Do you upgrade your dolls?

Yes, for me, the most important aspect of bjds is the ability to constantly change them. So in my mind, an upgrade is any change I give them, like a better fitting (stylistically) wig or the "right" eye color. And I do this quite often. Of course, each of them has their main wig or pair of eyes, but sometimes I just mix them up for a photo shoot or a particular outfit. But mostly my personal upgrades are faceups. I paint my own dolls and every time I look at them and think "this faceup is old" or "I have better skills now and this old one looks worse than I remembered" or "this doesn't look good with new wig", I just repaint it to better match my current skill level or taste

 

I paint all my BJD after my first two, because that was the main reason for me to purchase these dolls in the beginning. So, I do repaint them quite often (or used to, about a decade ago for the older ones). I don't consider that an upgrade however, because I don't send them to a pro. I'm still the one doing the work. As a traditional artist all my life, I don't feel I've improved much, to call my repainting an upgrade. Just something I enjoy doing as a hobbyist.

I have never switched, replaced, or changed dolls as an "upgrade" to the character either. It never crossed my mind, and I honestly don't feel I would like doing that (I'm weirdly sentimental when it comes to my material possessions). I did switch hands on two dolls once, but that was more about me being a weirdo who loves pretty hands, rather than an upgrade. (:

 

Yes from time to time I have upgraded a character. On the small side changed eyes or wigs to better versions to suit character. On the big I've upgraded a head or two to better bodies, done boddy mods like sanding parts, and I have fully reshelled a small few dolls that just didn't work. It's rare for me to upgrade a character doll in in a extreme way, but it does happen once in a while. Little things can make a big diff sometimes, even a new shirt or whatever can breath new life into a doll sometimes.

 

Depends on the doll, but yes. Bren and Adam have both had 3 bodies, Cooper and Jarppi have had two. Pepper's on her second shell. I redo faceups occasionally as I improve or get a better feel for their characters. My characters age in real time, so sometimes they need a new look to show that.

 

I don't think I can upgrade a doll's major resin parts. I think it's because my doll characters are inspired by the sculpts, so the body/build contributes to the character personality and expression in fundamental ways. If the body changes, the character changes too. I can get option hands and feet for the doll (hybrided or same company), but once the character is established in my imagination, they're keeping their body. Likewise, there's no such thing as getting a better head sculpt to fit the character, because the character originated from that sculpt. Reshelling doesn't happen in my crew.

I have two single-jointed dolls and have tried to imagine them with newer bodies, but I can't follow through with the thought experiment. Re-bodying them doesn't feel like an "upgrade" to me: they ARE their current bodies, I feel like I'll be losing something of their characters if I change that. So I guess they'll stay single-jointed foerver. (Now, if their sculptor made new bodies with the right build and height, I might be open to change... :p)

I don't count hybriding failures to be "upgrades": I bought a second body for one of my dolls because the first hybrid attempt was a big failure. But I already knew the first body was unsuitable the moment I unboxed and tested it with the head, I stashed the head away again and bought the second body shortly after. Likewise, when I got his new body I was happy with everything except the hands, which were unsuitable for the character. Now this doll is a triple hybrid - has the right body and the right hands. I guess his hands were an "upgrade"... but now that this character has successfully established himself in my imagination, I don't want to change anything about him anymore.

Non-resin aspects... sure, I can and have changed those, in order to bring the doll closer to how I envision their character. I'll refresh a faceup if I've skilled up substantially - one of my dolls got painted 3 times in 1.5 years because I was in a phase of exponentially improving, so each faceup brought the doll closer to my imagination. I've bought new eyes because the old resin ones were starting to yellow. On the other hand, I'm trying to get fresher wigs for some dolls, but this is proving very hard and turning into a waste of money. (Literally: my success rate in changing wigs is exactly zero, for every doll.) I have a feeling I'll need to commission new wigs that look identical to the old wigs...

 

Yes, I upgrade everyone all the time forever.
I don't necessarily upgrade heads or bodies (sometimes) but I see the dolls as living projects never "finished' or totally stagnant as long as I live to give them life. Sometimes they may spend a very time comfortable with a certain appearance I'm happy with but when I get the urge they change again, bit by bit by bit. Faceups inevitably change after running their course, I love giving them new wigs and (clothes goes without saying) and eyes are very exciting to upgrade. I find this continuous process very satisfying. I am often daydreaming of the next little thing and it gives me a way to feel more hopeful about the future in general.

 

While most of my dolls are pretty much in a "stable" state, the favorites I call the Big Three have gone through major changes and upgrades through the years. I'm more attached to their characters than their shells. Hence, I reshell if I could find a better sculpt (and if I could afford it, of course). Just so this won't be too spammy, I've put the comparison images under a spoilers tag.

Spoiler: Then and now

ADHARA (warpaint ver-old)

Off Shoulder 05 by Yela Gatchalian-David, on Flickr

ADHARA (warpaint ver-new)

Green Coronet 03 by Yela Gatchalian-David, on Flickr

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GUOREN (old)

Golden Shadow 01 by Yela Gatchalian-David, on Flickr

GUOREN (new)

Sharp Bastard 00 by Yela Gatchalian-David, on Flickr

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OKUNI (old)

Okuni Unmasked 01 by Yela Gatchalian-David, on Flickr

OKUNI (new)

Mirror Ghost 2 by Yela Gatchalian-David, on Flickr

 

No not really I prefer them in their original state of course I still change their clothes and can dress them differently

 

Mostly no, I try to pick heads and bodies I enjoy working with. However, it’s not entirely out of the picture bc I am a little tempted to give my iplehouse girl a body that can pose better. It's just in the back of my head though

 

Yes I do! As I paint all my dolls, I sometimes refresh their faceups, when I think my skills improve enough. It's neither everyday, nor every year. My Narcissus (that is around 10 years old) only got three faceups in all that years. I also sometime sell a doll and switch for an other that fits better in the character.

