Ever really surprised yourself?

My mind gets away from me quite quickly as well, and often characters will sprout up simply because I need an excuse to consider getting a new doll that's caught me eye. I don't know if I'm SURPRISED, 'cause I never knew what to expect, but often characters will fall through, even important ones, in favor of a brand new one. I was planning to make a fantasy spider-spirit-demon character with a modified Souldoll Shiva (to have six arms, not just four!) for at least a year, but then I decided she'd be too much of a hassle, and I got some other doll instead and just never got around to saving specifically for her again, and now she just WOULD NOT fit in with my other dolls at all... I also used to adore fantasy characters, but now the majority of my dolls live in a contemporary world, just like ours, pretty much exactly the same, only smaller I guess, heh. But of course, now that I've accepted this change, I've started liking fantasy characters more again... OTL I mean, when I saw Jungatoy's D.skull, I knew I needed to have a character for that head, and so I made one, and now he's one of my favorite characters, and I finally have his doll form at home. HOWEVER, he's not even a D.skull anymore! I realized the head was way too cartoony for what I ended up having in mind, and when Soom released their Photon Idealian with the Reaper parts, I KNEW it was meant to be, and I put him on a slender body and he's perfect. (Though I needed to modify the body's neck and wrists a bit and he still needs his clothes, eheh...) I also bought a doll recently with no character for her and she wasn't on my wishlist but she turned into a much older character of mine, so at least it worked out. Also I don't have as many floating heads as I used to, but I still have a lot because instead of buying bodies for them, I just buy more heads.

 

Nope! I'm in that boat too!! I was ONLY going to get My Nicky and his cousin, and that would be it. Now I am driving hard for a Ringdoll Frankenstein, eyeballing a Soom Sard, planning a Loki and Maleficent couple, and eyeballing the new Dollchateau male body for another character.


...it doesn't stop there though. I want to make wigs, do face ups, get better at sewing to make and sell clothes...My mind just exploded at all the pretty dolls I have seen.

Unfortunately I can only afford one doll right now...but I'm hoping to get a Sard and Loki home in the next year. :I And then the Dollchateau Dolores body...and then...well...the list never ends.

 

I had the exact thing happen to me! I started the hobby in '08 determined to get my OC Phineas, which turned into getting Ezmethe. Then I was totally going to save up for him....and I got Riley instead. Then for SURE I was going to save and buy him and bought Booker, Ceinlyn and Drix. Its taken me 5 years to get the one doll I had planned on from the beginning. XD

 

I guess I surprised myself by actually GETTING the dolls LOL I started out just making dream lists - at work we used to amuse ourselves by casting various books we were reading (these 'dreamcast' things are all over the internet so I guess we weren't being very original LOL). So when I started looking at BJDs I did the same thing - which dolls would be good cosplayers for which animes etc.
Then all of a sudden I started BUYING them! I still look about every now & then to pinch myself that I actually did this!

 

I... am pathetically bad at imagining faces. I need to see a picture of a face and go "that's the character!" Before I can really start describing them well. As a result, any deviations from the first four or five characters of mine that I want to buy dolls for will only help me flesh out the world around them, which will help me improve the story I am writing where they are the main characters. So I won't mind if my next doll after my Rye isn't the Vesuvia that's next on the list.

 

I surprised myself by buying as many as I have! Pretty face = want =buys! I'm actually trying not to do that anymore. I got like one or two left I know I really want.

 

Yes! I ordered two sculpts that I didn't like the first time I'd seen them!
One of which I fell head over heals in love with, the other I'm still not sure about.
It's funny the way things grow on you, some of the sculpts I want most are the ones I hated the first time I saw them.

 

This time last year, I would of never thought that I would spend a lot of money on just a single doll.
I thought that I was over dolls by the time I turned 10 years old. But I guess not :P

 

Yes, a few times for sure!

- I had promised myself at the start to stick to one aesthetic only and have all my dolls look as though they "matched." Threw that out the window and now freely mix very stylized sculpts and very realistic sculpts together. Even though I am definitely more broke, I am also more satisfied with my dolls.

- Finally getting more involved with the hands-on aspect of the hobby! I helped suede a friend's doll recently and we're now restringing pros. It took me years to feel comfortable enough to handle that aspect of BJD ownership, and I'm glad I now am.

