Ever been disappointed? Even a little?

When my Leekeworld Sweet came, I was a bit disappointed because her faceup must have been done quickly because the paint on her lips had been painted to roughly and there was an outline of a paint bubble that had popped.

 

When I first opened my girl, I felt disappointment because she looked so tiny (I had never seen one in real life other than quickly at cons). But I dressed her, put her wig on, stood her up and suddenly she didn't look quite so small and I was in love ^^

 

It seems like a common cause for disappointment is a doll being smaller in person than imagined. When my Bobobie Apollo (only the second boy doll I'd ever seen up close in person) arrived, I also had the "did I do the right thing??" moment. He was shorter and slimmer than my Abio Angel boy, and had neutral brown eyebrows. I had planned for his character to be kind of tall and dark, with jet black hair and eyes. Obviously, the faceup could be changed (though it's been almost a year and I have yet to finalize his "correct" look...), but the size difference made me pretty wary at first. Gradually though I got used to it, and now his small frame is sort of a running joke. He always wears boots to even out the height difference between him and the other boys in the house. And he wishes he were taller, so he wouldn't get picked on about it so much. lol

 

Ive never been disappointed in a doll, but Ive had a TON of wig and eye disappointments. When i got my first SD sized girl, i got her a elfdoll wig, and i hated it- It was IMPOSIBLE to keep in good condition, and it then started to friz out so badly that i ended up throwing it away... Then there are the Monique wigs ive gotten. I dont know what it is about me and those wigs, but i ALWAYS seem to get ones that lose a handfull of hair with even a light brushing....

 

----------nope.

 

I've had a couple of disappointments here and there (and a damn-close one, too) since starting this up less than a year ago... ^^ In fact, I may have had an initial disappointment on almost everything, now that I think about it.

When I first got Gabriel, my first doll, while I wasn't initially disappointed with him, I slipped him into some spare (wrong-sized) clothes I had and put on his wig and he just... wasn't what I wanted. He wasn't right at all and I wasn't sure if maybe I"d just made a mistake getting into the hobby at all. Then I took a pair of scissors to his wig and redid his faceup and suddenly he started to be right after all. His wig is partially re-wefted to what I want now, and he still needs a little work, but I can see that he'll be what I want him to be, so I'm very happy with him.

Likewise, when Esa and Maren arrived (in the same shipment, from an event), my first response to them was "OMG POINTY NOSES!" I couldn't tell from the website, but their noses were MUCH sharper than Gabriel's. But it's something that's since grown on me. And likewise, with him, they just didn't seem right at all until I got decent wigs and some faceups on them. Now they're definately part of the dolly family, too, and I think I have a better handle on how to deal with each new arrival.

I had a major disappointment with Maren's initial wig, too. I originally wanted him to have pale blue hair, since that's how I draw his character (he's actually albino, though, and realistically would have white hair like he does now). I picked the closest color to pale blue I could find from the company I used for my wig order and it was BRIGHT AQUA GREEN when it arrived. I will be selling it sometime in the future, but his new white wig that my roommate talked me into switching to is beautiful.

As for the last one... if I hadn't seen a Puki in person before ordering her I would have questioned that choice too, but after seeing how tiny they were, I was not only prepared, I wanted her even MORE.

I guess it's been kind of a series of disappointments and happy results for me so far.

 

Luckily, I haven't been disappointed by dolls that have arrived, but I recently saw the first owner photos of my dream doll for more than three years, and immediately dropped her off my want list..! She hardly resembled her promo pictures at all! It would've been devastating paying $500++ for her only to unwrap a total stranger.

 

not immediately.
but with all my previous dolls, after a few months, they just...got boring, i guess D:
i'm hoping that's not what'll happen with my new doll though

 

I actully was a bit disappointed with my first doll, a DS Husky. I did love the mold and I still do... but I had a problem with the face-up. It was too grey and cold for him and not at all what I thought I'd asked for. I couldn't help to get a little put off also because he was so... lifeless. Like many others already have said he just lied there, without a wig and without any clothes (I didn't dare making any before he got there), just completely out of character and just... dead.
Since I was still living at my parents house at the moment I acted like I loved him and I really tried too... but... I also had a problem making clothes for him because I couldn't really find any inspiration in him. I could have this really great idea after looking around here on DoA but when I looked at him to take measures etc I was completely put off.
In pictures though he always looked very alive and vibrant, but just looking at him IRL so to speak... he looked so much just like a doll. I enjoyed the pictures of him so much more than I enjoyed the doll himself, and that simply isn't enough for me when I've bought something for over $500.