Here are some examples. This one (my Narcissus) is the same mold but with new faceup/eyes/hands.

Spoiler: Little changes

First faceup:


Third faceup, with new eyes and so on:

And this one I made some changes but kept the same spirit.

Spoiler: Some changes:

Sometimes it's such a change you could not even say it is the same character

Spoiler: Everything changed

 

I do like to keep them upgraded, and I've once changed the characters of two of them, but I've never changed their heads because those sculpts are the core of what they are and why I was attracted to them in the first place.
I send them to artists to refresh their face-up every 5 years or so, but it depends on the doll and if there's been some damage to it (one has a resin match blush done and now has the tiniest chip on her nose).
I dabble on making wigs, so I'll keep making new ones from time to time until I'm satisfied.
Besides that, for my vampire girl, I've been buying and selling bodies since 2013, trying to find one which height, posing abilities and detail level is both to my liking and accordingly to the character, and I think I finally found it on a MyouDoll Body that I'm loving since I first got it out of the box, so I think that quest for the right body is over, yay!

 

I het their faceups redone if/when they are damged or fade, I occasionally change to a different body but not often (usually if the original body didn't fit the character to begin with - pretty much once the chracter becomes apparent, it's a fixed thing unless something happens that forces a change (for example, one of my hybrid girls developed an issue where her head greened but her body yellowed. When I gve her a soak in denture/prosthetic cleaner, it undid the yellowing beautifully but left the body a nice fleshy pink, but the head the colour of dried putty. I tried to get a replacement for the head but it's discontinued and doesn't come up on the secondary market often, so I resorted to dye. Nothing approaching the original "normal" skintone worked, so I wnet with a tan colour for the head and a more dilute version fo the dye to bring the body to a closer colour match for it, then sent her for a new fceup, and came up with the backstory where she'd been ill and sent away to a sunny climate for a rest-cure - hence her new tanned apperarance)

Teddy

 

So cool to see the comparisons from @AntarelNefertili and @Follow-the-Wind

@Teddy clever thinking!

For myself, I haven't been in the hobby long enough to do any updating... but that is plan! I have a very clear image in my mind if what I want my doll(s) to look like, but I know I don't have the skills to realize that vision exactly. So I'll just do the best I can for now, knowing that I can always remake a garment or wig or buy better eyes later

 

My crew is very rarely upgraded, and usually only as a necessary reshelling if a more appropriate doll to match that character comes on the market (as an example, I once had a character who literally outgrew her tiny realpuki frame and was switched to a larger realfee instead.) I seldom re-do my faceups because they are well sealed and too integral to their characters to change (fortunately they’ve all held up beautifully over the years.) I came into this hobby initially from an artistic background so I had no “learning curve” on faceups that benefitted from re-doing. I once upgraded a normal-looking storytelling character to a shironuri faceup, but that was an overall creative decision to enhance her character even more.

Once the doll is in my possession and their look is set, I’m far happier expressing changes through clothing and wardrobes instead. I love to sew and design, so I’m always making something new for them. Most of my dolls have a set wig choice that never changes (although a small handful has a collection of different wigs as part of their initial character.) And as for eyes…once I find the perfect ones, they never change.

 

I usually don't update them. However, when a doll has been sitting there for a lot of time and my tastes have changed (like what has happened with my DoD Shall) I start to get the urge to give them some more interesting looks, some storytelling, etc.

 

I'll pick a new sculpt for a particular individual occasionally (Crow v1 was a Vampire Elf El, for instance, while the current Crow v2 version is a Volks F-29), and I'll go back and pick a better set of eyes or a new wig for one pretty routinely. Bodies usually stay the same, but there have been a few exceptions... SD13s that looked better as SD17s or SDGrs, heads that came on a bod of one gender that I wanted to switch to another and that kind of thing.

Fresh faceups are very rare once I get one that I like, though. A lot of a particular doll's "personality" is tied up in their expression and individual face for me, so a new faceup is risky. It often changes the doll's expression and general look enough to make them seem like they're "no longer them" to my eye. Unless I'm intentionally setting out to completely revamp an old sculpt into someone new from the ground up, I try to avoid changing the gang's faces.

 

Depending on the doll. I grew up from some characters, and those dolls are now shelling different characters that I am sure I will keep changing over the years. I have dolls that have characters specifically for those sculpts.
I think one of the most fun part of the hobby is to keep changing, upgrading and reselling our dolls and characters

 

I let mine age with time, so their wigs got gray bits or with their newest faceup they got wrinkles.

But yes, I also updated some of them by reshelling or switching to a full new doll vs a hybrid (but technically same head sculpt still). I started so long ago that options were pretty slim back then, so you bought what fitted the most. Over the years dolls were released that looked so much more than what I envisioned but also enjoyed, so the old doll(s) had to go in some cases.
I want my dolls to be their best possible version, both for the characters they represent but also the doll itself as a physical object. And in my opinion that's only possible with updates of some sort. My faceups got better, wigs and eyes got more detailed over the years and so on. If I had never updated my doll they'd still have amateurish faceups, regular fiber wigs with the same 3 available styles and wonky, cheap glass eyes

 

I recently got a used Lati Yellow and while her faceup still looked good, her eyelashes were all bent and ruined. So I gave her new eyelashes.

I haven't re-done a faceup on a doll yet, and I'm kind of scared of when I do, because the hardest thing in the world to me is trying to fix a bad factory faceup.