A BJD owner who wants to restart? Anyone ever felt this way?

I thought of that a lot a few months ago and I was really down about them not having a space of their own, me not taking care of them and stuff like that that made me think I should just sell them all and start from scratch again XP

But then I found some things to go, got myself occupied and I just felt I could really not, not have the ones I have now!

Right now I'm happy with what I have and I have so many projects, I know I would not do it, but I hope not to go through that kind of thinking again xP

 

On the issue of characters/storyline. Most professional writers don't seem to be able to effectively sustain a particulary set of characters indefinately. Their series begins to deteriorate and become stale. The characters either resolve their issues or become pathetically mired. Many good writers put a series on hold indefinately and start a fresh new storyline and group of characters. Sometimes they go back years later when they find they've had more experiences of their own that give them more to say about their characters' stories.

On the issue of dolls - Before I sold them all, I would try dramatically changing up their looks. Different eyes, wigs, clothing styles, maybe even facepaint. Try out many different looks to see if something inspires you. If nothing clicks, put them away for awhile and see if you miss them. If you don't, then sell them and get new ones that inspire you.

 

I never completely restarted, but I did some major retooling. I had made some changes to their story based on some current interests at the time when I started dollifying my characters, and after a few years, I realize that I should have left well enough alone. I changed a lot of things back, which meant changing relationships and adding some characters in. I also started to find that while I like having a large doll family and can handle lots of characters, I can't handle lots of story lines at once. The doll bodies that I had that would work for bodiless preexisting characters, became used for those characters, and I let most of the non-preexisting characters go. I had two heads that could've potentially worked for more than one character, and I had to experiment a little to figure out which characters they should go for. I also decided to sell one of my dolls that is just not going to fit in my main story line.

I'm of the mind that if you stay in the hobby long enough and are really into character development and story telling that the need to 'revise' will come up eventually. It was difficult at first, because I had to really change some dolls that I had had for several years. However, it was well worth it in the end, and I found it very freeing. If you're thinking about selling, and aren't sure pack the dolls away for awhile -- if you feel the need to bring them back out, that you miss them, then keep them and make whatever changes you think will help you connect to them again. If after awhile, you feel like you can part with them with no regrets, then put them up for sale. Also don't be afraid to experiment with your dolls, try changing looks, characters, stories etc and see if that helps too. It's better to make changes then to keep your dolls the same and feel dissatisfied all the time.

 

Same here...

While I've kept most of what I consider the "core" of my crew, including my first pair of dolls, I've sold off about a third of my collection over the last year. I've replaced a few dolls, revamped a few others and just generally fine-tuned the look and feel of the ones who stayed... and I think I'm happier with them, and better off for having done so.

I can look at my little resin minions now and not feel like there are more of them than there ought to be (Although, arguably, I still have too many dolls by any objective standard. o_O), or that I'm not happy with them. Everyone who stayed is important to me for one reason or another, and that makes me more content with the entire bunch.

 

My question would be what could possibly be "wrong" about wanting to start over?

 

Right now I'm kind of feeling that actually. I jumped in with two feet just under a year ago and right now I'm feeling quite disinclined towards the decisions I made back then. I'm kind of finding myself wanting to "restart" and reshell my character into a new doll, but that in itself is kind of restarting... because I only have the one. And for some reason I find myself disinclined to own more than one... (which is peculiar, isn't it? Worthy almost of a new topic on the idea...)

I suppose it's easier to restart though if your dolls are "character"-based as opposed to each doll being... well... "doll"-based, name and appearance wise.

 

I'm with Razaera here, but as time passed I began to figure out what it was I liked in a doll and what it was that I disliked. Once I got that worked out, my first (and only) doll didn't quite fit anymore. It wasn't that I disliked him, per se, it was just that he wasn't quite what I wanted in the end. I had this sort of picture for him, and in the end he didn't really fit that picture, so I sort of changed my concept for the guy, but he just sort of kept eluding me and began spending more time sitting around doing nothing than anything else. But hopefully I'll be able to move on to a doll that suits me better and not regret my decision to sell Kasi.

