Do you prefer shelling characters or...

Most of the characters I actually write would be impossible to shell as BJDs - robots, aliens, all sorts of stuff where their design just isn't something folks are making as dolls. Which is perfectly fine for me, I'm happy just doodling everyone, and I'd hate to get a super-specific doll for a character and then have my interest in the story wane!

Like many of the others in the thread, I'm a "character comes from the doll" sort. It's part of my purchase criteria, even. Do I see who this doll could be? If yes, then major points for it, and if not, then yeah it ain't happening no matter what else may appeal. While I wait on that doll, I'll often be mulling over their personality and backstory, so that when they show up I know who I'm looking at.

Funnily enough, even if I know exactly what kind of style I want for a character, I often won't do much sewing or knitting for them until they arrive. Granted, only two of my dolls have the same body, so fitting would be a guessing game. But man once they do arrive I go nuts filling out their wardrobe!

 

I do both!! I’m for instance shelling Oriel, who needed a very specific Twigling head, and a very specific DFH body to be shelled “right” and match with his tiny sister. And he’s a pre-existing DnD character, who I have a partially written out backstory for. I play DM, so it doesn’t matter if my characters’ backstories aren’t fully written.

I also just got a doll in a trade, for no reason other than that I thought she was pretty. What I know about her is that I think she’s a mixed race drow-aasimar, that I’m gonna cover her in sparkly tattoos, and that naming her is going to be hard. I also know that she probably knows Aveden and Illyra, and might be a cousin-in-law to Kyorlin, and a half-sister to Serith, who I’ve never shelled. I might play her in an upcoming campaign, if I can figure out a name for her by then. No promises.

My method of creating characters starts with just looking at the doll and seeing what features I notice: unusual resin colour? Faceup quirks? Elf ears? Sometimes a doll clicks with an existing character—Shrike was never planned to be my Twigling Ingenue, but once I had her in my hands, she couldn’t be anyone else. Especially with her broken knee, which then became a character detail.

Sometimes I have to do a little more inventing. Like my aforementioned unnamed drow girl, or my incoming feeple65 Nuia in white, who I honestly just grabbed because I think she’s beautiful. When I get dolls like that, that I can’t slit into an existing character, I ask myself who’s missing from my world—does Vidania need a lover created one of my dolls. Could Nira have had an ex he still cares for created another lasting character. My drow character was created in this manner, fitting her in with other character who already exist.

the last trick I have, if nothing else makes someone click, is to listen to music until something shakes loose. I also do this to clarify the personalities of characters I already have. Valentine has a massive playlist of titles like insincerely yours, that shows how flippant and coy he likes to play it, and songs like undisclosed desires that hint at the fact that he has emotional needs he pretends don’t exist. Another character was created solely from listening to vermillion by slipknot, going “there’s some messed up implications here” and turning those implications into a character. She has no connections to the other characters in my verse yet, but eventually she will, I think. She and Vesuvius share a couple narrative similarities, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they meet.

This has been a lot of rambling, but I hope some aspect of this is helpful to anyone else on this forum!!

 

As a general rule nope, I’m more of a ‘see a sculpt that sets off sparks in my brain and hope I’m able to fuse doll and inspiration together’ type. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Every so often however it happens the other way around where I’ll be influenced by a game or music or nature and want to bring a character to life so to speak. Rarely do those characters actually make it any further than ideas as I can never find a suitable doll and that’s probably down to the fact that the characters are constantly evolving and changing in my head. This is nothing new for me as in the past before I discovered BJDs I frequently got frustrated trying to get them to flow out of my mind and onto paper.

I suppose as well being an old fart means I’m just not as comfortable with terms like ‘shelling characters’ and OC as they’re not things I grew up with, I struggle a bit with them as they make me realise just how much freedom of expression I and probably a lot of other oldies missed out on. It is wonderful to see how much excitement and joy people get from being able to use their creativity in such ways though.

I’m rambling again….got to stop commenting on threads late at night

 

I always know very precisely in advance who I'm looking for. The character of the character is always first.

 

Nowadays I'm mostly a doll first, character second kind of collector.
Usually I buy my dolls with an aesthetic direction in mind, and when the doll gets home they "tell me" their own personalities as I paint their faces, make their wigs and clothes and style them. So the dolls kind of make their own characters, if that makes sense

 

I only have one doll at the moment (holding onto my funds so if/when my grail doll becomes available I'll be able to afford him) but I got her specifically for an OC of mine! However I think it might be the last I do that. As exciting as it is to have a doll version of a character of mine, it's hard to get things perfect and I don't want to feel unsatisfied because they don't "match" perfectly (and I can be a perfectionist).

Who knows - maybe I'll sell her if I ever get another female doll! (I feel like I have far too many articles of clothing for her to sell her before I can get someone else if that makes sense LOL)

 

I've got a couple old characters I made for comics that I would love to shell, but I'd need specific fantasy sculpts for the heads and I wouldn't put up with something that's not close enough since I've drawn them for years and I have a clear picture of them in my head. The outfit for one of them is a mix of Victorian and Renaissance fashion and I think it would be hard to recreate without sewing it myself. The other one is in full plate. Does full plate for female dolls even exist? I like the idea of shelling characters but I'd rather start with a doll and make a character after it. It's simpler.

 

I buy them with a sculpt I like and then let them tell me who they want to be. Sometimes I undo and redo their whole characters several times before they become something that fits, but I think that's part of the fun of it for me because it keeps me from being bored. It also saves me from the devestion planning something all out and then when the doll gets here it not working