Artists with OCs! How close do your dolls end up to the characters you've drawn/written?

I think it's near impossible to find a doll that's 100% an oc, down to the anatomical proportions. Since I'm so particular and it would be a waste of the flexibility with bjd customization, I've been thinking I would be better off having physical manifestations of ocs as custom figurines instead.

I try to make characters of my dolls instead of the other way around for such a reason, but it feels a bit weird to do so when I didn't sculpt the dolls. I do, however, have a natural gravitation to dolls that are or very similar to my own art style, so it's not like they're totally different from what I'm capable of drawing.

I really like the idea of shelling 'alternate' versions as OP suggested! That's pretty exciting and cute, and that way you could even have a cute msd version of a mature character if you wanted to, and easily travel around with them... Or a modern styled version of a fantasy oc, or vice versa

I hate to admit I'm still very particular about doll outfits even when I'm not shelling ocs, because I still want to make them into unique characters. I make things way more complicated for myself!

 

It was a journey finding dolls for shelling my novel leads. The girl was rather easy, despite having an atypical body. Doll Chateau had an almost perfect body, and a head mold that could be coded as Black. Thanks to a commission, she has the piebald skin and scars which are a huge part of her story.

The other lead was a headache to find. Adult male not overly tall compared to the girl, so 75+cm was out. Athletic, realistic, but not idealized body, and a realistic PoC headmold that can look middle aged with the right faceup. Lots of searching and nitpicking to find a good fit.

While I've been working on this novel for years, I didn't have a clear idea of their faces. I can't imagine what doll hunting would have been like if I had exacting ideas in that area.

 

I'm not sure if I qualify to answer this, since my dolls' characters are written characters in my head, but there is no visual concept until they're shelled. I wish I had the skill to draw my dolls, but I don't. So for me, it's about finding a doll to match the character in my head. While it's never possible to get my doll exactly like the character, I do try to get them as close as possible. Some are nearly spot on. Others are not as much. I usually keep working on them until I get them close enough to make me happy, and if I can't get them right, I end up reshelling or losing interest in the character. Sometimes though, the doll might have little quirks that I end up adding to my character! Like Charlotte was meant to be about 5'7" in character, but the doll ended up being shorter than I expected, so I changed her IC height to 5'2". I had another doll in the past who had an uneven spot in the resin on his chin, so I made that into a birthmark IC.

 

For most of my dolls/the dolls I'm planning, I've kinda worked backwards. I fell in love with a sculpt, figured out what I want the doll to look like (hair and eye colour, faceup, etc....), and then I got around to drawing art! So therefore all of my art looks close enough to my dolls I guess since the dolls came first!

I do someday want to shell an OC right from the beginning though and I'm finding it hard to get the right sculpt, wig, clothes, etc.... Same with wanting to shell my favourite anime and video game characters!! There are a few that I would LOVE to turn into dolls, but I'm so picky and want it to be as accurate as possible. Also some characters I look at and think "They just wouldn't make a good doll." No matter how much I wish I could shell them! Ahhhh it's difficult lol

 

I feel like my doll looks pretty decently close to her drawn version? It might be because her sculpt is more realistic than the way I draw, so I suppose I tend to look at her doll form and think "this is what she would look like if she was real", so it doesn't feel like she looks that different.

I've definitely had to settle when it comes to wigs though, since for some reason a high quality, good looking 1/4 curled twintails wig is impossible to find with the bangs and front hair that I need. The wig she has now is just how her hair would look if it was down all the time, even though I almost exclusively draw her with her hair up.

On top of that, I don't really have the skill to sew a doll version of her regular clothes, but I tend to draw her in whatever most of the time anyways. I can dress her doll form in the kinds of clothes she likes easily because they're popular for her scale; lolita dresses, gothic clothes, etc.

Spoiler: Doll compared to my art of her

I think with this character I just got lucky enough to find a sculpt that was really close to how I see her. If anything, her doll form is honestly closer to how I see her in my head than my own art is.
With other characters I want to shell as dolls, I'm having a harder time finding good sculpts for them. I can settle with "close enough" for clothes and sort of with wigs, but I'd really dislike if the sculpt wasn't very close, so I guess I'm kind of picky.

 

I love the Viera boys. They look really nice. I'm sure he's going to look cute And yeah, there is no way I'm commissioning to have any of her outfits made nor will I try making them myself. I'm just going to stick to her favorite colors to wear.

