Doll Couples and their heights, When is it not creepy?

For me, I need both dolls in the couple to be the same scale. My biggest size difference is a 58cm and 64cm. That's a pretty significant difference, but the shorter one is around 5'7" in character and the taller is 6'4". I only mix SD and MSD in the same stories when SD is a mature teen/adult and MSD is a child, since the height makes MSD about the size of the average 8 year old compared to 60cm dolls. I do have another couple in roleplay where my doll is SD and my role play partner's doll is a mature mini, but the chances of us meeting in person and taking pictures of the dolls together is unlikely, so it's not really an issue, since scale isn't really clear when their pictures are always separate. If we did, it would take a lot of photography tricks to make it look right. It's not that she looks like a child, but that the scale is just so so different, they won't look like people from the same world.

For others, it's really whatever you want to do, and what feels right to you. Regardless of character ages and maturity of sculpts, there will always be people who think MSD/SD pairings are wrong or creepy. There's no changing that. There will be others who want to know about the characters before passing judgment. Still, others who don't care either way, they're your dolls.

 

Dolls are a visual medium, so what it looks like is what people will react to first. You can do whatever you want, but you have to keep in mind that the "my character is really a mature 300 year old vampire/demon/angel/sloth creature" argument has already been used into the ground over the years, and it's likely that you'd gross some folks out if they see a little girl and a big man doll making out.

(I say this as someone who used to have Minifee/70cm couples just because I liked MNF girls until it sunk in that it didn't really work visually.)

 

Generally, if it looks like a child with an adult, someone is going to get very grossed out, and your pics may be deleted from public forums, photo hosting sites or chats. You will be aware that is a risk you take if you put a child sized doll in a pairing with a much larger doll, even if your child sized doll is "a mature adult".

So-called "Loli/Shota", Underage or any other Pedophilia is of course not permitted on Den of Angels, but the Mods have the final ruling on whether your pics appear too much like it, or are appropriate. If you're worried that a doll couple meant to be adults looks too creepy to be allowed here, run it by the Mods.

If on the other hand you're just looking for personal opinions from other users: mine is Nope Nope Eew, but that's me. It is very hard Not to make that kind of pair look creepy especially with the fluffy cupcake little girl dresses a lot of people put their dolls in. One of the only times I've seen this done sucessfully, the taller doll was only 60cm, the shorter doll was very adult-dressed and styled 44cm doll meant to represent an adult person with a growth disorder, so they did just happen to be very short.

 

I try very hard to keep my dolls to a realistic scale in terms of height, going as far as keeping a rigid ratio with converting the dolls height in cm to what they'd be in feet/inches, and making sure their height in inches is within the realm of reality. The only really major height difference in couples I even have planned is a 60cm girl with a fairly mature sculpt and a 75cm male -- and that's specifically because the dude's supposed to be very tall within my little OC-world canon (6'7" or so).

I'd say sculpt does play a part in it, as there are some smaller sized dolls that do look older, but when you've got a major size difference, the kneejerk assumption most of the time is younger & older, and that's what people will see.

 

I wouldn't put dolls who aren't in the same height class together, even if I did have some sort of story behind it.

 

But what if one doll is 54cm (SD) and another is 45cm (MSD). it is not same size group but it is 9cm. And when you have 72cm (SD) and 57 (SD), there is 15cm difference.
I have no idea what size difference is ok and what is not.

 

Anything that would look weird if they were real people.

 

It's not about height at all, it's about scale. True MSD sized dolls are meant to be children. Mature Minis (around 45cm) are 1/4 scale to an SD-sized doll's 1/3 scale. The proportion of the two scales is completely off from one another, hand and face size of human beings don't differ that much, no matter what the height difference is. Even a short SD is still proportioned to be an SD.

I'm 5'11". I have friends who are 5'2". Our hands are the same size. We can wear the same hats, short-sleeved shirts and shoes. I'm taller, but we're still the same scale. 70cm and 60cm dolls are still in the same scale at 1/3 so the height difference, even if it's 15cm, doen't seem as awkward and completely unrealistic as the smaller height difference between a Mature Mini and a short SD.

 

Personally, I'd look at a DMKid/Saint pair as definitely on the "creepy" side of the question... One romantic partner being very child-like while the other is clearly and unmistakably an adult is just going to have a pedo vibe to it no matter what the backstory may be.

To *your* mind that may not be the case, OP, because you know your own characters and their individual circumstances... But do keep in mind that not everyone who sees the pictures is going to have that context to base reactions or judgements on. They're not going to see Claudia-the-X-hundred-year-old-adult-vampire-trapped-in-a-child's-body... They're simply going to see a Claudia-the-child. If you chose to go through with your plans, you have to be ready for that and for your pictures to make people very uncomfortable as a result.

 

I, personally, think it's fine especially since your backstory has the MSD as a very old character.

I remember there was a girl here that did a lot of photostories and she had an adult Narae (SD or MSD?) always in adult clothes, with a Dollshe... or a Sabik? either way at the beginning of each photostory she would put up a note about how old the characters in her story were.

 

Yep... It was a 1/4 Narae and a Dollshe Hound. Even with the Narae being a "mature mini" sculpt rather than a more child-like one, though, the photostories still made quite a few people at the time uncomfortable. The discussions about that were one of the reasons the 45/60 heart markers were added to the gallery section, making those kind of potentially discomforting pictures easier to identify and (if necessary-) avoid.

