Deciding color schemes for dolls

I often dress my dolls in the colors I feel are most flattering on them (like real people). There are many different resin colors and some look much better in certain colors than others. For example, I have one girl who is older and moderately yellowed who looks absolutely terrible in any shade of pink. She wears a lot of darker colors and looks great in orange, navy blue, and hunter green.

 

I have a huge weakness for fantasy coloured dolls, particularly on the blue/purple/pink spectrum. I'm currently working on a girl whose base colour is a blue purple, with pink accents and a blue shaded face-up, however I don't tend to plan to far in advance what kind of colours combinations dolls are going to have. I just sort of go with whatever feels and looks right for them. It has lead to some problems when I've ordered clothes for a particular doll and they arrive only for me to discover that those clothes are so not their colour or their style.
I guess my thing is probably that there's always some aspect of bright, vivid or bold colour in there somewhere. Whether it's their wig, their clothes or their skin tone, everyone has some colour incorporated in their look. That and contrast. I love contrast. A couple of my favourites include my teal girl who wears a white dress and has dark brown/black hair and my darker purple girl who has a light blonde wig and bright green eyes. (And then you have the all blue girl who is my avatar, but I guess she's the exception that proves the rule )

 

Sometimes I do choose a color scheme, other times I don't. Justin has a lot of red and black, and that's intentional. Hailey ended up with SO much brown, peach, pink, cream and salmon colored stuff, and that wasn't planned, just seemed that everything in her style ended up being those colors!

 

I plan my dolls complexion, eye color and hair color...and I usually stick with it. Then they get dressed in colors that work for each doll.

 

I usally plan my dolls color scheme after developing their character and getting a feel for them once i so their face up. I usally go buy style first then think about what colors would go nice with theme usally something that complements the way ive done their face up

 

Pete is the only doll who has a truly limited palette-- pretty much everything that I buy him is pink or white (plus his white wig and... well, red eyes, and a predominately pink faceup/blushing on white resin). His clothing fits into that palette with very few exceptions (one pair of blue shorts, but they have some pink and white stripe, a hat that has a black veil and red decoration, but the base hat itself is white and another hat that has blue and yellow stripes as well as a pink one, a pair of wine red stockings...), his personal belongings/accessories are all white or pink, like belts, a little 'netbook' mini laptop that I need to replace with one big enough for him, even the little storage boxes I keep his stuff in are pink.

I definitely planned him that way from the start, and whenever I look for things for him, his colors are in the forefront of my mind. There aren't many occasions I would break from that for-- like, a Hallowe'en costume/cosplay, sure, but otherwise I really like him to stick to his things, and I've passed on a lot of things because they just weren't the *right* pink for what I needed.


With Vince, he can definitely wear any color, and I have a lot of fun with that (and he does have a pink shirt that's his even though it probably would fit Pete all right), but I do think of purple and green as HIS colors-- his storage boxes are purple, for instance, as is his velveteen sombrero, and if I have color options, and purple or green is among them, it's often what I'd go to. Both look good with his usual wigs, and seem to suit him. Still, he often wears orange or red and blue, he doesn't necessarily wear his colors all the time because he changes up his style the most. With Vince, a lot of it is influenced by 'getting to know' him-- I knew from the start that I wanted to be able to dress my first doll in a variety of styles and colors, and he just sort of evolved and seeing how he looked in different things led me to what his 'favorites' are.


Marigold is going to be more flexible than Pete, but less so than Vince-- she's an autumnal forest spirit, so her colors are very influenced by fall leaves and overcast skies. A lot of warm natural colors, a little bit of warmer greens and natural purples, like the occasional changing leaf, but much more in the gold/orange/red range. The 'rules' are a lot looser, and it's not like she can't incorporate other colors, only that those colors have to work with her overall palette. But she can also own accessories and props that don't match her personal color scheme, provided they fit her personality and look like a close enough scale match.

 

Many of them gravitate toward wearing particular colours, but it's not something I plan. Once it's happened it does steer my clothing choices for them (currently I'm making ten yoked dresses for my ten "Victorian" SD girls, each in their signature colour of tiny-check gingham... if I ever get them finished!), bu ntone of them wear those colours exclusively.

I don't like white resin - it looks unfinished to me.

Most "normal" resin skintones are a bit too pale and pink for my liking - I prefer most of them after they have yellowed a bit.

Many of the "tan" resin colours look closer to what I would regard as "normal".

I like some of the darker brown resin colours a lot.

Fantasy skincolours like greys, blues, and greens don't really appeal to me, although I do have one in royal blue. SHe's a frmerly white Banji that I just couldn't bond with so I dyed her blue and got her a red wig to make her into a Nac Mac Feegle.

I have a Kaye Wiggs Sage in tan resin that I then had painted with wood-graining - she's a sort of dryad/wood-sprite character.

