Dolls with disabilities?

I have a doll who's deaf, she has jointed hands so she can sign.
I love the idea of a little service dog buddy though! cute.

 

This is such a great idea to honor your own disabilities! I don’t have a doll at the moment that has a disability, but I think that diversity of dolls is beautiful!

 

One of my girls has Sickle Cell Anemia (so I think that counts, right?) and her son has Down’s Syndrome I love having crew members with such ’quirks’.

Edit - allow me to rephase my last sentance - I enjoy having dolls who have such traits, as inclusivity and representation is important to me.

 

It's great you have disabled dolls, but just so you know, describing disabilities as "quirks" can be seen as offensive, as it refers to something strange, or unusual, and referring to disabled people in this way is harmful.

 

My apolagies, I didnt mean any offense, as a person with a disability myself I see where you are coming from, and have added an edit to my post

 

Thank you!

 

Quite a few of my dolls' characters have schizophrenia or a psychotic spectrum disorder, just like myself! I like to create the positive representation I wish to see in the world, even if it's just something small for myself and my family and friends to know about.

My next full SD-sized doll I have plans to make an amputee character too, and have been looking into how people do that for their dolls!

 

Yup, I have OCs that have disabilities and i've made some of those characters into dolls. I have one character who has an undiagnosed stomach disorder, one who is mute and communicates through sign language and two who wear eye patches. I'm also currently making a fan doll of a character from a cartoon show who doesn't speak and communicates through body language.

I often have to wear an eye patch due to migraine/light sensitivity issues with one of my eyes so i've developed a soft spot for eye patch wearing characters. I also struggle with selective mutism so i've found i've become quite drawn to characters who communicate through non-verbal methods. I've found it has a kind of comfort and an empowering element to have characters with those particular things.

On the other hand, I am a long term sufferer of chronic illness and pain and to be honest, that's not something I want to think about when i'm having some escapism with my dolls. So it's quite selective for me, that some disabilities I feel positive about giving to a character and some things that would feel bit of a downer.

 

I'm hearing impaired, and the jointed hands for sign language is suuuch a charming idea! One of my non-BJD dolls is a deaf fashion model (with vitiligo), who I'm one day planning to shell onto a Minifee. I always grew disheartened as a kid never hearing about anyone on TV who had hearing problems like me, so I suppose the first doll I ever got ended up fulfilling that role in my life!

 

One of my dolls has a permanent injury hindering full use of her left arm (movement from the elbow and clenching the hand tightly cause her pain). The doll body she uses thankfully has some (workable) shoulder joints. So when posing her, I try to transfer the bulk of her arm movements to her shoulder and upper torso, as she would have in real life.

An upcoming one has a lost eye. I was able to find a sculpt with one eye closed (not winking), but I'd have to implement further temp mods on him to make him look more true-to-character.

EDIT: I forgot about this, but my lone sprite-like mature tiny has alopecia. It's not obvious in the pic below because she has a black cloth draped over her scalp, though. Also, my fraternal twin dolls have a hair pigmentation condition that they inherited from their father (who is my primary male doll): hereditary poliosis. It doesn't really affect their over-all health, but they have naturally light streaks (level of severity varies from ash blonde to white depending on the character) on their hair due to lack of pigment. Still working on their individual wigs to be able to portray it accurately.

Spoiler: Sparse hair

Wisps of Black by Yela Gatchalian-David, on Flickr

 

One of my dolls has an older style body with knee joints that don't let him stand, so I made a wheelchair for the little guy.

 

There's a photo reference gallery featuring dolls with all sorts of disabilities.

I too have dolls with various conditions, ranging from chronic illness, hidden disabilities and visible ones. Four of them are in my doll profiles, while a fifth has yet to make her formal debut.

 

While none of mine have visible physical disabilities, I do have a few who share some of my own illnesses. Marley is bipolar, borderline schizophrenic and suffers from depression. Cooper has severe anxiety and an eating disorder. Lily has dealt with addiction. Cooper and Marley have asthma. Jesse has depression and anxiety. Sixx has severe allergies (not sure if these qualify or not).

 

One of my children is mute and uses sign language (and her power to create images in the air (because magic (the world needs more of it))) to communicate with her family.

 

I've wanted to make spoonie related things for my dolls, but I couldn't really come up with any ideas for things to make other than mini pill bottles and syringes. I have an invisible illness, and it's hard to represent something invisible in a physical way on a doll. I'd really like some doll scale sunglasses that look like mine, but I haven't found anything remotely similar. I agree @Epicari. There are aspects of my illness that I don't mind talking about or giving a doll while others I try not to think about.

 

My girl has SPD (sensory processing disorder) , I find it comforting to have characters that I can relate to

 

I have some dolls in my crew that have disabilities and the like, as does my S.O. in their's.
My significant other and I have dolls that are loosely based on our selves. As such my boy/girl Velocity has mild depression high anxiety and dysgraphia, and Amber's boy Legacy has diabetes and dysgraphia.

I also have a dolls based on role playing PCs of mine that have physical disabilities. Alice has a glass eye (his right one is blue and his good eye, the left one is red with a heart shaped pupil and the glass one.) and Darek is a D&D rogue of mine that had his right hand cut off and has a clockwork replacement but it lacks a lot of feeling the real one had. (Doll has a modded jointed hand.)