I purchased BeBe..(is that the name?) the "new" Aiko body with the more anime face over at Daz, and I was not impressed by it. There's one here in free stuff that in my humble opinion is better. When I purchased it, I thought worse case scenerio, I can use the hair...and that's about all I probably will use. At least before you purchase, I'd wait for more face morphs to come out. The one in free stuff works just as well (someone help me with who made it)and has a more anime feel to it, in my opinion. Sure it's cheap, but what's cheaper than free? Free I say! Plus with no morphs (although someone has posted those here in free stuff...free...again, I say free) using the various mag sets is a great work around but then we come to the problem of textures...Aiko's will work for the body, but not for the head...what? what? WHAT? Daz normally puts out some great stuff (STONEMASON RULES) but this one was bleh, especially since the one in FREE stuff over here performs just as well...if not better. Please someon disagree with me and tell me why, so I can go "Oh, thanks, didn't see that...me dumb...I love it now!"

Personally, I like BelBel. Her head is much more anime-friendly than Aiko. The included morphs are quite expressive. My one complaint is that I find her included toon mats difficult to render properly. My favorite toon/anime/manga character is still Himeko, but BelBel is ok.

First, for me Belbel is completely awesome as an anime figure, with all the PROPER anime emotion morphs and a face much prettier than any freebie out there (IMHO). I was waiting for it to be released since the day one.

Second, DAZ has a 30 days money back guaranty so if you are not completely happy with it, you can easily return Belbel.

Third, it is VERY easy to transfer Aiko base morphs to Belbel if you really need them. The main part of BelBel is the head itself, not the body: "BelBel is a typical Japanese Anime head combined with Aiko3's body". Most of the girls in anime have the same body type anyway ^_^

Fourth, for the price they ask for her, you get a model, a bunch of textures and a completely original hair prop with a couple of textures too. MilDragon2 Dragonling comes without any textures whatsoever and costs twice as much but I haven't noticed anyone complaining about that.

Fifth, she has new mapping for the head and the eyes because this way it is much easier to create truly anime textures, without much thinking about seams and distortion. I wouldn't risk texturing Aiko as it would be a real PITA but I have a lot of ideas about BelBel already.

I wouldn't ask for a refund, like I said earlier, I'm hoping someone can say.."what about..." like you did. Also, like I said even if I hated Bel Bel...the hair is worth the price

What's the name of the freebie you like so much? What is it, just morphs for Aiko?

I didn't realize Aiko's textures didn't work on BelBel's head. That's kind of a pain.

Still haven't decided whether to buy her or not. I'm not really big on anime, but I've got an expiring voucher to spend.

Well I have to admit this is a first for me...I've never actually read a thread started by someone that was actually unimpressed by one of Yamato's works. Nothing wrong with that of course--different strokes for different folks and all that--just never thought I'd actually see it happen.

Edit to add: Just saw the freebie product mentioned by the OP...and well...I'll just repeat the "different strokes for different folks" bit...it looks OK but I don't really see what gives it a "more anime feel." Also IMO in terms of visual appeal, the freebie product isn't really up to the same standard as the BelBel product.

Message edited on: 01/30/2006 00:40

I'm going to give Bel Bel another shot this weekend. Thanks for the great feedback. "Anime" feel...what was I thinking? That was just stupid. I currently live in Japan and Anime is anime....more "Anime" feel...yeah slap me twice on that one...especially if my gallery is any judge of a different flair of "anime" feel. Oooh I'm a hypocrite.....bad, bad almeida. I retract my "anime feel" comment and once again state that Ms. Lewinsky and I had a purely proffesional acquaitence.