Compromise on Skin colour?

I have a few dolls that I would have preferred in tan, but tan was no longer in production. I don't regret it since there was no other way of getting them. However, if there was a choice, I would definitely choose to save money for tan. I find tan can pull off more exotic face ups and clothing colours.

 

Usually I will do whatever it takes to get a doll in my desired skin color. But a few years ago when I started looking for a tan Soom Sard/Dia, Soom released Sard in Tawny. I did a lot of research about the Tawny color, and many people described it as a light tan type of color, though it sometimes didn't look that way in photos. But I went for it, and the Tawny I got did not look tan to me at all. Looking back on it, my gut was telling me that Tawny would be too light, so I do regret ordering him. I ended up selling him and got a secondhand Bronze Sard.

A few times, I've changed my mind about a doll's color after owning it for some years. One of my dolls started out as white skin, but after a while I decided his character would work better with a lifelike skin color, so I bought the same doll in normal skin. 100% right decision, he's perfect now! And I have another doll in normal skin that I've realized would be better in tan. I've gone back and forth on it, because getting him in tan is difficult. But now that I've imagined him in tan, I don't think I can be happy with his NS version.

I've been in this hobby for a long time, and one thing I've learned is that when I compromise on dolls, it doesn't usually work out for me. It's either all or nothing- get the doll how I want it, or don't get the doll at all. So it's my opinion that if you have the means to get the doll in your preferred color, you should do it! Even if it costs more, even if it's less convenient, even if it takes longer to find. When they're not quite what I want, I can't help but think about that when I look at them. I want to look at my dolls and be 100% happy with them!

 

I had the limited doll FOMO and a hole burning in my pocket when I ordered my Iplehouse Louis, so I ordered him in real skin. Now, real skin is beautiful, but I now dislike the body he's on and can never swap it out for one I like better because nothing matches it. I also ignored the part where his character before was pure white! Like white hair pale skin! And I STILL felt the need to buy him in tan. Well, he and his character are tan now, but I won't ever understand what I was thinking back then.

...I will buy a WS head for his "younger" self if I ever see one pop up.

 

Since I always want dolls for specific OCs, there is really no wiggle room.
I might at most compromise on the specific shade, but even there I have my favorites (I hate orange brown/tan for example), and I'd rather not make the compromise.

Stuff like "oh get the doll in WS instead of NS" I'd also never do. I want specific colors for specific dolls, and not just happen to have the doll at home.

 

Personally, I get sympathetic dysphoria if my doll heads have to share bodies, so everyone has their own or is waiting for their own. Because of that, I get whatever color I want. If I'm having trouble affording a full doll in tan, I might just get the head and buy a body later. It's more expensive, but it gets me exactly what I want and significantly decreases the number of dolls I'm disappointed with when they arrive.

 

I use most of my dolls as shells for OCs so I want them to be accurate to the character. Especially if they're a tan or darker skinned character then I'm going to be really picky about their color. I'm personally ok with shelling out more money for the skin color if it means it's more accurate to the character (and as long as I have the funds of course). That also means for certain characters I have to come to terms it might take a long time before I can shell them in a way I'd personally be happy with.

 

Not sure if it counts? but I have picked color for the sake of hybriding. I find it a pain to hunt down color matches so I will only hybrid if an easy way out presents itself But in this case, it only works for me if I didn't have any color preference to begin with.
If I have a particular color in mind for the doll and that's not available, I'll pass on it. If the color was a sold out option, I would be kicking myself if the color I wanted appeared secondhand or re-released later. If the color was never available, well then I think it's just not meant to be. I have a hard enough time resisting dolls I like as it is, so I'll take any decent excuse not to buy
If it's a color I want and it costs extra, like in your case, I could easily talk myself into spending extra for what I really want. Especially if it's not limited, that's just an exercise in patience, to save up for it If it is limited, and I couldn't justify spending it right now, then that's another not-meant-to-be or maybe-see-you-later moment. It's not worth it to me to buy things that I know I won't be fully satisfied with. I could use that money to spoil the dolls I have.

 

I will buy a doll in NS or WS if a shade of peach or tan or brown or other color isn't available, because i dye dolls. So, yep, even if it means some more work for me. And takes me a little while to get around to.

 

I did this with Carina, my Light Limner Selina, given the lack of a tan option, and the scarcity of any doll from that long-abandoned company. Same goes for Amadiz Yolande (Astraea), and for similar reasons, considering she should probably have a sickly pallor as opposed to the Peach Cream I was able to acquire... but I adore them both all the same.

 

When Souldoll Karin first came out, I fell in love with the tan version. Her face was absolutely perfect for an OC of mine, but at the time I was very embarrassed for funds and she was discontinued before I ever had a chance to get her. Since the character was from a southern clime, I thought the tan would really suit. But I did do some commission work for a Souldoll Shiva G, with the idea that I would try to get a Karin head when Souldoll had one of their head sales. Then they stopped doing those, but a Karin came up on the MP at a very affordable price and I snapped her up. Both body and head are normal skin, and I sometimes yearn for that tan Karin, but I'm happy to have her at all.

