Dolls With No Emotion Showing

I've seen dolls that look emotionless, yes, but I believe such dolls can change once they are given owners. Whatever emotion a person has towards a doll, the doll will display as well. It's merely the energy we put into them and sometimes that energy can make a doll seem alive regardless of what it may look like. No, I do not feel this way about any of my dolls.

 

I feel that sometimes a new faceup/wig/eyes can make a difference, but sometimes it can't. A lot of the anime-faced dolls (even the smiling ones! XD) have a sort of "dead inside" look that gives me a twinge of the creeps (maybe because their faces look too symmetrical? No idea; dolls rarely creep me out).

As great an effort it is to try and spruce a doll up in different ways, I think sometimes that disconnect just can't be helped. It's the same with people who wind up not enjoying a doll that they bring home--they can't find a look that clicks for them, no matter what they change up.

Are any of my dolls like that? Naahh! Not all of my dolls are all smiles, but even the "frowny" ones don't look like robots--they seem more serious, or caught up in thought. I don't think I'd be able to own a doll that looked so blank emotionally.

 

I have seen some like that! I think that about a lot of the default Bobobie/Resinsoul pictures. In this case, I think it's a combo of bad posing and eye positioning. Realistic posing and careful eye positioning works wonders! But when I see a wonky-eyed doll just flopped over...it has no emotion or feeling at all, to me. When I got my BBB Pixie, she just stared.......I didn't bond well. moving her eyes and adding lashes helped a LOT. But not enough for me to keep her.

 

My bestie's Yukino looks very warm and happy, just not the "OMG I ate my weight in skittles and I'm WIRED!" way. Most dolls have a blank, neutral expression. I've seen kandi raver dolls that are dressed and painted extremely happy but still look totally and "say ONE WORD and I will mess you up.." in the face.

 

Sometimes, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Someone could look at it and see things in it's face that I could never see, and love it.

 

Have you guys ever came across a doll that has made you feel that way?
Have you ever seen a doll picture and just think she/he looks like a robot?
And have you ever felt that way towards one of your own dolls?

I have seen many dolls that seem vacant/emotionless. I think it's mostly the nature of the subject but also the way the doll
is portrayed and customized, just like with real-people – some look like empty mannequins (not in a good way). Of course with
humans it's not mainly due to the way they look but more with the type of person they are. With dolls, I think it has to do a lot
with the perspective (opinion/POV) of the viewer as well as the work the owner has put onto giving "life" to an otherwise lifeless object.

I have never felt that way about any of my dolls, from the most stylized ones to the ones that are on the more realistic-ish side,
they all seem to be bursting with "life of some sort." I don't believe that inanimate objects can possess souls but I like to think
that none of my dolls have a vacant, lifeless expression on their faces. Of course, I believe it is all about perception and others might
see them differently and vice versa. Interesting topic! (:


- Enzyme

 

What gives a doll "life" or lack of it often comes down to how the photographer has portrayed the doll. Eye position has a great deal to do with it; eyes that stare straight ahead do look somewhat zombie-ish, whereas looking slightly up or to one side can make a complete difference. And some doll owners do have a knack of posing and capturing their dolls in very lifelike poses - particularly with in-scale props. A doll could have the most realistic sculpt and a perfect face-up - but if plonked straight down on someone's bed, arms stiffly by their sides and legs straight out whilst staring blankly ahead, then it's going to look just like a lifeless doll.

 

That's often down to eye positioning more than anything else. See here: http://www.denofangels.com/forums/s...ye-Alignment-and-Human-Expressions-A-Tutorial Admittedly I made this tut myself but it makes my point.

 

I actually want one of my next dolls to be as emotionless as possible - she's dead. But her eyes are closed so I'll have to rely on the eyebrows for this one.... but how to make them completely expressionless? Hmmm....

 

I personally haven't had that reaction towards the sculpts themselves, however, the choice of eyes and how they are placed makes a HUGE difference, especially with dolls who have large eyes. It's easy to get the blank stare look if you aren't careful.

