Don't trust a doll over 30?

Indeed i need some who look good in their 30,but those type are so rare i'll get one if i see it but we have more mature looking on lately w/ males so i'm very glad, now if only the female follows, they all look sort of young to me

 

I've actually been thinking that I'd like to get a minimee of Judy Dench (albeit at around 40 or so) to be an older character I'd like to do. Unless I got other people in the group order though I'd never be able to afford it.

 

I've got a couple characters who I am resisting the urge to put into doll form because they *are* over 30, and look it. It would detract from their story if they were insta-bishified shortly after being described in my mental narration as being their age and looking it. I can't think of any characters I'd be longing after who are older than 50, perhaps, but if we get a suitably shapely female body I'd love to have a doll of the Boss from MGS3. Who isn't particularly big-eyed and cutesy, nor a sweet-faced sixteen year old, but *is* two dozen different kinds of gorgeous.

Minimee doll heads for older actors are good for some older characters (such as-- it's Littleblackbow, I think, who has a Remus Lupin/Gary Oldman minimee?) and I really like the look of that. To some degree it's the stylisation inherent in most ABJD, but I don't think that should be a free pass for having everyone look barely pubertal. (I admit, that Remus minimee pleased me immensely, not least because with a dollie cigarette in his hand he made me think of Max Carrigan from Across the Universe Grizzled is good! And I have two guy characters who might take more permanent form if I find the right faces and bodies for them. They're both kinda craggy-looking hockey players, all stubbled up, and one is much more mature looking.)

 

I think this issue is particularly important for collectors like myself who have dolls that fall into family subgroups. I'm not certain that I would be okay with having my teen and tween-aged adoptive siblings being parented by someone that looks like they also fall into that age bracket. Which is exactly why the poor man is no longer with us in dolly form, the sculpt I had for him was just too youthful looking. I'm all for the concept that people don't necessarily have to "look their age," and I think that we really shouldn't be imposing preconceptions on people in regards to what they should look like, but I LIKE the idea of having "older-looking" dolls in my resin family.

I have noticed that certain sleeping/closed eye sculpts may lend themselves better to looking like they are showing some signs of age, and all that would require is an open-eye mod (and you have the option of keeping some of the upper eyelid, which would also add to the illusion of age).

In my opinion faceups only go so far, they flush out features in ways that can work for this but to me there's nothing quite like three-dimensionality. And on that subject I disagree with the notion that aged dolls would be less practical to produce than baby-smooth, nubile sculpts. If we can make wings and horns and hooves and specialized hands and detailed optional ears, sculpting an age line or two seems like a cakewalk in comparison to me.

So basically my question is why Senior Delf, why not Senior Citizen Delf?
(PLEASE don't think I'm criticizing CP, I'm just using this as a hopefully witty example.)

 

I don't even like my dolls to look like adults, let alone aged ones.
IRL I find youth frightful (I have nightmares in which I find myself 18 again), but I prefer my dolls to represent youngsters, and preferably pre-pubertal. ^_~

Raven

 

My lovely friend rykaan used to have a boy with some crow's feet and forehead lines. He appeared to be in his late 30's, early 40's. :3 It was such a wonderful character, and I really wouldn't mind having an older doll of my own.

Karrian is very VERY old - but being a vampire, he doesn't really age much. xD He has gray hairs, sure, but no wrinkles or anything to speak of.

 

If it fit a character I had in mind, then yes I would--and I do have a few characters that are older. They're the parents of three of my guys...well, guys and girl, but whether or not I want bodies for them I'm not sure. Though that has nothing to do with age and more to do with how they'd fit in with everyone else--there are just some that I have a harder time seeing embodied in dolly form. They would be late fifties/early sixties-ish.

I do have one doll who is 36 and his 38 year old sister. The 36 year old I think works fine for his sculpt which I feel is definitely adult looking, and to be honest I'm almost 31 but look a good bit younger, so it's certainly possible. His sister is sort of odd--her sculpt is more stylized and she almost comes off as sort of ageless to me (within reason of course--she's never going to pass for someone into her forties and beyond). But as she is now, she can almost be herself anytime through her young adult life up to where she's as now, which happen to be the points in her life that I do tend to write about most. Not possible for a real person, perhaps, but for a stylized doll that has some attitude and not really much of a baby face she can kind of pull it off--most likely because she's not all that realistic to start with so there's more leeway there. At least that's how I see it. I know some people tend to equate less realistic dolls with looking younger, but I tend to see them as being in some ways more flexible in terms of age.

 

The first example that you gave is gorgeous. Personally all my dolls are from a game i currently play with friends and i would love to get an older doll but it's rather hard to find an older female unless its a personal mod and if i had money for it i would pay for a personal mod to have my characters in child and adult form. Im even thinking of getting a few tinies that will be them as very young children. I would love to see a great olderwoman or a little old asian man.

 

I totally fine with doll looks old...but it depends how they look

 

I would adore to have a little old granny doll...
It's funny I stumbled across this, because lately I've been thinking about dolls with beer bellies. I dunno, if you had a character that would fit... it might not be so terrible...

Hooray for going against the grain.

 

Excluding my Sabik elf who is meant to be an immortal character of mine (thus he never ages regardless of how old he really is), I do have a few other human characters who are over 40 and one who is on the 50 mark. I don't think I would like a doll that looked like a wrinkly old man, but if I ever decided to dollify any of my over 40 characters, I'd be interested in a doll with a face sculpt that is more mature than the majority of dolls that we can get these days.

