Do you prefer shelling characters or...

Kaeya! So Lovely! My fav from Genshin!

 

I definitely prefer to buy a sculpt I love and then create a character from scratch after the fact. In the past I tried making OCs to shell into dolls but I didn't feel very inspired and never ended up buying dolls to represent them. I like the process of figuring out a character as I go and discovering sculpts I'd like to have in my collection!

 

I've done both, kinda.

• Specially at the beginning, I mostly searched for sculpts to shell certain characters I already had clearly pictured in mind and chose the one sculpt that suited the character best.
  
• A few years into the hobby, I started looking at pretty sculpts and listing them and imagining the characters I could make out of them if I ended up buying them. If the character I could imagine was enticing enough, I would talk myself into buying.

There's no wrong or right answer to go about this. Some people don't even care about making characters for their dolls and that's okay too.

 

This is exactly what I do!

The second doll I got, Minifee Niella, was bought for shelling one of my existing OCs. But even though he WOULD be perfect for that character, I just couldn't get into it. Instead, he ended up just naturally becoming a new OC in my head.

I haven't gotten a doll with the intention of shelling a character since then—I like just letting them turn into new OCs and tell me who they are over time! It kinda feels like they're fully themselves that way, whereas if I try to use them to shell an existing character, I just sorta feel like they're cosplaying that character.

 

For human dolls, yeah it's because I'm shelling them as a character. For fantasy/anthro/animal dolls, I'll get them because I just like the sculpt, they're frequently LE, and I know I'll be able to come up with something for them.

 

I've done both.

For my first doll, I have no character in mind in the slightest when I got her. Over the years, her character has developed into something that is uniquely her.

For my second doll (currently waiting for her to arrive)
She will be based on a character I first started writing when I was maybe 13.

Her character does have relations with the character my first one has, and they would be of similar size. So like they exist in the same fictional continuity.

 

I mostly go for the sculpts I like the name character etc come later and sometimes because I am indecisive the doll gets through different "roles" until it stuck with a permanent name and character lol

 

In the past I tried to shell preexisting OCs and it never worked out. So now I look at a doll's promo/owner pics and wait for it to inspire a character in my head. It's not enough for a doll to have a pretty face -- because let's be real, they're ALL pretty -- that face needs to have a spark of character "life" and become personally significant to me in that way. So the doll IS the character: the sculpt directly inspires the character in my imagination, and if I'm desperate to have them in my world, I'll buy the resin.

I see character development as a "collaboration" between me and the doll: I have some broadbrush personality/backstory ideas ahead of time, and figure out the details with dressup and playing with them. I'm always surprised how the doll dictates their own personality in small ways, based on so many things: posing, types of eyes/hair/clothes/colours, how their faces look in different lighting and viewing angles. It's a lot of fun to discover a character's personality through playing. So far it's worked out and all my dolls have settled into their characters -- as I hoped they would, after all, the sculpt inspired the character.

I also write character sheets for each doll, but they're not the same as the char sheets I make for non-doll OCs (like for fiction writing). Photography is the main way I tell stories about my crew, so aside from the usual personality traits, background info etc, my BJD char sheets are pretty heavy on appearance: clothing style, colour schemes, and body language. Colour schemes and fabric types (including any off-limit things) are important when I buy clothes or sew for them. As for body language... the body absolutely influences personality, and every doll has different joint engineering and posing ability. So part of my char development is posing my dolls and developing their personalities from there. I want to be true to the characters when I take their pics, so their char sheets include detailed descriptions on their posture and body language, including how not to pose them. I actually find this part the most fun!

 

I'm generally the kind who buys a sculpt I like and figures out the character afterward. Like others have experienced here, I have tried to shell preexisting characters, but it almost never ends up working out and makes it difficult for me to bond with my dolls. Meanwhile, if I buy for the sculpt, the character often follows and develops in a way that I feel is more fitting.

Basically, the doll tells me who they are, not the other way around!

 

I buy the dolls first because I consider them my actors in a 1/6 - 1/3 scale repertory theater. As my stories develop, I develop the character details ( backstory,etc.) then hold auditions.

Why yes, I have a degree in theatre. Why do you ask?

 

With one exception, I've discovered it's pointless for me trying to shell characters, because the dolls don't want to be who I want them to!
I buy a girl with the intention of making her an elegant young lady and her response to me trying to put a long blonde wig on her was a headbutt (solid torso SD10s are heavy!). Nope, it was straight back to the placeholder black bob wig.
Like @aihre said, I enjoy handling them to figure out their personalities and get to know them. I've recently gotten a Volks Hijikata, and despite his "demon vice commander" historical inspiration, he's actually proving quite gentlemanly to handle, different from my other SD17s.
All in all, I have an idea when I buy a doll, but I have to be prepared for it to completely go another way!

 

I prefer shelling characters! Quite honestly, I have little creativity in regards to making new characters on the spot (trust me - I've tried to join RP communities and failed horribly!). Also, I just love having little real versions of my favorite characters - being able to take them from fiction and into reality is fun!