 

I've also introduced characters to my established fictional world just because I want the doll (MNF Shiwoo, DZ Carter, and DC Hugh are the first examples that come to mind)...

I've also surprised myself with how finicky I can be! With eyes and wigs and clothing... I expected a huge collection of doll shoes, but never three pairs of eyes between my two dolls. I never expected to prefer Leah's eyes swapped out with a pair of brown glass ones... I always expected to get her purple fantasy acrylics. Vice-versa with Cordiel; I ordered him nice blue DZ glass eyes, but now I'm looking at glow-in-the-dark acrylics.

I also surprised myself by growing to ADORE the Doll Chateau body with extra jointing and wanting a MNF. At the beginning, I was like, "I like MNFs, but they're just not for me." And as much as I love the bodies, again, not for me (I'm thinking of hybriding the MNF I want with another brand to get the right look for her). I also never expected to want Yos or SDs, except maybe as unreachable grail dolls. Now I have a 58cm RS girl on my wishlist.

I've learned a lot... I thought I knew a lot, but darn, was I ever wrong. XD

 

While I haven't surprised myself that much over the years, I think my most 'surprising' moment was when I fell in love with the vampire Lati Yellow release - I'm anti-vampire, fangs, anything insinuating vampires, I'm also not a fan of dolls with teeth. But I fell so in love with the entire Lati Bat Child release and my favorite doll now has teeny pair of fangs, they're adorable and so love, I can't imagine her without them! That really surprised me with my previous (extremely) staunch stance on fangs/vampires and dolls with teeth in general.

 

The numbers. I didn't even realize until I started thinking about dressing, styling and taking a larger group of them somewhere for a doll con weekend instead of singly, by pairs and maybe a trio here and there. 18 is a LOT.

Maybe too many.

But I like them all for many different reasons, none have become less liked over time that I didn't like them again after a bit and have a new idea for them...and I don't really have a very good reason to downsize either...

I took quite a few, 15cm-90cm, to a local con for a doll panel without much fuss.

But 18 is still a lot.
and there are still a handful on my wishlist...

 

Yeah, I did surprise myself. I fell in love with a particular doll and since it was SO expensive, figured that would be my one and only. I now have four more on order . . .

 

Yep..

I said One, I'll be happy with just one, I'll make her clothes, she'll be like my own personal Angel! 8D

...That lasted all of a week, because then she had her own character sprout up and she was NOT an Angelic Layer angel but a witch named Haruka Hazama and that I needed to get her boyfriend, brother and sister.

...In that first year I got the brother and boyfriend, the following year I got the sister.

 

I never had plans for characters in the first place. When I was looking for my first doll, there was only one I really liked. And since that was at the start of the hobby I really wasn't planning on paying that much money again. That was the only plan I had at that time.
Only a fortnight or so later the same company released two LEs. And I really loved one of them and didn't want to miss out on it.
And then I really wanted another character to tie those two together and planned a hybrid....
Well, so much for my only plan...

 

When I first became interested in this hobby, around 2006-2007 and started doing reasearch, I knew I would enjoy it because I've always loved dolls of all kinds. I was further surprised in 2009 when I finally got my first doll and realized that maybe I didn't like it. I almost decided to quit the hobby before I really got going, thanks to my immense disappointment with that first doll. Over a year later I kind of fell in love with Resinsoul An, which was something else that surprised me because I hadn't heard anything good about Resinsoul. I bought my An and was further surprised at how awesome Resinsoul dolls actually are...and came back into the hobby with great enthusiasm!

Another thing that surprised me was the emotional attachment I have toward my BJD. I care about my other dolls and like them a lot, but none of the others has evoked such a deep emotional response in me like my BJD do. Maybe this is because most of my BJD are avatars of characters that I created long before getting into this hobby...but then again, I have a few non-BJD who represent characters and I don't seem to have the same sentiments toward them.

I surprised myself with how much comfort I get from my BJD. I find it very calming just to hold them (especially Gabriel, who is a big, solid armful and surprisingly cuddly for 3kg of resin).

I also surprised myself at all the ways I've found to enjoy this hobby. It mingles well with several of my other hobbies, namely photography, jewelry-making, and writing.