I love my pretty boys, yes, but pretty doesn't cut it for my over 40s (all three of whom are a mix of seasoned warrior and scholar) XD

 

Personally, I think the Iplehouse Luo looks like he could be in his early to mid thirties. Because he looks older than a lot of the younger looking guys (who I assume look younger because they're formed somewhat on the feminine side, so soft features and whatnot), I actually want to get him. Maybe with a little work, I can make him look 50 ^^

I'd treat older looking molds like I would all of the other molds. If I like it, I'll add it to the list. There's room in my heart for dollies of all ages and sizes XD So I'd love to see some out there.

 

I think well done older dolls would be a wonderful thing. There are tons and tons of older looking non-BJD dolls, so why not BJDs? I say well done, though, because I've seen so many badly done older looking dolls that I don't want that to come into the BJD world. It seems difficult to do an older doll well, especially in the Asian BJD style because most of the BJDs I see out there are made to look very generalized and simplified. That way, you can customize them to look the way you want. Not so with older people. They have such unique wrinkles that it may be too specific/realistic to make an older looking doll.

As far as 30-40 years old, though, I think some BJDs are approaching that already. Someone mentioned Luo and the Minimee I currently have getting a faceup is looking fairly middle aged, thanks to the makeup. Sometimes Hazy can look 30-35. I like it that way.

 

I'm going to vote on the less popular side and say that I have absolutely no interest in dolls that purposefully look older or have wrinkles or aged bodies. I have no problems with people looking their age or aging gracefully in real life, but I have no interest in it in the doll realm. My dolls are fantasies. I don't want them to accurately reflect reality. I want them to accurately reflect the anime aesthetic that I prefer. I am not a fan of the current trend towards more and more realism.

I do actually have a family of dolls and find their ageless looks to be more versatile. They really can be any age I want them to be, and are not pigeon holed into being old because of their wrinkles. And because I'm not bothered by and rather like the way everyone looks the same age in anime once they hit puberty until they become the short squished mentor character, it has never bothered me that I have three generations of my doll family and they are all SDs and grandmother Elfie is just as hot as her 20 year old granddaughter and even has perkier breasts. That's just the way Elfie looks.

 

If it fits the character, then I'm sure someone would buy them.

It just wouldn't be me because I don't have older looking characters, really. Sanyu and Gael are shinigami, so they age differently... Delaney and Alistair are vampires... Gwen is college aged still... So I just don't have any older characters. That's all.

 

I, for one, would love to see a BJD with a Richard Dean Anderson-esque feel. The expression "aging like fine wine" comes to mind. I'm not sure I'd actually buy such a doll given my preference for minis, but it'd certainly be a new concept to look forward to.

Has anyone checked out Rainman's project with an older-looking 12-inch gunman figurine? He's handsome in a weathered sort of way - I really like the head with the one closed eye although I can't tell if he's winking or taking aim. Maybe we'll see something translated into a 1/3 resin model one day.

 

I think you achieve a lot with the more mature looking molds and an well done face-up. I've seen some "aged" dolls here (some are even mentioned in this thread), but maybe finding the right kind of body is difficult. Most bodies currently available are young, muscular or model like. Not the aged kind of body type.

Clothes can cover that up and with the right kind of blushing you can age the parts that show, like the hands, but maybe you as a owner want a character to be "right" underneath the clothes too.

I like the fact that BJDs are youthful looking and have a certain amount of stylised perfection, but old characters have their charms too. I'd love to have an old doll, but I wouldn't want many of them.

 

i have a few more mature characters and it's difficult to find sculpts that would match their faces. i think a few of Unidoll's sculpts are quite good for making older characters, hence i got myself a Jace.

if the companies were willing to manufacture older-looking dolls, as long as they weren't hideous, i think i would probably buy one.

 

I find that I prefer my dolls to be between the ages of 12 and 18 at the moment. It's likely that I'll expand that range as I get older, but for now I like my dolls to be around my own age. I think this question is more about whether or not we can really relate to an older doll- and I think that depends on a person's age somewhat in most circumstances, and the age of the doll. I for one, couldn't really see having a 30 or 40 year old doll because I still associate that with my parents age group and I don't quite know how to work with that, but when I'm maybe 22 or something, I might decide I want a more mature 20-something year old doll. (If I'm still collecting by then.) I think I won't be in the hobby after the about 23 or 24, so I think that'll be the maximum age of my dolls, (for good.) But that's not to say I don't think older dolls are a good idea. It all depends on what people find most appealing...

 

I would love to see more age variety in BJDs. I have a bad habit of talking (well, ranting) at commercials, and "age-fighting" beauty product commercials are a big target for me. I don't see anything wrong with letting one's body age naturally. I think there's a beauty in age that people sometimes fail to see. My grandmother has lived a long, healthy, hard life on a farm, and she's one of the most beautiful people I know (wrinkles and all).

I just don't understand the concept behind the "fear of looking old". Plastic surgery, anti-aging creams, spa treatments, botox... I just don't get it. I think representing different age groups in doll form would be a wonderful thing, and maybe it would help us to rethink the concept of "beauty".

I have toyed with the idea of modding or faceupping/painting a doll to look older (for kind of an elderly wizard/mentor type character), but I don't think I have the skills to pull it off well. I'd love to see a well-executed doll in the 50+ age range, though.