Character Dolls (based on fictional or other preexisting characters)

I shell my own OCs and have no interest in creating a character doll. That said, two of my doll OCs are heavily inspired by preexisting media characters -- mostly in their appearance plus a bit of personality and character development. I can draw direct links between them and that preexisting media character. I guess they're more like tributes to those characters rather than actual character dolls.

One of them is the purple-haired girl in my avatar... her personality and appearance (and yes, the purple hair) is heavily based off Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, my favourite anime. I made her cosplay Motoko once, commissioned wig and all.

I'm still waiting for the other doll to come home, but he's directly inspired by the protagonist of my favourite SF/fantasy novels, The Book of the New Sun 4-volume series by Gene Wolfe. His appearance, clothing style and job/role in my doll story-world are pretty much lifted from that protagonist. I was so tempted to give him the same name, but that's a bit too on the nose for me so I've given him a different name that's alike but not identical. And yes, I want to make him cosplay the actual character someday.

Update 05/2025: Well, the doll above is home now, and he insisted on being named Severian. Fine, be blatant about the character inspiration At least it's his surname and I can call him by a different given name... then again, his sculpt has uncanny resemblance to Wolfe's descriptions of his novel's protagonist...

 

I have a few ideas for characters I would like to try making, but I’m not exactly searching for any sculpts to try to match with a character currently.

 

Sometimes there are characters I think about having as dolls, but I always lose interest in this pretty quickly. Whenever I catch myself doing this I’ll tell myself no to it lol.

There’s one exception though!

I have a Volks Hinaichigo on the way (should be here today!) and she’s going to remain as Hina, for a bunch of reasons. I’ve wanted this doll for so long, since 2009, and can’t really separate the character from the sculpt anymore. Changing her hair (blonde curls) and eye colour (green) isn’t something I want to do either. When I first saw Rozen Maiden, Hina reminded me so much of my littlest sister (who is a lot younger than me) and like Hina, she’s also the 6th out of 7.

So yea, Hina is a really special character to me and I am fine with her being the one doll who stays as a non-OC character.

 

One of the things I love the most about BJDs is that you're not stuck with franchises you don't care about, and the core of the hobby is customization.

 

I have a Linhardt on the works!

 

New doll is... MOSTLY a character doll. I mean I'm calling him 'Marty', even though he's also perfectly capable of portraying a couple of OCs with just a change in wig and outfit... I just think he's going to spend 90% of his time being one of my favorite little guys from a movie that means a lot to me and if I can occasionally kit him out to represent a D&D character (or maybe a Star Trek fan character), or an OC I've written about/shared with friends, like I LOVE getting that kind of mileage out of my doll collection!

Some of my dolls are named after characters I like but they're their own characters based around the doll, and that's not the case with Marty-- he IS Marty McFly, it's just that he can *also* jump in and be another character for photo purposes when I need a physical representation of a halfling bard and he just happens to be the right scale compared to other dolls in the house.