Has anybody (everybody?) had experience with DIM celeb or loved one heads?

I had no idea there is a doll company that make custom doll heads. I always wanted a custom doll head! Do they make only 1 doll head or do i have to buy it in batches? There is a favorite kdrama character I really want as a doll, but I can't find a head sculpt that looks similar to him and I want dolls that look like bts. Do they take face up commissions too? You're referring to Doll in life or doll in mind?

 

I have absolutely nothing to contribute because I never took advantage of this system whilst DiM were still around, but I am watching just to be able to hopefully see photos of more DiM sculpts!

I am not as familiar with their custom sculpts and minimees, so I would love to hear more about them and people’s experiences too.
@SKYWHYS your experience sounds amazing and I hope we can see pictures!

@Forever We Are Young DiM closed down in the past few years sadly. But these days there are a plethora of BJD makers who sculpt dolls all across the world! There are several in the Workshop section alone you could commission for the headsculpt you want!

 

That's too bad. I guess I have to have someone else make me a custom doll one day. So custom bjd sculptors exist on the marketplace. I didn't know there were people I could request custom head sculpts. Do I have to order a large batch or can i order one doll head? I really want to have custom bts dolls and custom doll head of a kdrama character I'm obsessed with. Can I show a photo to these custom doll head people and they can make it for me? Do you have any suggestions of specific custom doll head sculptor I should request a commission for? Thank you for the info by the way. What if I don't like the way they sculpted the face if I were to commsion a custom head would they remake the sculpt?

 

@Forever We Are Young Those things are somewhat off-topic for this thread, since this thread is about Doll In Mind! I recommend visiting the workshop part of the forum (note I said workshop, not marketplace), where you can find artists working on BJD projects in real-time. You can also check the “bjdsculpting” tag on instagram. With both methods, you can find artists who may take on custom commissions, and you’ll need to communicate with them directly to find out their terms of sculpting a unique head for you!

 

Ah I see. I ended up reading stuff wrong again. I read your post several times and thought everytime you wrote marketplace. Thanks for the info.

 

I ran a group order for a James Marsters minimee head with DiM a few years ago. We did a few revisions along the way to get the likeness better. The result was very good in the end. I also have a Helena Bonham Carter head from DiM, the likeness is not as good, I was not running the order for that head. I also have a MSD head, but I cannot attest to the likeness as I have no recollection of who it is supposed to be.
DiM Minimee Helena Bonham Carter openeyed NS DiM Minimee Helena Bonham Carter half closed eyes NS DiM Minimee James Marsters openeyed NS by Skumring, on Flickr
DSC_0840 by Skumring, on Flickr DiM MSD Minimee head on Lati Blue body second from the left.

 

@Forever We Are Young the trick is getting plenty of character images from various angles so the artist has good references to work from. With 3D printing tech improving all the time the possibilities are constantly changing & boggling my brain!
I have a DiM one of a kind head. It was sculpted for someone based on their character & didn't come out as they had hoped. But to me he was perfect as I didn't have those specific expectations.
DeChanique's original character was a stocky, shorter elven guy. What he became is an elegant tall elven guy. ;}
I'll add a photo of Talfryn when I get a chance.

 

I wouldn't have a problem getting tons of variety of photos of bts and the kdrama character I want my custom doll to look like, since they are celebrities. I just wish I started collecting earlier than I would have known about dim before they stopped making dolls.

 

I forget about my doll Josiah being another DiM portrait head. He is from one of the Johnny Depp commissions. I bought him second hand & I'm not a big Johnny Depp fan so I have no clue if folks were happy with the finished sculpt but I don't think mine looks much like him with this AngelToast faceup.


And here is Talfryn. My retired knight in the Delf elven court originally based on a character drawn by De Chanique. I bought him third hand from the marketplace. He's also got a faceup by AngelToast.

 

Looking at James Marsters from your photo, and my two specific guys, I begin to see basic face shape similarities & wonder how much the artists worked off of a base head for the commissions which would explain some folks not being happy with the results of their specific commissions. Getting the interior engineering right & the facial features located correctly and then creating individual portrait sculpts over that was really more of an art than most of us probably appreciated.