To answer your question, I don't think that it's wrong to restart, or even just to sell one or two dolls in order to get ones that you might give more attention to. If they're not working out for you, then maybe you could try switching their characters up a little, and changing what they represent. But in the end, your dolls should be making you happy, right? If starting new is what will make you happiest, then there can't be anything wrong with that n.n

 

I have three dolls, currently, and while I do love all of them, the girl doll I currently have... I feel like she's out of place. She's the twin sister to another doll they have, but I've been having problems with her since she arrived. The face-up the company gave her was lazy and nothing like the picture, my own face-ups I feel still didn't quite capture the look I had for her, and I feel all around generally not pleased with her, so I know where you're coming from.

My own ideas have been, instead of getting rid of the doll, why not attempt to give them a make-over? Perhaps that will inspire a "change in personality". Start fresh, but more as if you're using the doll to build up.

Of course, I'm not saying you shouldn't sell your doll and purchase a new one. Perhaps the imprint personality of the previous character your doll has will be too strong.

At the moment, I'm also confused about what to do with her. I'm thinking of maybe attempting to match her a bit better with her "twin". Perhaps give them wigs that are actually the same color, ha ha. ♥

 

Why would it be? If you no longer like your doll and want to sell it in order to buy one you enjoy more, you should do it. I had to sell both my first and my second doll before I realized what kind of dolls I really like.

And I agree with Izam. Taking a break can help. I sometimes don't do anything with my dolls for weeks and then, when I pick them up again, I'm in love all over again. And when I'm not, I usually know what's missing and I can make a small restart. (it could be that a new wig or a new pair of eyes is all you need to re-discover your doll)

It's a hobby. You're not obligated to spend x amount of time on them to proof you're really 'into dolls'.

 

Twelve BJD and more than five years into this hobby and I have never felt that way about any of my BJD. I enjoy all of them, their characters, stories,... Everything since the beginning and for sure that to go on, but I know several cases of people who felt that way and I think changing/restarting is a good step to take when needed. There may be different reasons. I think in fact that does not matter as that is not the most important. The main thing is being happy with what you have and what you handle. In my opinion, if you are not the odd thing would be not making changes/restarting. I hope you the best of luck with it.

 

I'm actually in the process of a restart on my dolls right now. All of my dolls are based on characters of a friend and I's comic, but two of them were purchased before that decision was made, so they've been kind of shoe-horned into their roles for years and I've never felt comfortable with it.

I've kept at it because of weird sentimentality for the longest time, but I've never been happy - and then it hit me: Why bother feeling some kind of "responsibility" to the choices I've made in the past, especially over something that's supposed to be so personal? Just because I thought these molds were the right choices in the past doesn't make them right now, and the only thing keeping me from being happy is myself.

SO, in conclusion, I think restarts are a great thing. I haven't even started re-building my collection of dolls yet, and I'm already happier than I have been in years.

 

Moderators: I tried to do a few related search terms but nothing came up. Maybe my DoA-fu isn't very strong. Feel free to move this thread!

I'm contemplating starting my collection over from scratch. For those of you who did partial or complete collection rebuilds: how did you do it? Did you have a thought process or plan before you started cleaning? ("I'm selling all my SDs in favor of YoSDs.") If so what was it? How did you get to/figure out that plan? Or did you simply chuck the dolls that weren't working for you into a For Sale pile? Did you list all your dolls for sale all at once or in waves?

 

I've done something like this. It wasn't exactly wipe them all and start from scratch, but last year I suddenly decided I didn't like MSDs anymore and wanted all SDs.....I started with Loki, then went from there. The original plan was to keep MSD Loki for most of the time, but have an SD version of Loki and Amir's heads, sharing a body, for photoshoots with Loki's husband (my friend's boy, who is SD)....but I loved big Loki so much, I decided everybody needed an upgrade. A year and a half later, I have one doll left that I want to upgrade. I'm in that process right now. I did it gradually, usually selling the old doll first to fund the new shell. The characters stayed the same.

 

I ended up doing a massive collection overhauling in two stages--the first part happened after someone very close to me and deeply involved with my dolls had died. I could barely look at the ones she helped with anymore, so I went off and sold the bulk of my collection all at once, save for Max V.1, an Obitsu, my MSD Mire and my DD Aeka, a birthday gift. (There was one MSD guy that was unsold and stuck around for a while...that story continues in Purge Pt.2.) With the money gained from the first part of the purge, I reshelled Max in resin and decided to work on focusing my collection on dolls that I really wanted, so the 'meh' dolls had to go. In the second part of the purge Max's obitsu self went out, along with the MSD straggler from the first purge and Mire, who I loved but just could not match her character when it came to posing. Now my collection is down to five dolls, four of which are dolls that I have admired my entire time in the hobby, with a sixth on the way in the same category. This has taken about seven months from beginning to end, and for the time being my collection is complete.