Then my camera broke and I couldn't take any pictures of him, and a friend who is very scared of dolls came to vidit me for a week so he was put high up on a shelf. A month after she left I realized he was still sitting there so when I really needed money to pay vet bills for my dog it wasn't a very hard choice to make but to sell him. I had then had him for over a year.

I actually put the whole doll hobby on ice after that and it's not until now, almost a year later, that I'm really in it again and looking forward to a new doll. I hope that this time it won't be such a disappointment...

 

Yes, unfortunately 2 dolls that I bought ended up not looking anything like their promo pics. The one was just horrid & I could barely stand to look at him. Even after redoing the face-up to look more like the promo pics, that deep disappointment remained & I ended up selling him. The other wasn't as bad & after redoing his face-up, he's stuck around for a while but he too will be going up for sale soon.

I've also had a couple dolls arrive broken. One I was able to fix, it was just a ledge on the head cap & the other I got a replacement leg for. But, you're right, it's such a disappointment to get a doll that isn't perfect.

 

I've had quite a few dolls in my time in the hobby and an equal amount of disappointments. I think my very first disappointment was when Volks came out with MSD Akira (i believe that was the one? This was too many years ago for me to remember lol). I had just purchased a SD13 Syo and I was loving my big boy and i knew Akira would be smaller and it wasnt the size, but his face... he just looked so unappealing. My heart dropped when I saw him and I still remember that moment of feeling cause i was so excited for him. I changed his face up and punked/goth'd him out and he was really rad but it turned me off to msd dolls. I eventually sold him.

Next disappointment was when I had recieved the first version of Michael. He was probably my favorite Volks mold and I had longed for him so badly, but when I got him in person, his resin seemed janky in comparison to my other boys and I just didn't know what to do with him. Also, the person I bought him from failed to mention the corner of his eye socket being cracked V_v I sold him off pretty quickly. I moved not too long after that and eventually had to sell all my dolls despite the heart break and just recently got back into the hobby the end of last year.

Of this year's run, I decided to go all msd... which isn't lasting and now i just want big boys again. i had always wanted a dream of doll kirill though, he was one of my dream dolls and when i got him, i wasn't as in love with him as i had hoped for. he was an awesome doll but my heart just wasnt all there. I sold him and now I'm selling the rest of my msds V_V my lati doll kahn was a little disappointing but in a different way. I love that doll to death and I think he is one of the greatest msd boys, but.. he didn't fit in proportion-wise with my other msd and now that i'm selling all my msd, i dont want him to be lonesome, so i'm selling him anyways.... maybe we will meet again in the future kahn!!! ^_^;

And also, this is why i love DoA, i can research dolls before buying now so i'm less likely to run into disappointment! i dunno how many times i've longed for a doll and then saw it on DoA and had my mind quickly changed!

 

Only with wigs/eyes/shoes/clothes/etc.! A billion of those. It's just part of the territory. But never with one of the dolls. So far, my magic Zen shopping method ("I know it when I see it") has never steered me wrong with a doll-choice.

There have definitely been box-shock moments... it's not exactly buyer's remorse, it's just that moment of "Whoa! What did I just go through with?" before you settle into the idea that it's actually yours. Buying my first unpainted doll was the strongest one of those moments, come to think; not quite disappointment, because I knew he'd look really different. But I got hit with the intimidation of the project ahead of me, & it flapped me for awhile. Luckily that state never lasts long with any doll, before I fall completely & abjectly in love with him. ^^

There is naturally going to be an adjustment-period in your brain: while researching & waiting for that doll, all you had to go by was his sales-photos, so your brain was expecting THAT picture. But even good sales-photos still look different from any real-life doll. Bad or insufficient sales-photos make you even less sure. When you get that real 3-dimensional doll in the mail, your brain has to to rewire itself to recognize & accept that THIS is the actual face.

