Have you ever disliked a sculpt or company and then ended up falling in love with it?

Count me in with those who said DollChateau! When I first started a few years ago, I was really surprised at DC's popularity. I remember I once thought, "I'll never want one of these, and frankly I don't see the appeal at all!"
But my first DC will be arriving in the next few months! Such cool little things, and I just adore the jointed toes on the bigger dolls, and those spindly, somber looks

Same for the Dollmore Trinity line. I definitely thought, "Oh my GOD I'd NEVER spend that much on a doll! They're as much as a really cheap car!! And they're huge, this is veering WAY into weird territory!!! Thankfully, there's enough things that don't appeal to me about this body, and these faces, and this size, that I'd never want one, anyway."
Anyway, I can't wait for mine to arrive! I'm so sad that my layaway has easily half a year left! I got the Trinity bug, bad, and I haaaaaate waiting for mine. I've never had a wait be this agonizing! Not even for my very first doll! I went hog-wild on a big Trinity order, and I have zero regrets.

When it comes to this hobby, I almost never have strong negative reactions about anything. I can see the appeal in plenty of things that I'll never want, and I'm completely open to basically anything I see in this hobby... but those two companies/lines come to mind, and, of course, now I'm getting both! And I'm really excited about it!

 

Back in the day, years ago, I would never ever have even considered getting a doll from Luts simply because I enjoyed none of their sculpts, slightly too stylised and cute for me. I went on there to look at clothes and for fun just checked out their newer releases out of curiosty, one of the newest dolls was SD65 Terra that had recently gotten his little facelift. Now he is on my wishlist and I routinely go on there just to sigh at him, waiting for the day he'll be mine.

 

For a very long time, I didn't want anything to do with IOS, even going as far to jokingly rant at my friends everytime I saw one of their sculpts on the marketplace. Just within this week, I've seen them recreate one of my favorite anime characters almost perfectly, and saw a sculpt of theirs that would be perfect for yet another favorite character. As much as I love the first one it's too expensive for me, but I'm pretty sure I'll end up getting the head for the second character later. I guess this could be called karma in a way?

 

Oh yes! After 10 years in this hobby, I realised enough time has passed for me to develop different tastes. Or rather, add some new preferences to the pool.
There are literally plenty of sculpts I never had interest in years go, but nowadays I would totally get them. What's worse, it's becoming harder and harder to obtain these as time passes... ;_;

 

Here's another to the "I used to not get Doll Chateau's appeal" train. While realistically or semi-realistically proportioned dolls comprise the bulk of my small doll collection, a DC sculpt (Gladys) is currently on top of the saving-for list, along with the rather lanky NB58-002 body from Dollzone. Coincidentally, DC Gladys sort of evokes Echo Town Delores, another doll I would have wanted to have, but may never get because I'm currently trying to restrict my dolls to just the SD and up.

 

Momoni dolls for me.
My friend showed them to me and I was like ew, why. Then I got her one for Christmas and after handling her and making clothes for her I'm eagerly awaiting a KittyM preorder to open up.

 

Not outright dislike, but when I first got into the hobby and was looking for Meadowdolls 18" Saffi there was a preorder going on for another 18" toddler/kid sculpt, Bailey. I had no strong feelings for it so I didn't order. By the time her second preorder came round I adored it. I have her home now and like her face so much I kind of want the smaller size she comes in too. Only weird because normally I know instantaneously if I want to buy a sculpt or not, and haven't changed my mind about any other dolls.

 

Reviving this old thread because I love this phenomenon, and it happens to me a lot.

I used to be freaked out by all dolls. A regular phobia, so I worked on it and got into this hobby as a way of getting over this irrational fear. That was step one.

I have noticed that, as some other have mentioned in this thread, for me, quite often, I just really dislike the company/default faceup. I do the faces myself and it's not that I am as good by any means, but the default faceups are often "meh" to me. Some even creep me out.

Especially Fairyland dolls. I absolutely dislike their default faceups. And I thought all the sculpts looked the same. Until I looked at them without faceups and could start to see the differences. On top of that the pictures of the blank sculpts on Fairyland's website are atrocious. They are overexposed and not all taken from the exact same angle and honestly more or less useless.

And like someone else said, it seemed like they were the only dolls getting exposure, and I just didn't get it.

Of course now I have a Pukifee, plan to get a littlefee at some point and try to convince myself that I will be able to enjoy a Minifee too, although she'd be a lot larger than my other dolls (I gravitate towards tiny dolls).

Also used to think Vilitunes were... Scary AF, but now I plan to maybe participate in the September pre-order.

I guess what I'm saying is I change my mind a lot as I learn to appreciate different aspects of the dolls that have tripped me up for so many years.

 

@Osquary That's a really cool story, thank you for sharing!

 

Something I've noticed myself is that since my characters are modern human characters, either high school crew or my adult rocker crew, I don't want everyone to be a model. I want some average people and some less than beautiful people. I actually bought my Notdoll Belladonna *because* I thought she was ugly. After I did her faceup, I ended up thinking she's pretty cute, which in character kind of equals a not traditionally pretty girl who has awesome makeup/hair skills and cute clothes. I also bought my Impldoll Aigne because I thought she was kind of ugly in default photos and that she'd be good for my slightly unattractive character, but she ended up being adorable so I just kind of consider it the character's "glow up".

