Collecting in different scales

I'm very haphazard lol. They all exist together and I do not justify it. In the beginning there were 1/3 humans and everyone smaller was a fantasy race... but then a human character shrunk herself... and eventually I had too many dolls to fit into one story so they all sorta exist together and also not. I still like photographing odd sizes together though because I think it's fun lol.

I do suffer from "oh no X doll is all alone and needs a similar sized/stylized friend" but that's also just an excuse for more dolls, lol.

 

I have a lot of different sizes. I started with the ¼ dolls and smaller. I wasn't going to get anything larger. Those sizes work really well together if you have the more mature looking ¼ dolls be older siblings to the younger ones in pictures.

But then I started on the ⅓ and up dolls. Trinity was supposed to be my third and final 'uncle' but I have gotten a few more after him. The Uncles and Aunties are big, they make good parents and adults for the ⅓ and senior ⅓ dolls. But, that doesn't rule out the ¼ and smaller ones. Sometimes I put the ¼ dolls into pictures as children, some of the girls look more mature especially if they have larger breasts, this can be disguised with clothing. The dolls that are even smaller make great kindergarten siblings or even smaller children to the larger dolls.

I do have them separated by size for display. The ⅙ and smaller sit above my computer. The ¼ dolls have their own shelf. The ⅓ and above are on a different display. I use them the most for pictures, and I like to reach them easier.

It was weird for me at first to switch the ¼ dolls from teens to children because when I bought them I had more mature characters in mind. Because I favor the SD and larger dolls I am slowly making the MSD's less mature by changing the clothing and faceups so that they can fit in overall with my other dolls, but for awhile they were the odd dolls out. At least that is how it felt to me.

 

Whether big or small I love BJDs ^_^ I started with SD EID and then adopted small MSD into my family. Iplehouse, for example, offers harmonious dolls that replicate an entire family. Here I once imitated a Mother's Day:
Motherday (3)
But also a Granado seems realistic with an Iplehouse KID as father with daughter:
Lissa and Damian (1)
The topic of family has its charms.
But I also let my imagination run wild. For me, there is nothing wrong with letting an MSD elf from Youpla drive a sleigh with an SD "Snow Fox" IOS:
Don't be afraid of big animals (1)
One of my best combinations was to have my SD AiL Alice interact with a 1:8 TanitaDollOutfit BJD from a 3D printer. Basically, to recreate how I like to pursue my hobby. BJD in the backpack and with camera out into nature to take photos:
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree
There are hardly any limits to the world's most wonderful hobby. You can let your imagination run wild and do creative things. The main thing is that it brings joy and is good for the soul.

 

I generally keep my dolls of different scales apart from each other. Having them together and interacting throws me off, so I prefer to keep my display spaces all to their own scale. Sometimes I can get away with keeping dolls in a different scale further from the other dolls to give a kind of forced perspective, which is helpful when I only have one doll in a particular scale and only one place to display them. For instance, I had my Loong Soul boy posed far back on the top of my bookcase and my Babel Tower girl sitting with her legs hanging off the bookcase. Their heads are very different sizes, so they don't look natural together when posed side-by-side, but with the LS boy in the back, it looks like he's standing at a distance and appears relatively in scale that way. (Hope that makes sense.)
Though you mentioned what if they were the same character, and if that were the case, I might display them all together. I have a plush of one character displayed with an (off topic) doll of the same character, and I think the effect is pretty cute! Sometimes I see other collectors do that too, with multiple different dolls in different styles, and I'm always impressed to see the various imaginings of the same character displayed together.

 

I have a big ol mix of sizes and even within the broader umbrella of loose "scale", there's different proportions that make things a bit awkward posing even, say, the 1/4th crew together. The 1/3rds are even worse.

Tbh I don't collect based on a set storyline or character group, so it doesn't bother me too much. Some of them are loosely grouped in a similar "world", like the Moorlands Manor group, and those're all loosely in a similar size or "style" category. Some of them, like the ancient Egyptian group, are based on an aesthetic theme and scale and style are completely disregarded.

It is kind of nice collecting a wide variety because it makes the likelihood that if something I buy doesn't fit the doll it's intended for it'll fit someone else in the crew much higher lmao.

 

My collection is small, but the sizes have variety.

1 SD (Volks)
2 MSD size (Volks and Luts Kid Delf)
1 slim MSD (Souldoll Soulkid)
1 tall and very slim MSD (Rosette School)
1 YoSD (Volks)

(Technically I also have an SD13 boy from Volks but I never bonded with this doll)

Displaying them together never bothers me since they’re supposed to be dolls, not humans necessarily. That said, I’ve thought about giving partners to some of them, in which case I would want them to be a comparable scale and same brand when possible.