 

I remember those too, and I'm pretty sure the disclaimer was there because of negative feedback she received for that couple. You can try to elaborate on these things, but people might not be able to look past their discomfort to what you see in your characters. Brightfires mentioned Claudia above, and she's actually a good example of this because in Anne Rice's novels, she's a five year old girl when she's turned into a vampire. It's less disturbing in the books because we can perceive her through her own eyes or the eyes of other vampires who can translate that she's really an adult in the body of a child, but as soon as she made it to the big screen she was played by a twelve year old, I assume because visually it's less disturbing given her relationship with Louis.

 

From my perspective, I think that, even with a backstory explaining it, a pairing between what looks like a child and an adult will still be perceived in a pedophilic way. I don't think of it so much as SD vs MSD, or even height differences, but rather the look of the sculpt (and dollmore kids do look very young). Even if it makes sense from a story perspective, it's still kind of uncomfortable to see.

However, I do think the premise of an adult trapped in a child's body being attracted to another adult would be an interesting internal conflict for a character to develop, but maybe not to express.

 

I think it's about "does the smaller one straight up look like a child?" More than actual height difference.

Zaoll and dollshe guy? Why not. Really short girl meets very tall boy (bit of a stretch in terms of human height difference, but maybe the guy is half giant or something). They're both SDs and and both easilly look 20 something.
Kid delf and dollshe guy? Eeeeeesh. Not so much. Kid delfs have the height, body and face of children!
Even if the kid delf is a super duper old immortal being, the visual is still very weird. It can also be questionned why the adult looking one would be interested to date someone that has the body of a child in the first place...

 

I agree that pairings involving MSD/SD will creep most people out. I don't think the backstory really matters all that much, because even if the younger-looking is hundreds of years old in the story, it still has the body of a child. I also don't think it visually works to pair two different sizes (1/4 and 1/3) together because they are not in the same scale. Because of these reasons, it just looks wrong, weird, or awkward in most cases.

 

oh I loved the heart markers! I don't see them anymore... are they coming back?

On another note, you can't please everyone. Your dolls are your own characters, if the mods find it inappropriate they'll let you know.

 

I've got an MSD/SD couple, an MSD/tiny couple as well as a tiny/SD/SD triad pairing. No, that last one is not a typo.

For the MSD/SD, I have a 45cm mature mini with a 57cm SD. They are supposed to be quite different in height as that's the way I wrote them in their story. Because they're my characters (and favourites of mine), they look right to me although I'm sure other people would give them the narrow-eyed look. I did try to make the taller one fit into an MSD sized sculpt but there was no way that was happening. Every now and again I toy with the idea of getting an SD Vito boy (52cm) to re-shell him but I honestly can't wrap my head around his character being any other sculpt than the one he is.

The tiny/SD/SD (30cm/68cm/68cm) triad is the result of the tiny (Soom Fairy boy, a very mature sculpt) being a former fairy turned minion to a god. His lovers are said god and an elf/demon cross who are much bigger than he is. The top of his head comes roughly to the waist of his lovers. Again, this pairing likely makes some raise their eyebrows but it makes perfect sense to me because of the characters they are.

The MSD/tiny is... complicated. The MSD character is usually tiny-sized and appears as a child of about 6 years old most of the time in his natural form. However, he is a demon and can change his form to look like that of a 16 years old if he chooses although he can't hold that form for extended periods of time (he needs more practice at it). One of his lovers is a demon/cockatrice and because of his cockatrice half, has a smaller, more childish build than someone his age should. He is a touch over 300 years old but he looks about 12 years old and is very much not human with wings, a tail, claws and rooster legs/feet. When they are intimate, the demon changes form to his older version because it creeps out his cockatrice lover (and his satyr lover for that matter) to do anything when he looks like a 6 year old.

As long as you're prepared to possibly catch some flak from how you choose to pair your dolls, do what you want with them. They are yours to envision however you wish. But, just because they are established in a certain way in your head won't make others automatically see them that way and there's a very good chance that even with an explanation of what they really are age/maturity wise, some people may still feel uncomfortable or get upset at seeing pics of them together as a couple.

 

It really depends on the body proportions and how childlike or mature the head sculpt is. IRL example because why not: I'm a really short person and the height difference between my boyfriend and I is close to comical, but we are the same age, and he doesn't look inappropriately older than me because of the way his face and body look. So I think it's less about height diff and more about proportion and aesthetic x)

 

Most SD/MSD pairings just don't work out because as already said, alot of them look quite childish, since that's how they are meant to be. But as already pointed out, it's usually about the look and asthetic of the dolls in question rather than height or size. I admit I do currently have an MSD/SD pairing, or well technically, I own the MSD boy and a very dear friend owns the SD boy. My character is an immortal half elf/half water sprite, but I know that most won't like that fact when they find out since my boy isn't exactly on the more mature side. He's over a 100 years old, but I never minded it because as yet gain, as with someone else above, I knew I would never photograph them together seeing as we live in different countries. So it wasn't as big a deal as it would usually be if we took pics of them together.

As for other height differences, I also have a 72cm/58cm pairing and personally wouldn't want any bigger of a difference than that. It's hard to take pictures of them together as it is and due to the 14cm diff they have it's very hard to get them to be able to look at each other when they are standing up. Any more than that and it will be beyond hard for me. My girl doesn't look like a kid at all, but I've worried that sometimes because of his larger size, my boy does make her look a little too small.

However, the characters are meant to be that way. The people/characters they are based on are 5'4 and 6'2 respectively and their height and size difference is pretty much perfect for how they looked in the movie.I wouldn't like anything more than that though, but that's just me. If you like it, it's your choice and if it fits the characters you're going for, well that's definitely your choice. But as already pointed out people will see what they see and think what they want when they view them so do be prepared for that and for peoples opinions of it. Your dolls and your characters are exactly that, yours. So just be happy with yours choices is what I say.