Problems with Removable Feet

I recently bought a couple of 1/6 scale seamless dolls to bring to life the main characters in a series of stories I've been writing.  I got Jiaou Doll 10C and 10D, which are the removable feet versions of the 06C and 06D respectively.  I wanted them to be able to stand on their own, so I was willing to endure the sight of the visible ankle joints.  
    However, I've had such difficulty changing out the feet, it's nearly ruined the experience of having these dolls.  The feet come off easily enough, but trying to put the different feet the dolls came with on took so much force, I creased the silicone on one of the doll's shins, and the other doll's leg snapped in half inside!  
    There was much disappointment and outrage.  I guess "removable" was indeed accurate, but the whole idea behind removing the feet is to put different ones on!  It seems to me that this shouldn't be a monumental chore (like dressing them is), complete with worry about possibly breaking the doll; it should be as easy as the hands are to change.  
    I haven't been able to find any information posted about whether or not anyone else is having this problem and what they've done to get past it.  It occurred to me that maybe there's a technique to it, like putting the feet on in a twisting motion, but I've been too afraid to try again.  I bought a replacement doll for the broken 10C and haven't messed with the feet again on the 10D.  
I also bought a 06C whose feet are fixed thinking, if she has permanently heeled feet like the fixed feet on a TBLeague doll prior to the release of the 12D,  that can be the version of that character I put heeled shoes on.  But the fixed feet on the 06C aren't heel shaped, they're flat shaped as if to try to stand flat on her feet, only I already knew she wouldn't be able to.  So, that was disappointing to learn they're not even the ideal shape for heeled shoes.  
    Back to the removable feet: the replacement 10C had painted toenails while the original (broken) one did not.  And one of the feet wasn't even attached in the package.  I figured, since the first thing I had to do was put a foot on whether I wanted to or not, I might as well put the unpainted toenail feet on.  One of them was as much an ordeal as I expected while the other went on much more easily.  
There seems to be noticeable differences between even same models of the doll, and I don't know why, unless it's a quality control issue.  The painted (or not) toenails is just one example.  
    Anyway, the main point is to hopefully figure out whether or not the changing of the feet can be made any easier, and thus bring this endeavor from fairly frustrating to the fun I expected.  Any advice from folks who have more experience with 1/6 dolls would be much appreciated.

I have read on here before that it helps a lot to heat the hands and feet pieces with a blowdryer. When they are warm they are more flexible and much easier to pop on and off. Avoid overheating areas, start gradually until the material becomes pliable. Maybe shield the TBLeagues "skin" TPE areas just in case. If anybody more experienced than I can confirm before OP ruins his figure?

Suchsneak wrote:I have read on here before that it helps a lot to heat the hands and feet pieces with a blowdryer. When they are warm they are more flexible and much easier to pop on and off. Avoid overheating areas, start gradually until the material becomes pliable. Maybe shield the TBLeagues "skin" TPE areas just in case. If anybody more experienced than I can confirm before OP ruins his figure?  

Yep. This. (And sorry about your troubles — it’s not uncommon for a Jiaou Doll body to break in odd places).

If you have one, use a pair of tweezers (or similar) that won’t leave a mark to hold the loose hands or feet, and use a hair dryer to heat them up one at a time — I usually go about 30-60 seconds depending on how difficult it is to put something on, and once the hard plastic is soft enough they should pop on fairly easily — the problem with Jiaou Doll is that aside from the connectors and joints (which are metal), the main part of the skeleton is still junky plastic — making them fairly delicate. Unless I absolutely have to, I avoid using Jiaou and stick to TBLeague if I want a far more durable seamless body.

I agree with Suchsneak and Stryker -- heat up the hands and feet before popping on or off, if it appears that they are being stubborn at all. If memory serves, Jiaou's hands come off more easily than TBLeague's. But obviously the feet can be a big problem. Because Jiaou's skeleton is plastic (unlike the joints), it is less surprising that something might break inside (this was also a problem for pre-stainless-steel-skeleton TBLeagues, or back then Phicens). By the way, in my experience Jiaou female bodies always came with painted nails on the hands and feet, so it is just possible your original 10C was of an older line. But I can't be sure, as I have stopped collecting these bodies for the most part. At any rate, heating up the detachable hard plastic parts should help. If you have to heat them up on the figure and you are worried about the rubbery TPE flesh, you can always hold a piece of cardboard to shield it a bit from the blast of the hairdryer, while focusing on the hand or foot.