What makes this small collection more difficult is that aside from the two MSDs who are the same size (Volks MSD and a Luts Kid Delf) is that I can’t swap shoes or clothes with most of them.

My first two dolls were Soudoll Katie.A and Luts Kid Delf Bory girl — they were meant to be friends with each other, though Adelheid (Katie.A) is meant to be older and Jane (Kid Delf) looks very much like a child. The scale didn’t really bother me. I think if I had a more fleshed out world or story for my dolls, that this scale would bother me, and if my collection were a lot larger, I think I would group them more by scale.

I have my SD girl and YoSD sitting with each other, but they are both from the Rozen Maiden series are look great with each other (despite the size difference). It’s definitely making me rethink how I would like to build my collection over time and how to display them.

What often stands out to me the most with difference is not so much height or slimness, but head size and style. In this respect, it’s my Volks MSD and Rosette girl that stand out the most — Kira’s head is huge and Gremory’s is tiny.

sorry if my post is kind of all over the place

 

I have two different-sized crews (1/4 Marvel-adjacent human dolls and 1/8 anthropomorphic animals), each with their separate and very different story line, so in my case there is usually no interaction between sizes. It would be very hard for me to try to intertwine them, as I'm very story-driven and it wouldn't make sense at all, but I don't think it would be too bad if I took a photo of all of them together out of context. In fact, I'll try to take one big family picture at the end of the year.

As for display options, I keep them all in the same cabinet but in different shelves and even pose them differently. The 1/4 are in natural positions (sitting, hugging, etc.) while the 1/8 have stands and are simply standing there. Plus, my 1/4 are my current doll fixation, so they get more attention, pictures, written pieces of text, mood-boards, etc. right now, but even if the 1/8 are not my priority right now, I recognize that I find them easier to photograph cause I don't feel the need to pretend they're not dolls.

I technically also have a Yo-SD girl that used to be related to the 1/4 sized family and interacted with them quite frequently and looked great as a little sister, but her character doesn't fit them anymore and I have no plans for a new one, so she's a goner.

 

The secret is I got more to match them together. Lol
I do display all my dolls together but also with other dolls around their size and stylization.
When I play my dolls I usually focus on one at a time anyway I don't have a lot of space to play them cuz I have nosy pets, it's either on the floating shelfs or my little desk
Before I had more dolls they still look cute in my opinion next to each other's, I definitely consider my dolls more as cute objects that make me smile rather than representations from an imaginary world so maybe that makes a difference. It brings out their dollishness to see the different sizes together.

 

I enjoy having dolls in different scale more than having a cohesive crew.
The presence of bigger dolls is something else and I'll always prefer handling hefty, larger dolls. If I just want to dress up a doll and have her stay around, I'll near always go for Nadia.
I have abandoned anything smaller than 1/4 because at that point, things are too small and toy-like. But small dolls are stress-free to pose around and more immediate than something like 70cm which makes me think about safety as much as the posing I want to achieve. So depending on how I feel with my health, what mood I am in, how tired, etc. I've got some choice instead of having to decide that I can't pull it off for the day. Every now and then I even pick up my abandoned 1/12 collection because I want to fiddle with posing a figure with no mental investment at all. If I had a 1/6 doll, especially on the inexpensive side, I'd probably go for that one in those cases.

I haven't done much with group interactions because my photo setup is too cramped for a bunch of large dolls. I'll work on that soon and I'll go over this problem again at that point...
Candell gets away with being a 1/4 in the middle of 1/3 cause she's a fairy. Nadia is more of a 1/2.5 than 1/3 and she does feel out of scale with 1/3. She's slightly too big to pass as just tall and skews everyone else in the picture. When she's next to Mina, Mina looks like a child. Leona has a smaller head and her proportions are more realistic, so when she's next to Nadia she looks the most like she's been sized down a notch. There will be a few more dolls and they'll cover in-between sizes, and I assume the scale oddity will become milder then? But I'm fine with this sort of thing, honestly. I don't compartmentalize my dolls nor I want to force them together. I just get dolls on an individual basis and enjoy them as they are.

 

When I started, over fifteen years ago, I began in the middle with an MSD-size girl. Then I got distracted by anthros, small, mostly-animal featured ones. Somewhere along the line the humans started getting larger and larger and I kind of forgot about the little ones. I swore I'd never get into childlike dolls.

Until I did. I was suddenly accumlating YoSDs and even babies, plus I went back to enjoying anthros.

Since half my interest in the hobby is in photography, I've found that the smaller figures are often easier to handle and to focus on, especially if I want the entire doll in the shot.

I've assembled a lot of clothing, wigs, and eyes over time, so there is usually always something available to fit any size and shape.
And, of course, it's not just a matter of height, now we have fashion doll proportions, microBJDs, and near life-sizes.
I can often find ways to mix and match for a picture since there are many fantasy scenarios; a pixie with a mushroom doll with a caterpillar for instance. Then throw in a little boy or a robot!

