How did you discover bjds?

Welcome to the hobby.
I personally got started 14 years ago. I was collecting other kinds of dolls but was not loving what little I could do with them. Then a friend in UK invited me to a doll forum that allowed all kinds of dolls and collectors. That is where I found out about BJD and after chatting online with the girl who shared her photo stories I was off and running. Sold all my other dolls and purchased the first bjd from Denver Doll, a Elfdoll Wu. It was love for the hobby. Now here I am after 500+ dolls bought and sold over 14 years. I am hoping I am finally settling in the hobby to where I am buying less and deciding what I do in hobby with them. I want fewer dolls that I do more with them each.

 

7 months ago when gem of doll robbed me for Gladys and Brock because my heart could not say no.

 

Welcome welcome!
I would say I got exposed in 2007ish. I got my first one second hand on here around 2010ish. Just a small Soom Mini Gem Idrial. Then in 2015 I got Nenad I think - again second hand here. In 2016 I got Soom Elf Dia and then their little Rick and I've just acquired ever since. I will say that I bought the most dolls during the pandemic - I had too much time to browse doll sites and go "Oh I want! Buy now!"

I also collect a lot of other figurines so I guess collecting things is just my hobby haha!

 

thank you and wow your collection is impressive!

 

Hi! Welcome! I got started in 2019. I was watching YouTube videos of Doll repaints by Hextian and got inspired to start a pandemic friendly hobby lol. I ordered a Feeple65 Angela faceplate off Mercari to practice on. I started researching artist sculpts and slowly began collecting and building my army of dolls. I found it very addicting and Faces were fun to dabble in.

 

I first found out about the hobby around 2002/2003, but I wasn’t able to afford my first doll until 2008. Until then, I just tried to satisfy my need for custom dolls with Barbie, Bratz and much later, 1/6 Obitsu. My first doll was an Angel of Dream Chen, and I still have him! He just turned 14, and though he is yellowed and has a few scratches by now, he’s still in good shape considering all he’s been through! He’s white skin, which looks more like a lovely creamy normal yellow now.

 

Actually I have Bought & Sold 500+ I only have 7 here at home finished somewhat with 3 heads waiting on bodies and one full doll waiting on as well.

 

I switched schools and my classmate who at the time had 2 introduced me to bjds and I immediately fell in love and purchased my first doll a few months later in june 2016.
My collection grew rather slowly but now that I moved out and have money of my own its growing rapidly haha. But Ill have most of the characters I want to shell now

 

Welcome to the hobby!
I was introduced to the hobby back in early 2010 by my best friend. Then, around August, I got my first doll, a Customhouse Ange Ai Gaby. (Actually, it was a twin project that me and my friend came up with. We bought them as a twin but I got the girl and she got the boy. What a fun experience!) Since I was an 8th grader then, my mom wasn’t happy about my hobby that much because she knew if I was passionate about something, I would spend too much money on it. (But I earn my own living now, so she doesn’t have to worry about this anymore lol)

However, I decided to let my first doll go because I wanted a bigger size. I wish I could have her back in the future though.
My second doll is a Luts KDF Maska. He just turned 10 years old in May and is still with me until now!

 

I'm a lifelong doll collector so (sometime about 16 years ago) when I learned that BJD's were an Actual Thing (instead of just the dream doll I'd designed as a nine-year-old, abck in the 70s) by seeing a second hand BJD for sale on a website selling clothes for a different type of doll. I started hunting around online and found a little local doll forum, where they explained the terminology to me, and I began hunting for my own BJD to buy. My first was bought second hand from eBay because that would mean I would see pictures of the actual doll and faceup I'd be getting, not just some generic company sales shots of a doll of that sculpt. Plus, no issues of dealing with a company in a country where English wasn't their first language - just in case the language barrier caused problems with my order... And no long wait for the doll to be finihsed and sent.

I went from thinking one BJD would be enough to having four by the end of the following year. Sixteen years on, have over fifty of them rangibng in size from just under four inches tall to just over 31 inches tall.

So my house went from being full of dolls to bering really overcrowded with dolls.

Teddy

 

I found the hobby in 2004-ish, I think? Joined DoA here soon after it became an actual forum, and bought my first boy, a DoD Wi, in 2005. I'd never had an interest in dolls before, but seeing all these cool guy dolls just excited me! Bought a SD size boy soon after my first doll meet, a Customhouse Chamomile. I still have them both, plus some fifteen or so! I made up for some lost time last year as I'd fallen out of the hobby for almost a decade.