GubernatorFan wrote: If memory serves, Jiaou's hands come off more easily than TBLeague's.

Not with the Jiaoudolls I have.

I usually put hands and feet I want to use in boiling water and let them sit for a while, and then take them out, pat them dry, and they are very soft and much easier to put on. That said, I've only done this on tbleague hands and feet, not on Jiaou's (since I don't own any of those).

So sorry about the frustrations though, hope you find a method that works!

Welcome Kano ! Can not wait to see Your Story.
Hot water is the other option i use a blowdryer to. It´s years ago i made some shots of steel skeleton figures inside water, no rust till now. But i see You want to take much care of Yours. So maybe the blow dryer is better for You.

I'd love to see what Bertha (was that her name?) caught in there...

GubernatorFan wrote:I'd love to see what Bertha (was that her name?) caught in there...

Malaria.

Stryker2011 wrote:Malaria.

LOL She probably thought it was delicious...

Thank y'all for your suggestions and support!  I apologize for how long it's been since I last posted.  I stay busy with gaming, writing, and other creative endeavors apart from my dolls.  Having recently bought some stuff for them for myself for Christmas, I wanted to jump back in with a reply I wrote 9 months ago but never posted.  

    I don't guess I realized the skeletons of Jiaou Dolls were plastic; I probably just presumed they were completely stainless steel like TBLeague.  
    I can tell TBLeague is the much more popular of the 2, and I originally looked for a long time at their lineup.  After familiarizing myself with and scrutinizing everything from 2014-2020, I concluded they just didn't have any bodies that were a good fit for my characters.  The 12D was close, but that would only create 1 character, and there wasn't a similar enough body to be the others.  
    Ironically, Jiaou seemed more themed around bodies that had WAY more than I needed to depict my characters (LOL!), but still had a body type in their lineup I thought was perfect.  And the 2 different versions of that same body (C & D) were exactly the difference between the characters whose body shape is similar in most other ways.  That's the "why?" behind my choice on brand.  In regards to the painted fingernails and toes, I did in fact get one with unpainted toenails and another of exactly the same model that had painted toenails.  Happy accident?  The unpainted toenails for the one character were perfect, and I actually wish her fingernails weren't painted, but every one of the 4 Jiaou Dolls I've bought had the painted fingernails.  
    I used the hot water method on a couple of the heads (one from Kimi Toys and one from GAC Toys) when changing the wigs.  It made a little bit of a difference, but I still had to work at it for a while to get the original wigs off.  
A hair dryer sounds like a good approach, but I'm not sure I even have one.  I think I did try hot water on the feet when I first had the problem, but maybe it wasn't hot enough?  Or maybe because I put the foot in a plastic bag when I dipped it into the cup?  Maybe someone could describe in detail how they do hot water softening?  
    Thanks again, and I hope to be able to report some success soon after!  

Update since this was written:
I haven't changed any feet since this became a discussion.  I am going to have to at some point in order to get a pair of shoes ACN004 I ordered to fit.  I accidentally broke one of the shoes in half trying to get it on the detailed heeled feet (the ones with toes), and that hurt my feelings.  I've since reordered those, but it looks like I'll have to change the feet to the "slug" feet I've seen them referred to.  So, this feet changing thing is about to come to a crossroads.  It reads like Skywalker just puts the feet in "boiling" water without a bag and leaves them for a while.  I'll probably try that, unless one of y'all correct me in the next couple of weeks wile I'm waiting on the things I ordered to come in from China.  
Anyway, it's good to get on here again, and I hope to hear back from y'all soon!

Hairdryer works for me.

Hair dryer or boiling water works (or should). Weird how you broke the shoes in half — that would seem to me to take way too much pressure, or the shoes were poorly made.

One of the things I did to get rid of the painted fingernails on Jiaou hands was to use the backside (the “dull” side) of an X-Acto blade to gently scrape the paint off — so I could use a Jiaou body to make my Slave Leia figure (she can be found here: https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t1166-jabba-the-hutt-diorama-the-viewing-frame-wip?highlight=Jabba), but I ultimately swapped the hands for the Hot Toys hands since they worked better and looked less “doll like” than the Jiaous.

