Have you "rebooted" your collection?

I've definitely sold dolls from my collection and done a mass re-shelling of characters or re-styling of characters, but never sold the entirety of my collection. The thought of doing that makes my heart race! I recently completely re-shelled my Minifee Celine from a character named Sylvia that had little-to-no development to one of my oldest OCs named Meira, and I love the makeover. The drastic change completely refueled my interest in the doll/sculpt, without needing to search for another.

I will say though--I am trying to remix my collection a bit, and by that, try to obtain more doll diversity. I'd love to get different colors of resin and more fantasy dolls.

 

I still have both of my dolls, but I'm finding myself drawn to anime-style dolls now. They catch my attention the most, so when I inevitably get another doll, it will probably be of that style.

 

Yes! When I first got into the hobby, I thought that tinies were the only dolls I would ever collect. I left the hobby for about 5 years and when I came back my tastes had completely changed. I sold all my tinies and started looking at larger dolls. Now I don't think I'll want anything smaller than 40cm, but who knows what will happen in the future!

 

I have periodically rehomed dolls when I feel that have spent most of their time with me in their boxes.
They hopefully find homes with collectors who will show them some love and display them! But I do have a core collection of dolls from one or two artists that are always with me and I can’t see ever letting them go.

 

I voted "Yes, rarely" because it's only happened once so far, and I don't consider it a reboot so much as I finally figured out what my BJD tastes were and cleared out all the dolls that didn't fit. Basically, I started the hobby not really knowing what my tastes were, and dabbled all over the place with different sizes and styles, until I finally discovered what I really wanted in size, aesthetics and style. In the first 2 years of the hobby, I bought 5 dolls and sold 4, including my first doll. The single one that survived the purge, and the next doll I bought after the purge (my 6th), really helped define my tastes.

Those two form my current crew; I've added a third doll, and soon will have a fourth. They are here to stay and I don't plan to ever "reboot". It's not the way I enjoy the BJD hobby - I much prefer to curate carefully and buy for keeps.

 

I'm not there yet, but I do tend to cycle my hobbies as you described, but it's part of my audhd brain (adhd hyperfocussing to be specific), I may cycle away from a hobby, but I don't sell or get rid of my previous hyper focusses, so I think it will be the same for my BJDs at this point in time. I do keep returning to previous interests, so there isn't any point in getting rid of stuff for me xD

 

I juggle with a handful of hobbies at the same time and I try to focus on all of them daily so I never get that far off my dolls. I think that's one of the reasons I've never rebooted my collection and I don't think I'll ever will.
That said, one thing I've recently done is (for a couple dolls in particular) I rebooted their characters (as in changing their aesthetics, names, stories, etc.) while keeping the same sculpts. And let me tell you it felt the same as if I had sold them and purchased new dolls for me as they look so different now to how they were before.

 

I can show you what happened when I re-started:

My dolls May 2018:

of these dolls I still own 2 full dolls, 2 bodies out of 13 full dolls! (Angela and Kamau are the two full dolls, the furthest left, and the lady in front of him)

Nov 2020
Doll squad 2020 by Indifferent Red, on Flickr

8 dolls and 2 bodies from this photo have left me, 6 dolls and 2 heads are still with me.

finally, the onslaught (Nov 2022)

Group photo!! by Indifferent Red, on Flickr

one doll from this pic moved on, but it’s a month old.

The story behind my re-boot was a major breakup, lead to me selling dolls of the ex’s rp characters (2018-2020), and then stimulus cheques+getting a better job+no longer paying for all my partner’s stuff (2020-2022) was why the population exploded. That, and learning how mandarake worked.

 

So many, I love it!

 

@Chameleon I have a similar population progression-without getting rid of any. OK, I've sold one full doll and one head. Since 2008.

 

I cycle through my hobbies, too, but I don't sell all my dolls when I get bored with the hobby. Then I left for a while and all of that changed. I fully intended to just sell all my dolls and be done with the hobby. It wasn't until I started holding them again that I realized there were still a few I really loved. I wound up completely redoing the character of one, but the rest I kept are still intact as they were before I decided to come back. Still, I sold a lot, though, and have plans to replace them with new characters. So it's kind of a partial reboot. I went down from 12 to 6 and now that number is going up again.

 

Wow! your collection must have so many really cool dolls from companies that don’t exist anymore/dolls that aren’t currently available! Even with me being the opposite extreme (I’d ballpark that I’ve sold 40-50 dolls, I’m an extreme revolving door) I’ve noticed how many cool dolls become weirdly hard to find with companies closing or discontinuing sculpts!

Thank you!! I love how many characters this has given me the chance to flesh out!