Do you have a favorite BJD size?

You're welcome, and I'm happy to do it. I have a LOT of dolls, so if someone else gets some useful info from my pictures, then I feel like I've made a little contribution to the community.
I love them all, but some folks are a bit more, erm, discerning in their collecting.

 

1/4, 1/6 and tinies are the best for me - specially 1/4, since you can get many perks of the 1/3 without them being that expensive or big. I do have a 60cm girl, but for me? 45cm is definitely the best size.

 

I recently bought my first 1/4 MSD, and I am in love with the size! I own almost every size now. I have a couple of 1/3 SD girls and SD17 boys, and they can be overwhelming and heavy at times. I often wish they were the size of my 1/4 girl, but there are so many 1/3 sculpts that are so interesting to me! I also own a 1/6 YoSD and a 1/12 tiny!

 

I don't own any other size BJD yet, but I love my 1/3 SD dolls! Something about the size of the clothing and accessories is fun for me!

I have 1/6 fashion dolls, and I love them too but in terms of chunkyness and detail in BJDS, I've always preferred the large sizes. I could see myself adding some 1/4 MSD, but I'm not sure if I'd ever go bigger than 60 cm at this time though! I'm intimidated haha

 

I always liked 1/6 and smaller. When i first started the bjd hobby i was absolutely shocked that dolls that were 1/4 even existed, but they still look so nice and i’m still thinking about at least getting one 1/4 for myself. Since i collected art dolls and figures before i started the bjd hobby, it was extremely convenient for me to get 1/6 bjds due to the size, cost, and designs being similar or the same.

 

I’ve always been a 68-70cm person, although I’ve dabbled in other sizes. They feel weighty enough to feel substantial without breaking your arms.

That said, I’ve fallen for several 75cm boys as of late, which is bad because I don’t have room as it is.

 

I have dolls from 11 cm to 75 cm. Previously I thought that I like BIG dolls )) I was dreaming about Mecha angel. But after years in hobby, I realised that my favourite size is around 50 cm. They are perfect for me.
And I’d like to change bodies of bigger dolls for smaller ones and make the same characters

 

My dolls range from 48cm to 79cm, and I find there’s really 2 ideal sizes in my collection. There’s ideal shortie size, which is 52-56cm, in which Vidania and Cole exist. They fit SD13 clothes reasonably well. They’re light enough to transport in pairs. They’re cute and not cumbersome.

my other ideal size is my Tall Gal Size, which is 65-68cm. These dolls have a lot of presence. They fit 65cm girl clothes, and Soom old supergem, and Iplehouse SID girl. This is the size range for the two taller bodies Twigling makes (short torso/long thigh, and long torso/long thigh) and they’re one of my favourite sizes of doll. Also if they dress more butch, they fit sd13 boy clothes (a little tight) and SD17 boy clothes (a little loose). Most of my dolls fit into this size, honestly.

 

1/4 is definitely my favorite, they are big enough that I don't feel like their too fragile but still small enough to carry with me. I think the largest size I would get is 60 cm. I'm kinda small so I don't think it would be very comfortable to carry or dress a 70 cm doll, makes me tired just thinking about it.

 

My dolls are all Soom Super Gem (59-65 cm). I love them, but I don't really *do* anything with them. Lately, I've realized that might be because they're just too big for me to handle comfortably. Kind of the reason I lost interest in the hobby for a while... :/

I've been thinking about getting a tiny doll for photoshoots and all that for some time now... it just seems like a fun part of the hobby that I've been missing out on. Hopefully, I'm less 'scared' to handle those.

So, I guess, I prefer bigger dolls for collection purposes, and smaller ones to actually play with.

 

I wonder at what scale the sheer physics of a doll's body are too much for simple string tension to hold up against on its own. You already need locks and other gimmicks at 50-60cm range to hold certain poses... What's the limit? 70cm? 80cm? Am I completely wrong and they make 100cm+ dolls who stand and pose perfectly?
That's one major issue that made me reconsider dolls over a certain height - the oher being that I like the more traditional SD proportions with 22-23cm heads. They just look nicer with clothes IMO, especially clothes that aren't tight fitting. I think I might not enjoy a doll that's 20cm taller than the one I own, but with a head 3cm smaller...