 

To save money, yes. I bought my Sartoria J Elf Agnes and Elf Joshua MSD dolls in the ivory color because it was the only color that didn't have an extra price tag. I own quite a lot of white skin dolls so I am okay with that color, but I think I had really wanted to go for a more normal skin color. Regardless, I have them and I am happy with them.

As for sharing a body, I do have 2 heads that will share a body but they're all from the same company and I think all their resin colors match. The only head waiting on a body is my OLD Soom Heliot head. Even after a completely new face up, his resin is so yellow compared to my oldest Soom doll, that I will have to either find him an old body second hand (and I am not a fan of the old Soom bodies, at least when they're naked) or see if I can pay a faceup artist to paint him to match a newer body (which I'm not sure who does that these days as it is very labor intensive I am sure).

 

Depends on how much we're talking. Like I have two dolls in normal skin, one's character is supposed to be a light tan/olive color that darkens with sun exposure, the other a medium olive skin, but "tan skin" is wayyyyy too dark for either of them. I wish I could have them in something in between, but I can't, and I refuse to dye them, so I have compromised there.

On others, no. Like I need an Iplehouse girl in brown skin to shell one of my characters, and it's so expensive, but lighter just isn't going to work for her at all. I even bought an Impldoll girl in their brown resin and she was way too light, so I know for a fact I can't compromise on this girl again, or I'll end up selling her immediately.

 

Another character-specific collector here—so resin color is important to me.

That being said—that doesn't mean I've always ordered bjds in specific colors. For Kismet, my minifee Mika/Mir, Fairyland's tan wasn't dark enough for what I wanted for her character. So, how'd I go about fixing that then? I ordered her in beauty white and then dipped her in a dye bath. I got a deeper, richer brown/tan much closer to the desired shade than Fairyland's tan would've been, and I couldn't have been happier with the result.

Most other cases, I coughed up the extra for the darker tone, or ordered a custom shade. Whichever way I have to go about it, I'm not going to let anything get in the way of me getting the resin color result I want

 

I've had to compromise several times, mostly with my minor characters. The most notable was when Impldoll messed up the color match for Kokiden's body so badly (what was supposed to be SartoriaJ Amber Beige got turned into cream white). Even though I tried getting her head airbrushed to match, it still wasn't working. I ended up using another head that was closer in color to cream white, and put the original tanned sculpt in storage. I still hope to be able to find a better-matching body for the tanned head in terms of color, in the far future.

The one character I refused to compromise on skin tone, however, was Adhara's female variant. I emphasize female, because her male form shares a body with a lighter-skinned doll -- had to compromise on that one, because big tanned bois cost one pretty penny and a lot of space. I coughed up enough dough to shell her out in Iple Peach Gold from head to toe in the body type I wanted, and I've had zero regrets with that decision.

 

No, I just get the color I want and hope that I buy a doll along the way that will match. My problem is deciding on resin color. These days I want to get white, normal, and brown colors because it's not in my collection yet or i have not many in these colors. Problem is I get tempted by the fantasty colors or the sculpt isn't to my liking enough to buy it.

I do regret the resin color and sculpt combination I choose sometimes. Sometimes my choices for the doll don't turn out the way I hoped.

For peakswoods i got a doll in gray and gumiho neo sculpt, but kind of wish I chose a different color for him maybe emerald green. Then i got one with the resin color i liked, but I wish I got white or normal to make the face up stand out more.

Lots of the companies I buy from you can't buy a doll without a body, so most of my dolls have a body except the floating heads.


I just know I might really dislike the white skin dolls because they do not look realistic enough. I don't like how paper white they look. Sometimes for a character I imagine I go with white skin or I think the face up will look good with it. In the beginning of collecting I wanted white skin dolls because I wanted it to look like a bisque doll. My first doll was Rosen Lied. I planned to get her in white, but fell for their tan colored dolls.

 

Which companies allow custom shades?

 

Companies I know with certainty do custom resin colors:
-Impldoll
-Resinsoul

Companies I have heard in the past did custom resin colors, but can't say with certainty whether or not they do so at present:
-Granado
-DF-H/DF-A (can't recall which one)
-Angell Studio

There's a more comprehensive list of companies here: https://denofangels.com/threads/companies-that-colour-match.710646/.

 

I always buy a full doll, but recently I realized that it is possible to have one body and several heads. It is very convenient and saves space in the closet) and money. If the color of the head and body does not differ significantly, then this is good. But if the head is light, and the body is acceptable, then I cover the whole body with clothes, because lately I like the Victorian style, then all the dresses are very long and the difference in the color of the head and body with the hands is not noticeable

 

I have one doll that didn't come in anything darker than Normal and I would have like him in something resembling Olive/Tawny, but alas. So he was a compromise, yeah. It actually worked out because he needed some intense rhinoplasty, so there wasn't too much color difference as a result.

But I bought one doll in White and within a year he started yellowing, and not just on the surface. Sanding couldn't take this away. After three years he was the color of margarine, so the only options are dye or spray paint. Dye won't make him white again, and spray is too white.