One last post before I head off to bed…VOTD had another OOB sale recently, for those of you who don’t know they periodically offer returned dolls (broken in some way but most are easy fixes) and/or old display models from their storefront for sale at discounted prices via their forum. The broken dolls can be a real bargain, yes their arm might be broken but that isn’t anything a body swap to either an obitsu or another body of the same type won’t fix. I managed to score an Another Alice during their last sale with full stock for $35 the catch was she had a broken wrist and there was no body match for the Another series at the time Requiemart has since figured out a solution though, so Elise will be going on an obitsu very shortly. This sale was not as large as the last one but there were still a pretty fair large amount of dolls available, I don’t always check the forum that often but I happened to refresh the day after the dolls were posted and while some had already been sold, there were two dolls that really sparked my interest. Initially I was just going to get Arion who came with a broken arm but after some internal debate I decided to be brave and adopt the Youtsuzu with the broken eye mechanism as well.

I took this picture upon their arrival, I was a little surprised I actually got Arion’s box as this is the first time I had actually got an OOB doll with a box. Just ignore the nendoroid..

My first Maguna taeyang had an arm break a while back, I was kind of horrified at the time until Requiemart explained what an easy fix it was. The thing is it isn’t a true break, the arm just kind of slips out of joint and becomes detached. I was hoping that this was the problem with Arion as I now knew how to fix it and sure enough upon inspection that was the issue. I decided to share some pictures of the process in case anyone else manages to dislocate a taeyang arm or gets a broken one.

I basically just had to line it up his arm correctly and then pop it back in place.

As soon as I popped his arm back in, he was as good as new. So with less than two minutes of work I basically had a brand new Arion on my hands that I had only paid $70 for instead of $115 on VOTD or $125 on PS. I had actually been wanting Arion since he was announced but somehow I had never managed to pick him up, I am glad I waited for him. I have decided to name him Strife as he kind of vaguely reminds of me  of Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII it’s probably just because FFVII is on my mind as I am playing through it again on my PSP at the moment.

Youtsuzu was more of an impulse purchase, I absolutely love her stock look but I had been looking at pictures of her rewigged and outside of her stock recently and I had kind of been thinking it would be rather nice to have one to play with a little bit more. She came with a broken eye mechanism, so she was pretty cheap. I wasn’t quite sure what I was getting into from the kind of blanket description of a broken eye mechanism which could be any number of things. When I took her out and started handling her I noticed her eyes moved side to side without issue but the blinking mechanism for her right eye was stuck and wouldn’t wink. I opened her up and the newer designed blink lever on the right side was just kind of stuck so I fixed it and she too is as good as new.

I haven’t decided on a name or a new wig for her yet, I am still in the process of trying different things on her and seeing what works with coloring before deciding if I need to order her a new wig or if she will suit one of the wigs I already have on hand.

So with a little bit of work I effectively got both dolls for the price I would have paid to buy either one of the two new.