Dolls you have no idea what to do with?

heheh! i thought i was the only one with this syndrome! i get gift heads. don't ask. then i am supposed to dooo something with them. don't get me wrong they are well done and i like them. but they don't fit anything. i finally wiped one and stared at him for a few months. well, he now has a face that i like and he has a character i can now live with. now if he had a body... but thats a different storyXP

 

I never make characters ahead of time. I wait for the doll to tell me. I know there not real, but I do think our brain will subconsciously tell us what we want. Like, try different outfit styles on him. Some may just not feel right. Does huge preppy theme fit, rock, uptight, grunge? Once you figure that out, you can try different wigs & eyes until one just seems right to you. My girls change eyes & wigs all the time, personally, so not having primary colors work for me. You may find after figuring his style out, parts of his personality. Look at his sculpt good. Does he seem to be anxious, worried, upset, snarky, pretty boy, etc? Soon things will start rushing into your mind.

Your other options is looking for a cheap face up artist or do it yourself. Some do it for free if they are just starting out. This might be a great way for you to try different faces without spending $50 plus on a face up you will find you don't like on him. You could try a natural face up of you don't have anything in mind as it will go with everything, stick the eyebriw & eyelash to neutral light brown colors. They can match well with any wig color. This way he can be more versatile. You could also tell the artist "I have nothing suprise me!" and just see how it comes out. You might be suprised by the results. I say just take the plunge if the outfit idea doesn't help! You could always start face ups yourself, this guy could be the perfect excuse to do it yourself!

 

yeah, I have a couple dolls I'm not sure what to do with. I think I may sell one, but work on the other- try difference wigs, and clothes, etc. I already have eyes that I like for him, so that's a start... I am thinking about getting someone to do his face-up some day, since I can't (and I don't really want to try xD)
I'm also considering getting a doll just to compliment him since he doesn't really look good with my fav dolly x'D

 

I have two named Taffy and Jareth, technically only Taffy is mine, they're prize heads so selling them will never ever happen, using them because they're ginormous 70s is a different issue. Taffy has changed his eye color and they have several wigs and outfit styles to share, which helps, but outside of being David Bowie fans and liking Muppets nothing much has come. I don't dwell on their paperweight status, I dwell on the good things about them.

Over time it's been about half and half if I have a character first or find a doll first. There's a big enough list of doll first character later to make it a habit but as each doll takes saving just wanting it because it's cute has time enough to wear off before it's cute or get a second reason like I don't have that size.

 

I make my characters ahead of time and if they don't fit in my story, they got sold....

But if you are determined to keep this doll (and I HAVE been given heads and made them fit in), I'd say if you do your own faceups, then just start playing and see where it goes. If you don't, then maybe find an artist whose style you love and send him off, let them have complete artistic freedom to do as they please and maybe he'll speak to them. I find it very hard to bond with a blank doll, so maybe a faceup would bring out personality?

I bought a BBD Waltz head off the MP, with no intention to make him a character, possibly a practice head or something...but having the head in hand, it began to "speak" to me. Playing with a faceup added more to him and now he's pretty outrageous. He went from nameless head to wild and crazy frat boy within a week.....

 

I have had this happen several times. I liked the doll itself enough to buy it, but didn't know quite what to do with it once it arrived. In each case, I put the doll back in its box and waited for inspiration. I don't know where exactly inspiration comes from, but obsessing or worrying over it does not work for me. If I don't think about it for a while, sometimes it just comes to me. Once the solution came to me in a dream and another time, I was watching a movie and suddenly had a great idea totally unrelated to what I was watching. I hardly ever sell dolls, so I like to take all the time I need to make them perfect for me. I have also made the decision that if I like a doll, it doesn't really have to fit in with any of the others. It can just sit by itself and look decorative.

 

At the moment I bought to Hujoo dolls and I have no idea what to do with them. I don't know what type of clothes or wig or anything. I just bought them on a whim and because it was black Friday. So after finals, I am going to sit down with my dolls and figure out what I will do with them for the next couple of weeks during my winter break. Right now they just resting in my oldest doll bed chilling.

 

All of my non-tinies were without storylines for a long, long time..like years and years, since 2007-2008 until a few months ago. I had no idea how to characterize them and tie them together into the same universe. I've re-named them so many times and they continued to change. I adore them deeply, don't get me wrong, I love them just as much as my tinies but for some reason it's just easier for me to relate to dolls that look like children such as my tinies (Lati Yellows) thus easier to create characters & stories for that age range. Only recently did I conjure a storyline with characters suited for my SDs and MSD and now have a definite idea as to what to do with them.

I think that no matter how long it takes for you to figure out what to do with a particular doll, an idea will spark eventually, even years later. It's so rewarding to finally create a character for said doll and have a set look in mind. As long as you love the doll's sculpt, I would hold onto him/her and just wait for inspiration to set in. It will happen eventually and sometimes it may take longer for one doll than it does for another!

