How did you discover bjds?

Many years ago my sister was searching for a doll that would be able to pose like a real person, and that's how we both discovered bjds. Of course they were far too expensive for us at the time. It took four or five years before we were able to save up and get our first minifees.

I remember seeing a photo way back then of an Iplehouse Carina wearing an ultra-realistic Renaissance dress, and I thought she was so amazing. I've been dazzled by bjds ever since.

 

I discovered BJD’s through instagram! I was already actively posting my off-topic doll collection and then came across some photos in one of the ‘dollstagram’ tags. Once I did some research I ordered my first doll pretty quickly and never looked back lol.

 

I was in a forum around 2004-2005 about these doll figures and someone put photos of their new Luts Ani in the off-topic section. I loved the jointed body and became fascinated. I started researching and lurking around for info and photos. I joined my first BJD forum in 2005 and took me a bit more than a year to be able to get my first doll (I got first the head and later the body).

 

I found an Jun Planning Ai at Goodwill one day and left her in my shelf for a few years before doing some more research into this type of doll and a few more years later, here I am.

 

For me it's a rather boring story I always collected dolls and in doll forums I saw some bjd pics searched it and here I am!!

 

I was perusing periodicals at a newsstand and saw Haute Doll magazine.I was intrigued by the Volks ads but it was the article about bishies with Dollshe Haute Hound and Bermann that pulled me into the hobby.

 

I had a friend who was into the hobby but was slowly falling out of it. She brought them up in conversation about crafts and I had never even heard of them before. The more she told me about them the more Interested I became and the more I wanted one. My Dolkot Abel came in the day I went to a convention and I was lucky enough to have someone drive him to me so that she could unbox him with me. I think seeing me open my first doll (even secondhand) resparked the hobby for her, and I’ve been collecting ever since in waves.

 

My great interest in anything and everything BJD's started with them way back 2007, when I watched their music video for the very first time from a local cable channel :



The year after, attending a local BJD meet further fanned the flames to the point that after coming back home, I finally took the plunge and ordered my very first resin dorrie.

 

My interest in BJDs... I got into the doll hobby properly through Monster High - like many people did - and I followed some blogs who posted a lot of that. One of them posted this beautiful doll - Dream of Doll E-An - and I was enchanted with it. Since then, BJDs have been in the back of my mind as a potential, and it took me a while to be able to get my first.

Very glad I did!

 

Through other dolls. I used to collect Monster High dolls, and people were talking about how "I love BJDs but they're so expensive!" I already owned a Pullip at the time (talk about expensive--and it's a pretty bog-standard vinyl doll at that), so I decided I wanted to see what the hype was all about.

Then I spent my 2014 tax return on Lucrezia and haven't looked back.

 

Danny Choo

 

Someone posted a picture of Iplehouse Aaron on Livejournal back in the day and I thought the doll was so beautiful. I started looking at other bjds and that got me into the hobby! TBF I have loved dolls since a child, and was actively collecting anime figures at the time, so bjds wasn't much of a stretch from that.

 

I've always loved dolls (Disney Dolls, Pullips and so on). My other hobby is collecting figues. It was because of this hobby that I found out about BJDs, as quite a lot of figure collectors also tend to have Dollfies. I wasn't too fond of Dollfies at first but then I found out that those are only the tip of the iceberg and that there are so many more different kinds of BJDs out there. Since then, BJDs became my main hobby/interest.

 

I've watched this YouTuber called Dollightful for a while and when I saw her video on customizing a Hujoo Freya and Hujoo Freyr doll, I was immediately hooked on BJDs. I wanted to buy the dolls myself, but now it's been harder and harder to find them. I never bought them in the first place because I was broke and now I'm saddened by how few there are to find. Hopefully, I'll find them someday.

 

For me, I was always someone who loved playing with dolls as a child. I loved dressing them up, and posing them, and acting out stories with them. I don't think I ever grew out of it, so it was easy for me to get into BJDs. I'm still saving up for a doll, but I still love browsing through all the dolls on different websites, and looking at the dolls other people have. Even looking at pictures of BJDs makes me really happy, because they're all so pretty. Now I'm curious how other people discovered this and got into this hobby.

 

I've always had doolls, as a child I drew pictures of my "dream dolls" which didn't exist at the time (1976-ish) which were highly articulated (I drew in the joints and everything - as well as my nine-year-old's drawing skills woould allow) and continued acquiring dolls.

It wasn't until around 2004 that I happened across a picture in the second-hand-dolls-for-sale section of a website for Sasha Doll clothing that I realized my childhood dream dolls were now a reality. I asked about the doll (Dream of Doll, if I recall correctly) in the picture and learned of BJDs, found a little local (UK based) doll-forum that included BJD's and the people on there explained the bewildering terminology. Then I I started shopping around for my first BJD (he's the one in that little picture to the left of my post), a Luts CP Delf Chiwoo (the Elf Shiwoo I first latched onto was already sold out).

I still have a house full of dolls of all sorts, but now there are around 50 BJDs among them.
Teddy

 

I got into BJDs because I used to paint resin garage kits. Mostly anime characters! Then I started developing love and interest on figures, painting, characterisation, etc.
I saw two girls in a manga con in my country carrying their SD dolls around and I was fascinated! I approach them respectfully and they were super kind to me, explained a bit about the dolls and gave me a few websites! That was back in the 2006 I reckon? Long time ago! I'm still here

 

I wasnt too much into dolls when i was little, but as a preteen i was rewlly into Japanese culture (mostly anime back then)! So I was bored and Scrolling through blogs about Japan and anime, and pullip dolls popped up a few times. I thought they were weird and creepy at first, but after the 3rd or 4th time I decided to investigate and eventually I got one of my own. And yeah, from there I learnt about BJDs and got one at age 14.

 

I've always been a doll lover. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with porcelain dolls, and I learned everything about them. I had planned to start making them when I got older, but as it happens, I fell away from it as a teenager. I learned about BJDs when I was in college, but it wasn't in the budget. Now, many years later, the stars have finally aligned so I have the interest, money, and time for them. So, here I am!

 

My mom is Japanese so I've always had one foot in Japanese subculture. As a teen the EGL fashion movement was *just* beginning to gain some attention overseas with niche groups on BBS' and livejournal. From there I found Volks and the world of BJDs. Though when I started there really wasn't the variety there is today.