 

I have owned dolls that seemed quite expressive in the company photos but when they arrived they seemed quite 'flat' looking, no matter from what angle I looked they seemed vacant and blank with no expression, no character in there. I love having dolls that have a different expression from each angle.

 

My girl also seemed emotionless when I got her but now she seems to be getting used to me and I'm getting used to her. ^^

 

It all comes down to how the faceup is done and how the eyes are positioned, as well as lighting. I've seen plenty Yuki's that are rather sweet and warm, or overbearingly sad than expressionless.

Now I deliberately painted Anju (whose head is the same as Aoi's) to be more blank rather than angry all the time which the Aoi head tends to do. But while she appears blank most of the time, sometimes she appears ditsy or unsure, or even imploring- so she isn't expressionless all the time.

DD's probably have this issue more than average bjds since their faces are hyper-stylized and often use animetic eyes that act a bit differently than the eyes actual people have- which makes sense since DD's are designed to look like anime/manga/cartoon characters than real people. So sometimes they do appear more robotic. I would hazard a guess that the Aoi and Yukino (as well as the DD01 head) are sculpted to appear more blank than the other more limited sculpts since they are probably meant more as blank canvases where the owner puts emotion into the face rather than as being a pre-established character to begin with. I've yet to come across an expressionless resin bjd, and I own one that has no eyebrows painted nor a sculpted mouth!

Also, did you know that DD Rei (a limited character) uses the Aoi sculpt? Rei as a character is supposed to be this empty blank slate, almost soulless. Personally I agree with volks' choice of sculpt, because quite frankly I think it's extremely easy to get the Aoi head to look 'empty' if you don't want the angry look that head is good at. It's almost as if 'happy' cancels out the 'angry' and becomes 'nothing', like how 1+(-1)=0.



So despite my long rambly post, yes I do have a "blank" doll that I deliberately painted that way because at the time I didn't know what I wanted but I did know I didn't want her angry. And despite me having deliberately painted her that way, she still shows emotion from time to time. I've found that it all depends of how the sculpt is painted, how the eyes are positioned and how the lighting hits the doll's face. Another thing I forgot to mention is that us owners tend to project our own feelings onto our dolls, that sometimes if you feel sad you may think that your doll at the time looks a bit sad too. So that also influences the appearance of emotion.

 

I came across some dolls that didn't have an expression at all. And personally I kind of like that and sometimes even prefer that.
In person those dolls did have expressions, depending on me and how I projected my own feelings and mood into them. And that I think, is a wonderful thing with dolls.

 

Couldn't have said it any better myself.

 

How well or poorly a doll matches the others around it style-wise can make a big difference, too. If it has more simplistic or stylized sculpting, or generally a more "doll like" look over-all, it's probably not going to fare very well in comparison if it's posed next to more detailed or more realistic models.

I briefly owned an Angell Studio Gabriel, and noticed that effect very strongly with her. When I had her sitting off by herself, she was fine. 'Pretty cute actually, if in a slightly dazed, "Wait, what?" sort-of way.

The instant I picked her up and sat her next to my more expressive Cerberus Project dolls or more detailed Volks sculpts, though, it was like night and day. She went from being perfectly fine to looking about as detailed and expressive as a lump of clay. It just wasn't a good thing.

In the end, that mismatch was the major reason I didn't keep her. I really suspect that if the rest of my crew had shared the same sculptural style she had, though, she's have fit in just fine and I'd probably never have thought of her as being too simplistic.

 

Bright, dramatic eyes with prominent whites coupled with expressive faceups can do wonders for ANY mold!

 

I think it's all in the faceup. Namely the eyebrows.

 

Usually I see it the most in doll photography where the pose looks stiff and unnatural or the eyes are out of wack or the scale is all wrong and so it looks strange. I like to think that most dolls can be brought to life and so I would view it as a challenge ..and go broke in doing so. I'm having flashbacks to my DC Olivia who had countless wigs before I got the right one.. I'm also amazed at how much difference even eye colour and size can make. It's all in the fine tuning in my opinion and definitely achievable.