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How did you discover bjds?

Aug 4, 2020

    1. I think I saw a bunch of posts about them on tumblr and got interested? I was into them heavily about 5 years ago but I could afford one so my interest dwindled. I realized a few months ago I was in a heavy depression and had no hobbies so my thoughts were only about work, which made me more stressed and caused me to spiral. Finally I went on one of my normal unhealthy spending binges but this time saw dolls and remembered that I loved them in the past. By August I had one doll on order, now well into September I have a number of project dolls heading my way and I have a doll I'm currently working on. This hobby has managed to get me out of a rough place and I'm hoping my interest continues! I really love all things Doll Chateau so I may begin to grow my collection in that direction when I get a chance but for now I'm a very casual collector of mainly project dolls :3nodding:
       
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    2. I first discovered them when I was playing GaiaOnline and I was looking for a reference for a character. I came across the DoD Tender E-An stock image and fell in love. I was something like a sophomore or junior and there was no one I could even fathom getting one. So I made a mental note of it and went on with my life. I never had a job where I could afford one and I kind of just gave up on it. My friend reintroduced me to them and was offering to sell me one of her dolls at a severely discounted price. I also had a better paying job (finally) and didn't went through with it. I've been hooked ever since.
       
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    3. I am certain that it was through the lolita guilds on GaiaOnline and pretty sure that it went something like this: manga/anime→Japan→Malice Mizer→GaiaOnline(forums)→lolita fashion→BJDs
      Then commence the waiting and saving until I could finally order my first doll!
      I never did find out what sculpt that first BJD I saw was but I still have the picture backed up somewhere...
       
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    4. It was probably at Otakon some many eons ago. I can remember seeing people having their dolls on display at their tables in the dealer's room and artist alley.
       
    5. Somewhere on the internet in the mid-to-late-aughts, I think on gaiaonline? And I think it was a picture of a Minifee?

      Well, people on the thread were making fun of how “creepy” it looked, but I was kind of intrigued. I didn’t really look much further into it though, because someone on the thread mentioned how expensive BJDs were, and being about 15 with only Christmas money in my bank account, I quickly let go of my intrigue and moved on to more attainable hobbies.

      It took about 3 more years for me to revisit the idea of BJDs, and another 2 years to actually pull the plug and get one (on my kind mother’s dime, as a Christmas gift).
       
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    6. I remember seeing them in Haute Doll magazine while browsing in a book store years ago. I think it was a Narae and oh my gosh she was beautiful I didn’t know these dolls existed. I still don’t have a Narae of my own but who knows maybe one of these day....
       
    7. Back in 2009, I was in my first year of high school, in art class. I saw someone sitting by themselves that dressed similarly to me, so I sat next to them in hopes we could become friends.

      Their binder was covered in printed-out photos, one of them being a Dream of Doll E-An. I was, at the time (I thought), terrified of dolls, but I just immediately was drawn to her. We started hanging out and eventually became best friends. When I would go to their house or them to mine, we would just spend hours on the Dream of Doll website and eventually Den of Angels. They saved up enough to bring E-An home, thanks to their father letting them use his credit card. When I saw her in person and actually held my first doll, I was absolutely smitten. My mother was finally convinced to allow me to order a Dollzone Chen a few months later after I scrimped and saved!

      Funny what tiny little photos can do to us! :wiggle
       
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    8. I believe the first doll I saw was a Bill Kaulitz doll, not a minimee, but a doll that was to resemble a singer. At that time I was a big fan of Tokio Hotel, so I immediately was lit up by the idea of owning a similar doll myself. Later I was diving more into BJD-hobby and discovered Ringdoll (who still is one of my absolute favorite companies) and their 1/4 girl Rebecca. Fell in love in no time. So I started saving my pocket money, as a fellow ten year old, and a year later (with some tangible material help from my mother), I was able to order the first doll of my dreams, Rebecca. :aheartbea
      The day i got her might be one of the happiest days of my later childhood. Since that day I proudly consider myself as a part of the community :)
       
    9. I migrated here from custom nendos/obitsus! I think it was only a natural evolution once I started wanting more and more pretty sculpts...
       