To answer your question about the boiling water --- yes, I just leave the feet in the hot water for a while (at least a minute or so?). But I understand if they are still attached to the figure you might not want to put the actual figure in the water, so perhaps just angle it in a certain way so you can have the figure with just its feet in the water.

If the shoes are breaking, then maybe those need to be in some hot water prior to using, too?

Regarding Tbleague bodies -- yeah, they are much better quality than Jiaou, but I do understand that some of the body shapes are not as useful. What kind of body/bodies are you looking for? I only ask because Tbleague are always releasing new (female) bodies, so perhaps check them out again just in case...

I didn't even think about using different hands from what came with the dolls.  I've seen Hot Toys come up while doing searches for stuff for my dolls, but they looked like complete action figures.  I wouldn't want to buy a figure just for it's hands.  But maybe they sell the hands separately?  I'm happy enough with the hands my dolls came with, of which there were a few different types.  I appreciate the advice for how to remove the nail polish from the hands because only 1 of the 3 characters wears red nail polish.  It's good to know I can take that off to make them more character specific.  If only I could have French manicure for them instead.  
Interestingly, I got some more bangles for them from a seller on Etsy, and trying to take the hands off and put them back on the 06C was about as difficult as the feet on the 10's.  The metal ball peg at the wrists is noticeably smaller than the ones on the 10's, AND there's a joint there I could swear isn't there on the 10's.  It keeps moving side to side while trying to push the hands back onto the pegs, and I worry every time they're going to break at that joint.  I just try to keep the joint straight and push straight on with the hand.  The hands on the 10's are much easier to take off, put on, and feel sturdier overall.  

Thanks for clarifying about the putting the feet in boiling water.  That seems simple enough.  The hairdryer sounds like solid enough a plan, so maybe I can try that if I don't have any better luck with the boiling water.  No worries about what to do for the feet when they're on the doll.  They come off much more easily than they go on, and taking them off has what feels like a perfectly expected amount of resistance and amount of force needed.  The getting feet on is what's led to this thread because it's the stark opposite.  

The shoe that broke - ACN004 - was the only pair of shoes that I've had trouble with.  They weren't flexible at all, like thin, molded resin that the foot either fits into...or it don't.  Maybe cheaply made, sure, but my attempt to force it on was my own fault.  These dolls and their accessories have a learning curve.  

You asked what body type I wanted that TBLeague just doesn't make in their robust lineup.  The 10C and 10D from Jiaou Doll are pretty much exactly what I envisioned when I wrote these characters, so that's what I got, although I would love for them to have the same durable stainless steel skeleton as TBLeague.  

Here are photos of the 10D body to illustrate with to best answer you question:  (This was right after I got her, before I changed her wig)

     


I had some trouble getting those into this post, so they don't look as good as the one above of the creature in the water...which is an awesome shot!  I love to see creative stuff like that!  

Like I wrote earlier, the 12D from TBLeague is probably the closest, but they don't make that same shaped body with a cup size smaller to depict the other characters, so this same-but-slightly-different variations of the same body shape from Jiaou was what sold me.  
It's more important to have them look right than anything, but the chore it's presented to change their outfits, especially when changing feet is required, has had an impact on the enjoyment overall.  Once I got the detailed heeled feet on in place of the flat feet that allow them to stand while barefoot, I haven't had to change them back because all the shoes I've been getting require heeled feet.  It's just a glaring issue in my mind like, "I'd love to try this or that, but I'd have to change the feet...so...I'll pass."  That's why I'm trying to lock down a good technique for changing feet that will eliminate that worry, and I'm grateful for your suggestions.  
Dressing them is its own separate issue I'm having.  Although I've made it happen, I would love to learn about ways to make that easier too.  Perhaps I should inquire about this in a new thread since it's not about removable feet?

