Can you tell what country a BJD is from?

I follow mainly 1/3 and 75cm dolls so I'm only speaking to these sizes.

I think there's a clear distinction between BJDs made in Asian countries vs. BJDs made in western countries. I usually can identify on sight when a head sculpt comes from a sculptor based in a Western country, because they 'don't look like they were designed in Asia'. I don't know exactly what features are involved but it has to do with the overall 'look' of the face, and the proportion and placement of facial features in relation to each other. I guess it's a different kind of aesthetic sensibility between east and west, but I haven't gone on to quantify what it is.

Amongst BJDs designed in Asia (ie. China, Korea, Japan)... I can't say I've noticed a different in sculpting between the countries, to me the difference is more significant between sculptors/companies. Companies tend to have a "house style" that makes them recognizable as say, "a doll from Ringdoll" or "a doll from Soom". Independent sculptors eventually develop their own styles as well - for facial structure, placement/proportion of facial features. I tend to look for company distinction instead of country-of-origin distinction, so I can't say that I've noticed whether CN-made BJDs have certain features vs. KR-made BJDs. In any case, there's so much diversity at the 1/3 and 75cm scale that I don't really distinguish between countries, only companies/artist.

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On the other hand, I've also noticed that resin quality differs between Korea/Japan and China. I've handled Volks dolls, Korean-made dolls, and Chinese-made dolls, and KR resin feels different from CN resin in weight and texture. KR resin (and also Volks resin) has a texture that manages to feel both toothy and soft, and has a matte appearance. Whereas CN resin feels smoother and more plastic-y, and it tends to look shiny in a plastic way. I also suspect that KR resin is denser than CN resin - at least, when I hold my 1/3 Chinese-made BJD, they always somehow feel lighter than my 1/3 Korean-made BJD of the same build and height.

Sense of touch is pretty subjective and personal though, so maybe the resins feel different to other people. But I play with my dolls a great deal and I do notice the difference in how their resin feels and weighs.

 

Like aihre, I can definitely notice house sculpting style, but I have not really identified any particular sculpting trends by region. I am kind of curious about that and will keep an eye out for it now.
If I don't recognize the house style, I can still tell a Chinese promotional photo from a Japanese or Korean one based on the face up style, but it makes sense to me, that the promotional dolls would be painted by popular artists within the country. why outsource when you have great local artists to choose from

 

Adding on to aihre and Novalyna, I have to agree on the house sculpting style, but something I've also noticed is the difference in seams. I've only had dolls from Korean and Chinese companies so far, but the Korean-made bodies all have seams to a certain degree while the Chinese-made bodies don't.

 

I'm never very surprised when I find out where the doll is from - I feel like there is a little something that differentiates between Asian dolls from the early bjd times on, some certain aesthetic choices. I do wonder, though, if those choices have just carried on over over time or if it's inherently the way makers make in those places. I think culturally, it's a little different how one perceives "cute" or "mature" which definitely impacts the artistic choices in a localised manner as well. And then there's the choice of styling, which can get fairly obvious with traditional clothing and street style fashion.

I've excluded Western dolls from this because I think we can all agree that they're a very different aesthetic. When we look at pop-culture and popular stylised drawing, it's very distinct how things have evolved from "anime" style in asia and how the "cartoony" style in the west is much different, and a little less homogenous. I think it really impacts bjds as most makers make characters of some sort and already have a distinct drawing style before attempting sculpting. The style itself comes from the culture one is engulfed in.

 

This is what I already noticed.
I have a soft spot for the "tiny supermodels" like Popovy (foremost), N. Loseva, Eslynsdolls, Tender Creation, Sugarbone etc.
I haven´t found such creation from an asian company yet. Their dolls tend to have very big eyes & tiny mouths, well, anime like.

 

Have you considered Myou Doll Vieroudis, Gina, Bettina, Reid, Alan, and Rod? I think they're very nice, not anime-like at all. But they are vastly different from Popovy and others you mentioned.

 

This is something I noticed too! but didn't mention because not enough data on my end Confirming my bias when I read this!
All my Korean dolls have had visible seams somewhere and it's always listed in disclaimers so you expect it. So do my Japanese dolls and to get them sanded costs extra. I can't recall if my oldest Chinese doll had seams, it was so long ago but my new Chinese dolls are all smooth except for one seamline behind one doll's ear. I wonder if the Chinese doll market has higher expectations for the finishing of the seams?
On my new tan doll from a Chinese brand I couldn't even find the expected discoloration from sanding the seams off, except a teeny bit between her toes. It's not something I usually care about, but I happened to be hunting for the feel of a seamline on her legs and couldn't find it, which led to a doll family inspection

 

