Coherent Collection or Motley Crew?

My gang is motley, no question. I started off only wanting a certain size from a certain company, but as I spent time looking at all the beautiful owner pics, and exploring new companies, I started appreciating more and more different styles. Now I fave a nice variety, and plan on continuing to expand on it, and I'm very happy with it. I don't really worry about how they look to other people when photographed together. I'm collecting for myself, not everyone else's enjoyment

 

My small gang is already pretty mismatched, and I'm happy with that. I get what I like regardless if i have a pre-existing character decided for them or whether or not they fit, and more often then not they dont have a story nor do they technically fit with whatever is the current crew status. I just happen to see them and become struck by them and then have to have them. This happened with the last two of my three dolls and something tells me this pattern will continue.

I'd probably be more inclined to be more strict with characters and fitting in if I was more into writing and stuff, but I'm not.

 

Well, I certainly have dolls from different companies and in different sizes, but to my eye they are pretty well matched. I like more stylized sculpts and my collection reflects that - I've yet to purchase a more realistic BJD, although I do admire them and would consider buying one, if something catches my eye.

Size-wise, I have everything from 14cm to 60cm, but since the sculpts share the same aesthetic, none look out of place. I am waiting for a Rosette girl and, even though she is very stylized, her body is vastly different than my other dolls and will most likely not blend well with my collection and so will have to be displayed separately.

 

Definately motley for me. The closest thing to coherence is the tripletts, but even they aren't all the same (same head, different bodies).

 

This, pretty much. It may not be obvious but there is a logic to how I organise my dolls not acheived by making sure every single one is stylistically a fit, but by having sub-groups within what I collect. Not that I actually physically segregate them often according to this logic, but if they where to be displayed I would.

 

I tend to pair my dolls. As long as they have a "friend" that they match with I don't care if they all match each other. I've started working them in groups, too. Like for instance all of my Yo-SDs look good together and all of my big kids look good together. I tend to group them into storylines too though so that may be why.

 

My plan is to have a coherent group. All Volks girls at this stage. Ideally I'd love to have them all WS as well, but not all the sculpts I like have been made in WS yet. They all belong to the same story world, and I love the idea of doing big group shots so for me this is an aesthetic must.

 

Well,I thought of " what if I have a coherent crew" when I got my first doll,but too bad XD.My second doll was ordered just a few days after I placed the order for my first!
I am fine and enjoying myself with a mixy crew ,my dolls are from companies like RingDoll,Luts,DOD,AS and Volks!Happy family ^0^and yes...the only coherent point may be their face up and outfits :/ . I only came to realize that I'm leaning towards the tender face up rather than a dark one...And outfits for boys are usually a pain since the color choices is not as wide as girls!Most of the time it came as black or white. I still think it doesn't matter,as long as I'm enjoying it ^_^!

 

I'd say it's motley around here, though my BJDs do fall into loose groups by manufacturer (old Customhouse, Volks, and Dollshe are the most heavily represented). But I have several singletons who will probably stay that way--Unoa B-el, Hypermaniac Omiclon, Souldoll Gunun, Luts/CP Elf Shiwoo, DIM Danbi, Dollmore Model Bella Auden, ShinyDoll Akali, and BlueFairy Xiao. I'd like to get a second Dollstown boy someday to keep my DT Mui company, because he looks lonely, but other dolls keep rising to the top of the list before that one.

 

I have both...a mixy crew with a matchy storyline. Because of this, I feel I have the best of both worlds and they can be photographed together if I wish, or singularly. (Each doll has their own elaborate setting, but they can easily visit one another.) You see, each of their backstories and characters are part of an ongoing urban fairytale. They all inhabit an ecclectic, quirky, inner-city neighborhood...so I didn't want them to be too alike (their sizes are different, ranging from regular MSD to slim MSD, and to tinies that range from 30cm all the way down to 9.5cm.) An odd mix, I know. Then add to this the fact that I deliberately collected dolls from different companies as well to make them look even more diverse. The only ones who are related are my 3 shapeshifting Resinsoul sisters...and they are identical face sculpts with the exception of their eyes (closed, open and partially open.)

Each and every doll was chosen to fit a specific character of a certain type and size...a Realpuki for a fairy, the 3 Resinsoul sisters who look quite like Brian Froud's elves, a kid Dollmore girl as a manga Chobit, and an MSD minimee Johnny Depp as the mad hatter. You get the idea. The cohesion in my collection comes from their storyline, their clothing which I make myself, and the slightly anime look to their faces (with the exception of the minimee, but then he's painted to look exactly like Hatter from the Tim Burton movie, so that's very anime in and of itself!) Like I said, I really have the best of both worlds here, which opens up endless creative possibilities.

