Ever since Groove announced a new eye mechanism function that allowed Pullip to have partially opened eyes in addition to fully open and closed eyes I have had a desire to open up one of the new dolls with it to see how it works. I recently covered the basics of the new style of eye mechanism including a few short videos using Pullip Cheshire Cat that can be seen here but I really wanted to see how it worked. Creator’s Label Pullip Lupinus is the second doll to be released that features a new eye mechanism function following her predecessor Pullip Cheshire Cat in Steampunk World.  I recently acquired Pullip Lupinus, her eye chips have been a bit a divisive issue in the Pullip community people either love them or hate them with no between. I wanted to see what she would look like with the more normal style of eye chips so it seemed like a good excuse to open her up!
Above is a photo of Pullip Lupinus with her stock chips in. Let’s open her up to take a better look at that new and improved eye mechanism and change those chips…

Going into this my theory was that the eye mechanism itself was more or less the same as the normal Type 4 eye mechanism just with new eyelid levers that have an extra notch in them allowing the eyes to be partially closed.
The backplates from Pullip Lupinus and a random tanned MIO or Make It Own kit I had laying around appear to be more or less the same.
Back view of the opened up Lupinus head.
Ah ha, there are new eyelid levers! Side view for anyone curious.
Disembodied Lupinus eye mechanism.
Comparison shot of Lupinus’ eye mechanism versus a normal eye mechanism, they look more or less identical.
Back view of the eye mechanisms.
The only real difference between the two eye mechanisms appear to be the eyelid levers so let’s take a closer look at them. In the above photo Lupinus’ mech lever is the paler of the two. Really looking at it, it just has an extra notch on it which looks like it would be an easy mod if someone wanted to replicate. The extra notch is a simple little change that is really quite ingenious.
Alternate view of the blink levers.
The eye mechanism levers are interchangeable so in theory if you wanted to you could put the new levers in one of the other type 4 Pullips and then they would be able to have the partially closed eyes as well.

For anyone curious what Lupinus looks like with normal eye chips versus her stock jeweled chips, I ended up trying two different sets of eye chips in her. The first set are the aqua blue from the Make It Own MIO line of eye chips, I liked them in her but wasn’t exactly wowed by them they were a little too light.
The second set of eye chips I tried in Lupinus were also from the MIO line, this time I went with the turquoise chips which I thought suited her beautifully!

Please look forward to Lupinus’ full review being posted up real soon!