Companies listed in the BJD Orbyrarium

What a shame so many companies are no longer around! I remember a few of these companies like Gomi Doll and Kawainino, but since I never purchased from them I couldn't give you a lot of info about them. BUT, I do have an Elysium head! Jamie to be exact which I don't believe was one of their popular sculpts as I've yet to come across another owner of him. I believe their most popular sculpts were named Hugo and Lime. Elysium only sold heads, and I believe there were all 1/3 size and generally styled as male. The heads were average in price, something in the $100 range, and as far as I can remember the company was easy enough to deal with and I received my head fairly quickly, I think around 4-6 weeks.

 

Not quite as old as the Orbyrarium here, but can answer a couple of these...Kawainino, I believe, is the same as Ninodoll, which still exists (I have owned a head from them in the past) and can be bought in preorders, producing mostly SD sized heads and I think a couple mini ones too. RML is Real Missing Link, who is still around as a company and last year or the year before introduced this thing where you can 3D-design one of their heads to your own specifications and have them make it for you. Rasendo or Rasendou was a Japanese company in the early days of the hobby, I *think* they sold kit style dolls, but not positive, but quite 'vintage' at any rate! Pippitan i think the artist was also called Pippilongc and it was a smiling tiny that was, like, Pippi Longstocking themed?

Great idea for a thread, by the way! I'm personally kind of fascinated by the history and the "meta" of the hobby. Hope we get some interesting trivia in here from oldbies.

 

Hmmmm, let me see what I can dredge up . . .

LovelyHouse (the sculptor's name was Mink) morphed into DollTi around the end of 2005 -- the DoA Wiki entry on DollTi includes as much information as I've been able to gather about the relationship between the two companies: DollTi - DoA BJD Wiki | Den of Angels

Kawanino is definitely the current (and still active, hooray!) Ninodoll: Ninodoll

Dive (the sculptor's name was Aeon) was another head-only maker; Dive's much sought-after, elusive signature sculpt was Seimei. He's a grail doll for quite a few of us old-timers.

I may be all wrong on this one, but didn't Rhea become Garden of Dolls? Or am I remembering an early Garden of Dolls sculpt named Rhea? Argh.

Gomidoll was active until at least 2010 or so -- I think that was (is?) yet another head-only sculptor. The head I remember best is Igon, but I never owned one; I'm sure there are Gomidoll fans around here who know a lot more than I do!

There's quite a bit of information about Ricky's work in the DoA Wiki: Rickydoll - DoA BJD Wiki | Den of Angels The rickydoll.com website is defunct now, though, so maybe 2012 was the last activity? If Ricky has changed business names or moved the website, I would love to know about it -- I always enjoyed looking at her guys.

 

Many of these aren't really 'companies' per say, but the personal projects of Korean hobbyists/artists, maybe releasing only one or two heads each...

Gyuxa - Her website is here Kyuja¡¯s Home~¢Ü . She hasn't released anything independently for ages now it seems, but she has worked for Soom alot.

Gomidoll: Website gone, but only fairly recently. She released a head called I-BI in 2013? Other head SD she made was Igon,Idue, and she produced two heads for Dollkot as well, (Ryu and Hara?) although they are fairly obscure now as well..

Rickydoll: Gone now as well, but as Cynthia said she was around until 2012-2013. She was very unreliable near the end and taking months to fulfill orders if she did at all.

Phantom: She was accused of recasting the old angel region / happydoll SD boy body. Then she went on to found glorydoll which is also gone now.

Elysium doll : Her website also seems to be gone sadly but only fairly recently as i'm sure I last accessed the page last year? She released an SD size girl head in like 2012/13

Ssin: they are still around ssindoll-Ball jointed doll. the from page of their website proudly sates 'we've been manufacturing handmade ball jointed dolls for over 10 years'

 

Oh, how cool -- I didn't know Phantom became Glorydoll! *tucking away factoid for future reference*

 

Great idea for a thread! I can't contribute a lot, but I think Rasendou was sort of a dealer for small makers of kit dolls. In fact, the very first BJD I fell in love with (still my long-sought grail doll) was sold through them. They must have gone away not long after the Orbyrarium was published.

Didn't Fancyboots/Leibchen develop a severe resin allergy and have to stop dollmaking? Or am I misremembering?

 

Kawainino is Ninodoll, in the early days I bought Ando and had a mini anna. So beautiful!