I had ordered one male and one female from ZingDisplay.com:
http://www.zingdisplay.com/DaVinci-Bend ... exm1tf.htm
http://www.zingdisplay.com/DaVinci-Bend ... lash-f.htm
I kept calling to the guy by phone because I would get impatient and not want to wait for email answers. In fact... I still haven't received my refund and need to call him back again. He's nice enough, just a bit slow in responding unless you call him. It's always been the same guy I deal with with ZingDisplay. They are supposed to be the original manufacturers of this particular mannequin, but you can find it on other sites as well.
When shipped, the order accidentally got separated, so I received the male mannequin on a Friday and after trying to pose him, I broke his wrist a few minutes into the first reference photoshoot
So I called Zingdisplay and FedEx and had the female that was in transit returned before it got here. So these mannequins aren't quite as flexible as the pictures on the websites make them seem. The fingers, knees and elbows are the only reliable points of articulation. They have a video showing the knee and elbow joints which are nice, it's just too bad the same technology wasn't used in other parts of the mannequin. The arms and legs don't hold poses out to the sides very far by themselves.
The top of the thighs have a nice ridged system inside where it connects, so the legs click comfortably around to various positions.
I don't know why they didn't design the arms the same way... In order move the arm position forward or backwards, you have to take them off and put them back on. There's like a 6 sided bolt or something that holds it in, so there are only 6 positions for the arm to be inserted as. And it's friggin hard to get it back in there sometimes!
The wrists are flexible, but you're best sticking to moving it up and down, as twisting it to the side is how I broke it. The foam just tore right open without even much effort (durable and will last many years my ass...). The finger wires are ok, but they do feel like they can only take so much posing before the metal becomes fatigued and will break at some point.
They come with a stand that inserts into either foot, but the male version doesn't stand very well with it. I think he's too tall, so the female version might stand better.
I bought the grey version because I figured it would show the shadows and highlights better, and it does. The salesman told me that the flesh color can stain pretty easily, but since I didn't buy that version, I don't really know.
They have a fuzzy finish, a kind of flocking? But they don't seem to shed. It's kind of like... what is that stuff called... you know how a lot of hotels have this fuzzy blanket between the sheets and the comforter? It's similar to that, but not quite as soft, just a bit stiffer.
The foam itself is fairly firm, but slightly squeezable.
for guys who might want to play with the female version, I imagine construction is the same as the male, it feels like the torso doesn't have any bone structure in it, so you could probably hollow out the appropriate areas. I'd call and ask first to make sure though before buying. She won't spread her legs very far, but she could do doggy style I imagine or you could get on top of her with her legs closed.
Oh, and the head just sits loosely on the stump of a neck, so it falls off easily unless you pin or glue it on or something. It actually poses nicely for me because the friction of the cloth on cloth aids in perching it in various positions, but if I bumped into it, the head just fell right off lol.
You can see in the pictures, they aren't that pretty, their features are vague, but being made of foam and fuzzy stuff, at least they aren't cold to the touch.
