Yeah, there’s a Nendo Face Maker website out! You can order the faces you make, for the Nendoroid bodies you already own. Until an English version’s available, we’ve made a guide to using the Nendoroid Face Maker website in Japanese.

Step 1 – create an account

You need to have a Japanese address and phone number to register, for delivery.

If you want, you can use ours. Put this postcode in the boxes next to the 〒 symbol – ‘547 – 0033’ – and hit the grey button below it to automatically fill most bits in. One of the boxes will still be blank: type in ‘1-6-1 DEJAPAN’ (including the dashes!) to complete the address.

For the phone number, use: 06-6796-9669. If anyone calls us, we’ll email you.

(When it comes to arranging and paying for the international delivery from us to you, see the end of Step 4.)

Anything with the red 必須 kanji next to it is a required field. You have to fill those in. All the fields are, in order:

Name (last name, first name)

Name in Japanese kana (last name, first name) – use this quick kana generator

Address

Phone number

Email address (put it in both boxes to confirm)

Password (put it in both boxes to confirm)

Date of birth

Gender

Occupation

Wanna receive the mail magazine? (top option for yes, bottom option for no)

And then hit the button at the bottom to continue. Damn, that form was too long to screencap! We’re hoping they make a global version in English for everyone to use, even though that means this guide won’t be so useful any more…

Once you’ve finished signup and you’re logged in, the right side of the homepage will change.

Step 2 – decide the basics

There, you get a message saying ‘login complete, are you ready to Nendo face?’ Okay, that’s a very rough translation, but that’s more or less what it says. Hit the green button below the cute Nendo to begin the face maker.

You can make 2 faces per order. The cost of an order is between 1,080 yen and 1,480 yen (including tax), depending on the option you choose. Use the drop down box to pick a face combination. The first bit says ‘choose an option’, duh.

One of them’s always an ‘original’ face, which you make however you want. The second one can be an ‘original’ face or a ‘noppera’ face. A ‘noppera’ face isn’t printed, and will arrive blank. So that’s what costs a little less if you pick ‘original + noppera’.

After that, you choose whether you want your designs shown in the ‘Everyone’s Faces’ gallery. It’s a special page on the site, and also shown at the bottom of the homepage. The site admin will check the latest faces every so often, and pick new designs for the gallery. Those faces can be shared on Twitter and Facebook as well.

Be careful here – the top option means no, and the bottom one means yes. Make sure you pick ‘no’ if you’d rather the world didn’t gaze on your creations. Decide, and the button below that will turn green, and you can continue to the next screen.

Step 3 – start making faces

So, you’re met with a totally blank face. Time to design one.

You’ve gotta lotta options here. There are 16 parts of the face to make, with some in the sub-menus:

Eyes: shape Eyes: eyelids Eyes: pupils Eyes: glowy bit 1 Eyes glowy bit 2 Nose Mouth Eyebrows Cheeks Other: face paint Other: moustache Other: mole 1 Other: mole 2 Other: mole 3 Other: scratches Other: wrinkles

You get a preview of every detail. Use the direction arrows to move parts, the plus and minus signs to edit sizes, and the spinning arrows to rotate. The white button bottom right removes whatever you just placed.

If you’re making 2 original faces, don’t forget to switch to the second one when the first’s done. You can see what you’re working on from the yellow bit and the ‘1’ or ‘2’ at the top. If the other one’s a ‘noppera’ face, you won’t be able to switch.

Custom options and colours

The Nendo Face Maker gives you the freedom to create whatever face you can think of. The customisation choices are intense. You can even decide whether to design each eye individually. Heterochromia Nendo? Completely up to you.

Can’t decide what eye shape your Nendo should have? Well, duh, there are at least 10 to choose from. Settling on a shape, style, and colour combo could take you hours.

Or maybe you already decided. See those 2 buttons to the right of the OFF one? The first means ‘order history’ – you can see and re-order any face you’ve made before. The one after that is ‘Everyone’s Faces’. Yes, if you’re really that uninspired, you can order a finished face that someone else made.

Please take screenshots of your finished faces. We’ll need them to match your order to your info.

Step 4 – check out

The best thing about the Nendoroid Face Maker is that it’s not just a game. Once you’ve designed some faces, you can order and pay for them. The green ‘finished!’ button at the top right is hard to miss.

Checkout works as it does on most other websites. The green button is ‘go to checkout’. The yellow one is for paying via an Amazon Japan account, if you’ve got one.

Up to you whether you want to pay by credit card or PayPal. You’ll know the difference – one says ‘PayPal’ and one doesn’t.

When the order’s complete, you’ll get a confirmation email. Custom Nendo faces are made from scratch, so they’ll take up to 14 working days to arrive at the Japanese delivery address. If you send it to us, we’ll then arrange international shipping to you.

You’re gonna need a DEJAPAN account for the delivery bit, so make sure you’re registered on our website.

Update May 2018: the way we handle your Nendo face orders has changed a little bit. It’s still quick and easy.

You need to send us the details of your order using our item request form. We handle all requests manually, so we can sort Nendo face orders as they come in. If you don’t log the order with us, we’ve got no way of knowing if the faces that arrive are yours.

Here’s where you’ll start:

Item URL: use the page url for the request form, keeps things simple

Item name: Nendoroid Faces (put in your order number)

Product code: put your Nendo face order number in here too

Upload image: attach the screenshot

Option: tick ‘no option’

Price: 0 (’cause you’ve already paid for the faces)

Quantity: 1

Add more if you’ve ordered multiple sets of faces. And put the original price of each set in the comments, for our reference.

Please please please remember to upload the screenshots of your Nendo faces. It’s not a ‘required’ bit on the form, but we need them. If we open up a random box of unidentifiable faces, we might not be able to forward it to you.

This is how your form should look when you’ve put all the details in:

Hit ‘confirm request’ and you’ll be prompted to log in, double check everything’s correct, and complete ‘checkout’. Give the info you’ve put in a quick once over, just in case.

There’s nothing to pay here yet, no worries, but it does give you the chance to select the consolidation plan. And if you choose PayPal as your payment option, it’ll go straight through without having to enter payment details – whether you have a PayPal account or not.

This puts your whole order on the system in one go. No need to email us back and forth like before.

When the faces reach our warehouse, you can arrange to have them packed and sent back out. Keep in mind there’ll be a payment step for the international delivery, plus consolidation (if you chose it) and packing options.

Step 5 – have fun with your new creations

When the faces arrive, stick them on any Nendo you like. Maybe you made a face with a specific character in mind. Or maybe it’s a design that works on whoever. Anyway, have fun detaching and reattaching new faces. That sounds wrong, but we can’t make it sound any better.

We covered faceswapping a bit in our blog post about Nendoroids, if you need some inspiration.

Make a (^_^) face not a (T_T) face

Be brave, and give the Japanese version of the Nendoroid Face Maker a try.