 

Jack is my D&D character, and he's REMARKABLY like how I draw him (or the art I've commissioned of him)-- a little broader across the chest and shoulders, since he's a lithe rogue and not very beefy, but the model body I have him on isn't too muscular. Nose is a little different, but close. I need to change his eyes out for the brown ones I bought him, but he's so dang close to what I'd been imagining from the start of the campaign I play him in, and the resin tone couldn't be more perfect.

Deanna is pretty close, and the sculpt I'm eyeing for her male alter ego is similarly so, but Jack's such an unexpected level of perfection. I just wish there was something equally close to my drawings/mental image for his husband, I've put Gilbert on the back burner until a face that looks like his comes along.

 

Hm, my OC that I have the most doll versions of is Julien. I've made him into 3 different dolls.

None of the dolls really look like each other. And none of the dolls really look like the drawings I've done of him either. Haha. (As someone said before, the drawings don't look exactly like what's in my head in the first place anyway.)

I actually like it that way though.
It's more like making versions of what he could look like than trying for a strict ideal. I enjoy seeing the variations and how changes here or there bring out different aspects of his chatacter and make him "branch off" so to speak.

It's fun to make a perfect replica too. Very satisfying that. But I think for my own characters I enjoy the surprises that come out of the little tensions of "difference".

 

Oh, I really like that! Having multiple dolls of the same character sounds like such a great way of playing with what you like and giving yourself room to discover something new!

 

Hi fellow storyteller! I cannot help with your plight for I am much like you. My dolls are shells of characters and as such.... getting them put together is not easy! If you look at my doll collection you'll notice that although I've been in the hobby for nearly twelve years a lot of my dolls are from the year 2018 onwards, and no, that's not because I wasn't buying dolls for 8 years, but because I go through an endless process of trial and error with a given character's shell. Dolls are bought, tried, sold, and other dolls are bought in their place until the perfect ballance can be attained.

As an example: Keiichi. Crobidoll Hobin. Got him in 2016, perfect since his first shell, but had to take him through numerous itterations of faceups and figure out exactly why I couldn't settle with his wig.

Kentarou: Mazarine Blue Laaon, been through 4 shells and 2 bodies until finally settling down

Durga: Iple EID Leonard, waited 6 years to bring him home because I could not find the perfect shell for him due to being a very particular combination of mixed race, skin colour, height, build... Let's not even begin to talk about his fashion sense. He still doesn't have proper clothes because I can't find suits ornate and gaudy enough for smaller dolls, never mind one his size..

Yukihiko: Switch Seolrok somnia, easy sculpt head-wise, but their body... uhhhhhh what a NIGHTMARE. Their body is very androgynous, vaguely masculine and with broad shoulders but displaying a little bit of breast and slightly curvy... not to mention that half of the time they're dressed in women's clothing, so I needed a body big and tall enough for their head, that I could mod to look like them, but also with curvy proportions that would fit typical clothes made for female dolls... And, like Durga, then there's the matter of actually finding appropriate clothes as, while the masculine side is okay on that front... on the feminine most clothes available are very girlish and Yukki wears mostly elegant fashion fit for a lady in her late thirties.

Have I mentioned that ALL my dolls/characters range in age between 30 and 55 in most cases with, like, 3 exceptions that are schoolkids????????

For other dolls, like my Genshin Gymnasium kids, I am -specifically- going for an AU version of the original characters, which while it has its own set of specifications, doesn't require me to commission incredibly beautiful and complex costumes for each and every one of them. While with characters that were dolls first (like my grails, usually) this isn't even an issue as they were built -as- doll characters.

So UHHHH... suffering, my friend, lots of suffering. It can be a frustrating journey but when things finally click it can be the most rewarding thing in the entire world.

 

I have found making OC’s after to be much easier. Dolls to me seem to have personalities of their own and can inspire OC’s in that way.

Based on trying to find shells for Kim Dokja (Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint) and Harlon Nayl (Warhammer 40k), finding sculpts to match characters already established has proven to be challenging and a bit frustrating. Though I’m not the most patient of peeps, so that doesn’t help either .

 

Most of my OCs are either middle-aged or generally don't conform to beauty standards so I have no intention of trying to shell them (at least, unless I figure out how to use Blender and get a 3D printer...). My art style is all over the place so they don't really have a consistent look to begin with, only consistent ages/genders/backstories etc.