 

I am going through a huge surprise right now!
Dollfie Dream...
I never thought I'd want a girl doll, let - alone an anime styled one. But, all the sudden it's all which one do I want.
I'm even looking at dresses...dresses...I'm just so in shock.

 

When I got into the hobby, I just told myself "one is good enough for me." I was totally wrong. I'm already planning to order Seth's brother, his lover, and Harvey (they're all in the same story I'm working on). I might even surprise myself by buying a female doll. I also told myself that I would rather buy full doll instead of buying parts. I ended up falling in love with and IOS head and I had to have him. I'm now trying to find the right body for him.

I also didn't think I would ever buy a doll or even get into bjds. Here I am today owning one and planning for a few more.

 

I'm about to hit my 1st year anniversary of being on DOA right at the end of March. In the year I've been collecting these dolls my collection has really grown. I did not really plan to have the number of dolls that I have. The plan was one SD girl and one SD boy and the same in MSD's and now I have a whole family of resin dolls. I will have 12 in all probably when I am done. I have spent a little bit of money but not near as much as you'd think and it was definitely not all at once. I've done a lot of trading and most of my dolls are used low end dolls or hybrids not top of the line dolls I've just gone and bought from a factory new. The brand new ones I own I was given as gifts, birthday, holiday. So I don't have a whole lot of money invested. I did buy my own heads for my MSD's and regretted the purchase later when I decided I just didn't want those heads on the Miro MSD bodies and I have bought a couple of used dolls and some wigs and stuff but mostly they haven't been major budget killers, except for my Dai.

She is a used doll but with shipping I'm paying pretty much what I would new for one sans the shipping from RS and with no company face up. I saved some. I didn't have to pay an extra $10 for a face up and shipping on a Dai from RS would have cost me another $30-40 probably so I probably saved $40-50 all total versus a new from the factory doll. But she's by far the most expensive doll I've ever purchased. I probably would not have spend that much for any doll but my Dai. I was pretty motivated, smile. She's been my grail girl for as long as I've liked resin dolls and I knew the first time I set eyes on her sooner or later she was going to have to join my collection. She was the MUST HAVE girl doll for me. It was just a question of "how" and "when" and "how much" it would cost me. I meant to hybrid her and save some $$$ that way but as it turned out I just ended up getting her used with her own body. It worked out a little more that way but her original body, particularly the hands, is pretty nice. Much nicer than the Miro one I was thinking of getting for my Dai when I went there, much more her.

The whole collection does have some worth, but when you put how much I've actually invested into it versus what it would have cost retail it's nothing by comparison. I have totally gone the economy route with this hobby. I've actually spent more on Tonners and Barbies and that in a year than I've spent on these dolls. I cut way back on doing that actually, and on buying any new camera gear to be able to afford to do this. I have regretted it sometimes, even spending what I have. Earlier this year I ended up having to do a very expensive home repair and because of that I had to forgo a new camera body which right now is something I need a lot for work. Plus I had a couple of vet bills and ended up paying twice the rent because some one moved out on me. My bank account hasn't quite recovered since.

I should be selling dolls not buying them, lol, but honestly if it wasn't for the dolls I'd be going stark raving most of the time. They're about my only entertainment these days and well, my life offline it's not been a picnic this past year. It's been a little rough and the way I see it I spent a lot less on dolls this year than I would have on seeing a shrink and anti-depressants. A little "resin therapy" goes a long way I've found, but no, I did not intend to do this at all. If you had told me last March that I would have this many dolls I'd have laughed and said "No way!" I never thought it would be remotely possible, not on my very limited budget. I actually have far less invested in BJD's than I do my other dolls though. Or in camera gear.

The plan as of now is to finish paying off the last doll and head I am committed to buying then take a break and just work on the dolls I have. That's it for the rest of this year. Next year unless I can trade for some first I am going to grab cheap bodies for the two SD heads I have floating and an MSD one for my Narae so that Ju can have her body back. Then maybe I'll swap out the Miro MSD heads I have for something I like better. But that's it and it's likely going to be a 2 year project. I'm not going to be done, done with all my floating heads embodied till then. I need a new DSLR body for work something bad. I have to budget for one by this Summer. The one I have got is showing some signs of some serious wear and tear. The bodies, the MSD heads, they'll just have to wait. I'm okay with that. I've got more than enough to work with for a while in terms of face ups, making clothes, etc.