But as many of you have noticed, most of the time all it takes is rearranging the doll's look to suit you-- wig, eyes, faceup, etc. When you change just one detail, sometimes you suddenly recognize your doll, as in, "Oh, there you are! I knew you were in there somewhere." And then you never look back.

 

Unfortunately yes. I have purchased Dollmore Eva Louise and wrote them to paint her as on the promo - I liked her puffy bright vulgar lips most of all. But what did I receive? A pale copy of that doll, with lips of a stange shape and color. I was very disappointed and couldn't put up with her new face, that's why I sold her. .

 

That's what happened with my Hera, and I'm hoping as soon as I get the right wig on my Megi, he'll finally click with me too - right now I have a love-hate relationship with him. I love him, but at the same time, it's like we're rejecting each other. Something's just a little off, he's not MINE yet.

I'll win him over yet!

 

I remember i had a doll
(i dont remember which one it was)

but i do remember i had a doll that when i opened their box i was just like
"oh.. this is.. it, huh... -puts back in box-"

Not what i was looking for at all.. really disappointed me.
Then again i go through dolls like theres no tomorrow

 

I have a WS lance and I just stare at him and wonder what I was thinking. Put a new wig on him last night and that's a little better. I'm not willing to give up on him yet. I'm waiting for new eyes, to see if that helps me like his sculpt a little better. I'm just obsessing over the duck-like lips he seems to have when you look at him from the side. He looked so pretty in the pictures, I just wonder when he'll be pretty for me.

 

I've been reading here some people saying they were a bit disappointed at how small their dolls seemed at first. I had the opposite problem, I couldn't believe how big my first doll was!

The first doll I saw in person was my DS Hound, when I received him. I got the box and was all, "OMG, HUGE!" I couldn't say that was a disappointment, but it was an unsettling surprise.

 

I have a DZ BB that left me a little disappointed. I guess these dolls just aren't my thing. I love all of my other BJDs, but not feeling the DZ love at this point.

 

This has happened to me twice actually. Over a year ago when I received my Narin, after waiting three months for him, then having him nearly lost in the mail... when I opened him I just cried because I thought he was the uglkiest thing I'd ever seen. I couldn't believe I'd spent nearly $500 and gone through the wait and then the "drama" of trying to get that little guy.

Thankfully I discovered that when you throw a little bit of a face-up on the little dude, they look infinitely better.

The second disappointment came last month when my FCS girl from Dolpa NY arrived. I had multiple problems with Volks in getting her, but I tried to let it go knowing how much I had loved the dispplay girl at Dolpa who I asked for her to be painted like. When I opened the box though... she looked nothing like the display doll. I was so disappointed that I wanted to put her up for sale on the spot. We tried different wigs on though and found one both my girlfriend and I really love on her. She's grown on us a lot, and hopefully once I'm done with some current commission work I have, I'll be able to repaint her so she can be more how we want her to be.

That all said... I did have one guy arrive this month who was the complete opposite end of the scale. I bought a Luts SSDF Cane for the body, expecting the doll to be as unpleasant looking as Luts has made him seen... in person without a Luts face-up though, he's gorgeous. I had planned to sell the head (or the whole doll if Luts inconsistent resin didn't match the head I wanted the body for). I love this guy so much though, that even though the body didn't match, I just can't part with him. ;o;

 

Nope, the closest I've gotten to disappointment has been 1) when I tried to put Sard's hooves on and discovered his middle leg parts hadn't been drilled all the way through (and that the chipping was as bad as everyone had said), and 2) when I bought several goth outfits, getting ready for my first doll, and he hated every last one of them, even the pricey Volks outfit! Otherwise, I've loved every doll I've gotten so far. Wigs, as others have said, are another matter, and I wish there were more clothes out there for my tinies. I've learned now to ask around at meetups for styles/colors of wig to try on before I buy something, and I know I need to spend some time learning about sewing and patternmaking so I can create the clothes I really want.