Buyer‘s regret

I think it comes with the territory of being in the hobby and having to learn what you like the hard way and/or having your taste evolve out from under you. Even though it stings (especially because the waits are so long and the prices are so steep and there's more than enough FOMO to go around RE: limited sculpts/preorders), odds are you won't truly know if something is for you until you try a bunch of things out and see what works and what doesn't.

The worst offender of being the source of big excitement and turning out "meh" was my brief-ish stint owning the second release of Dollfie Dream Ranko Kanzaki. I'll admit, I purchased her in a fit of FOMO related to several other major life changes happening around that time and I was attempting to self-soothe with buying something expensive and frivolous. Her head mold just doesn't do it for me in person and, because she was limited and decently sought-after, I was too skittish to send her out to get customized. So she sat in my doll room for about a year, basically untouched, and I sold her off.

Personally, I've shifted my hobby buying significantly. I've been around the block a few times and have a pretty good idea of if something is going to work out for me based on how long I've pined for it. If I keep coming back to it for more than a few months, odds are pretty good that if I buy it, it'll be a keeper. I also know that I'm generally not big on MSDs and Yo-SDs are a total non-starter, that fullsets are iffy at best, and that I'm not willing to pay huge $$$ for a totally blank doll, no matter how limited. There are, of course, exceptions to every rule, but this is my go-to checklist for whether or not something gets added to the wishlist and/or eventually purchased (instead of deleted after 2 weeks once the hoarding crow part of my brain stops going "OOO SHINY").

 

thusfar the only doll-related thing i've regretted buying was a wig that i thought would suit my kid delf, that.... reallllyyyy didn't suit him at all, lol. can't exchange it, and i don't have any other dolls to try it with, so its just kinda sitting there... i have a friend who's also into dolls (no BJDs yet but he does have some fashion dolls he's customizing and such) and i'm thinking i'll probably see if he'd like it. it's not a giant deal, though, since it's just a wig i'm not out a ton of money or anything - all the same, it feels wasteful to just have it sitting around.

 

I've regretted many of my purchases because I did a lot of impulsive buying. I had admired the BJD community for a long time, so when I finally got a job, I just dived in and bought dolls left and right without ever considering what I actually wanted.

I realise now that msd dolls aren't my style, but I own two of them. I realised I love SDs the most, but they take up a lot of space and are much more expensive. I also bought dolls just because I thought they were pretty and I loved their promotion pictures. I've come to know that the dolls won't always look like the promos, especially when you can't get the same face up.

The biggest mistake I made was when I bought a heap of dolls cuz I thought they were really pretty, only to find out they were based off real life artists. While I was a fan of said artists for a time afterwards, I couldn't get passed it being weird owning dolls inspired by real people. And now that I am not so much of a fan, I don't really know what to do with them. I love the dolls and the characters i have created from them, but still can't get passed their inspiration.

Another problem I had was that I bought dolls of all kinds of skin tones, but only own three bodies. I have shades of pink tones, yellow tones, white tones, brown tones, while only owning pink and yellow tone bodies. And size too. Always check the head to neck sizing.

I now mainly focus on YOSDs. They are cute, fun to pose, and much easier to make accessories for.

My advice for any newbies, is research. Research everything. Look at how other people have designed the sculpts, look at the skin tones, see what suits the doll and what doesn't, how much space do you have for the dolls. Just research literally everything.