How did you discover the BJD hobby?

I discovered dolls back in my Japanese obsession phase way back in middle school in 2005. I've been obsessed ever since.

 

I saw them on deviant art. I was searching for stock photos and I searched dolls. Guess what popped up??? Thats right. BJDs!!!! These creepy thin dolls with massive haunting eyes and unique face jobs seemed to call to me. Next thing I knew I was obsessed. I found DoA. I poured over every site I could find. I did research till my eyes wanted to bleed. Finally I ordered my little girl, a Shoyo-3, and my Colin, a Migi Ryu. Custom face ups, body searches, the infamous waiting... I loved it! Now Im getting a previously loved Minimee Robert Pattinson, looking for the right faceup artist, drooling over eyes, and finding the right body for my new boy.

 

I went to a clothes store and found wallets with beautiful dolls with anime and manga characters´ appeareance. I love all about this topic and decided to investigate about it searching for "japanese dolls like porcelain", etc, and found them. I decided to know more and suscribed to forums like BBSDreams, and there, nice people teached me a lot. In less than one month I decided to buy my first doll from DOD, a Leya :3

 

I've been a bit "obsessed" with both Japanese and Korean cultures for quite a while now. However, I was introduced to the BJD hobby thanks to SwapBot and Flickr.
One day while searching someone's gallery for inspiration for a swap, I found a picture of a really cute doll. I later found out she was a DOC - Petsha (even though I still not entirely understand what that means).
I fell in love with her and noticed the description of the photo that said "BJD Doll Swap". I then googled for BJD dolls and I couldn't be more satisfied with my curiosity.
I was delighted with the BJD world and I still am. All this happened a few months ago and I am still researching, trying to learn as much as I can before finally purchasing my first doll.

 

When I was a little girl, I've always wanted a fancy doll from Japan but my parents wouldn't afford one back then but a cheap one like from the Dollar Store. Time gone by and a family of my own later, buying toys/dolls for my girls have reminded me on the Japanese fancy doll that I've never forgotten.
Now that my girls are teenagers so I start looking, first I was looking into antique bisque dolls but I found them too expensive and fragile to play with, can't even change clothes without worry about breaking something and the eyes and wig are glued on.
My girls are into Japanese animate/manga, they introduced me to Volks Dollfie and I went deeper til I've found the BJS world. My very first love was Lishe doll and I was hook, don't know how many years and years later I have finally purchase my grail doll and my very first Delf Lishe second hand, and she's worth the wait. (I do have couple of other smaller BJD)

 

I have a friend who had one, then my cousin kept talking about them so I started doing bits and pieces of research on them and then I watched Rozen Maiden which is based off bjd's and since I finished the anime I fell in love with dolls, now I own a doll and I find myself looking at everyone's dolls on DeviantART.

 

my best friend's little sister told me about them when i was about 17, naturally i just forget about it because well i wasn't really big with these "doll business" back then. i have a huge fear of dolls (barbies, baby dolls, those antique ones). then one day, i remembered the word "dollfie" and typed it in google (dream of dolls totally was the only doll i knew) and deviantart (hiritai's dollies totally made me go alkdfjlskdjfsjjl and my interest just went deeper)

long story short, now i have two dolls xD

 

I had a friend who became obsessed with them randomly, she liked the much smaller dolls though, but that is what led me to discover the larger ones which I like.

 

Every year at this one particular anime convention I go to, I always saw people holding these wonderful dolls. There was sometimes even a table that displayed some of them. I was able to hold one once, and that was one of the most happiest moments I've ever had. Ever since that, I've been researching like crazy to find my dream doll, which is now at the moment a "Homme Ducan" from Dream of Doll. ^^

 

I found out about them in a Korean movie, years ago.
It's called "The Doll Master."
I'd seen the dolls before online and occasionally in public.
But I didn't know what they were called until that movie.

I've wanted one ever since. c:

 

I've known about BJD's for around 5/6 years when I saw people carrying them around at anime conventions, I thought they were pretty and unique but was not brave enough to go up and ask about them.

Then about 3/4 years ago I met my friend Ehryn who introduced me to her BJD's, but it was only till about a year and half ago that I started to really want a BJD of my own and it's thanks to Ehryn I got my first girl Yuki (Angel Studio Gus) in June this year and my collection has been growing ever since

 

@ Onigirikiri

Same here. I have seen them first at Doll Master (asian horror movie) ( Almost 10 years now, i guess) and also ignorant of what are those beautiful dolls are called.
I so loved to have one back then but i still dont have a job.
I forgot all about it for the past year. Then couple of years ago i read an article of them on Shojo beat
(manga preview ~mostly) and decided to go check some recommended site to buy.
The very first doll that i fall inlove with is Bobobie Mei. It breaks my heart that i could not purchase her that time because BB stops the production (Fall season) because they couldnt keep up with the orders. She haunts me for couple of months until i found feather fall dealer who carries RS which is BB's sister company. Got my first dollie last December 2009 and then the snow ball effect starts. I now got seven resin kids and few floater.

 

I'd heard about cosplayers who carried around "creepy dolls" at A-kon a few years back. I didn't really understand, but I was sure that they couldn't be as creepy as my friend said they were, because she was big on exaggerating...
A year later, my best friend (who I met over GaiaOnline) mentioned the hobby and showed me the Dream of Doll website. Suffice it to say, I fell in love. XD Although 98% of my real-life friends think that BJDs are creepy, I just ignore them. =w= ... and they tend to ignore me. =w=;

 

For me, I really discovered BJDs at a convention. I knew about them because one of friends had several of them but because she lived far away I never really had much interest in them. It wasn't until we were hanging out at the convention and ended up holding onto one of her dolls for most of the day that I fell in love with him.

So many people kept asking me about him too that it was a bit frustrating to know nothing about the hobby and repeatedly explaining that I was holding onto him for a friend. But once I got home, that's when the research began and brought me here today!

 

I've known about BJD 1 month ago, when I decided to buy the Moxie doll for myself ( I saw them at shop)And when I was looking it at Internet i saw BJD Doll.I was impressed and told my husband, that I want it very much.He said that its expensive, but not so much and we bought Her during a week. So, now I am "young Mom"))

 

I honestly don't remember how I discovered it, but I'm probably going to have to guess deviantart.

I've been looking at photos for years, just fascinated by the beauty.

 

I'm a huge fan of Gackt, and on a Gackt community somebody posted a photo of Volks's Ryoya Konoe and I was FLABBERGASTED because Ryoya looked so much like Gackt! Then I did more research and figured out about bjds! There was a lot of "sticker shock" though, because Ryoya was an LE

 

Many years ago I found some pictures of these beautiful doll's, however, I did not know what they were. So for many years I just kept the pictures of them on my computer. Then, last year, I was at an japanese convention here in Norway. And there they were! I was so happy that I yelled out "there they are!! Oh my gooood!" xD And now I have 6 ball-jointed dolls

 

Someone from my local anime forum made a thread on it about BJD. That was november of 2010. When I saw that thread I though "I don't like how they look. And who could buy such expensive dolls?". I don't really remember how I got into BJDs. But about a year ago I discovered Luts and fell in love with them. I learnt about Obitsu and Dollfie Dream as well. I made friends with people who own DD and I started wanting my own. During that year I learnt many things about this hobby and now I feel more or less ready for my first doll. ^^

 

I saw those wonderful creatures in 2009 in Google picture search and became interested who are they
First BJDs I saw were LittleFee Ante and Sabik by Soom