 

Well, to tell the truth, i never know what to do with my dolls... I just buy them things trying to find what fits them the most and what makes them look good. But i also just love them. I look at them and feel happy i simply have them. It also gives me a special happy feeling when i find a wig or eyes or clothes that make them look gorgeous. None of them has a backstory so there's no trouble for me with making up a backstory, i just don't do that.

 

I play with mine so this isn't ever a problem for me. They don't have stories or "characters" exactly, they have names of course. I don't really understand not knowing what to do with them. But, then again, there is a 10 yr old involved in this with me...She keeps the ball rolling.

Sent from my SPH-L900 using Tapatalk 2

 

I'm having a heck of at time figuring out what to do with my second doll. I have 4 now, and even though one of them lacks a face up, I have a story for the other 3. The one I'm having trouble with is a Dollmore Banji. I'm starting to see why they aren't too popular. She's does not match the scale of my mature tinies, is tricky to find or make clothes for and has a less than size 3 head with a wig that falls off because the velcro the company sends to hold the wig on does NOT work at all. I like her, she's just frustrating.

 

Oh yes, this happens to me, especially since I started buying dolls because they look pretty rather than because I have a particular character in mind. I trust myself to come up with some sort of style and personality for them while I'm waiting for them to arrive, but sometimes this doesn't happen and I'm just left with a blank doll not knowing where to start - what colour and style of wig to get, what eyes, how to commission the face-up, what clothes they'll wear... I just have no clue. If I like the doll enough I will try different things and eventually it will stick, but often the reason I can't come up with anything is because I don't like the doll enough, I'm not inspired by it, and I end up having to sell it.

I got my Minisup event head (Sujin) last year and it's taken me until now to figure out what to do with her. She was too cute to give up on. I went through a few different names and ideas before settling on the current one. Hopefully it will work out and I will finish her soon!

Two out of my three incoming dolls I'm also struggling with. But they haven't arrived yet so I'm not too worried. Hopefully I'll figure out what to do with them when they get here. I have some vague ideas but I'm likely to change my mind.

 

Yes. My RS Pixiu dragon.
He is really cute and I bought him the year of the Dragon so I got to keep him....
but his wings and tail fall off and he didn't fit the character intended...so he just sits around and looks cute.
I guess painting him would help. I was never happy with the face up I gave him.

 

I have this issue with my B&G Loretta Aida. She has a name, and that's about it.

I have come close to selling her, but the fact that she was my first doll stops me. But truth be told she hasn't left her box for a little while... I don't know what to do.

 

SayYes, I agree with you. I buy a doll because the face "speaks" to me. I have never done a face up on any of my dolls. I suppose I am missing some of the fun of BJDs. Still, I buy the ones I love and enjoy trying different wigs and eyes on them. That's as far as I go....

 

I think with the ones I'm stuck with is because they are newer to me, and I haven't had much time lately to play doll or anything else for that matter.
I don't write, so I have no characters. I buy dolls I think are pretty and that I like looking at, and let them "tell" me what they like, and we go from there.
My very first doll got a lot of experimenting done, different outfits, colours, etc. Took her 6 months to "tell" me what she liked. From there it's been smooth sailing
And it's not like the dolls talk but when I put a certain outfit on a doll, you will notice a change. When my first doll turned out looking spectacular in what I thought was an ugly outfit, I knew I had found her style

 

I have an AOD Meng Yaqi that I sort of unexpectedly acquired (someone on a Dutch doll forum wanted to trade her for human dresses, and as I happened to have the same size and had a few dresses in her preferred style that I never wore, it seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up). She's spent the past few months just sitting around characterless, in various wigs and outfits, until her character finally popped into my mind yesterday. Once she'd told me her name and her connection to the other dolls, it made total sense, although in a very unexpected way. I guess I just had to get used to her before I knew what to do with her?

 

Yea, i've got a few dolls that havent seemed to fit into any character. my first girl took me forever to name cause i just couldnt figure out who she was (til my bf named her for me XD and its stuck). My second girl Aria took me a while too, she was beautiful and a gift, so i felt the need to keep her, around the time i got my boyfriend his first doll (may this year) she finally settled into a character (she's kind of like a female puss in boots only much darker (tho she looks sweet and wears pink girly clothes XD)). Albert (my bf's doll) took some time to settle into a NAME but the character was there right away (at least in part, it took playing with props to figure out he wanted to be a pirate XD).
If i cant decide what they are or whatever, i just mess with clothes, props, eyes, whatever i can get my hands on til they settle into a look and then the character tends to form at that point at least a little (most of my dolls wind up stealing each others stuff to settle into characters XD mostly its eyeballs tho) I still have 3 dolls that just wont settle into anything but i think part of that is they're just heads =p