    10. I discovered BJD on youtube while watching videos on dolls and AsenvaBJD popped up and I'm now in love
       
    11. I looked up doll collections on YouTube and one of the videos happened to be about BJD's.
       
    12. My friend had gotten some hujoos(off topic) to mod and ended up showing me a photo of her boyfriend’s in-progress Lolita style SD. I ended up madly researching the following week to find out more and purchasing some test dolls the following month. *_*
       
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    13. Basically I saw some pretty pictures on the internet way back when. After some googling and sighing over how expensive they were I just ended up putting the idea of owning a doll out of my mind. Now I'm a bunch older and financially stable so I get to enjoy what 2020 has to offer.
       
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    14. I think it was either the end of the year of 2005 or sometime in 2006 that I discovered Haute Doll magazine at the Barnes & Noble magazine stand. There was a very cool looking doll on the cover of the magazine and I learned it was an Asian Ball Jointed Doll. That's how I first learned about BJDs. After that, I was hooked and would go back I think every month or so to see if there were more Haute Doll magazines or similar hobby magazines that had BJDs featured in them. Like a few here, this was way back when the doll company choices were not that many and access to dolls stateside were limited. That, and I was pretty poor back then as I was a freshly graduated from college with jobs that just paid enough for me to get by.

      I live in an area where specialty hobbies like that were nowhere nearby and I almost never bought anything through the internet back then so getting into the hobby was a bit prohibitive back then. One of the great things back then was that the Volks USA store in Torrance, California was still open and this store had a showroom where you can see the different dolls they had as well as potentially could do an FCS. It was a bit of drive for me, but when I was visiting my then boyfriend/now husband one day, he drove me to the store and that was magical. It was sad when that store closed a few years back (it's now located in Gardena but doesn't have a showroom), but it was definitely one of my early memory highlights from this hobby. I think about a couple months or a year later my friend introduced me to Den of Angels and that sealed the deal for me with this hobby as it helped me immensely with knowing more about dolls and the different companies that made them, attending BJD meet-ups/conventions, and just a lot of other things that I've enjoyed because of it.
       
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    15. in college i have a classmate and a friend, we both love anime, i am a collector of figurines from all my favourite series, my friend's wife show me ASA, Tokyo story from ipelhouse, and i fell... and i havent found her yet ;(
       
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    16. My ex-girlfriend was a fan. My interest in dolls long outlived that relationship, but I'm still grateful to her for introducing me to the topic! I didn't play with dolls as a kid, so it was awesome to learn about them from someone first hand. :D Although she didn't own any BJD because we were school age and they're expensive, she loved them and showed me many pictures.
       
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    17. I found out about BJDs a similar way, in 2010 I was obsessed with Kuroshitsuji and had taken a real keen interest in Drocell. One day while browsing dA I found someone who dressed up their BJD as him, since then I've been obsessed :').
       
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    18. I became interested in Azone Int and Dollfie Dream from kawaii Tumblr. I would look at FF&D's website daily to see if they got any new Azone Lil' Fairy in. One day I decided to look at the other companies on there and fell in love with LUTS. I saved up some funds for a HDF31, and then bought a 5StarDoll Nancy while I was waiting.
       
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    19. I was on google for some odd reason when I was 12, I don’t remember what I was looking up but I ended up stumbling across a picture of the most beautiful doll I had ever seen! Excited, I jumped to the website. It said 75 dollars which my naive self didn’t know that they meant the outfit and not the doll...^^; So I continued searching the website and it ended up taking me to the DOD website and there he was...the beautiful Dream Of Teen Homme Ducan!! That’s when I was realized he was actually over 600 dollars lol!! Surprised I had asked my mom and of course we couldn’t afford it, but she always told me that if we won the lottery she’d get him for me hands down. Well...I ended up seeing him being sold second hand and eleven years later I got my grail doll!!! I’m 24 now and I’ve had him for a year and a month now and I’m absolutely in love!! I’ve always loved doll collecting so finding out there were even bigger and more realistic looking dolls, you bet you could count me in! Also, my family are very supportive and accepting of my doll collecting hobby 100% ^^
       
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    20. I was on the Volks Japan website looking at figures and other collectibles. There was some kind of banner that caught my eye, as I recall it did not scream doll or anything. It was for the Dollfie Dream page. Blew me away, had never seen anything like them. I still remember the rough translation (It’s not a Doll or Figure , it’s Dollfie:D). It was a weird transition time for Volks, when I found out about DD's. At the time you could not buy directly from Volks Japan, and the US store did not exist yet. I found DOA and a Yahoo doll board which helped me figure things out. Short time later I was able to buy my first dolls head from Ebay, and her body from the only US Volks dealer at the time.
       
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