Doll Company Photos, What Makes You Nervous?

Totally seconded!
I'd always prefer to see the exact doll I'm buying before deciding, and sometimes I can't quite tell if the skin tone I like would suit the sculpt I want or not.

 

3rd'd!
I actually requested my dealer find me a skin tone comparison before i finalized the details on my doll.
So you CAN get skintone comparisons sometimes if you ask for them.

As for things that make me nervous, i don't like it when i can't really tell if i like the details of the face because the company photos use too few angles.

Like for noses, i'm very very finicky about my dolls noses, and not being able to see for sure if the angle/length/shape will bother me makes me incredibly nervous.

There was one doll around here (a yume in a bright red wig) that really made me feel better about her nose.

 

Unfortunately it is business, so they only mean to sell their product. But the good thing is that there are places you can find feedback, so for the particularly less trust worthy ones, you can weigh your options before you jump in and get one.

 

Having already been a seasoned internet shopper before adopting the BJD hobby, I have always known to look at mulitple websites, compare what they are selling, check the ones that offer feedback, Go to blogs and read more feedback, look for owner pictures of the product etc.

Since BJDs are so expensive and such a commitment i find research to be an invaluable tool. I did buy Soom Syen w/o seeing any owner pictures first, but by the time Syen came out I felt comfortable with what Soom had to offer. I also bought a DIM MNM head, the experience was interesting, for sure. Overall I'm happy with him, but it definitely felt more risky.

 

I don't like it when there's only one picture, or there's not a good shot of their face from the front. Skin tone comparisons would be nice, too. Sometimes I just come here and see if I can find pictures of a certain doll I'm looking at.

 

This is very interesting to me bc I just recently was addicted and Ive been researching constantly. I'm trying hard to get up to speed but I am still waiting for my first dolls, so to me this is all new and not as well explained as I would like.

Yes, I would like more pictures in a few standard nude positions ie. kneeling, touching the face etc. I would like to know where there are double joints, (will the wrists rotate?) how the hands and feet are removed and how to open the head in the product description. Will the doll need sanding? If you are buying an older model doll, there might be info here but if its a new sculpt how do we know?? And then, if I have to go to many sites to find answers, at some point I was forgetting who swiveled and who didnt. Is this common newb confusion??

 

YES OMG YES. This makes me very nervous...whether or not I buy a head mold can depend on the nose. Yet for sculpts I potentially like, I rarely - if ever - see profile pictures of the heads.
There was one time I was totally in love with a sculpt...a relatively new sculpt no one on DoA really had...I was about ready to order him...but then someone posted a profile pic of him on the board. HUGE NOSE OMG. It was an immediate dealbreaker....
So now if I'm thinking of ordering a doll, I try to make sure I know what the head looks like from both front and side angles. Usually this means a DoA forum search...otherwise I get nervous about it.

 

I've changed my mind on several dolls recently because the promo pics just simply did not have enough angles...looking at owner pics I realized I really hated the sculpt from what I considered to be the most important angles. Also, posing. I want to see what they look like in the most common positions (like kneeling). If I hate the knees, it's no deal. The only downside is when considering a doll that's expensive, like Chiron as a centaur....there aren't exactly a lot of comparison pics out there. It's nerve-racking to spend the kind of money we do without lots of references. *sigh*

 

I don't feel nervous, really, but I would prefer fewer sales posts with 15 pics from pretty much the same angle. One straight-on and one at least profile-ish would be appreciated. Also, although they do look gorgeous all dressed up, it does annoy a little that the doll's shown in urethane eyes when you'll be given random acrylic and a wig you can't buy etc. However, they do state in their posts what the doll actually comes with. Variation in faceups is going to be expected even with only one faceup artist, so I wouldn't hold that against them unless it's flawed or totally different.

Owner pics can be very useful. They can also be deceptive, but sometimes they are the only real backup .

After a while you get a feel for the companies you follow, so it's less of an issue. Also, generally speaking you can find nude body shots and skintone comparisons somewhere on the company site. It may take some hunting.

I'm actually more likely to get nervous about clothes, particularly shirts - I want to see how they close, so I'd really prefer to see the back of the items as well.