Teddy

 

The only color themes I have planned out for my girl is in her faceup, which she is currently away to get but she will have warmer tones in that. Everything else I want to have fun with. I already have quite a few different sets of eyes, because I want to change them out and have fun with it. Some are normal colors, and some are wild. I lean mostly to green, but only because thats my favorite color. Outside of that I have bought her a few wigs, but all are different colors, reds, blondes, browns, blacks, but no fun colored ones yet. For her clothes everything I've gotten her is pretty normal clothing, like leggings and shirts, and dresses. But there hasn't really been a color theme to that. I think sometimes it fun to not think too much about matching things and to just enjoy doing whatever you want lol.

 

Initially I had a color scheme in mind. But I found I couldn't limit myself. Not only is it fun to experiment with other colors, but it's tough to get your hands on fabrics in only one or two colors anyway.

 

I don't choose a color scheme ahead of time, but some of my dolls gravitate toward particular colors. When Duke wears blue, it makes his eyes look blue. Everyone thinks he has blue eyes, but he doesn't! I like to dress Hiro in blue or green. Puck tends to wear a lot of white. Gavreau always wears black. I like Maura in vivid colors like orange, red or green. Marjorie looks good in blue or purple. My Volks girls all like pink, they are very girly. I don't limit my dolls to those colors, though.

When it comes to resin colors, I greatly prefer normal or normal yellow. I have three tan dolls and six white dolls. I specifically chose the tan ones in that color, and would not have preferred them in normal. I like the white ones as they are, but I didn't have a choice in color when I was buying any of them! They were all secondhand. It was white or nothing. LOL!

Linda S.
galatia9

 

I like to plan out the general style each doll is going to have, and that usually includes colors.

 

I never planned for my girls to have a color scheme but when I planned for my second bjd, she ended up getting one. I purchased purple eyes for her at first and some how everything else became purple such as her make up, highlights in her wig, and certain pieces of clothing. When dressing her I gravitate to darker clothing and my other girl sticks with the lighter items.

 

When I first got into the hobby, I decided my dolls would only wear specific colors that were unique to their character, but that went out the door cause I would rather have them wearing many different outfits than just a few. So now they each have olors try can't wear, like Mang can't wear pink, or Piper can't wear orange or red. And Lance can't wear anything dark. Etc.

 

I don't think about it too deeply, but I do plan outfits for dolls before buying them. I prefer muted colors or a monochrome scheme. I guess I do try to balance our colors? I know I don't want anything garish.

 

A lot of my dolls just.... declare their fashion style to me. I know that might sound weird but there's a few who just look "wrong" if you put them in something they don't personally "like" lol.
I have one who if you put her in a dress she looks SO MAD.

Usually the colour schemes I pick go with their skin and hair tones. My redheads were autumnal colours mostly, my girl with blue hair wears bright crazy clashing colours because that's just HER.

My newest boy who's still being made is presenting a bit of a problem for me though. He's a custom colour and i'm not 100% how grey and how blue and how green the tone will end up when cast in resin. His colour scheme will really be determined by how vivid his skin tone ends up. If he's quite greyish that'll be one lot of colours, if he's more bright aqua that'll involve other colours.
And i'm totally stumped for what colour his surcote should be.
*headdesk*
I'm leaning toward a dark plum.

My current msd boy is in browns and greens. He's a ranger, so those sorts of tones seemed appropriate. He has a little yellow in his wig and faceup too but most of his outfit is brown and dull drab olive hah.

 

I didn't have any plan for my dolls at first so all of them ended up with blue eyes....I realized I was only putting my favorite color on them, and not all of them looked the way I wanted.
Now I have decided different eyes and wigs for each doll. It just really brings out their personalities I wanted to see in them

 

It seems that color schemes just kind of happen, though I really like to pull out their eye colors in their clothes in retrospect.

Agatha: Green eyes. Has green, brown, and gold as frequent colors.
Nanoha: blue eyes. Has lavender, blue, and white as frequent colors.
Homura: purple eyes. Her colors are black, dark grey, and amethyst purple. Oh, and purple-greys, when those crop up.
Miku: turquoise eyes. Her colors are of course silver, black, turquoise, and hot pank. Not pink. PANK.
Abby: purple eyes, her colors are sky blue, pink, lavender, white, and frills. Yes, to her frills are a color.
Fate: red eyes; red, black, gold, and navy are her colors. Pops of white as an accent are acceptable for contrast/drama.

I seriously didn't realize the eye color/clothes color scheme correlation until JUST now though. LOL!

 

My first and only doll (so far!) is the ghost of a sailor, so I'm having her wear mostly white with a little bit of navy blue. Her eyes are red though! It's gonna look so cool once I give her a faceup, I'm using blues and greys for shading and such