Iyrilaeth's new hands (and a shot of Anna's too)

I have this massive fascination with hands and wrists that started with (oddly enough) watching Lady and the Tramp as a kid. I loved the way their paws bent when they were doing things and whilst crawling around the house pretending to be a dog I realized human wrists and hands were really neat.

Anyway, years later hands are still a big deal for me so a major part of doll 'shelling' is finding the right hands to express their character. I have a whole separate wishlist for hands I want for characters that I don't even have heads planned for yet.

Sometimes I'm okay with something generic as long as it's an attractive looking hand but sometimes I have a very specific look in mind.

To get to the point, I really wanted a pair of the Dollshe DS18M rhythmos hands for Iyrilaeth and after selling some things, I decided to go for it before they stopped producing them and I potentially lost my chance to ever own them.

They arrived today and I am pretty much in love with them.

I did a box opening for hands because I was so excited.

The tiny wrist balls are a mild issue since they sink into Iyrilaeth's wrists and he ends up with no mobility pretty  much, but that is something I guess I can try to work on at a later date. He'll need restringing before I can really do much about that since it was really hard to get these on as is.

I actually broke one of his old hands in the process. To fix this I will probably just remove the rest of the resin lump there (aside from the notch that keeps the hand in place on the joint) and replace it with a metal screw-in hook.

After an absurdly frustrating few minutes of trying to wrestle with his overly tight stringing, I managed to get these on and life was good.

I also recently bought a secondhand pair of Iplehouse hands for Anna. I wasn't a huge fan of the default Aoi Tuki ones and had been meaning to replace them for years but none of the hands I really liked for her tended to be sold separately. A few months after putting this pair of Iplehouse hands on my wishlist, I managed to find someone selling them secondhand so that I could avoid the waiting period.

The resin match is not great (although I imagine at one point it would have been because Anna was far more pink years ago). I am not that bothered by it but if I ever decide I am I may just let the new hands sit on the porch for a little while to yellow a bit. (or go and try one of those light dye techniques to make her more pink again all over. Might be a better plan since her Souldoll head is more pink than the body too)

I actually considered taking pictures at the time but I thought it might be weird to make a post featuring doll hands. Obviously I have since changed my mind.