 

My crew is motley... in a sense! I personally feel they all fit very well together. Even though many of them are very (oh veeeerry!) different! For example, I have an EID Evan, a Dollshe Hound... a Unoa Sist! Haha. But they all live in the same world/ story and for me, it works. I feel that people are all very different, they come in all kinds of shapes, sizes, colors, etc. My dolls are just like people, all very different and unique but still fitting together in their own tangible way.

 

It's turned motley. My original plan was for two dolls of the same size from the same company. Then there was the free mini promo. After that a doll from another company.....and now I'm drolling over the big boys and the tiny anthros.

 

I have a motley crew myself, and I like it like that. It's becoming more coherent, in that the overwhelming majority of my dolls will be Fairyland minifees (right now it's a 3-1 ratio of minifee vs. IH). It's motley in that they don't all have the same type of look (my Muninn's an emo, my Hugin is flamboyantly feminine but not gay, Poe is a goth, Verdandi is well.....Verdandi). Eventually my collection will (hopefully) include some tinies, some larger dolls, a couple anthros and some fantasy dolls. I adore centaurs, and when the right one comes out, I will be donating kidneys to afford it. I don't choose a doll based on how it's going to look with another.

 

My gang is definatly mismatched, but I see clear groups within them.
There are the "big kids", my zaoll, and bleu citron girl, and the "little kids" my soulkid girl, and unoa boy I don't like mixing the two groups because the size difference is too much, but then there are my odd balls, my resinsoul dog and unoa chibi who fit in with both groups because I see their size as ajustable for who ever they're with.
I always aim to fit new dolls into one of the two groups, for instance, dispite being my smallest doll my incoming pukifee is going to be considered one of the big kids.
There are just too many fun sculpts out there for me to stick to one size or company. For a while I was looking at getting only iplehouse, because I loved the realism, but then I got my soulkid girl and fell in love with the slim msd size.

 

Definitely mismatched xD There's just not enough sculpts from one company for me to get them all from one company (Actually, that's a lie. I'd own every Angel Region doll if I could). And they aren't all from the same 'story' so to speak so they all have their different styles and personalities. Even the ones that are incoming don't fit into the 'stories' of any of the ones I have. But I like it better that way. I can write a bunch of different stories than just one. And I can still have them interact because, duh, they live here with me.
So yes, Merlot and Treu, I WILL make you two snuggle on the bed even if you ARE from two different worlds.

 

Here, I'm a little of column A, a little of column B. My dolls fit certain characters that I have, so within their individual universes they have to be to scale with each other. Lief, for example, has to be the tallest doll in his 'set' because he's the tallest character in his plotline. But a doll from another 'set' can be taller than him because they're not part of that story. (Even though Lief, at 72 cm, is a very big boy and it'd be next to impossible to find someone bigger than him.)

Another example is that Mercury, my Epidos, has to be taller than an incoming doll, Christian, which limited my choices for Tian. But as they are part of the same universe, they need to be in scale, so I bypassed several choices until I finally settled on an Orientdoll. (One of the few MSDs I've found that doesn't look like a child!!)

All of my dolls lean towards a stylised realism, and I can't stand large, childish looking dolls, so unless they're Yo-Sized, my dolls tend towards a more adult look. But while they can vary in their aesthetics from set to set, within each set they have to all be similar to each other.

 

I think the definition of my collection is motley crew...my second smallest doll is a Volks Misia and my second largest doll is a Unidoll Ark, and the rest are also very different in sizes and styles, though most of my dolls are in the 60-75cm range and semi-realistic. The characters they represent are also from all over the place--four of them are fan-art dolls, and six of them are my own characters.

 

When I started I wanted a coherent collection. But I have a very wide range in terms of looks I like. When I started to realize that my collection would never be a coherent as others I was pretty stressed that I was 'doing it wrong'. However I've since learned to pretty much love each and every different doll I bring home to my motley crew. They each live in their own little worlds and I don't photograph them together unless it's for comparison.

 

This is very much like my situation. My dolls (present, ordered and planned) all match perfectly in my head. To someone else looking in, not even slightly. ^^;

Their characters and stories are all intertwined, but they are intentionally very diverse in size and appearance due to the involvement of a fantasy element. So, even though they're visually a rather mismatched group, I would have no problem displaying or photographing them together, since they coexist in their varied proportions within their own "world".

 

I think at this point, I'd say motley crew. Because of Soom. ._. Soomed, worse than getting rick roll'd.