Falling out of love with your Grail?

I feel that dolls are really different in pictures and in person. I was in love with all the sculpts by a particular company when I saw them through photos but when I actually managed to purchase one, I found that I didn't really bond with her as much as I thought I would. She is still beautiful but definitely not the first doll I would think of if I were to think of my dolls.

 

I had similar experiences too. I brought dolls from a company years ago, they looked so different than the pictures that the company posted so I sold immediately. and in the recent years, people are criticizing them for photoshopping their pictures.....

 

This isn't something I've experienced, but it might be due to the fact that I don't (usually) fall for fullsets. Or, when I do, I don't have terribly high expectations for the clothing - only the hope that it 90% resembles the promotional photos. Inexpensive fabric or questionable sewing technique are things I've grown to expect from non-bjd doll lines.

That said, when I finally received a doll I'd liked since 2012, her knees disappointed me a great deal. It left me quite deflated (not unto disliking her, mind, just... "oh" about it), but that's since worn off and I love her to pieces.

 

This is me right now...I recently got one of my long time grail dolls, Doll Chateau Matthew (without a head). I love his design...and I was really excited to finally own one but I can't for the life of me get his wings on after spending several hours trying...it's made all the love and desire I had for him diminish in mere moments. I'm hoping that once he has a head...I'll like him again...even if he never gets his wings attached.

 

I stumbled upon the doll site Pygmalion and when I saw their Ha I fell in love. I couldn't afford him but I dreamed of having him someday. His faceup on the website is so beautiful. I wanted him so bad, but then I saw owner photos with various faceups, and none of them looked even close to the one on the website. Most of the faceups made him look flat and soulless. I fell out of love.

 

As it turns out, my “grail” instincts were correct all along…they just needed a bit of tweaking to get right. The two dolls I’d sold after not properly developing their characters after a couple of years, I was later able to successfully “combine” into a single grail at a later date. Oddly enough, the original seller of those two grails (who happily wound up buying them back from me, by the way) put up another, older Volks Megu on an SD body for sale and I was able to snatch her up! It turns out I’d sorely missed the original character I’d created for the one doll and the face of the other…so combining them into a single doll was the perfect solution. I absolutely adore this version of her, and her character continues to grow and delight as it should. A happy ending!

 

I preordered a 1/6 doll six months ago thinking she was the most beautiful doll I’d ever seen, but after she arrived I started having second thoughts. She doesn’t look quite like she did in the promotional materials, so I’ve been waffling between either reselling her or changing her clothes to see if that helps.

 

It was love at first sign with CP Luts Lishe back in 2009. I couldn't afford her so I move on, but I cannot get her out of mine mind.
While searching through eBay, I saw my dream Lishe with perfect faceup. She was still too expensive but I just could not let her go again. So 12 years later she still remain my dream Grail doll. She takes my breath away every time I look at her.

 

i just came back to the hobby and i deleted my whole doll wishlist. I realized that they were all the same type of style that they just didnt fit the aesthetic i have now. I never really had a 'grail' doll but i had that list for a long time so its a little sad but ive made peace with it.. I think its just people change and sometimes your aesthetic does too.

 

It sounds like a change in taste. I could see how if you owned a doll and fell out of love in a grail it would be similar to an emotional ex since you had time to really bond and get to know the doll on a personal level.

If it took so long to finally have the ability and you don't feel anything, time to accept you're probably a little bit of a different person now ready for new kinds of dolls.

 

Definitely happened to me, I got my grail early on in the hobby but a lot of the other “grails” I had back then I definitely fell out of love with in recent years and I don’t really keep a wishlist anymore… it’s funny because there’s dolls I have felt a “want” for in recent years but it’s not been ones I’ve expected… Iplehouse Eva for example was one of the dolls I really fell in love with recently but I never would have thought I wanted when I began in the hobby… Some dolls look nice from afar but I know now they’d probably not fit in with my collection… I think maybe a lot of it really boils down to your tastes changing/refining your tastes.

 

DD Manaka was my grail for a long time but recently I realized that I don’t really need her anymore.