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The first and biggest issue is that when I opened Mimie for the first time and went to dress her, her left arm just kind of slid out of the joint when I went to move the arm. It just plainly doesn't fit. I emailed QLYwork about this too, and they gave me some solutions which I plan on detailing in a longer review at some point. One was to place eye putty in the joint, which is a pretty good quick fix. However! Wrestling the arm multiple times has loosened the fur on the plastic shell of the arm, because it's not meant to be handled that way. The putty also isn't quite strong enough to hold the arm in place when it is raised, and it will slowly lower on its own. It's a slight but noticeable descent.

QLYwork also informed me that if I find Mimie's head is loose, I should also tack on some putty. Well I got curious and as it happens there is already putty in the head. I had to chuckle. I understand that manufacturing is more difficult than I can comprehend as I've never had to do it before, but QLYwork has quite a portfolio of articulated plastic figures at this point, and many of the earlier little lambs have spherical joints. They know how such a doll is assembled, so I don't think it's incompetence on their part. But it's still a surprising oversight. I suppose I can also blame myself for trusting that their first go at Mimie would be without flaws. The limited quantity of 50 Mimies was probably all they could realistically handle for what seems to have been an intended learning experience.

Still, I wish they were more upfront and communicated better the issues they encountered with Mimie, and if there was a delay then people who pre-ordered should have been notified without having to approach them first. If putty is the solution, then that should have also been communicated. I'm especially sad for whoever got a decapitated Mimie.

More positively, Mimie would have been a perfect doll if not for manufacturing issues. A doll with a plastic body designed to look like a soft body, and does so convincingly, is actually pretty clever and not something I've seen before. Aside from the head and left arm, the joints are perfect. The clothes that Mimie came with are very well made. The stand that comes with Mimie has a nice wooden base (though I'm not entirely sure the saddle is custom made, and there's no real need for it to be adjustable). The packaging is a little less involved than QLYwork's other dolls, but I found it to be sufficient and the custom box is nice. Nothing felt like a cheap afterthought. And of course, Mimie is incredibly cute. So I can tell that QLYwork genuinely put a lot of love and effort into Mimie, and perhaps they were also astonished by the problems. Maybe they couldn't or didn't have time to immediately do another run to replace the defective Mimies. I'm relieved that they were responsive and at least tried to help me, but I still feel the doll is in an unacceptable state, and I can't reasonably justify going for their next release in this line until I know that these problems have been addressed.

But my fun with Mimie will not be tarnished! I've named her Lemon Chiffon Cake. Hopefully her replacement arm will fit properly. I enjoy holding and carrying her around, and I want to give her many silly hats to wear.

In site news, I started uploading my higher effort doodles ("art" is a little too generous I think lol), and I decided not to use a lightbox this time! Giving every work an individual page feels a little overkill, especially because all of the other image galleries on this site are and more compact even with more images, so I didn't want to do that. But I figure if there is ever an occassion where I want to add more information or context, I have it as an option and it wouldn't be too out of place. Lightboxes tend to be fiddly and not as responsive as I like, as I enjoy pretending my browser is an accordion in my downtime. So my solution is a little redundant and convoluted, but as I work on it, I'll see how I feel about it, and if it gets tedious, I'll go back to something more tried and true.

I'm also working on replacing the sidebar clock and also print tests for the doll zine I may have briefly mentioned hmm a year ago? I didn't forget about it!!!