It's been a long time since I've posted, which means an update on how the advice I was given here worked out is long overdue.
I wrote in a previous post about having such trouble changing the feet on my Jiaou Doll. I'm delighted to finally share that boiling the feet in a pot of water on the stove for a couple of minutes worked wonders, just like y'all wrote it would! Thank you so much for that suggestion! I scooped the feet out with a slotted spoon, after guessing about how long to leave them in there, and went immediately to the doll to try to get them on her ankle pegs. It still took more effort than I figured it would, but it didn't feel like I was struggling in vain - half as much muscle applied and actual progress being made. By the time the first foot was on, the second one had cooled off a bit and was a little more of a struggle to get on, but it worked as well. So, the lesson I learned there was to boil one foot at a time.
It was so nice to achieve this breakthrough...rather than a break off...and I wanted to finally thank y'all for your super-helpful suggestion!

Exciting Update:
After having changed the feet on my dolls and putting them in new outfits, one of which was custom made by a local seamstress I enlisted to help, I left them posed in my office to enjoy for a few months before deciding to change their outfits and scene arrangement again.
Knowing i was going to have to change feet again, I already had a pot of water heating on the stove when I began. After taking off the first foot, I decided, "let me just try to stick this right back on again without heating it or anything..."
It popped right back on with no more effort than what I believe they were meant to work like all along! Wow! I was just tickled f'n pink that the first play session with my dolls wasn't the kind of chore that took all the fun out of it before I was done. Boiling the feet must have reshaped the socket around the ball when I put them on, and now they've taken on that new, perfect shape. At least that's my best, educated guess.
That made me want to thank y'all again, and now I'm enjoying more frequent changing and rearranging of my dolls including photo shoots!

Okay, in a sort of related question about doll feet, does anyone know if shoes made for TBLeague males (according to Etsy listing) will fit my Jiaou Doll male feet?

Thank you again everyone, and I hope to post again soon!

Glad this technique worked for you.
The male TBLeague and Jiaou feet seem to be identical as a mold, so if the sellers' information is correct, the footwear that fits the one should fit the other.

Awesome, thanks buddy!

Happy to help.

I've consistently struggled with removing feet and arms of various figures, I kept thinking it was only me doing something wrong. I almost gave up a few times too. Once I just started grinding the joint larger on the feet with a dremel until it went on.

I've found the smaller bodies tbleague 24-27s now which have the different ball joint are harder to switch out than the original bodies. They have this white adapter in it that sometimes comes out as well when you are switching the feet out, so be careful of those.

If you're trying to remove the arms of random bodies, you're indeed doing it wrong. Sorry, I couldn't resist. I imagine you meant hands. There is a handful of bodies that does come with removable arms, but they are few and far between. Just heat them up with a hair dryer (or, if you don't have one, submerge them in just boiled or very hot water) for a minute, and you should have no problem removing or putting on hands and feet.

Today while changing outfits on my 06C, I had to take the hands off to get her shirt on, and they took way more effort than what it should have. I tried to get them back on for a few seconds, after I had her shirt on, and couldn't do it.
Then looked at the hole where the ball goes into the hand, and it's way too small compared to the size of the ball. I understand that's supposed to keep it on, but since it's hard plastic and doesn't flex, that's not going to work without boiling then the same way I had to do the feet. I wasn't trying to go to all that trouble, so I just used a pair of hands from one of my 10s, on which the hole is noticeably bigger, and it went on with only the slight, expected effort.
It's a shame to read that TBLeague has switched the design on their dolls' hands, especially since it seems like most of y'all collect those. I hope that's not something that causes a loss of fun on your doll changing and posing!

With my Jiaou Doll, she was grand until I moved her feet and her left foot detached. Trouble is mine has the seamless body so her feet are meant to be attached to her without any outside appearance. Would the hot water technique still work for even the seamless version?

Claudija wrote:With my Jiaou Doll, she was grand until I moved her feet and her left foot detached. Trouble is mine has the seamless body so her feet are meant to be attached to her without any outside appearance. Would the hot water technique still work for even the seamless version?

Are you saying the foot detached on the inside, while still encased in the continuous seamless skin sleeve? If so, it is the first I have heard of it. If it detached as opposed to broke, it might be possible to stick it back into place, but I imagine you have to feel for the right fit or else get lucky. Presumably heating the piece somehow would help, but you would be doing it through the seamless skin. Using a hair dryer might be slightly better than submerging in hot water. But all of this is just theory on my part. By the way, if I recall all of those seamless-ankle Jiaou and TBLeague figures have "floppy" feet due to the ankles not being able to hold their position under the weight of the figure.