Because your eyes, nose, lips, every look...

Sounds like our elven courts would be quite different!
For me, dolls with a sad or haughty look have gotten weeded out. ;D. I had a Migidoll Yuri with modified elf ears & a gorgeous Angeltoast faceup. But while they were always beautiful, I finally let them go as the haughty pout was too bothersome for me.
Since most of mine are older dolls purchased second hand, the early aesthetic appeals to me and I've steered away from the newer smaller head, human eye proportion sculpts. But I can only enjoy certain aesthetics grouped together so the CPDelfs have one shelf, the Volks & Custom House another, and the Elfdoll ladies are accompanied by my Soom & Migidoll fellows.
My most recent challenge was wanting a group of children in stairstep ages, so heads of a reasonably similar size, eyes of a similar proportion, ranging from 27cm to 57cm. Managed it with Lumedoll & Migi as the oldest boys, LLT blue magpie, then Dollmore Alexia, Luts kid Delf Muhwa, Dollmore Narsha and a CH petite ai. Some bought new, some second hand and all now feel like a family with good faceups.
I'd say for me it's sculpting details and a sense of calm grace that are my favorites when browsing the doll possibilities.

 

I like neutral or happy expressions. I have one doll with an exaggerated smile and at first I was unsure, but I've come to love it. That being said, I usually prefer more subtle smiles. Whether I want them neutral or smiling depends on the character though. I feel like neutral or lightly smiling dolls have a lot of flexibility. I kind of like all my dolls to be able to pull off a sort of pensive thoughtfulness.

I'm not big on closed or half closed eyes, and I haven't really felt drawn to sad dolls. And super serious dolls are a turn off. Most of my dolls are teens, so mature adults with half-lidded eyes and expressions bordering on frowns are just not for me.

 

I love my frowny face babies!
Of my current dolls, 4 out of 5 have more of a frown than a smile. I tend to make them look wistful. Except one boy is grumpy looking because I love irritated boy dolls I'm not sure why I love the "sad" dolls so much because I, myself, am usually smiley and giggly. I just think melancholy dolls are beautiful!

 

I like defined, mature features, though my taste in expression is a little lenient. I like full, pouty lips paired with small eyes, or long, wistful faces. I don't find myself much into super "handsome" sculpts, and I like the faces to have some sort of character that might make them different or might make them seem "ugly" to others. Bumps in noses, wide lips, etc. I'm pretty open to most dolls, though as much as I'd like to maybe own one, I don't think I'd ever own a doll with an open mouth. The teeth and tongues just seem troublesome.

 

I prefer somewhat neutral faces that can look differently depending on angle. Sometimes it just depends on the character, like if they're a cheerful outgoing personality, I like a gentle smile. If they're dark and moody, I like a slightly pouty face. But I don't really like extremes at all, like a huge toothy grin, wide open mouthed smile, crying face or frowning in anger are definitely out for me. I don't like any of my dolls to have an expression that can't look natural in many situations and photos.

 

I definitely prefer neutral or happy faces. Though I'm not opposed to sleepy or smug faces either...

 

I like narrow eye shapes, substantially sized noses, and larger than life lips. I tend to prefer realistic-ish sculpts, leaning towards Japanese RPG-cgi looking faces (but with lips). When I learned about BJD, most sculpts looked hyper-stylized, leaning more towards anime, with super huge eyes, barely any nose and ultra thin lips. Luckily, I do love anime so I got sculpts that had smaller eyes, and a bit more of a nose but are still super stylized. I also prefer neutral facial expressions, which is probably the most common thing to find, but I like emotionless face sculpts more (not dead-looking ones, just not amused ones, I guess). (:

 

I... used to think that I'm not have any particular preference, but when I got to see all of my doll's blank sculpt I found that my self really fond of a type of eye shape



These two are from different company and beside the eyes shape and being on a 1/4 girl body they share nothing. (Different nose, lip shape and even skin color)
After I found out about this I check back and found that all girl sculpts that I had fall for are having this type of eyes shape

I don't have this particular issue with the boys though, and I'm also collect sleeping (boy) sculpt.

 

Any sculpt can be too serious for me, but I see it mostly on more mature dolls. And since I collect SDs, I have to look through a lot of these serious mature sculpts.

 

Open mouth with little or lots of teeth. My two boys are both perfection for me(IOS Grazia and Ringdoll Law). First boy Is smirking but I can't really tell you if Law is shy, surprised or something else... But he is smoking hot. Az least for Me. Dolls like that AOD girl with the full mouth smile are disturbing. Just like too intensive expressions like crying. But too serious dolls kill my fun too...

 

I think it has to do with me having a pretty emotionless face also, mostly because I dread wrinkles more than I fear bugs, and those I get nightmares about. I like the mysterious side of pokerfaced, where you can't tell what they are thinking. The head sculpt that represents the expression I prefer has been heavily modified by me, and I haven't purchased dolls in longer than a decade, he's a heavily modified Limhwa (EOS) Limho Mano. I did a lot of additive mods on his face, not the piercings, those are just glued on. He originally had a very smiley, kind of semi-twisted sculpted lips, which I really liked because it was unique when he was released, but smiles are not my favorite expression for dolls I own, in general. I do love the Mano default sculpt however, and still regret that I never got a second unmodified sculpt, because I find the default Mano incredibly versatile and it was beautiful to me. (:

Here's the way he looked originally when I hadn't mod his lips (or the rest of his face), and then how he looks now. I always gave him extremely grumpy brows, to neutralize his smile but I prefer non-smiley mouth sculpts:

 

I love dolls with half-closed eyes and smaller eyes as well as smug expressions. I also really want a doll with an "angelic" face/serene smile... Overall I tend to gravitate to more mature, but kind of video game looking guys.

 

I want pleasant expressions, nothing too angsty. There are enough serious and frowning faces in life, I want my dolls ready to smile, even if they have a neutral expession now. They should look as if they will be hapy soon.

 

In real life, I have little use for scoundrels and rogues...but in dolls it's another story. I like my resin guys to look mature - and the more roguish the better. I have a particular soft spot for Iple's Leonard, but a real top tier favorite in my crew is LLT's Black Pearl, with his gorgeous features and reprobate's smirk.

 

The Fairyland summer event boy, Juri2020! I love to tilt his eyes up a little to further enhance his irritated expression

 

I used to prefer dolls with a neutral expression because I thought they could be expressive with the right faceup. And to a point, they can. But only to a point, and I got to a point where I prefer a more obvious and in some cases, exaggerated expression. I like the big smiles, the open mouths with lots of teeth or tongue, furrowed brows or any other oddball looks out there. A lot of my neutral faces have been forced - either with a faceup or by modding - to smile. I've finally gotten around to modding the extra head of my very first doll to have an opened mouth smile, and my favorite doll has seven heads, all with different expressions, and one is super-extreme XD Another of my favs has a huge frozen smile on his face, and it is amazing.

My big 2020-21 doll regret is that I can't have that FL 65 girl biting her lip. I love that FP. But I didn't want the full set, and since it's a FP not a head...I just didn't bother. I love the MNF with the obvious pout too, but I don't really do mini's anymore so I probably won't get her ever either. But those are the first FL dolls I've liked in a long time.

 

I love dolls that aren't smiling and have kind of a resting bitch face (with eyes half closed and pouty lips, kinda looking like they are better than anyone) or with a big half open mouth (like Ellana from Lillycat for example).
I also tent to prefer vampire / fantasy sculpts

 

Haha! That's why I fell for DC Laney! I Can see the inner bitch in her! Too bad I still waiting her to arrive.