Do your dolls reflect your own ideals of beauty?

Not exactly. I'm not looking for perfect beauty for my dolls. I'm looking for expressions,feelings and fantasy characters with their virtues and faults. They are perfect if they are not "perfect" For example my first doll represent for me my ideals of tenderness and sweetness,not beauty. She is pretty,of course,but not absolutly beautiful.

 

What about your own dolls? Do their looks directly mirror their characters or are they some statement about your own ideals of beauty? Both? Neither?

My dolls embody my personal ideals of beauty/attractiveness as well as their characters. They are all immortal beings, ranging from demons to angels with ideal physique, hair, and faces. I try to do my best with the aesthetics, trying and always trying to improve until one day I can bring out my vision on more than just paper. I do have to admit, to a certain extent, the dolls to the oc's are a bit inaccurate but its a process. :/

 

The doll I own, and the two I have on order are tinies, so they more reflect my ideas of cute than beauty!

And while the two SD dolls I am currently saving for are beautiful, and fufill some of my ideals for beauty, I am going to have to start to make my own dolls, at least bodies, if I want dolls that reflect my other ideals of beauty. This is because I really believe in and love women to be properly curvy, and very traditionally shaped. I mean, I would love for my female SD to wear corsets when she gets here, but it would go against my ideal that corsets are supposed to accentuate the natural shape of women - large breasts and wide hips, with a tiny waist. While big breasts are easy enough, there are many dolls out there with those, you cannot find more plus-sized dolls. They all definitely follow asian aesthetics in this respect, which I find very hard. I like the idea of projecting my own personal style onto my female SD when I get her, but feel it would be betraying myself a little, having spent a lot of time getting to the shape I am currently!! But definitely, my friend and I are considering it, as she agrees with the corsetted ideals I have, so maybe in the future I will have what I want

 

Sense of innocence and a hint of wild, yeah! Though I am not picky when it comes to beauty. That's what makes it so hard to do faceups! XD

 

Mostly, yes! My girlfriend and I are still putting together our new dolls, and there are freckles, bangs, thick eyebrows, etc. The only thing I wish my boy had is a nice, bony roman nose! Her girl has a (feminine) boy sculpt for a head, so she is a little awkward and none traditional looking. I love it. :3

Not to mention that when we are older and are saving up properly, we want to make a certain series out of doll, in which some of those characters are chubby, and one is obese! Now tell me that won't be fun to mod! ;D

 

This may be a bit creepy when I say it but, I work towards creating in my eyes "perfect" dolls. Ones that fill me with awe because of their intricate detail and beauty. I see something in my dolls that make me feel as though their are still beautiful things in the world despite the ugliness around me.

 

I believe the customization not only reflects the owner's ideas of beauty but also reflects in some cases the owners themselves. My first bjd was made in the image of how I wanted to look in everything from the physical appearance but also in the clothes I looked for. The hair was curly when mine is straight, the eyes were brilliant green to reflect my own, and the eyelashes were long when mine are naturally short. It is a rare opportunity to be able to reflect yourself in a doll.

 

Yes, mine is very natral looking, "normal" clothes and natral coloured hair.

As I hate anything fake, too much make up, unnatral hair dying... i really dislike it (as form people like that I knew)

 

Somehow yes they do. I guess we all have some sort of opinion of what is perceived as beauty when we buy our dolls.
They just about all dress in Aristocratic-like clothing, always loved and viewed upon that as being something extremely beautiful, the way I like to dress most of the time.
Their face-ups goes with their personalities, some light some heavy.
But above all, beauty comes in many forms and shapes.

 

Defiantly. My future dolls, the ones I've been pining over for a month now, are my definition of beauty. I think that's what attracted to them in the first place. Also the many different variations of beauty that people have come up with and have shown on this site amazes me and what has pushed me into the hobby.

As for the second part, no. I would not make him if I found him unattractive, because if I made him that way, in a way I thought was "ugly", it means I didn't really like him in the first place.

 

At first, I thought they would reflect my ideals of beauty... then the first doll I got was tanned, while I'm not at all fond of dark skin in real life. My second doll was NS, even though I still thought the skin tone was too dark. Neither of them strike me as particularly 'beautiful', not by my ideals. I like faces that look good 'naked', i.e. with minimal/no makeup, but both my first dolls require quite a bit of faceupping to look remotely human. ._.

I did finally get a doll reflecting my ideal 'beauty'... in terms of his face. His body still leaves quite a bit to be desired.

I guess, what I found out was, my ideals of beauty in humans is very, very different from my ideals of beauty in dolls. And since I don't buy character dolls, I wouldn't ever think of getting a doll that isn't appealing in some way just to make a character.