 

Quite early in to the game Denny/ DiM stated that celeb portrait heads could only have a 80% likeness at the maximum because anything more would cause copyright/ trademark issues for him. I commissioned him to sculpt two Ryuhei Matsuda (actor) heads which turned out more like a 90% likeness nevertheless! They were extremely realistic. Later I got a Atsushi Sakurai head commissioned by someone else, and it was of similar quality. It really captured the person. I've seen some portrait heads of Western celebs that owners were not quite happy with, like Tilda Swinton. But she does not have a conventional, classically beautiful face in the first place and I always felt owners were maybe irritated by that level of realism - it was quite new at the time!^^

 

I can't figure out how to post photos. I read the faq on it, but can't get it to work still. If this service was still available from dim I wouldn't really get a western artist, since I don't really have a favorite or watch many American movies or tv shows. I would want bts or my favorite kdrama character. Actually I might also want a Harry Potter commission face sculpt too one day of Harry, Malfoy, and Prof. Snape. I don't know how much they would charge though, since I would need seven heads due to bts having seven members. I have a lot of favorite kdrama characters, so my list would be endless. I want commission face sculpts of characters from Vincenzo, Mr. Sunshine (this is a kdrama. I think there is some American movie called mr. Sunshine?), Kill Me Heal Me, Hotel Del Luna, Bulgasal, Mouse, etc. I have too many characters I want in doll form.

 

@Mandagore I suspect the same! We can talk about objective likeness for forever and a day, but when it comes down to it, we will individually (subjectively) focus on different things about a person to fixate on! When I was young, I drew a portrait of Johnny Depp. It wasn't a very good portrait tbf, but one thing it was criticised for was not having a straight nose. Johnny Depp doesn't have a straight nose (or at least didn't in this particular PotC appearance. I haven't really kept up since). The person criticising it had "corrected" Depp's face in their head and found fault with the art they felt was objective but in this case was actually subjective. I think it's easy to see likeness as an irrefutable fact, but actually it's just as subject to people's own perceptions as any other facet of art!

 

I participated in a few DIM Minimee group orders back in the day, when those were around here on DoA. I can't say much about those, because I didn't deal with DIM directly myself, I was just part of a group of small people who got custom head sculps based on Japanese video game or anime characters. I did order one head sculpt from them directly, the person I was in contact with was their lead team member, but I unfortunately placed the order when they were still working with their Chinese sculpting team, which was even more sadly hit-or-miss, when it came to the likenesses or accuracy of the sculpts and proportions you requested.

I requested a smaller 60cm head, but my head turned out to be gigantic -- I again own a lot of other Minimee sculpts, so by comparison, my privately ordered DIM Minimee head is gigantic. The process itself was pleasant enough, there were no issues other than the sculpting team not doing the work I requested, despite the multiple angles submitted. There was probably a lot lost in translation, since DIM are Korean and I barely speak/write a single language, and of course their Chinese team was Chinese...lol! I heard/read their Korean sculpting team was a lot more accurate, and they even produced some Minimee type of 1:6 unlicensed stuff, I am not sure if they still do that now.
Here's the sculpt I got, with the process of mods along the way, the last image is how he looks now:


This is what he was supposed to look like -- I submitted a lot of other visual keys, along with a digital illustration that I no longer have on my hard-drive, which I thought made it pretty clear, what he was supposed to look like. Again, the Chinese sculpting team was not the most consistent, when it came to accurate likenesses based on any well-known characters (particularly the more realistic ones, based on fictional characters, IMHO).


This are all the other DIM Mnimee I own. In case anyone is curious. (:

 

There used to be so many of minimees around! It's kind of strange that they're not very common to see anymore. I highly prefer to see minimees made of people close to the commissioner or fictional characters. I'm not so sure I want a very expensive mini version of a celebrity in my house

@SKYWHYS I would love to see what your daughters minimee came out looking like! I rarely hear about minimees that aren't based on characters or celebrities. It would probably be better to link an album instead of posting them all here since the rules state that you can only post one image per post in discussion threads.

@Enzyme Your latest photos are so close to the reference! You definitely got your Sephiroth the rest of the way with your faceup and mods. I had no idea they had 2 teams, or that they had different quality results, but I never looked into it too much back then.

 

DIM did use a base head, and I think that was part of why the likeness was not always good (because head shape is part of someone's look). I ran a few group orders while they were still using the Chinese sculptors, and we were lucky enough to get what we called "the Good Sculptor". I was really happy with the likeness on those!

 

This is my Pan. He is the Dim "Pan's Labyrinth Pan". We definitely got "the Good Sculptor". Christie Johnson and MadamMauMau helped me put him together. He has Dollzone hands and Soom Shoshun hooves. He is on the old Soom body.

"Pan with a bit of Glam" — Christy Johnson

It took years to complete him. I use him as my Beast for "Beauty and the Beast". (Soom Saiph is Beauty.)