Bonding with your dolls

I bond with my doll through photography (I am still trying to get better at it but my father is very good at photography so I think I will ask him for some help) and I make her clothes and jewelry, and I use her in my stories. At least that's what I do to bond with my doll.

 

The closest thing to "bonding" I guess is that many of the heads and dolls on order are generous gifts from a very dear friend who is often really ill and sometimes I don't hear from them for awhile, so the dolls already have that sort of sentimental value because they'll remind me of my friend and their generosity. My friend has some dolls of their own and is going to visit me next year so they can be there while I fix up the dolls. So I guess in this situation, rather than the experience totally being about bonding with the dolls, the dolls are facilitating some bonding with a human and making more memories and good times.

My first doll I saved up for for a long time and had to jump through lots of hoops to acquire, so that's most of the attachment there. I'm not made of stone, though: I'm too attached to his old damaged faceup to wipe it. He's been a fixture for too long. He was also Mistake Doll where I learned all about What Not To Do, so he's probably worthless to anyone else but very valuable to me as my first project of this kind.

They're intensely involved projects of my favorite arty sort, and they are all characters I love or have created or that my friend has created and I have a little story about how they ended up in the same "universe" because conceptual writing is fun, but I don't hear Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture every time I see/think about them. To me it's a bit like owning a CD of your favorite album rather than mp3s--a solid physical representation rather than something intangible.

 

I mostly buy my dolls new and naked (no clothes, faceup, blushing, eyes or wig).
And I don't usually have a final character in my mind for my doll so I bond slowly with them. Maybe just some small ideas.
I do get super exited when buying a new doll but the exitement is usually just that it's a new doll and not that I have some big exiting plans for it regarding the character, story and so on.

I let my naked doll sit next to my laptop while I search the perfect clothes, eyes and wig online while glancing my doll and thinking to myself "Hmm... I wonder if this one would look good on you little one. "

It's a lovely and slow process for me but I don't mind at all - it's fun!
(Though sometimes it can be distressing if I feel like nothing would look good on my new doll and that the story is too boring or whatever is the problem in that situation.)

 

I just customize them and hang out with them a lot, haha. I like to have them around while im doing homework or watching TV or whatever.

 

I've never really understood this 'bonding' thing. For me, it is just a matter of liking the sculpt enough to keep it and want to work on it. For instance, I've realized that realistic dolls don't tickle my inspiration. They are very pretty, but I need something a little more stylized to be able to do something with them. Sometimes I've liked a sculpt for a while, but then I get bored with the look. And then it has to go XD.

It's not that different from owning a nice painting, or designer furniture, I guess. With this difference that dolls allow me to think of stories, and allow me to modify them. A Rembrandt, I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

 

For me it's hard to explain, I have to figure out a character for them that I find fitting, and then relate with their character. I think of them more than just objects, but not humans. If I find a sculpt I initially fall for, I wait for a month or so before I buy them so I can see if I'd still love them or not like their character anymore. So in a way I guess I am a bonder

 

For me to purchase a doll I need to feel a "draw" or "connection" to him/her. Most of the time their names come to me the instant I make the "eye" contact with them. When I get them home I sit and hold them, change their clothes, wigs etc to get them to the ideas they inspired when I first saw them. I also sit and watch tv and play video games with them in my lap or on a nearby table.

 

In my case, trough customization and just carriying them to take pictures or just holding them while I am on the internet.

 

I only got my first doll a week ago, but I already feel very close to her! I do this with a lot of things like stuffed animals that I love a lot. I feel that I really did bond with my doll Kitty. Whenever I'm home she is just chilling with me, like when I watch anime she's sitting with me, when I'm mindlessly scrolling on tumblr, she's sitting with me. I even brought her to the ocean with me. I just really like to spend time with her. I have her around so much that my mom started to think she's creepy I like to make her clothing and carry her around. She is just really fun to be with! As for her character, I shelled my animal crossing character So she has been around in my head for at least 2 years but probably more like 3. I just love her to bits I can't wait to send her for a faceup so she looks more like herself!

 

I bond with most almost as soon as they arrive. I bought them because they called out to me from the crowd. And most seem to just tell me who they are. If for some reason I don't bond with someone, I adopt that one out and concentrate on the others.

 

I bond with mine by just having them hang with me while doing things. I like to read Tarot, so I put Zenith poses like he's reading my Tiny Tarot deck with me. (It's just his size!) I'll have him mimick what I'm doing, but just in small-scale. I'll also place him on my lap or beside my computer and watch videos with him. Do mundane things. Clothing I'm not so picky about, but I do have a goal to bond with him by making him jewelry and accessories soon. ^-^

His personality kind of is a mirror of my own, but in young teen boy form, I suppose. Kind of submissive, very spiritual and mystic, extremely artistic and a bit eccentric. I'm even thinking he may have autism like me. He certainly seems like he does.

 

I made him a wig for 5 hours.. Face up for 3 hours, sew clothes for 6 hours and take photos of him sometimes.
That pretty much sums up our bonding time xD.

 

I've found that I don't bond with a doll fully until I have them completely dressed and they start to really resemble the character I want for them. This was particularly true with my one girl. Since her character was rather fluid, she had no wig and wore a borrowed dress for months until I could get her what she needed. While I liked the doll on an aesthetic level, I didn't really bond with her until she was complete.

After a doll has their wig and main outfit, I feel much more comfortable buying them other clothes because it then feels like I'm dressing the character up in different outfits rather than desperately trying to make the doll "come to life".

 

For me personally, I love posing my dolls in dioramas and just making things for them. I'm currently designing a full scale dollhouse so that I can better display all of the things I've collected for them because knowing I have so many pretty doll things packed away where they can't really be enjoyed has made me a bit sad.

As for the personality, all of my dolls are either shells for characters I had already made up, or are literal character dolls of other characters (Like my DDS).

 

So I have this lovely girl here:



... and rethought selling her and trying to bond with her instead... Any tips on bonding with a doll?
I'm very happy with her overall look and design, but I can't seem to really connect with her yet...​

 

Personally I think to bond with anything you really need to just spend time with/on it, I would definitely just play around with her, Dress her, pose her, take fun interesting pictures that help sort of form a personality for her and things? That's what I have found has helped me bond with my doll and I think my friends are similar. I can see why you would want to keep her too she is absolutely beautiful

 

That's the thing - I actually LIKE the way she looks completely, and she is TINY so it's very difficult to find clothes for her if I did want to hehe~ if she was a normal human doll, it would be easy to give her a makeover but since she is fantasy themed, making her look casual might be odd ehe~
And thank you, I'm so happy you think so!

 

Awww! Well that makes sense, It would be very hard to make any changes to her as her design is so lovely! But I would definately consider thinking up maybe a story for her, and doing some cute photo shoots to give her some sort of personality, I find it easier to bond with a doll if it feels more like someone than just a pretty object? If that makes sense?? I'm not sure I've not long since woken up and I may well be speaking nonsense haha!
But you're very welcome I absolutely adore her!! ;u;

 

Hehe you may be right, you know~
I have a very light small story for her but I should try changing it for a bit and see how that works out! I will actually take a pic of her today and see if that changes anything. Thank you again for your advice and kind words about my little girl!

 

I bonded with mine just by seeing it online, I just knew he was meant to be mine. The same for my pre-order I'm waiting for. I don't really buy a doll unless I really connect with it before buying, so I am not sure I would have this problem.

For my other dolls, I have had the problem of un-bonding over time. I ended up selling those or gifting them.