 

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To me, I think androgynous faces are beautiful to me. It adds an element of natural beauty that you don't get in some obviously feminine or obviously masculine faces because an androgynous face shows both feminine and masculine elements to make it more real (I hope I didn't say that wrong). It shows a type of strength too, if you look hard enough. The vision I have for my girl includes a feminine face with an androgynous charm (MNF Chloe can be a girl or boy perfectly!). Full figured bodies with curves, not stick figures you need to pump food into!, are gorgeous. That reason alone is why I'm changing the kid body on my first girl to one that's more curvy. That is a good ideal of beauty; you can be healthy and curvy at the same time and I'm glad that certain people in Hollywood are changing the "skinny norm". Because I'm full-figured, I find that my girl character should be curvy too, since real women have curves. I hate girly men, no muscles or facial hair, who said that was okay and gonna slide with certain people? My boy will have a muscular physique, just because I think a very well toned body with real defined muscles not outlined in bronze is beautiful and very sexy. Facial hair, like a five o'clock shadow or goatee, shows me a masculine beauty. Beautiful eyes, perfect pout and other things like that fall into everyone's personal idea of beauty. But what this being said, I want my dolls to also be perceived by others as beautiful too.

 

I like to make "beautiful" looking dolls, but I think it's would be more accurate to say I like creating characters. I find a whole range of things appealing, it doesn't necessarily have to be traditional beauty. So I would say my dolls reflect characters I find interesting and appealing, which sometimes means things I find beautiful, but not always.

 

While most of the characters I base my dolls around are relatively attractive, I do have a character from a story who I constantly refer to as 'relatively unattractive', or at least next to the rest of the characters in the story.

If it came down to it and I could afford to get him as a doll, I would for sure. I think it is the fact that he isn't so 'attractive' in a normal sense that makes me like him so much. And, to be honest, while I don't find him attractive, other people might.

 

I have an odd sense of beauty. Horror/gore/ect mods are really interesting and beautiful to me. The contrast and some times blending of 'ugly' with 'perfect/beauty' makes me melt. I've seen some zombie mods that I've really wanted to just grab through my computer screen!

In fact, after I get my first doll, I'm thinking of getting a doll and modding to look like the Leroux version of Erik (No nose, little hair, yellowish skin, and pretty much no lips) , from Phantom of the Opera. I've always thought something like that would be extremely beautiful. ^__^

 

The answer is both yes and no. Seeing as I only own male dolls at the moment I'm going to stick to referring to my own perception of male beauty and leave female beauty alone. I do find all my dolls beautiful in both their sculpts as well as the way I style them, however, given that they are not real people some of the attributes I give them them and find attractive I may not find attractive in real life. An example of this would be heavy peircings and tattoos, such as my Elysium Jamie has. While I can appreciate the creativity, time and artistry that can go into these things on a person in real life, that doesn't necessarily mean I find them particularly beautiful, yet because they mean something different on a doll as opposed to a real person (don't have to worry about sagging or stretched out skin, colors fading, permanent markings, etc.), I rather like them on my boy. Not to mention that I like to create a variety of characters that all don't have to think like me and share my tastes, so I like branching out and creating a personality that may find this type of body art beautiful.

On the other hand, while I do find my boys for the most part beautiful, they don't represent the only type of attractiveness I find in men. Sure, I like trim, semi-muscular bodies, sweet faces and longer hair on a man, but just the same I equally love men with thicker bodies and chubby bellies, shorter hair and faces that can't be confused with that of a woman. I just don't see many of these attributes in a male doll that I've really liked as of yet (usually as the more masculine dolls are more realistic as well which is not my personal taste in dolls).

 

Nope, I like fuzzy guys with a bit of weight on them and finding those in doll form is quite difficult. Most of my dolls I have (no BJDs yet) have kind of told me how they're supposed to look. There's no other way to describe it other than I just try different things with face-ups and clothes until something looks "right".

 

i would have to say yes, i do have my dolls created to fit why i think is perfect beauty. bjd's are so customizable. a lot of people who have a 3 year old girls go "oh i just love dressing her up! she is just like a little doll!" but its beyond just pretty clothing with these dolls. you can change their hair and eyes. have the faceups painted to your idea of perfection. you can buy a one that you can see your self being able to make the most out of. =] i just love them.

 

My dolls are all ideal. One is the idealized version of me, one looks exactly like me, ideal or not, and the rest are the ideal men I'd like to date

 

I believe, from personal experience, it is best to leave the character creation up to the doll itself. By that I mean that you should wait untill you get the doll and hold it before making its character because often it will let you know and trust me, if you bought the right one- you will know. I do believe we try to make our dolls as symbols of beauty because we charish them and everyones idea of beauty is different. though most perception of beauty is what the media has programed us to beleive. On a personal note, I've noticed that I tend to make my dolls more atherial and natural. I want my doll to take me to a fairytale world but one of earthy tones and a somewhat innoscent place. I also hate using barbie clothes on my 27cm girl because I want her to resemble a less modern time and place. that is why I sew all her clothes.