How did you discover bjds?

Everyone has such diverse experiences. This is fun to read.
I may have answered this question in a different thread, but I will elaborate a little more and give the long version .

I've always collected dolls of some sort. In the 80s and 90s I was really into Barbies and also dollhouse miniatures. Due to circumstances I won't go into here, everything I owned was stolen in 2008. For a couple of years I was so devastated that I didn't want to even look at dolls. But in 2011 I moved to a different town to get a fresh start..
I was into playing The Sims computer game, and became active on the forums. A woman I became friends with who lived in Brazil, was very talented at creating custom skins for her sims characters in the game. Her characters had joints painted on them to look like some sort of dolls. She explained that they were based on ball jointed dolls. She couldn't afford to buy a real bjd so she created them in her game.
Others joined the discussion about BJDs. Several people posted photos of their actual dolls. I was drawn to the cute YOSD dolls from 5 Star Doll. Amy and Tong Tong in particular. I had some money to spend, and so I visited 5 Star Doll, intending to buy Amy. Well, it happened to be during their 2011 Summer Event. I saw my first SD, Tumnus, and fell in love. I ended up getting Tumnus, Rex, and an unpainted Edmund head as my gift with purchase. So instead of one small doll, I ended up with two dolls and a head. I never did get Amy or Tong Tong.

By the way, Edmund remained a floating head until just a couple of years ago. I finally got him painted and a body. 5 Star Dolls are still my favorites. I ended up owning a total of 6 over the years (sold 2).

 

God I don't really even remember the exact circumstances but when i was like 11 I was really into Pullip dolls, and had managed to convince my grandmother into buying me one. I would watch pullip youtube videos all the time and then I somehow stumbled onto videos about BJDs, I became obsessed. I didn't really understand how to get one or what they really even were but I just knew I wanted one. I would periodically return back to them over the years but I only dived in this past year. 11 year old me would have the time of his life if he could see me now lol.

 

I'm the same as @Yakutie lol my obsession started with pullips as well!

 

I attended a lecture on BJDs at a local general doll club and was instantly hooked! Prior to that, I’d always loved dolls but was constantly flitting from one kind of doll to the next, never really settling on collecting any of them for the long run. After that lecture, I came home and joined DoA immediately (the website was suggested by the speaker) and the rest was, as they say, history. BJDs turned out to be the perfect muses for all my creative art forms and collecting needs, and I’ve been happily building my collection ever since.

 

My friend was talking about it when I was back in college. I thought they were very cute but I couldn't afford it since I didn't have any job. Next years I searched about them again and thought that since I was working and earning money, I wanted to try this hobby and got my first doll

 

I was doing a search on google for some images of my fave anime at the time, Junjou Romantica. And guess what!? Appear a photo of a Iplehouse Chase dressed as Usami Akihiko/Usagi San. So i start look with some friends to know more about the doll,they invite me to a bjd group of facebook, in there i learn more what a bjd is. And they also told me about this forum. Well, i don´t have my Chase yet, but i got equally gorgeous dolls. And that is my story.

 

I came across them when I was on YouTube. It was partially due to Lolita fashion and pullip dolls but also when I only had monster high dolls. Everything about them drew me in and all I wanted was to know more about them.

 

My roommate (at the time) was the one who got me into them and I think it was from getting into lolita fashion. I think. She purchased a BJD and got me one as well (which was extremely kind of her). I haven't really done much with mine since I moved away since I've been busy with work, but I'm hoping to get back into the hobby.

 

YouTube videos was the first thing I was able to see them on while looking at pullip and monster high dolls. Once finding them I deep dived and tried to learn as much as I can. So happy I found the hobby

 

I found this hobby because of my google . I was searching for dolls and then I saw bjd . And I was like what is this ??? Here in Greece we do not have a company who makes this kind of dolls . So I got excited and started buying . My first one was a vinyl doll which I did not like at all so I sold it instantly . The second one was resin and was minifee ingrid fullset . I got in love and after I started buying everything from fairyland

 

I can say that I discovered bjds through Pullip, but can't even recall where in the world I first discovered Pullip (maybe it was during my time collecting G1/G3 MLPs in the early 2000s? Could be I saw them being discussed on MLP Arena at some point while I was still active there *shrugs*).

The way in which it exactly happened I can't say 100%, but I believe I found out about bjds when browsing the old Pullip Style forum while it was still up (and I was semi-active on it). At that point bjds were mostly just a passing thought until I managed to see my first in-person bjd through someone I met on a Pullip forum (who also was into bjds). A short time after I acquired my first (B&G Triya), which led to me creating this DOA account.

That time was short-lived, as I only was actively engaged with Triya for about a year or so before major life changes occurred and she was put into storage for several years. It was while I was still active with Pullip/Taeyang/etc and began developing my own OCs that I started gravitating towards the hobby again.

And here I've been, ever since. I believe that was around 2013/14? It's been several years at least, but I'm not planning to ditch my crew anytime soon

 

They were all over deviantART when I was a kid but the I forgot about them for a little while... rediscovered them from doll repaint vids on yt and pics on pinterest.

 

A friend in the 1/6th community told me about Obitsu (I was looking for better female bodies for my collection), and found The Junkyspot store. Ended up eventually getting an 1/3rd Obitsu and it was all down hill from there.

 

An online friend of mine liked bjds and showed me a website (I'm not sure which, possibly Luts?). I was amazed! Normally I'm not into dolls but these were super cool.

 

I first heard about them when I was in high school because I had a friend who was saving up to buy one and told me about them. I didn't have the money to get into the hobby at the time, but a few years later I stumbled on doll customization videos on Youtube while I was in college. Still couldn't afford one, but I was still super interested in them and kept up with a lot of doll customizers and started looking into different brands/etc. Now I'm at a point where I can actually start collecting and I'm very excited!!!

 

I've always collected designer dolls from Disney when they came out with them so I've always had an interest in dolls and always loved the most fantasy-esk designs that could be made from them. My best friend got into the hobby and I thought it looked interesting, but it wasn't until she got one of her more fantasy themed dolls that I really took an interest! I feel in love with the MiniFee Mio sculpt and have to say it's still by far one of my favorites. I've had a pretty good experience in the hobby and really love doing photoshoots with my dolls whenever I have the time!

 

I first discovered BJDs flipping through a magazine at a Barnes and Noble bookstore in about 2004

 

I used to watch and follow people customize monster highs. After I followed so many people, Instagram in the FYP bjd popped up. After looking more into it, I gave in. And don’t regret it.

 

I actually first heard about BJD's from YouTube. I was probably looking for some other kinds of figures or something; I was big into 1/6 scale figures like Hot Toys, Soldier Story, etc. And all of a sudden I ended duplicate finding a video from the company behind Smart Dolls. It was a fun and quirky! Ever since then I always wanted one. I ended up with a dollfie instead, but similar enough (I'm glad too because I've since heard about how toxic the SmD community can be).

Also. I know technically dolls form Volks and Smart Doll aren't technically strung, but are they still considered BJDs?

 

I saw my friend taking bjd, she made me in deep!