 

I always collected and owned dolls, from when I was a baby, up to now. I was always tempted to customize them, because I saw Barbie repaints as amazing -- they seemed too small for me to try. Then in 2003, I saw my bff's collection of Volks (fashion doll line) Dollfie, and went to look for them online. I was excited to learn there were already blank dolls that were meant to be customized, but I stumbled across Volks' Shirou Tachibana instead, which was a LE Super Dollfie, already sold out at the time but I could still see his price tag and I went a bit crossed eyed. Lol! My first doll of "this kind' was a Volks DDI hybrid, with a CP/Luts VDES head sculpt -- I got the body first, in late 2003. I originally only wanted one vampire male doll, but those were super rare, or LE releases back then, with very limited options and aesthetics. I never got an actual vampire male doll, but I did get my fourth doll to be the vampire prince I always wanted. I only own six full dolls and nine floating heads now, and I don't have any plans on adding more (unless I am able to get a mature tiny before they discontinue them, I keep hoarding OT figures, dolls, and random toys). I'm happy with the ones I own, and haven't purchased any new ones in the past eleven years or so, and I feel like I don't have to (I still hoard dolls, but I have no real interest in adding more resin BJD ones to my collection). (:

 

I first learned about BJDs back in late 2005/early 2006 when I found "Haute Doll" magazine at a local book store. I introduced BJDs via magazines to my best friend who in turn found DoAs. Told my boyfriend/now husband at the time about BJDs and he bought me my first one in July 2007 at the Volks USA Showroom back when it was in Torrance. He got into the hobby after that moment and got his first one about one year later.

For me, I've always been a collector of something (antiques, books, stationery, Star Wars memorabilia, stamps, etc) and my family on both my mom and dad's side are also collectors of various things, so it runs in our blood. I think though it started with porcelain dolls and Barbie but I struggled finding a doll that looked similar to my family members and myself. ABJDs were the closest I could find back then. Now, it's amazing to see the variety out there and it makes me happy to think that my own nieces and even my best friends' kids could have dolls that could represent them when it wasn't that long ago where nothing represented what I looked like.

 

I had been a casual doll collector for years, and was vaguely aware of BJDs and I thought they were beautiful but assumed all of them were way out of my price range, since I didn't know much about it.

It was around the end of 2020, I had sold off a bunch of stuff from a different hobby so I felt with that bit of "disposable" money I might be finally ready to take the plunge and get "just one" BJD to try it out. It was during lockdown and seemed like a good indoor hobby, too. Customizing my BJDs got me more into character creation and made me realize I actually really like doing faceups, and now I do playline doll customs as well, so BJDs helped me love my entire doll collection so much more.

 

Hi and welcome!!
I saw a dollightful video on YouTube in 2019 and started consuming an overwhelming number of doll customising videos. Some of these creators had an overlap in bjds (Kosomolski Dolls, dolllynx etc.), so that's where I first discovered what bjds were.

I started customising MH dolls, but didn't like their unrealistic proportions and limited posing. So decided that saving for a bjd would be a better option. When I saw Doll Chateau's baby doll Gail, I knew I had to have her

 

I've always had a fascination for dolls growing up, specifically the porcelain ones that both my mom and grandma collected and had 2 of my own (and some more now). Then there was the anime Rozen Maiden who just added more to my love for dolls.

I first got into the BJD hobby back in early 2011 when one of my friends got her own doll and I was so fascinated by it. Think there was also this Shojo Beat magazine I bought around that time that had a small story about this hobby also that probably also sparked my interest. My very first doll was Qian from Angel of Dreams. And about 6 months after I received her I got my second doll a Grey Murong from DikaDoll. Took a long break for about 6-7 years and then got back into the hobby by my other friend in early 2019.

 

I've been observing the hobby since maybe 2015 but wasn't able to afford getting into the hobby until last year. At the time I was only 15 and didn't have the money to prioritize it. I was kinda discouraged for a while because the few times I ever mentioned it to people I was laughed at for it or made to feel weird, but as I've gotten older I stopped caring what other people think.

 

lol I remember them popping up on my tumblr feed once like 6 years ago and it was just a rabbit hole I fell into

 

I want to say the first time I saw them was in the Gothic and Lolita bible, or something along those lines... somebody was holding a Volks doll, unsure of the sculpt, in a matching coordinate and needless to say I fell in love

 

I think I must have seen pictures of dolls on deviantart in the mid 00s, like, moody photos of dolls with thick glasses and black band shirts and chunky sweaters. I hadn't ever seen anything like them and I thought that they were beautiful! I lurked around the da doll community for a few years before I actually got my first doll.

Oh that's so fun -- my first doll was an AoD Rao at about that same time! I've been considering trying the dezombifying serum posted here on him although the yellow he's turned is quite cute.