Dont you wiSh they'd show the eyes on dolls ?

Well Safrin and Dollmore show pictures of how the eyes look when worn by a doll. (At least for some part of their eye collection.) I always found that feature very useful as it helped me decide a lot of times with color choices.

Personally for me the most interesting question is always how luminous will the eye appear when it is positioned inside a doll's head. So the question what sculpt it is and what skin color won't really interfere with the observation of how bright the eyes appear or how detailed the iris sculpture shows, etc.

 

I prefer when companies show the eyes both inside and outside of a doll head. That way I can get a good idea of how the eyes look overall. uvu

 

Its a nice bonus when there are shots of a doll wearing the eyes, but they rarely help me chose. I usually check out the picture requests here on DoA if I'm indecisive. The only thing I would wish for is knowing what lighting was used when the eyes were photographed out of doll. Is the light straight above, so that there is a minimum of shadow in the iris or is the light at an angle and shadowing the iris making it look darker? That gives me a better idea of how the eyes will look in my doll.

 

I think monitor settings are probably a bigger problem than in/out of doll head pictures can fix. If you see the same image on a CRT, an expensive LCD, and a cheap LCD... all three will look like completely different colors. (Having all 3 in my service right now, I can say this is true.)

 

Because it is a TON of work. Putting eyes in a doll head and then photographing them takes easily 5x as long as setting the eyes on a plain background and photographing them. Also, when I photograph eyes alone I use a small lightbox, so I can make sure they're evenly lit. When I'm photographing eyes in a doll that's not an option, so getting good, even lighting is much more difficult. If you're just selling two or three pairs of eyes it's no big deal, but a doll company is dealing with 10-20+ different colors, and the time really adds up.

Plus, what doll are they going to show the eyes in? 18-20mm eyes in my Syo head, who has ginormous round eyes, are going to look VERY different than eyes in, say, my Minifee Rheia, who wears 14mm eyes and has a much narrower eyeshape. The eyes are able to catch way more light in the Syo head. If you bought a pair of eyes based on what they looked like in that photo you'd probably be very disappointed at how they looked in a smaller-eyed doll.

Also, a lot of the problem isn't so much that the eyes aren't in a doll; it's how the eye photos are lit and how the color in the photos is balanced. For instance, I've done a halfdozen Enchanted Doll eye group orders, and the colors are never identical to the website photos -- that's why I consult the ED eyes photo request thread and flickr group before I choose a color, and why I take photos of all the eyes I get in group orders for reference.

For me, seeing photos of eyes in a doll would have basically no effect on my purchasing decision. I like to see as many photos of the eyes as I can before I buy so I can make an educated guess about how they're actually going to look in real life, but just having the company slap the eyes in some doll of a sculpt I likely don't own is not helpful to me.

 

I am with the camp with not needing to see eyes inside a doll head to purchase.

What I personally would love is more hi res shots of the eyes from different angles so I can see, for example, just how high the domes are and what shape they are overall. That is information that is much more important to me in finding the right eyes for my doll.

 

I like seeing them in the doll as well, but I will buy without a picture if it's good quality.

 

I like being able to see the eye without a doll as I find the other doll, which may be completely different from the one I have, distracting. I do sometimes find it helpful to see the eye in a doll in order to get a better idea of how high the dome is and how large the iris is. However, I can only really tell this if I am familiar with the sculpt being used.

Just a note: Safrin doll usually has a picture in and out of a doll. Though, most of the pictures in a doll are just one eye closeup.

 

Additional photographs means less time spent making things. I can personally attest to the fact that making something, photographing it, processing the photos, editing the website, handling customer service and packing and shipping is a ton of work for one person. I have an assistant specifically to photograph my work, but I do everything else. It really cuts into production time, and I can't imagine asking an eye maker to spend more time taking pictures instead of making eyes. I can guarantee that there would not be a great enough increase in sales to compensate for the extra time spent on promotion. Aside from the fact that additional orders generated would also take longer to produce because more time was spent doing photo processing. I don't see this issue as a "should." I see that eye makers do what they can with the time they have. Larger companies like Dollmore aren't making their own eyes and they have staff devoted to photography and web content, so that's not really a parallel situation. If you are selling generic glass eyes, you are going to have to work harder to make the sale because the market is flooded with choices, not so with the high end boutique eye companies.

 

I work around this by Photoshopping the eyes into the doll's head sometimes. :P It won't be 100% accurate, but it gives you a rough idea of how a doll will look with specific eyes.

 

That's exactly what I thought! But the problem is that eyes will look differently on different dolls, no? But the idea is wonderful!

 

My fiance tells me all the time that my dolls' eyes look creepy outside of the doll. It doesn't bother me, though.

 

A lot of companies do show the eyes on a doll, but it really depends on each individual one. But this problem is evident in everything. Some companies don't show outfits being worn, some doll companies don't even show a blank sculpt of their doll.

Besides, if they used a different sculpt from it wouldn't really help me. In that case they would have to have the eyes in every single sculpt. So in the end I don't really mind when they don't put the eyes in the doll, it doesn't really matter to me.

I'm pretty good at imagining it, and if I can't, I'll purchase a set of cheap acrylic eyes to check it out.You can always just photoshop the eyes on to the sculpt if it really bothers you.

I agree with St. James. For some smaller companies, it takes a lot of time to get out the photos. I'd rather they produce more eyes than make a bunch of pictures.

 

If I'm deciding on eyes for a doll, I will photoshop the eyes into the head. Whilst it isn't perfect, it helps a lot!

 

Yeah I never get seeing just an eye on it's own. I normally photoshop the doll with the same shade to see if it looks ok.

 

I agree with you but...sometimes I can't stand that it's a boy doll not a girl doll or the eye shape isn't right.
So it's understandable why the can't do it. Also, I would like to see all of the eye and the back of the eye to see if it has the stem or not.