 

Wow, I can't even imagine doing that, getting rid of dolls just to start fresh or because my size preference has changed. I just keep separate collections. Like I've got my roleplay world, my fantasy doll collection, and now I'm starting both a small doll collection (most of mine are 70cm) and beginning to start a fandom collection based on the Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs. My only concern is running out of room, and then I'll probably just move into a bigger place. Been wanting to anyway, just hard to find a place downtown that's a single-story and allows pets.

 

Eh, I guess you could say I'm doing something like that. I just sold my yo-sized girl because... well, smaller dolls just aren't for me. A big thing I love about my dolls is sewing for them and making them things. I couldn't get the hand of a yo-sized doll. She's adorable, and I enjoyed her, but she just wasn't for me. Another doll I'm selling just doesn't fit in my doll family anymore. My doll's characters develop just like peoples personalities, so I don't feel that it's so odd (though others might).

So soon (if I can get everyone sold) I'll be down to just one doll. I can't bear to part with her. She has a lot of sentimental value to me. I plan on in the far future getting more (I've got saving and planning still to do) so I guess this is kind of an 'over-haul' on my collection.

I'm not sure if this helps or not. But I'll try to answer the specifics now,
how did you do it? Did you have a thought process or plan before you started cleaning? Not really? I had been debating it but hadn't taken 'the plunge' yet. I knew who I wanted to keep (Alice) and who I didn't (the other two). But for some reason I felt guilty about selling my dolls. Then I realized that was silly and just did it.
If so what was it? How did you get to/figure out that plan? See above I guess, I kind of answered these too. I'm to lazy to fix it.
Or did you simply chuck the dolls that weren't working for you into a For Sale pile? Did you list all your dolls for sale all at once or in waves? Like I said, I just knew who I wanted to keep and who not to. I think if you're waffeling about selling a doll or not, you should hold off. And for the last part, I listed them at the same time. Again, just two so not a huge collection. If I'd had multiples of a specific size, I might have done it differently, or if I'd had a huge collection I would do it in whatever size chunks that I felt comfortable with handling.

 

I did something along these lines, but it wasn't like I set out to do it. It just sort of happened as I sold off dolls that I didn't do much with and got new ones that I thought I would like better. And then I slowly replaced ones that didn't fit in with the newer guys and over the course of several years I kind of completely altered my collection.

 

I did not find any topic on this. Please move if it has been discussed before.

Recently I have read about more people who have tired of their entire collection and just want to sell everything and start over.
I don't know if they are tired of their dolls, their personalities, sizes or hwta is it, but they do want to start over.

I am very curious, have you ever felt this?
If not, why do you think people want to do this?
What are they tired of? What do you think?

 

I don't have any experience with that. But here's what I think.
I said in another thread, that when I would lose interest at some point and wanted to sell a doll, I would have to sell all the dolls, since they are connected by stories and one doll missing would effect the others as well.
Some people might have the same thoughts and would have to sell everything to start over, so there's no connection to a doll they owned.
Or maybe size does matter there, too. When I had only an SD left and wanted to start over, I'd be kind of bound by the size of this one doll, because I would want new dolls to fit its size.
Also maybe it could just be that they grow tired of having so much doll stuff, that the only way to enjoy it again is throwing everything out and start anew.

 

I do not have this feeling so maybe I am not the best person answering this, but I can imagine a collection feeling like a burden at some point. For example when you started out with a certain style or aesthetics that you gradually grew out of, yet the old-style dolls are your first dolls and they carry a history and etc. which might make it very hard to sell them. I can also imagine the sheer size of a collection being overwhelming, or the monatary value that it represents, all sorts of reasons really.

When you feel like this but you still love BJD's then selling the bigger part or even all of your collection seems like a way to start 'fresh' in the hobby again. With the knowledge and experience of a few years behind you plus the money from the sales I can imagine it being an exiciting new journey to start your collection again.