Restringing Gitana

I took a break from work yesterday, and sat down and re-strung my Granado Nuevo female body. I like Granado very much. it's a small atelier, only two years old; and the sculptor, Crocus, has enormous talent. Because of this, I wanted to sit down and look carefully at the female body and be sure that I understood how it was supposed to work and why certain decisions were made on the engineering. Parts of the way the body was constructed felt a little like "trying to reinvent the wheel by making it square". Doll companies seem to feel they have to do this, as in "We don't want the hip cuts to show, so we will make some kind of contraption inside the hip.":p (I blame Iplehouse for this). Never mind that doll owners already understand that this is a doll with joints, so there will be joint line; and I don't see how a mobility thigh cut is much different than a hip slot.

Anyway, for me the problem of the female Nuevo body was the hips. The way I had it strung in the original post of "Stringing Gitana" was correct; but it's important that the string isn't too thick or too thin--it should be about 4mm thick-- and what was sent to me with the body also had a sort of polish to it; rather than the slightly fuzzy cotton-covered elastic I usually use. The elastic also shouldn't have any twists in it or wrap around itself.

The two upper leg pieces have almost no mobility. They are intended to straighten the string from it's angled entry from the pelvis. This is as far apart as they will move--all the "posing" happens in the ball in the mobility joint, though the hip pieces will rotate up so the doll can sit:

The legs have a natural tendency to do this:

And I think this is why:

I think the large space inside the thighs lets the string pull too far to the inside of the leg, and that pulls the legs together. A smaller channel would contain to the elastic to the proper path. As a test, I stuffed an inelegant wad of Magic Eraser into each thigh on the inner side (sorry about the cat food :( ):

Crude as that fix was, it made the legs much more willing to stay apart.

I also had some trouble with the upper torso slipping from side to side, and I think that it is the same issue--too much open space for the string to travel around inside the torso. As I did with the male body, I am going to make a removable insert to go inside the torso to keep the string aligned with the center of the body, and that should give the whole body better balance-- without sacrificing the convenience of being able to get inside the torso for knotting the arms and adjusting things.

I'm going to hot suede glue those ankles, too. Bigger feet would also help--I understand the artistic desire to have tiny feet, and the happy ability to wear Luts shoes, but bigger platter feet would help keep her standing. Overall I love the body--the hands are the prettiest I own, the knees are brilliant; beautiful, simple and absolutely perfectly fitting with the calves and thighs. It's a lovely sculpt. It just needs those dowdy, old fashioned hip slots. :D