Free Choice Amphibel

It is easy to forget that these dolls are made by hand, each one slightly different from the last..it makes them wonderful, and sometimes aggravating, because you are dealing with artists. And in the case of Soom, artists who are sometimes in a hurry. I ordered Amphibel during the Free Choice Event last fall; which was chaotic even by Soom standards--a sudden price change (after many of us though we had Paid in Full) and various other minor problems. So when she arrived I was a little anxious that she would arrive with all her parts--and she did. Including an extra present, which was worth a good portion of the price increase. It was a nice wig!

Amphibel comes with wings and wing ears--here are the ears; they slot in with tiny magnets, you can swap them out for the human ears as well:

Her body wings are a bit of an engineering problem--I took one out, fitted it together, and then wrapped it up again--it's fragile, and though it has separate, movable upper and lower sections, the resin "hinge" isn't strong enough to keep the wing sections together (I suspect gluing in craft magnets might fix it, but I don't want to modify them until I decide I want to keep her.)

The way the feathers are sculpted also limits the movement of the wings, they run into each other if you flex lower part past the upper section. The wings themselves slot into the back with magnets, much like the Migma wings do:

It's possible that I could make some net and feather wings that use the base supports instead of the resin wings, but for now I just put in the caps that cover the holes:

The main problem I have with her at the moment is that she only came with heel feet, and I have no shoes to stabilize her, and I am out of saddle stands. I would order some bronze flat feet at the next Soom Body event, but that could be next fall. So for now she is sitting. Soom also sent the wrong hooks for her hands--these hooks are super for fantasy feet, but are too fat to fit down into the wrists of the doll--a test fit would have caught this, but as Soom ships the hands separate and unstrung the hook problem wasn't caught. It's also likely the person doing the packing just has a list that says "2 hooks" without specifying which ones, and unless you are familiar with the dolls, you wouldn't have any idea these were the wrong hooks. I did happen to have one correct hook in storage, and cut up a paper clip to make the second one:

Her faceup is gorgeous, and I do love the Bronze, so I may end up keeping her.

And here with new Safrin Emerald Eyes!