Doll bases - 'Renting' a doll?

I'm kind of confused. What I'm understanding is that, provided everything goes as planned, someone who doesn't own a doll pays someone who does to take photographs of said doll in items that the doll-less person has bought? But the doll owner keeps the items paid for as payment for the photographs, and might resell them to the doll-less person later?

I really don't think this would work. Custom character or not, I don't think people are going to be willing to shell out that kind of money on something this chancy for a few dubious-quality photographs of a doll.

 

It's an interesting idea, but I think it might be kind of a money sink for the person buying accessories/clothes. And I'm not sure how many people take photos so amazing that I would accept them as compensation. I think it might work better if the person buying clothes for the dolls keeps it instead of the doll owner. But I'm still not sure how feasible this is.


Though your title made me think of something else. I honestly would be interested in literal doll rentals for like checking resin/proportion matches and stuff since I'm not always hybriding particularly common dolls. Paying out shipping back and forth sounds a lot better than buying a body and then finding out it doesn't actually work at all and then trying to get rid of it on the secondhand market. But I'm not sure if anybody trusts me enough to borrow their dolls... Might not be all that feasible and probably a better idea to just go to doll meets when I can.

 

I agree with satoru, the way in which you described this situtation, I do not think it would work.

However, when I read the title to this thread, this is what I thought 'renting a doll would entail':
Someone owns a whole lot of dolls and doesn't want to down size the collection, but doesn't 'play' with all the dolls all the time.
An photographer wants to photograph a doll, but only is interested in the doll for one photoshoot. Buying the doll would be a pain because after the shoot, the doll would be resold.
Doll owner with said doll would 'rent' their doll to photographer for their shoot, and return the doll when finished.

I also see this working for seamstresses, who only need dolls briefly in order to make accurate clothing for a certain type of doll, but doesn't necessarily want to own that type of doll.

I think what you describe is only fair is the person 'renting' actually takes possession of the doll for a certain period of time.

 

Like satoru and skyealloway said, I see the value in "renting a doll" for the sake of seeing how clothes will fit and maybe to test out hybrids but otherwise I'm personally not interested in it. Investing my time and money into a doll I won't even keep (even if I could eventually buy the same sculpt as them) would leave me with a hollow feeling.

If this even makes sense: Personally, I take photos and create characters because I have emotional attachment to my dolls, photos and character concepts alone mean almost nothing to me.

 

I would rent out someones SD HARD CORE if they let me draft basic patterns from him!

 

I guess I'm a little unclear on why anyone would want pictures of someone else's doll dressed as their character. That aside, it really sounds like the owner is getting all of the perks, and the one who's renting is taking all of the risks...including the possibility of disappointing poses/photos.

 

I think a lot of people would be willing to actually rent a doll, particularly those who don't live near an area where meetups are held. But then there's the factor of cost, trust, liabilities, etc. In the end, actually "renting" a doll is up to two individuals. I know I've let people borrow my dolls before for various reasons (seamstresses, can't afford a doll, curious about a sculpt, etc), but those were people I knew enough about to trust with that. I never made them pay a thing, because I knew if something happened (broken finger or who knows what else), they were good enough people to offer to foot the cost of damage.

But when you break it down, what OP is describing is basically giving somebody a whole bunch of stuff and hoping they take alright photographs in return. That doesn't sound much like renting at all, though I understand that the OP is thinking in terms of renting characters rather than dolls. As celga stated, if this is being done for a marketable scheme, then it becomes a situation where the doll owner's risks are next to nothing, and the doll-less individual looks grossly taken advantage of.

 

The OP's post comes with a great risk to the "renter" (for reasons already stated by others), while the other suggestions posted here are of an immense risk to the "rentee". Maybe I'm just pessimistic, but I can't see how any doll-renting scheme could NOT result in people running off with other people's dolls (or clothing, etc). No matter how many honest people participate, such an arrangement would be way too much of a temptation for all the bad eggs out there. I'd only ever let very close, trusted friends borrow my dolls.

 

For how much a single doll is worth to the owner I don't think anyone would take the risk of renting out their doll to someone they don't know. There are just too many ways things can go wrong.

 

The first scenario sounds dubiously like rinsing to me - "I'll let you buy pretty clothes for me - Your reward is getting to see me wear them!" And, well, it sounds a bit odd. Anyone who has the money to buy tonnes of outfits and the time to give minute instructions to a third party to dress up and pose a doll pretty much also has the time and money to own their own doll.

The second scenario - Well, we all have enough of a panic sending dolls out for face-ups and modding, I can't imagine many people sending their dolls out totally selflessly to help out other collectors that they don't personally know.

 

The second scenario isn't 'selfless' though - 'renting' implies the exchange of money. You give me X dollars, I'll let you use my doll for X period of time. It's definitely a trust issue though, the risk of someone just keeping your doll, or messing it up in some way.

I would be willing to rent my doll out to some one if I could arrange it like rental cars - put your credit card on file somewhere, if you return my doll in screwed up condition (or not at all) I'll charge you to replace it. I don't have the same resources as a rental car place though, so this wouldn't really work either, without a third party escrow to hold the rentee's credit card info securely until it was required (or not).

 

I think it would be interesting, especially for authors who just want to see their characters in RL as they do in their head. But maybe, instead of buying clothes and such for the actual doll's owner, the person who wants to see their character in resin (we'll call them Person A) could pay a small fee to the doll owner (Person B) to transform their doll into Person A's character. Person B could Snap a few (really good) pictures for A for inspiration and then dismantle the character to start the process again with a new person. I don't think that the character would hold permanently, and it would probably be a little pricey for the doll owner since they would buying the props. The other problem is that characters may be stolen but if did this with a person you already trusted or someone who is well known for their good transactions, then it might be safer.

 

The initial post implied that the owner gets to hold onto the doll, dress it in the clothes that the renter buys, take pictures...and then send said pictures to the renter in exchange for the clothes and picture-taking. No risk, except to the person who sends the clothes and wigs. I don't 'do' characters with long, complicated back stories or anything like that, so I am not really a great judge of how important such photos might be to someone...but all I see is the potential for a major ripoff. There are a lot of kind, trustworthy people out there...but there are also some, well, less than dependable people. I'm afraid that the latter would be drawn to this idea like flies.