 

Does everyone have "that one DollChateau that changed their mind on DollChateau"? Is that the new version of the grail doll concept? Mine was Noah. I'll likely never buy him, because I have very little confidence I could replicate that faceup and body paint, but I will admire him from afar forever!

 

For me, I appreciate the craftmanship, buuuuuut..... It's not that I dislike their dolls at all, they are just not for me. I would love the head of Cephalopod/Male scorpio, though his little face is adorable, but I do not want that scorpion body, it's just not my thing. I was slightly tempted by Dora, though, although centaur-type dolls also aren't my thing.

I know two people irl who ordered Noah, he is gorgeous! I hope one of them will let my Atelier Momoni Somni pose on his back for a picture one day when we can all get together again.

 

I used to be only interested in MSD dolls since most SD dolls I knew were too tall and didn't have double Joints so i was never interested in them. But now with the new Maskcat Body I fell in Love with Astrid and Lilias (57cm both) and I am head over heels.

 

Oh yes! DollZone Raphael! When he first came out, I found him one creepy doll. At the time I was checking the DollZone website almost daily because my grail doll was (is) DZ Stramonium. Dz Raphael was the first doll on the page since he was new. So I became used to seeing his face.

Eventually I bought Raphael before Stramonium (now owning both) and honestly? He might be my favourite sculpt in the end.

 

For me there is a few of these. Like a lot of people Doll Chateau ranks up there in answering this question. I thought they looked weird, then I thought I kind of like how weird they look. Then I bought two of the kid dolls, Erica and Hugh, I love them.

Another would be Volks dolls. I don't like their hands much and I thought their faces looked a bit odd. But, lately I very much like one of their girl dolls and am planning on getting her. I will order her some extra hand from the company when I do get her. I now think Volks dolls are really cute. Seeing other peoples Volks dolls also makes me wonder why I didn't find them adorable in the first place.

In general, I used to like really basic looking pretty dolls, but as my collection has expanded, I've been going for more interesting looking dolls. I really like expressive features now, and I used to avoid those types of dolls.

 

Volks was like this for me.

Their dolls used to not appeal to me too much. I didn’t dislike them, but felt neutral rather. Their default face-ups were extremely bland, at least they were in 2008-2009, and I think a lot of them obscure the unique features of each doll. When I would browse sculpts from various companies, Volks just didn’t excite me at all.

This changed when I got to see someone’s Volks Suiseiseki at a convention. I fell in love with this doll so hard and she became my grail. I now have her and two other Volks girls in my permanent collection and I really adore seeing other Volks dolls that others have as well. They went from feeling bland to magical.

Another company this happened with was Notdoll Lab. I used to think these dolls were so hideous lol, but eventually I grew to really love their weirdness. I’ve never owned one but I sure miss seeing these unique sculpts around on this forum, especially Belladonna.

 

Oh yeah Volks for me too! I found their early faceups rather terrifying (why would you give some of them such angry, sinister brows T_T) and never considered them until I found out about the SDC line, and delving more into it found many favourites all over their roster. Now they're the company I own the most dolls from and would gladly get more! It certainly wasn't a love at first sight but a love that will keep going.

I wasn't a fan of (older) Dollzone when I first saw the dolls when they were still produced - their toes looked so weird and their hands were strange to me. I picked up a stained Shoyo some 15 years later to fix up and she's def one of my favourites now! I used the body for another hybrid, it looked so much better with a smaller head, and the DZ head looked better on a bigger body, too. And strangely enough the hands were also quite pretty up close, I guess I never just saw good pics of them

 

I had to think long and hard about this one, as I couldn't remember any time my opinion changed drastically enough to count for this thread. However, I do remember when I first joined the hobby, I really didn't like the anime styled dolls. Volks Dollfie Dreams and anything like them. Something about them was just off-putting to me and I avoided even looking at them. I think what changed was me seeing a Yoko in person. Her smile was just so cheerful and it was like someone flipped a switch in my brain, because I started finding all sorts of cute anime dolls. I have 6 now (DD's and SmD's, and a Yoko of my own!) and I love them.

Only other example that comes close is Switch. Just never cared for their earlier aesthetic and didn't look twice at them. Never got the hype at all, but you know, more power to those that loved them. And then out of the blue when browsing the net I stumbled on a doll who's smirky little smile enchanted me and had me instantly obsessed. Had to do a bit of digging to find out who it was and lo and behold..it was a Switch Hwayeon. In doing my research I ended up following Switch on insta as well and am NOT disappointed. Not sure if their aesthetic changed or my brain did, but I'm now just thoroughly enchanted.

 

Also adding on to Volks, I just started this hobby last year, but I had seen their dolls for ages prior and thought that while they were pretty, the general aesthetics and design decisions just weren't for me....and then suddenly I came across a secondhand coordinate model that was far out of my aesthetic scope (very cutesy / wide-eyed type of 'babyish') that clicked and I ended up becoming enamored with and now he's my favorite! It opened my eyes a lot more to the concept of "there can be exceptions" to a company's work as a whole.