 

heya everyone! So I totally agree, understand and am trying to do something about all of this! If you check out my thread on the links out board
http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?414945-A-knowledge-base-for-BJD-s-in-the-works!!!
you can get an idea of what I'm working to accomplish. I won't go into too much detail here and muck up your thread, but let's just say I'm working hard to get a database for all of us to use to do our research on our dolls before we buy them

 

Well, i don´t like the most company photos NOT because they are most of the time not very nice, no love......just the doll.....but some companys do very great shots with their dolls like Soom or Fairyland.......i love owner pics and they are mostly filled with love and creativity!!! So nothing makes me nervous ^^

 

I hate to see very few pictures for dolls, and when the hair covers up a lot of the features. I think the best ones include a wigless head, many poses and the body nude. A lot of sites only have one picture, but it's all dependent on how the company does things but I feel more inclined to buy from a company that has a lot of photos so i dont have to look around constantly for more info.

 

I'm always very nervous when the photo has been photo shopped to a point that you can hardly make out the shadows or nose on the dolls face. If owner photos are any indication, than lighting has a really important role in a dolls appearance!

 

I tend to not see a lot of head-on shots. Most of them are artistic shots of them looking down from the left or the right.

Not sure if they do this, but I would like to know what the doll has on in the promo pictures - especially for eyes. I can probably find the dress, as well as the wig (if they're from the same company) but the eyes can be hard to recognize outside of the doll pics.

 

My goodness, I never even thought to check Flickr. Thanks! I keep looking at unpopular dolls only to look for customer photos and finding absolutely none. I don't want to order a doll if all I have to go by is a photoshopped company image.

For me, it drives me mad when I can't find a photo of the body. To me that's JUST as important, and it seems to make so much sense to see all the details. It also drives me crazy when the company only has one "style" per doll. I know I saw Iplehouse's Evan doll in the main photo and really really didn't like him. But their alternate faceup/styling with dark hair and grey eyes was absolutely beautiful!! I didn't like Lut's Shine at all until I saw someone's who had been styled in a totally different way than the website's promos.

These are expensive dolls, and customers are taking a huge risk by ordering dolls from photos that they've never seen in person. I know I've been disappointed after seeing actual dolls. I would be much more likely to get a doll from a site that had multiple angles of a sculpt, especially if it were in different styles and also without any blushing or make-up. One angle in one style? I would never buy it.

 

YouTube has a lot of owners doing BJD body reviews.

I'd also like to see blank heads with face-ups; I don't mean heads of full dolls that are also for sale. Sometimes a company has heads for sale that only come as blank heads, and they aren't the head of a full doll. Dollmore has this, and I wondered what their heads looked like with any face up.

 

I have the same feeling when I first started to browse around for BJD from different type of BJD company and basically majority of these companies does the things mentioned Their promotion pictures are really awesome that it makes you want to own these lovely doll in an instant Well in the marketing view, they have successfully got my interest I think it would be a wise decision to make an effort to research for owner's pictures whereby the pictures potray the genuine look of the doll and no offense, I'm not saying the doll is ugly but sometimes when the dolls are fully dressed, it's hard to see how their body would look like For instance, I love male dolls to be muscular but when they are well dressed, all of them look just handsome and sexy but I'm paying for the doll that I like and not for a handsome and sexy looking doll in the promotion picture only So basically, I think if both the promotion picture and pictures from doll owners still gives you the feeling of "The One", only then, that's the doll that you really want

 

AnotherSpace2 and Dollmore are having contests where owners enter photos of their dolls, which is another way to see photos of their dolls.

A friend asked me recently if I thought a specific doll would be good for one of her characters and she sent me a link to Iplehouse's Elchanan.

How could I tell? There were 14 photos of him wearing a helmet that covers most of his face and only three without. He may be a great doll, but I'd never order him until I saw good owner photos.

 

I can't say I get nervous with any sculpt or company. Usually because if I've found a doll that interests me, the FIRST thing I do is hunt for owner pictures. Either a gallery or a box opening or just a snapshot. Because most owners don't have anything to hide about their own dolls and you can get a more honest look at them than what you see on the site.

The only thing I dislike is when companies won't show you their doll's body. All the pictures are either clothed or headshots. Bodies are as important to me as the head sculpts and if you're going to give me a beautiful head on a sub par body, I want to know. I want to see it pose, where the joints are, the basic structure, etc. If a company can't show me that, then I'll just order the head and get a body I've been able to see elsewhere.

It just seems like bad business to not show the whole product from head to toe, you know? It's like buying a new car but they won't let you see the interior. Or buying a new house and only getting to see half the rooms.

 

My main problem with company pics is when the promo face-up looks nothing like the actual face-up. I know some variation is to be expected, but I think the product should be at least resemble the face-up shown. There's a sculpt that I really like, but since I can't find owner's pics of that company's face-ups, I won't order it. It's also annoying when company pics show a face-up done by different artist with no pictures of what the customer will actually get shown on the order page.