I think it's time for a change...
Sat 2010/07/31 18:36 JST
... of eyes for Nanoha. Opticals eyes of course, I'm happy with Nanoha's modest bust.
I digress, I really love my dollfie musume except for one thing, the eyes. They come out as pretty much just black with no features, unless light hits them directly. I finally got annoyed enough to think of getting her new eyes. With that said here is where I wanna turn to you comrades for advice.
First, I know that DD's can take anywhere between 14-20mm eyes. What is the most appropriate size for DDs?
Second, to those of you who have changed the eyes of your dollfie musumes what are you preferred stores to buy them besides Volks?
Finally, what color do you think would look good on Nanoha?
It really depends on the sculpt of the head, i accidentally gotten 22mm eyes for my custom girl but the were a bit big, but i did some mods to the head in order to fit them more easily. For Nanoha, i believe you want to get 22 or 24mm, but i might be mistaken. As of right now i haven't order any eyes from any other places so i can't give you any information about that at the moment, i've only ordered from volks. As for color, i think green or blue, of a lighter shade, with that wig.
I think I'll be doing the same thing soon lol
So it'll be interesting to see how this goes! ^^
If you want to know what size eyes she comes with by default you can do a search on Volks USA for the old product page from here http://www.volksusa.com/store.html
Nanoha( http://store.volksusa.com/kyoto6nanoha.html ) is listed as coming with 24mm.
They also did a blog article on the look of different eye sizes that maybe you'll find useful http://site.volksusa.com/sumikatimes/2009/06/08/quick-change-a-new-impression-using-different-eye-sizes/
Like psyche said, the most suitable eye size for a particular Dollfie will depend on the facial sculpt, the type of eyes you're installing and what aura you want to create for her. Seeing Nanoha, I too would recommend 22-24mm range.
Usually one uses bigger eyes to emphasize cuteness (the same rules applies in anime/manga - check out how the innocent, cute girls usually have bigger eyes than mature girls, villains will often have very small eyes).
On my Shizuko I used Volks animetic type F in 24mm size eyes:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40588969@N06/4825005150/sizes/l/
I used for all my Girls 22mm Animetic Eyes.Looks pretty good with that size type.
But you must look by yourself which Size do you prefer (^__~)
I like Animetics in Dollfie Dream heads because that's sort of what they intend.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/msgeek/4631205586/
My DDH-04 MDD got 24mm optical eyes, and I went with Apricot (closest to brown) type D eyes. She looks very, very cartoony now, like a living anime character.
My Obitsu girl and boy, on the other hand, both look very realistic. I tried the Soul Doll "Bling" eyes in her and they didn't work...the eye pockets got in the way and they are a little bigger than 16mm, even though that's what they say they are. I could have cut out the eye pockets but I like Obitsu's eye pockets, so that's where I stayed.
Oh yeah, the Bling eyes get sold soon.
Actually, I'd say it's more like 16 to 22 or 24. The upper limit depends on if the iris is a full circle or if it's more square like Nanoha's defaults; the square ones give you more white on the sides, so big whopping 24mm eyes look fine at that size, where full circles give you no white at all. I've tried 18, 20, and 24mm eyes in Agatha and posted pictures of them, and do have a pair of 22mm I could plunk in as well. It comes down to a matter of taste. Smaller eyes will give you more white than larger ones.
As for eyes, I can't blame you for looking at places other than Volks. The designs of their standard animetic eyes are nice, but the color palette is a little blah. Souldoll has a line called "bling" eyes that are more anime-styled you might want to take a look at. In my case, though, I am a complete DIY addict and got Pupapa's D.Eye.Y eye blanks, and made my own irises in Photoshop. Pretty easy, actually, though you'll want to make sure you have some Elmer's-like white glue to attach the irises to the lens; otherwise you get some funky refraction issues.