Doll aesthetic

I have a fairly large crew, and their characters are all part of an urban fairytale, so diversity and eclecticism is the name of the game around here. Aesthetically, I prefer my dolls more stylized and steer away from realistic sculpts (I prefer to admire those from afar in other people’s collections.) Many of mine have fantasy elements (animal ears, horns, antlers, etc.) added to their regular human sculpts, some are fantasy-based sculpts entirely, and some are anthros outright. This diversity was intended as a fun way to explore both storyline and diverse fashion styles within my collection, and this approach has truly worked wonderfully for me over the years.

 

Most of my gang are less realistic and more stylized Old School type sculpts... Think: Classic Volks and Cerberus Project dolls.

I do have others in the collection, though, that are closer to the current "dolly meta".... A few IpleHouse guys and gals, a Granado V07 and my Lati guys. (Who, while being older dolls, are still closer in style to current, realistic trends than they ever were to the anime-esque dolls that were more common when they were new-)

 

I haven't been into BJDs very long at all, so I'm sure my preferred aesthetic will shift as I continue to enjoy the hobby. For now, though, I can identify the following features of my doll ~brand~ so far:

• Above all - a soft, angelic, and melancholic expression
• Neither super realistic nor super cartoonish/anime.
• I prefer for them to appear mid-teens to early twenties - no children, but no fully mature adults.
• No fantasy elements
• Almond and round eyes preferred over the like... slanted rectangle shape I sometimes see?
• Eyes shouldn't be too wideset, too large, or too small
• The nose shouldn't be too small or too projected, and the philtrum shouldn't be super long

Just for fun, I put together some pictures of sculpts I own or would be happy to buy:



As well as some perfectly lovely sculpts that don't quite hit the mark for me:



Not going to lie, I felt like a bit of a "elbows too pointy 2/10 would not bang" doll equivalent of an incel when putting into words why I wouldn't buy those beautiful sculpts, but it was a good exercise for understanding my own tastes a bit better, if nothing else...

 

I love sculpts with slightly pouty face, half closed eyes or vampire/fantasy features!
For the face-ups, I tent to make them really dramatic (black lips, dark smokey eyes,...) and for the clothing, I prefer the fantasy/gothic style

 

Mine all wear everyday clothing. Sometimes a bit of style slips into it, urban, grunge, goth. I dress my little ones very kid like.
I guess they are kind of boring in that they wear stuff I could find in my own wardrobe.

Mine are all human except for the pet dolls. I like having an army of little humans.

 

My current dolls I have are super stylized dolls (doll chateau Barbara and leekeworld Ariana) both I have had for 7 years and will never leave me. However since returning to the hobby I have shifted towards realistic and am currently waiting for an iplehouse mari who I plan to style in modern clothing and give a realistic faceup.

 

I like really pretty/cute faces for my girls. Modern clothing only, and I like most of them to have fun-colored hair.

 

My favorite dolls tend to be more realistic/mature looking but I also go all in for fantasy clothing and faceups that are a little otherworldly... I could also say guys who look like they haven't slept in a week.

 

I had a good laugh at your "incel" self-reference xD It really helped me understand why exactly I don't like some of the sculpts I actually don't like even though, objectively judging, they're perfectly cute dolls I never saw this until you mentioned the eyes being too big and too widely set apart... I guess it's all about the proportions... Either it's unrealistic and cool or unrealistic and "something's off'. I could never pinpoint that "something".

I also don't like ultra-realistic dolls (I mean, I love seeing their photos online, but not owning) and I generally am not into the super dolly-like dolls aside from a few. For this reason I love nearly-realistic sculpts like those by Supia and still keep my Volks Nanas... And nothing in between I guess it means I like dolly dolls but not cartoonish dolls with ultra thin noses, etc. Volks nanas, to me, are more like resin-casted rag dolls

 

I like realistic proportions, so I have a few Iplehouse FID girls, but I also have a Minifee and two Naraes, just because I think they're cute. In general I love my dolls to have a grumpy look (my Naraes being the exceptions). They mainly have a gothic/witch aesthetic, but I also love grunge/kinderwhore styles.

 

I’m kind of boring - I only like human scaled, human looking, realistic, art/fashion BJDs.

