BJDs and unskilled modifications

While I may not appreciate some mods or faceups, and while I may even cringe from seeing some... I still think it's the owners right. Some of the manufacturers point out that you can change their face, etc to customize them to be your unique doll. They're encouraging it really. You are buying a base canvas in a way, and you have the right to cut, paint, and pierce said canvas how you want. While I do think if you know you're weak in an area you should practice before say trying to mod a $1000 doll... it's still the persons choice. Even an experience modder could make a mistake as well.
I'm pretty darn bad at art, I would never mod my dolls myself or face-up them because I can't achieve the look I want through my own skill. Art is all about perspective and expression, to say someone doesn't have a right basically is saying they aren't allowed to creatively pour themselves into something to me.

 

If I spent a boatload of money on a doll, the last thing I'd want to do is tamper with the face when I've never done a face-up before. (I'd buy a practice head and use that...) However, I can understand someone wanting to make a doll truly unique by customizing the face. It's their doll and they're free to do as they please with it...even if other collectors find it cringe-worthy.

 

i've seen some really bad mods around and i really wonder why do they even post them up. If it was posted for crictics to improve on it, thats really encouraging to see. But when i do see someone showing off some bad modding done to a once beautiful doll, i cant help but feel incredibly sad for it.

If you ask me, i feel that people intending to mod their dolls for the first should already have adequate hands on experience in modifying other stuff like model kits and such. Or else just commission someone else to do it for them, rather than spending even more money fixing them up afterwards.

 

I agree with others that say once you buy the doll it's yours to do what ever you like with. But I do see a lot of really bad mods that make me wonder if they realizes how much cash they wasted. I think if this was a cheaper hobby I wouldn't really wonder as much.

 

I think this is an art question rather than a skill question. I'm an illustrator - if someone commissioned work off me, and then modified the work themselves, I'd no longer want the work associated with me, because it was no longer the work I had completed and put my name to. If someone modifies your artistic work, either for better OR worse, it no longer reflects your skill because it has been modified and isn't what you signed off as your own work.

Does that make sense?

More on-topicly, while I think it's totally fair for anyone to do whatever they like with something that they've spent their hard-earned cash on, I reserve the right to sometimes go, "Ooh, that was a bad decision" at something. I'm sure others have said the same about my own work in the past!

 

I think something really interesting here is comparing the attitudes towards doll mold artist's rights and respect for their work here as opposed to this thread about recasting dolls for one's own personal use: http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?t=175904

Because the attitudes towards "It's my doll that I paid for, I can do whatever I want with it and the artist can't do anything about it/understands this." between the two threads seems to be completly different.

I know it's two different things, and that one is more illegal than the other, but they both involve taking the original doll and changing it to be what you want. Not advocating for or aganist either side of the issues here, but with people's reactions and the amount of grey area involved...it's interesting, is all.

(I these kinds of debates. Yay for intellegent, thought-out arguments.)

 

Once someone owns a doll they can do whatever they want with it, but if I were a BJD sculptor/face-up artist/whatever, I would want them to put somewhere obvious in bold that they had edited whatever I had worked on. BJDs are meant to be customizable, but if someone thinks the original sculpt was the poorly modded version the company could lose business and I don't think that's right.
I do commissions on gaia and require the commissioners to contact me and ask permission before modifying my art in any way other than resizing (coloring, adjusting colors, whatever). I'd definitely be mad if someone changed my work without my permission and then passed it off as my work still. I had an after-school teacher (who wasn't even an art teacher) do that once; she *very badly* went over my lines on a piece and made them grotesquely bold. I was so pissed off and refused to call it my work anymore; it wasn't up to my standards and I'd hate for people to think I drew like that.

Short version: Customize all you want, but be sure to make it apparent that you (or whoever) have done so.

 

The main difference is that the artist has benefitted commercially by selling the doll and if you buy a Luts sculpt and modify it then Luts has gained by you buying the doll. They may not approve of your modifications, but most doll companies seem to accept that people want to make their doll their own hence they're sold blank as an option. If you buy a Luts sculpt, copy it then resell it cheaper - which is what most copiers do, then Luts loses money if people go to buy the cheaper copy. Basically if people didn't stand up against copiers then some of our more treasured companies could lose their financial viability which means they won't be around to manufacture more dolls. Most customisers are happy to let people know how they have modified the doll, often it's fairly visible as well. Copiers don't necessarily like to advertise and people buying don't either. As resins used can frequently be inferior (thus cheaper) and the finish less polished than a professional company, the resulting doll can look inferior to the actual product. Perhaps some are exact replicas and you can't tell the difference but then my comment about the company losing money still applies.

 

It seems to have changed over the years. Early on you hardly saw people *not* modifying their dolls, and Volks sold components in individual boxes and so forth. They weren't any cheaper then or anything, so I don't think it has to do with price. I think what's going on is that the "Super Dollfie" was largely being seen by or marketed to the garage kit fans, so there was simply a different assumption in place then maybe.

Now the hobby seems to have migrated solidly into the "doll" world, and doll collectors tend on the whole to be the kind to want to preserve originality and such so I see less modification going on in general.

It's interesting because there are "cheap" dolls now, which weren't available then.

I've butchered my fair share of dolls, let's not discuss that, shall we? I hope everyone's forgotten!!! XD

But looking on the bright side I've learned what kinds of mods I'm good at and what kind I'm not.