 

I have on occasion looked for a specific type of look for a doll to go with an outfit that I want to make. Does that always work out? No, of course not. Example for that, I've been trying to fit a doll into the Steampunk style for ages. And I've been in this hobby for a long time! It NEVER worked. And finally, last year, I got my SOOM Io Oliver and it suddenly just clicked without me trying to force it. These dolls always take on a life of their own.

My normal way of adopting dolls is simply falling in love with them and then letting them show me who they are.

 

Usually I work backwards. When I fall in love with a sculpt I like to let it speak to me first. Usually that means I have to figure out the faceup and style then naming and story follows after. I like to make my ladies a combination of pre existing characters I enjoy sometimes as inspiration or copy some old characters of mine i used to RP with as a kid! It makes it extra nostalgic

 

To be honest it's a bit split for me. Sometimes I get a doll to shell an OC (my three non-Lyney vinyls and Occelier in this case), sometimes I create an OC via the doll. I've never truly made a fanart doll that I loved, but I have toyed with them before, and I have considered making a Genshin fanart doll from a DD simply because I saw other people do it.

 

When I initially got into the hobby my first two dolls were purchased because I liked the sculpts and developed the characters from there, but bjds are art (and their price reflects that) and I couldn't bring myself to not shell my OCs.

Since then, if I fall in love with a sculpt I'll see if it fits any of my characters and if I really want or need to shell those characters. If yes, I'll make that purchase - especially if the sculpt is different enough from my other dolls. Because if that's the case, I can also give them a "job" posing for me while I draw/animate.

Most of my dolls are my own characters that I happened to find the perfect sculpt for, though I do have three Final Fantasy characters shelled - Terra Branford (FFVI), Setzer Gabbiani (FFVI), and Yuffie Kisaragi (FFVII) - and I wouldn't mind adding more to that group, especially now that Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is so good.

 

I wanted to put a favourite manga I was inspired by into a BJD photo story. I realized I had what it would take for the main cast, and I assigned those dolls the roles by how they looked. I varied the story, because I don't want to copy the manga exactly, I want my own story elements in there. I needed new characters and got them for the role. Like the main girl needing a brother. I finished the story that followed the manga in season one.

Now the story is completely my own. I am working on season two, and it's all about filling characters and roles. I have the character in mind, and I look for a doll to fit those roles in the photo story. But, sometimes I just see a doll that I have to have. Then I will just write him onto the story! I only need to buy one more character for season two. He is already picked out.

Season three, I will need a lot more characters! It has become about filling the roles at this point and planning ahead for the dolls that I would need. I get an idea in mind, 'male, innocent looking eyes with devilish smile that betrays the eyes' or 'male base, soft, hard to tell gender, sultry pout' or 'female base, flat chest, pretty, androgynous, can pass as a boy' Then I look for dolls that would fit those roles. I want to write in some romance for dolls I currently have in season three. So, I based the dolls on what I feel the characters would most likely end up with as a partner.

TLDR: I started with have doll put into a story. Now I do, I have story, find doll to fit character.

 

Hm.

For a couple of dolls, they were bought because they fit my mental image for a character, and thankfully they fitted said character when they arrived. Another I thought would be someone, but then they arrived, and they didn't fit.

So we'll say... I attempt to shell characters with my BJDs, and sometimes it doesn't work out, and I need to come up with something new for them.

 

I would love to someday shell some characters, but I have very specific designs that would be a major pain in the neck to try to replicate and/or would require hybriding, so thats a project for another day (and another income...)

So far, I just have bought dolls I like, and have let their characters come to me over time.

 

For most of my time in the hobby, I tried to get dolls to represent specific characters of mine. I wasn't that good at drawing at the time (I mean I'm no master painter now, but I can at least do it professionally), and dolls were nice ready-made containers that were free of my self-imposed perfectionism (or so I thought, anyways - I found lots of different ways of expressing that perfectionism in agonizing over clothes or face-ups).

Now that I can just draw/write stories I want with more confidence, I found that the desire to shell characters really waned. I'm not opposed to it, but because I can actually draw the characters exactly as I want them, I'm much more picky about their "doll shells". For example 10 years ago I could not conceive actually drawing my comic, so the doll character was the only way I had of expressing that story. Now that I run a webcomic and feel pretty good about my results, I actually have very little desire to shell any of that story's characters, because they're already exactly as I want them to be in the comic (I do have a little figurine made by my favourite artist of the MC, but it was made based on the comic art).

I'm trying out this new thing now where the doll kinda has a "vibe" that reflects my aesthetics, but they don't really have a set character or story beyond that. Like, my next girl is a little witch that travels around and explores the world (because I intend to take her on all of my camping trips), and that's pretty much the entirety of the character I've assigned her, so beyond "fun-loving traveler," I can do whatever I want. It's a completely different way of engaging with the hobby from what I'm used to. But so far it's definitely felt more fun because I've just been buying things for her based on whether I liked the way they looked, without agonizing about whether it's "perfect" for the character. :P