And I like to make them look like fairly regular people, wearing comfortable and fairly regular clothes. No fantasy outfits, lingerie, ball gowns, high heels etc

I also own exclusively 1/12 dolls right now, though I intend on getting a few 1/4 size as well.

 

I tend to like the PukiFee/LittleFee/MiniFee type of sculpts from FairyLand. Not the ones that look too baby-ish, have too big of eyes, or eyes that are too down low toward the nose, but ones that range toward a bit older/realistic. I like the fantasy-type of sculpts too (centaurs, mermaids, etc) but they tend to be too expensive/big for me to want to get. I want to keep my collection small for now. Once all my purchased dolls arrive, my set will be a fairy, a faun, a young witch, and a moon goddess.

I also like a fantasy type of wardrobe. I tend to stay away from modern clothing.

 

The majority of my crew is semi-realistic, size-wise, it is 1/4 and up, the majority is 1/3 or 70cm. And way more boys than girls. A high proportion of tan skin, almost no fantasy skin colors. Heck, I don't even get paper white skin that often.

And then the faces are most likely to fit into one of these:

• Moody Boys (the majority)
• Smiling boys
• Women who look like they will kill you
• Doe-eyed children

And then combo-ed with my face-up style that is

• face texture everywhere
• freckles and moles
• the nose is probably very blushed

And then my wig style which is always mohair or alpaca. I only have one doll in a synthetic wig because I won her in a raffle and have no idea what direction I want to do with her and she is part of my outlier crew. And one doll with a viscose wig.

 

If I were to give my crew's aesthetic a description, it would be—eclectic.

To be honest—I don't base the look or theme of my bjds around a specific aesthetic. Sure, many of them come from the same storyline/world (four different ones as of current), but there's no blanket aesthetic amongst any of them. Outside elf ears and unnatural hair colors for my main OC crew maybe?

Each bjd has their own unique personality and sense of style. From different flavors of gothic, formal, mystical, and casual to dressy, theatrical and practical. There's also those with clearer complexions, heavy freckling, natural or more pronounced makeup (and the in-between), facial hair, moles, weathered/textured skin, etc. Wider eyes, narrow eyes, friendly eyes, sassy eyes, sorrowed/troubled eyes, frowning/malicious eyes, etc.

I guess if there are some all-encompassing features amongst a majority of my crew (with only a few small exceptions), it would be that I focus more on realistic, SD sized mature (or at least older teens in appearance) sculpts. I also prefer more non-conventional aesthetics in my OCs to keep them from being one-dimensional stereotypes, which bleeds into the bjd versions of their characters. Besides that, I put strong emphasis on them being based on existing characters before they come in—to some degree or another. I don't bond well with blank slates, and have found that shelling pre-existing characters (OCs or from other media) is mandatory for any incoming crew-members.

Also, a big must—which is practically all of them except one—is that they be double jointed. My one exception is my Lumedoll Atik, who's special to me regardless of being single jointed.

So, yeah—eclectic's the word I'd use to describe their aesthetic.

 

For my collection, I prefer disney like face sculpts? Not too realistic, but not exactly anime either. I love clothes shopping on Etsy so I mostly to stick to Minifee and yosd sized dolls. My favorite outfits are whimsical in nature. I don’t stick my dolls with specific characters. Maybe one week they’re fighter pilots... the next goth princesses.

 

I don't know how to describe it because I want every doll I buy to sort of have their own aesthetic. But I like semi-realistic sculpts and fantasy creature dolls.

 

I like very sweet, slightly stylized sculpts with big doe eyes, always girls. I prefer my dolls to look like children or preteens, because they seem more sweet, I guess? I think my aesthetic fits more into that ultra cute, girly look that's more popular amongst Asian collectors, with bows and frilly dresses. I'm not interested in owning mature "chesty" dolls, realistic dolls, or fantasy dolls, but I can still appreciate those styles.

 

My art style for faceups is definitely cartoonish leaning on anime-esque. I like thick lines and very dolly like proportions; so big eyes, little button noses. I like frowny face sculpts. I just find melancholic and wistful dolls so beautiful!

 

For doll sculpts I lean heavily towards elves with strong makeup decisions. For fashion I'm all over the place.