Raven

 

I somewhat agree with a lot of the points already brought up in this topic.
Mind you I say, what you choose to do with the doll once its yours is your choice and such, but I will agree, properly credit who did what to the doll... I mean after all, I would... I would rather say X person did my face up, but I modded it slightly to include this design or this here. I find to respect the original source, while still making your doll unique to you is good, I will also say though if at worse... if your unskilled liked me at the moment I would say, at least maybe buy a few heads or parts on the side for practice BEFORE you actually go at it ont eh actual doll. This way at least if its something you end up not liking, you only ruined a head or spare part, not the main doll, which will then probably cost more tehn the spare part to practice on just to fix

 

I look at it this way, if it's their doll and they paid good money for it then they can do what ever they want to it. I don't think it's cool for someone to look at another persons mods and say "You suck at this don't do this to your doll anymore."

 

I agree that as your doll, you should be able to do with it as you like. But I also get those horrible "how could you do that?!" feelings when I see dolls with really awful modification/face-ups and what not. I also feel that way when the wigs are unkempt or the doll is lacking clothes (something I'm quite embarrassed to admit I am a culprit of).
Although I did my doll's face up, it's quite simple and I only did it because I am comfortable with details, make-up and the materials I was using to create the effect on him and I was confident little to no damage would be done to my doll. I get compliments on it but I usually own up that I did it and it's not professional.
I think I would be hurt if someone told me I had ruined my doll by doing the face-up myself and also because I did not mimic what is usually seen on most dolls (his lips aren't glossy and his eyebrows were textured). Typically I just think that modifications should be done thoughtfully but negative opinions should be kept to ourselves.

 

I think if you love it and are happy with them it should be no on elses business what they look like~

but on erasing the companies fancy faceups they put a lot of work into, I don't think you should right away. someone else did a lot of work and if you are just erasing it I'd feel bad ;~; but if you didn't like it I guess it's different. urrrggg I'm bad at explaining things XD

 

Agreeing on not wanting someone to do something that affects your work, unless they specifically state that they have modified your faceups.

Can you imagine if someone modded a doll itself, and then claimed it was a LUTS/Soom mould? Those companies would be hell pissed, esp if you made them look bad. It's only fair if you modify someones work that it is mentioned, even if it makes it look better, imo. It's just polite. However, telling them to not relate it to you at all is a bit of an overreaction, unless your original work is totally unidentifiable in the new look.
I know how this feels, as I'm a makeup artist, and almost everything I do is photoshopped. Sometimes you look at the final image and go "god I'm so glad everyone in this industry knows everything is modified after the photos are taken", because it just doesn't always reflect your specific skills.

 

Eh, I have no problem with wiping company default faceups. I admit I cringe when someone wipes a limited edition faceup, but the standard default ones are no big deal to me. I've wiped two, one on a secondhand head and one on a brand-new one. I'd have bought the new one blank except I bought it in person and they had no blank ones, but I never had any intention of keeping the faceup. And it wasn't that I didn't like them really, just that they didn't work at all for my characters.

I think faceups are different than mods, though. The companies expect that the faceups will be changed, that's why they offer the option of buying them blank.

As long as people are taking credit for their mods and not claiming they came from the company that way (which would be deceptive), I see no problem with modding a doll however you want. You bought it, it's yours. That said, I sometimes forget that both my Delf heads are modded. It's pretty obvious that they are, but sometimes I forget to mention it. I always will say so if anyone asks, though!

 

That is a really good point about the early marketing of the dolls appealing to a different audience. I came into the hobby sort of after all that... around 2005 or so was when I first found out about BJDs. But I do seem to remember a lot more experimentation going on then, in regards to modding.

I still see mods, but most of them are either eye-opening/closing mods, or very extreme fantasy/gore mods. There isn't as much "casual tweaking" going on... like slimming down hands, reshaping the jawline, or altering the shape of a nose.

I think part of it may also be that there are SO many options now... before, if you didn't like something about a sculpt, you as an owner had to modify it yourself. Now, it's so much easier to go "Oh, I'll just buy a pair of option hands with long fingernails" instead of modding long fingernails onto the pair of hands you already own. Or instead of modding a head, you just find a different sculpt that fits your criteria better.

 

NO

Plus, to become skilled, you have to start somewhere!!! Jeez!! You can't expect everyone to just be amazing right off the bat, I respect people for trying, even if their work isn't amazing. They'll keep getting better, and then one day, they'll be "skilled".

 

Ah, the eternal argument-beauty is in the eye of the beholder? I believe that what we feel is beautiful is so subjective and that one persons favorite doll may be disturbing or ugly to someone else. As long as I love how my dolls look than mission accomplished. I can appreciate the work or originality of dolls that I would personally never wish to own. There are things done to dolls routinely that seem to be viewed as enhancements that I don't see that way but I am glad they exist. Can there really ever be too much variety when the major drawl of these dolls seems to be making yours so personal? As an artist, some of my favorite pieces are things that took an odd turn and lead me to learn something I never would have otherwise. Mistakes and the learning curve really does produce some wonderful things and I would hate for anyone to let fear or insecurity of their skills keep them from at least trying their hand at such a wonderful creative outlet. Yes, I would recommend starting out on inexpensive practice heads but if anyone is really drawn to trying their hand I hope they do so! Do a bit of homework, get some decent supplies and see what happens. If the worse thing that ever happened to me was that I "ruined" a doll I would be okay I think. <g> I would never advocate passing off your work as being someone elses or vice-versa but agree that when you become the owner than YOU determine the dolls fate. Also, I have had people do some ahmm, interesting things to my creations and look at it as a compliment as I inspired them. I am not comfortable with a nose ring but it can look really cool on some people and if makes them happy go for it!

 

I don't know. I never considered modifying my doll until i saw so many people modifying theirs. I see these dolls as elongated canvas to do so as it pleases. I am now thinking long hard if i truly want to alter mine and if so how?

I don't think i could personally do a lot of the face up that are peopling my mind, but I wouldn't mind looking outward for help.