Still waiting on the shell for one OC in particular but I've already made a toon version of him with the 27 cm Obitsu body and I'm pretty pleased with how he turned out. Still making clothes for him but he can wear Ken clothes + shoes so he has plenty of options lol

 

I usually establish my OC first and then try to find a doll head with the faceup that's closest to my ideal OC image. (I don't really care about the body haha). Sometimes when I try on some different wig/eye/clothing, I got ideas about a new OC.

Recently I'm trying to learn how to do faceup myself so that I can get whatever I want out of my OC ideas

 

I'm in the same boat as you, as a comic artist whose been drawing and writing these characters long before I decided to shell them as dolls

Usually, I'm operating with a train of thought of "good enough" or "I can work with this". For me, the hardest parts are clothes, and wigs. A couple dolls have been through several wigs and one still doesn't have a "good enough" one. Clothes I'm more lenient on, especially since, yknow, people change clothes haha so as long as I can find something close enough I'm not bothered. Since it's not a modern universe though it can still take quite a bit of digging, and once I just bit the bullet and made certain items myself -- you'd be surprised how hard it is to find a simple red skirt

In all though I think the hunt for suitable sculpts and items is fun though. It's part of the enjoyment for me haha. Some characters are harder than others which I've just come to accept haha.

Also I love seeing everyone's doll v. character art comparisons I only have the images on hand to do one.

Spoiler: Ironically, the one still without a good enough wig.

 

With some of my characters, I've changed their appearance to match the doll. Like, Emie and Lorina *are* tan Bambicrony Emilys now. They existed before hand, but the story changed to accommodate them looking so alike.

I have child and adult versions of my character Ilari, but I'm not perfectly happy with either of them. The adult version looks way too healthy for one. Man needs sunken cheeks and heavy eyebags. Also an upper eyelid line. He's got one drawn on but the younger version's is sculpted in and it's always bothered me. I wonder if I can get him modded...

 

Oh, I've thought about this a bit...

The three dolls I sculpted completely on my own were characters I would draw or paint (and eventually I did write about them, but the doll happened before that). I can paint/draw a face realistically enough to where I know exactly what they look like, so it was a big problem for me to find a doll that looked like them, especially back then in like, 2015? But despite all that, I now don't even think they were that good and don't look quite right anyway, even though I thought they did at the time. I even had sculpting experience.

I would like to try again with a human character and an existing doll, because I think it'd be fun to make it look like them. But, like others have mentioned, I'm like, do I care about the body type if they're going to be wearing clothes? Because if I do, that's going to be even more difficult. I have a character who is a dentist who I'd like to make, and I know I could find an outfit for her because I've already seen outfits that look like hers, and sort of seen heads that could work with some modding... But yeah. I don't know if I'd ever be happy with how they turned out because, I have paintings of her, I have so much put into her in my brain that I might just be disappointed and she ends up in the closet.

I'm getting a DC Violet that I bought just because I liked her, and wonder what will happen with the OC aspect of that, as I don't have a character that looks like that. I am tinkering with her design though and wonder if a character will come second to me getting the doll, or if I'll just view her as a decorative object, or lose interest, or whatever. I can't predict what'll happen but it'll be interesting to see if and how she develops in my brain.

 

I've two main OCs that I want to turn into the doll version. I must admit that it was hard to match especially when I want these two OCs to interact with each other but the dolls came from different makers. Previously, I bought two doll heads to play safe but was much confident that they will fit together despite different makers. I ended up disappointed...

One of my OCs has Asian features and smiles a lot while the other OC looks somehow feminine but intimidating. my experience urges me to look for dolls from the same maker. And after doing in-depth research, I found that Ringdoll Leo.Yama and Ringdoll Kim fit them so I might get this pair soon.

 

I started with trying to shell existing OCs but the dolls never fit my vision and I always got frustrated and sold the dolls. So now I go in the opposite direction. I buy the dolls I like and then create characters around the doll. It’s been way more successful for me and I find I like the stories I imagine with them a whole lot more.

I do however want to shell my FFXIV Lalafell character at some point but since I want her to look as close as possible to the game I’m either going to heavily modify an existing head or sculpt a whole new one. Most dolls in that cutesy cartoony style have eyes that are way too big.

 

Most of my comic characters are over a decade old. At this point they're fully formed in my mind and many are weird and specific, so I decided from the get go that I had no interest in shelling. Sometimes I think a sculpt might be modded into someone, but it would be forced. I think unless I started sculpting my own dolls I would have a hard time shelling, and as much as I think it's cool to have a physical manifestation of your characters, I think mine belong on paper?
It's much more fun to me to fall in love with a doll and let it come to life little by little on its own.