I joined the hobby in the late 00s - this is all anecdotal retelling so I might be wrong on facts, but this is the way I understand it from my newbie days. When I joined the hobby, it was dominated with BJDs from Volks and Korean companies, whereas Chinese companies was relatively new -- at least, newer and less renowned to the EN-speaking hobby community. (I'm not sure what the Chinese BJD presence was like in other non-EN communities.) To compete with JP and KR-made BJDs, seam sanding is one way of adding value to CN-made BJDs and upping levels of quality control and finishing to dolls in a way that wasn't already being done for JP and KR dolls. I didn't own CN-made BJDs in my newbie days, but I understand that the early CN companies sanded the seams on all their dolls as a value-adding move, so it's become the norm now for all BJDs manufactured in China to be delivered to the customer with sanded seams.

I'm not sure why KR companies haven't switched over to sanding seams as part of QC and finishing, maybe it's because it was never done in the past and there's no incentive to change this practice. Seam sanding can backfire too, especially with tan/dark-skinned dolls - depending on resin quality the sanding can cause discolouration in dark resins, which can be perceived as "damage" by a customer. Perhaps KR companies don't sand seams in order to avoid complications with product control and customer service. So there are good reasons for both scenarios.

 

Thanks for the history lesson I started collecting around the same time, and I remember very few Chinese brands at that time, but I didn't know about the details of this.
It makes sense that they needed a leg-up though, I do recall there was some distrust around Chinese brands during that time in EN communities, having that service included might have been a bonus that convinced some hesitant collectors to give them a chance
I agree about your KR hypotheses, if your customer base expects seams already. then why put in the extra work, or train an employee to do this extra task and make sure it's consistent? Extra effort with little to no payoff for them.
I like the sensation of touching the seams to be honest but that doesn't make me love my Chinese dolls any less

 

I never noticed my Chinese dolls had no seams! But true, they are not there haha! I guess in this day and age it can also be seen as a sign of legitimacy, especially for the very popular Korean brands.

 

Maybe I'm just biased, because at diffrent stages I collected dolls that were at different stages of realism (so maybe it pertains only to my collection), but I noticed that Korean dolls have their faces/heads retain their roundish cheeks/chin area. There is a "natural" looking dent in the fat+skin tissue between the chin and the jawline/chin area (google says it's "depressor anguli oris"), while e.g. Japanese dolls often have their jawline/chin/cheek area more "octahedron-like". While the cheekbones are more prominents, the general impression is that the face is less soft-looking and flatter/cut in stone. Anyone notice anything similar, or am I just judging on a too small a face canon pool?

 

if the hips are a mile wide...
let me stop while im ahead.

Chinese dolls usually avoid curves/weight at all costs.
its usually very obvious on female dolls but i guess male dolls have more similarities no matter where they're from.

 

I’m not sure I can differentiate between individual countries, but I’ve definitely noticed regional trends.

Western Europe goes in big for cartoonishly large hips and more stylization. Eastern Europe (or eastern European artists working elsewhere) tends to favor stick-thin dolls that look like supermodels, complete with fashions and wigs straight out of artistic runway shows. US artists really like doing child dolls, and seldom do anything else. Asian companies seem to prefer the “classic pretty young adult“ look, or dolls that skew heavily towards anime. You also see more male dolls coming out of Asia than most other parts of the world.

are there exceptions? Absolutely! Doll Chateau, DollZone, and Leekeworld have all done more stylized/exaggerated dolls despite being Asian companies. And there have been multiple attempts at making American adult BJDs – the new Yummysweets Lotus comes to mind. Those are just very general trends I’ve observed.

 

If I've never seen the companies dolls before, then I wouldn't be able to tell the country of origin, not counting American BJD's.
I get to know certain companies though, and I do know the companies place of origin, so in that way I can spot a doll's country from the company it comes from.

It's more the companies that I can spot. If I am scrolling through profiles I might think 'Oh, that doll screams Soom, or Dollmore, or Luts.' Then I know the origin country is Korean. Where as when I spot a Dollzone, Ringdoll, Loong Soul, etc I know the doll is from China. I am looking at my different dolls as I type and, there isn't a huge difference in country of origin that I can see, maybe in the hands a bit, but more of it is in the individuals companies styles that I recognize.

Some companies have a very distinct style, Doll Chateau, Myou, Fairyland, and Bobobie, so the dolls are incredibly easy to spot. But others kind of blend in and it's not as easy to spot the company and origin of the doll. The more I collect and the longer I've been in the hobby, the easier it gets for me to spot various companies dolls.

 

Yeah, companies are more distinct for me than countries, though there are a lot of shared characteristics between locations/countries as people have mentioned upthread.

 

I loooove them!

I already have two suitcases full of fashion, wigs, accessories and crafting stuff and need a big trolley now.