 

So as an owner of a 112 cm Dollmore Trinity (and a 180 cm off-topic BJD), in addition to just about everything in between, I would say that once a doll gets to around 63-65 cm, unless the company makes the resin pretty thin, you need to up your engineering game and elastic diameter.
For example, Dikadoll senior girls (around 62.5 cm) are made with thick resin. They are super heavy. You need at least 4 mm diameter elastic. For my dolls that hover closer to 70 cm, I try to upgrade all of them to 5 mm diameter elastic.
My Trinity has 6 mm diameter elastic and plant wire, and it's barely enough to keep her standing - and I would not trust her to stand unsupervised.
My 180 cm doll is - well, she's a mess. She flops all over the place. We have 7-8 mm diameter elastic, and it's still not enough. She needs a cap in her torso to keep her chest from constantly disconnecting. Honestly, I plan to restring her and double up the elastic, too - one string for each leg.
I love big dolls, because they have such a presence to them. You see one, and you can't help but notice, "Damn. That's a big doll." But I have no illusions about their abilities to stand or hold complex poses. The bigger the doll is, the harder it is to pose and keep stable. Elastic can only do so much, you know?

 

Thanks again @MaleficentMrsofEvil, you're always helpful. So it seems like the diminishing returns, so to speak, really happen around SD16 size. I'm even more impressed that resin can stand tension from 8mm elastics without cracking. I imagine there are engineering quirks in the Trinity and the bigger doll, like silicone buffers built into the joints for friction and stress relief?

 

You're so welcome.
Resin can take quite a bit of stress before things start to crack, but with more stress, you need more resin. Trinity hand and feet hooks are HUGE, and they don't use s-hooks. They cast the hook in resin as part of the hand/foot. The dolls are heavy. The resin is probably a good 2 inches thick all the way around in the legs.

Very few companies besides Volks put silicone kips/flexible washers in between their joints. I think this is a huge missed opportunity, and kips are dirt cheap at the hardware store. One of the first things I do with a new doll is take it apart and put kips in between all of the joints. It helps a ton with posing and protecting the resin from scratches.

It's definitely a trade-off, but I like size best, so that's what I choose when I'm shopping.

 

Holy... You could use that as a blunt weapon.

Maskcat does that! I was looking at my doll's stringing some time ago and I saw these silicone rings into the larger joints like the hip. They're not washers, they look "built in". Was this actually pioneered by Dollshe? I've been reading around and they've first started doing it in 2012.

 

I prefer size 52-65cm but I also have one 35cm size.

 

SD size is by far my favorite. 55-70cm is my preferred range though I have a few who are both taller and shorter. I have a few tinies and a small crowd of MSDs as well that I enjoy...but I always come back to the bigger dolls. I just love the weight of them and how they are just the right size to look me in the eye when I'm sitting on the floor with them. I like how sturdy they feel as well. With smaller dolls I often worry over how delicate they feel.

Now, something I've learned in my 15ish years in the hobby, is that I do in fact have a limit. As much as I adore big dolls, if they are tall as well as thick..beefy...whatever you want to call it..it's just too much for me to feel comfortable handling long-term. Example - I had a Soom Idealian boy who I got because I adored his face (Gluino ♥)...but omg he was so hard for me to handle and I found I just didn't enjoy playing with him. I ended up trading him to a good friend for a tall skinny boy instead. It made me rethink my desire to one day get a Dollmore Trinity girl....but I still kind of want one.

 

I absolutely love mature tinies. Something about them reminds me of fairytale illustrations when I was a kid – they’re just these little perfect people in miniature. I think they might be getting more popular, and I’m so glad. I do love my 1/3 girl, too, but I probably won’t get any more in that size- even though she’s easier to sew for in many ways!

 

I like dolls that are 60-70 cm tall, with an appearance age between 18 and 28.

 

To me are the 62cm Boy dolls, all my boys are and gonna be the same height because of the dream body I want them to own.

I prefer my boys to be similar in many ways, that’s why I decided to go for one size (I’m very picky about it) also they share same clothing.