Blythe Jointed Body- how to fix problems!
There are two jointed body options for Blythe that I know of:
a) Azone 1/6 Pure Neemo different scale bodies, Azone neck knob (XS, S, M and L sizes, in white and natural skin)
b) Chinese version jointed body, made with a Blythe neck knob (middie Blythe, "boy" and girl versions in M size, in normal, tan and dark tan skintones)
I have no experience on the Azone Pure Neemo bodies. They have a neck knob that is different from the Takara Blythe one and therefor you might have to do some modding to get the head to work on the Azone bodies. They have cute different sizes and different bust options, but they're not meant for the heavy and big Blythe heads. Azone bodies are probably quite nice quality otherways though if you're willing to go through the trouble of modding a bit. They have old style Pure Neemo bodies, Flection ones, differen bust sizes for the L type... There's a lot to choose from. One of my nice Flickr contacts has done a good blog post on the Pure Neemo bodies. They also seem to have some mixing options.
The Chinese jointed body is the one I use on my dolls. I've had the girl version bodies in all the 3 different skintones that has the Takara type neck knob. The so called "boy" version body that has just come out, seems like it has a different, Azone type neck knob and it's basically just a flat chest version of the girl body. I would not qualify that for a boy body when the shape is so feminine. That's why my Blythe boy has the Licca boy body and not this one.
The Middie Blythe jointed body has a completely different neck knob again. I have no experience with this one. It will not work on normal sized Blythes and I have no Middie Blythes (at least not yet! Hehe!)
The Chinese joint/Jointed body is a nice one with fun posing options. It sometimes has slight problems. It’s obviously nice when you don’t need to do anything to it, but these are easy fixes, should the body have some issues. The two problems that I've encountered so far are:
1. the vinyl has gotten bent
SOLUTION: Sometimes the bodies get mangled in transit and the body parts bend in awkward ways, creating distorted limbs that don't look good and cause balance problems. The body comes comes completely apart, so you can just take out the part that is twisted and do a hot water treatment to it. When the parts are bend weirdly, a dip in boiling water will re-set the limb back to its original form. If the mere boiling doesn’t do it, you can further bend/mold the hot limb with your hands to the position you want and run some cold water on it to set it in the position you want. Let it cool off and it will stay in the position you've set it in.
2. the joints are a bit lose
The joints are attached with just small pegs and you can take the body entirely apart by just pulling, which results sometimes in lose joints and the pieces not meeting properly at the junction.
Some of my dolls have had a problem with the twist and turn torso joint. I don't personally like it if that particular joint is lose, because it throws the doll's balance makes them harder to pose and keep standing with their heavy heads even with support. Clothes will also get stuck and in between the joint which is annoying. I often just hot glue this torso joint. You can either hot glue it so that the upper and lower parts form just one torso piece and you lose th twist and turn function. I still prefer it to the wobble. When fixing this problem on my Jessica I noticed, you can also try to twist the pieces while the hot glue is drying so that when it sets, it only creates a layer there that will make the pieces meet better, but so that the twist and turn will continue to work.
I also sometimes hot glue the ankle joints. It may seem like one of the legs is longer than the other when the ankle joint is not properly fitted into the lower leg part. You may need to wiggle the joint some to get it to sink in the socket better. The hot treatment might help there as well. I sometimes just hot glue the ankle joints too. The movement in the ankle is not awfully useful or functional as it is, so glueing the joint in a fixed position doesn't make much of a difference in terms of poseability. A stable ankle however helps to put on shoes and taking them off without the foot getting stuck inside the boot and helps with the balance when standing.
The leg and arm joints can be lose too sometimes. I haven't really come up with any solution to this yet other than swapping parts around from different dolls to find a good match. I haven't had too bad cases yet, so I've not really put my mind into it either.
The wrist joints are usually firm and nice. There might be small cracks between the forearm part and the hand part, but nothing that would ruin the fun of playing with the body really. It's just an aesthetic little issue. Among the extra hands I often find a pair that looks good too there.
Clothing Issues
Another one of the issues with this jointed body is that some of the Blythe clothes made for the Takara body, don't fit well on this slightly larger body. Some of the stockings, tights, socks, tops and dresses just simply don't fit on it.
Often clothes made for the Takara body also have very tight arm holes and sleeves, so this body that has rather lose joints at the shoulders will get, what I call, 'wings effect'. In other words, the garments push the arms further away from the body when the fabric is stuck in the arm pit and the doll goes flailing about it's arms in a less than dignified way. There are plenty of clothing makers these days on Etsy though who do take this into consideration and even make clothes specifically for this body type. It's just something to be aware of.
The chest of the girl jointed body is also more prominent than on the Takara body. I tend to prefer mine flat chested and more child-like not only for aesthetic and character reasons, but also because it's a lot easier to dress the doll without the large bust and finding/making well fitting tops. Now there is that "boy" version" available, but when I started out, it wasn't, so what I've done is, I've sometimes carved and sanded down the chest to look like this:
One of the great things about this body is that the hand parts can be easily taken off and it helps with the dressing when the fingers don't get stuck in sweaters.
Conclusion
Regardless their occasional issues, I would recommend the Chinese version jointed bodies! They're a good option for those who want their Blythes to be more posable. So, don't be afraid of buying them just because of what I've written here. Fixing the little issues is really not a biggy and I've been lucky several times and ended up with a really good body and not having to do anything to fix it.