Here is a good mix, a picture of my smallest doll (4.5cm) with one of my largest (70cm) I recently took for a "Proportion" theme in a flickr group.
#Proportion by Nadine, on Flickr

 

I'm like @Yami_Hanako, I'm highly story-driven with my BJDs, my crew is currently all occupying the same story-world and I take pics of them together. So they have to look in-scale with each other, and if they don't, I have to be able to rationalize different scales into the world-building and sucessfully suspend my disbelief at seeing the mismatch.

I'm doing both currently. I have mostly 1/3s who all more-or-less scale with each other, and any subtle mismatch I've been able to ignore to the point I no longer "see" the problem. My single tall mini is completely out of scale, but that's fine because it's a fairy-type creature amongst the more human 1/3s, and I've also visually styled them to look different to the others. I don't own 75cm uncles, but having handled some and posed them with my crew, I can also imagine them fitting in.

My one foray into very tiny BJDs (a 18cm doll around 1/8 scale) didn't work out, partly because I couldn't suspend my disbelief over having such a tiny doll amongst my 1/3 dolls. I would have to start a completely new collection centred around that tiny scale, which means I'd have to either create a new story for them, or view them more as figurines and shelf adornments. I wasn't willing to do that, so I sold the doll. I think the same would hold for any size smaller than tall 1/4.

 

I mostly just stuck with 1/3 scale and larger (think 65cm-72cm) and for the most part, my collection has stayed like that. All my dolls are interconnected by a story, and while I have several childlike MSDs, they are childlike precisely because they're the younger children of some older doll characters. They still scale properly with the big ones.

However, as yours truly's back began to hurt from lugging around heavy hunks of resin during outdoor photoshoots, I decided to shell out "portable" fashion mini versions of my three primary characters. They're not as heavily customized as their bigger versions since I wanted 1/3 to still be the main focus of the collection, but I love them nonetheless. Oh, and unless it was for special occasions, you won't find my fashion minis mingling with the bigger dolls.

Spoiler: Same characters, different scales

Secret Meeting by Yela Gatchalian-David, on Flickr


Adhara and the Thirsty Duo by Yela Gatchalian-David, on Flickr

 

Most of my current collection consists of SD-sized and 70+cm dolls with just a few MSD and YoSD. I display them all together, and it feels natural and comfortable to me. They’re all part of a single story, and most of them are stylized, so their proportions work well together — almost like characters from an anime or graphic novel. I tend to choose stylized dolls, and if one is MSD-sized or smaller, it usually represents a child or baby character. So even though the sizes vary, I try to maintain a sense of consistency across the group.

But, when i had small fashion sized MSD crew, i’ve always display them separately: i dislike how different they was proportionally and stylistically from the main crew.

 

The bulk and core of my BJD collection are mature minis and I have a secondary collection of mature tinies. They live in different worlds and and not usually displayed together. They are very different in scale and can't really share props, backgrounds or furniture.

I started with the minis back in the day and most of that collection goes well together and can be displayed as a group. I also have a Dollmore Narsha that, while smaller in size, fits in perfectly scale-wise.

My mature tinies are completely different in scale, so they can't really be posed with the minis, unless I make them into fairies, or something. They have their own little universe instead and don't mix with the bigger dolls.

I have one outlier, a Mara Creatures Ramunder, who is a very large troll doll. Him, I can use either as a big troll with my minis, or as a huge troll with my tinies. It gives an unexpected flexibility to an otherwise highly specialized sculpt.

When it comes to playing and managing resources, I mostly just do whatever I feel like at the moment. Sometimes I work on things for many dolls at once, sometimes I hyper focus on one.
I had collected minis for a long time before I got my first tiny, so I already had a good collection of furniture and props built up for them. They pretty much have all they need and storage space in not infinite either, so that part of my collecting has slowed down, at least for big furniture pieces.
For the tinies, furniture and props takes up so little space in comparison, that I don't need to worry about over collecting for a while yet. That is one of the big joys with the smaller scales, in my opinion.

 

From the very beginning I fell in love with the idea of diversity for these dolls. I wanted to be able to collect whatever my heart desired without worrying about size, scale, type, or resin color. So with that in mind, I created a fantasy world my collection could inhabit, something akin to an “Alice in Wonderland” sort of vibe, where everything and anything could happily coexist with one another in the same universe. And then I went about creating small decorative displays throughout my home for groupings of them to inhabit. This allowed me to gather smaller groups of similar dolls together, while still maintaining the general canon of them belonging to a larger world with the rest of the crew. This way no size is preferred over another, and all belong equally to my personal fantasy. Fortunately I love sewing and designing, so each doll has a wardrobe all their own.