My dolls are a bit of both...they have names and personalities AND I enjoy styling their outfits. Sometimes if I'm in the mood to mimic an anime or Disney character then I'll cosplay them but that's the extent of it. I try to give myself room to be creative and not overthink the process.
I'm on the character dolls team. Always. Their personalities were there long before they were covered in resin. And yes, I can also dress them up, but always within their style.
Majority of my dolls are character dolls, but I am planning one dress up doll. As someone who likes fashion, I'd just like a doll I can put anything on without feeling like it doesn't fit their personality.
When I was new in the BJD hobby (around 2010) all of my dolls were character dolls with an exact look, and complete stories. But they never looked exactly like the characters in my head. It is so hard to find all the things in BJD size (e.g. short boyish wigs, dolls from different companies that look good next to each other, etc.), or if I find an appropriate wig/clothing/etc. it’s too expensive… It was so frustrating to me to achieve the characters’ exact look, so my new BJD collection consists of dress-up dolls. They all have their own fashion styles and tastes, but I don’t aim for a special face, body, skin tone, etc. I just buy the dolls that I find cute/beautiful and play dress-up with them without the pressure. I still have my OCs, and I made up stories for them, but I don’t have the urge to shell them in doll form. They are always changing like real people and it’s just too much stress for me to make them in physical form.
My dolls are definitely characters – I get a dissonant sort of feeling if I put them in a wig/eyes/clothes that don't suit their characters. I've learned the hard way that I have to be flexible with character plans I have for incoming dolls, as sometimes no matter how much I plan, the doll shell ends up rejecting the character idea. I wanted to have a cute girl doll to twin jfash outfits with, but most of my girls outright reject anything with lace and ruffles! Even when my intention is to have a cute frilly doll, the character rejects the idea, and I get the same dissonant feeling that's something is off with the doll. Dolls that I'm not able to develop characters for don't end up staying in my house – it's not enough for me to just have a pretty doll to put outfits on.
I used to try to do character dolls, but I found that for me personally it made the hobby more stressful for me. I was obsessing with making my dolls look exactly like my characters illustrations, which proved to be very tedious and more of a chore than anything else. I was also obsessed with completing my entire cast of characters. I bought dolls I didn't really like just to complete the set. Now I've learned that I much prefer having dress up dolls. I enjoy the freedome of dressing my dolls in whatever I want. Most of my dolls still have a vague personality and vibe, but I'm much happier with my dolls this way.
Haha, I'm very similar to ViperOrchid! I also used to only get character dolls based on my comics, and though I've never bought dolls I didn't like, I certainly spent a lot of time stressing out about little details that I just couldn't replicate. Nowadays, Anka and Leonie are technically still character dolls (as they were bought with that intent) but Leonie is the only one who has a completed character outfit. Anka has a really cool pilot lady get-up but it's not actually what she is in my book, and now she's become two characters (one that I've yet to write) with a second wig. My most recent doll was bought entirely off of vibes. She still doesn't even have a name. But I found that its been a lot less stressful - I didn't like her green eyes, for example, so I just replaced them with a different color. Now she's a whole new doll that I'm enjoying taking photos of. In the past me hating the eye color would've caused me a lot of grief. I technically am still planning on getting one or two more character dolls, but they would be outfitted based on "vibes" with very little intent to match their drawn characters.
