tooth' surface. I tried painting on matte varnish but I didn't find it made a surface that could hold pastels easily enough either. I'm pretty sure I tried another one too, but I can't remember what it was! I've recently bought some Testor's Dulcote so I'm going to be trying that out on my Pullip MIO and see how it goes.

I bought the smallest brushes from Games Workshop and they were still too big for painting details onto my Monster High dolls! So I bought these small nail art brushes from eBay, and they are BRILLIANT! So much better for avoiding a blobby look.

Since I had to take off and put on the different sealants so many times, the surface of the doll's face is a little damaged. As a result, it doesn't hold pastels very evenly, some areas are taking the blush much more than others. I've learnt a lot with this doll, but after I redo the face I'm going to move on to a different one with everything I've learnt because there are a lot of mistakes and accidental damage etc that I'm not happy with. 

 I haven't redone the face with the new brushes. I'm going to be repainting my first doll head since the brushes were too big, but for the sake of documenting my progress, here's my first attempt!

What happens if your brushes aren't small enough!

I also think I need to make an eyebrow stencil of some kind!

So there's all my updates for now... I will hopefully be writing more on this blog over the next few days!