How do you create/come up with your doll characters?

My doll characters come from many different sources of inspiration. I have characters who share traits of my friends or people I look up to. Others are inspired by fictional characters. But mostly, I have just gradually developed my characters as I've gotten older. I started in 6th grade, and my first characters are atrocious, but now I feel confident enough in their development and story line to make something out of it. My dolls are another form of having these characters, and keeping them around is nice. It kind of reminds me of all my hard work

 

I have a somewhat complicated process for character development when it comes to my BJDs. But that is part of the fun!

I have a lot of characters from past RPs and stories that have been fully developed and who I want to make BJDs, so when I find a sculpt that fits one of my favorites, I start saving. And during this process, I strip said character of his story completely and put him back at square one, in a new universe. I come up with a new concept for the character so he can have a chance to continue in his development. This way, I won't get bored of him or her because the story hasn't been completed yet. Also, I won't have to rely on someone else so much to supply me with the story, so I can make the character and plot entirely my own.

I have some exceptions in my collection... One was tied very closely with my roommate's doll, because theirs is a lurv that can never be severed. And another one of my dolls was purchased before I even had a character for her, and it took me a few years to finish her concept. I also buy 16cm dolls and fantasy tinies that aren't based on anything previously, I just concept them when they come. My 16cm dolls are more like spirits or fairies based off of food and drink, so when I see one I can buy it and come up with something later >_>

So, my TL;DR: My dolls are either
based on characters I've made, but given new stories to make them interesting,
purchased before I have a character in mind and given stories as they grow with me,
or based on a light concept and not a full on story or character.

I have the most success with the dolls based on my old rp characters. The chances I will sell them are very low and I bond with them the best. Sometimes they outgrow their sculpts, but I never outgrow the characters.

 

Mine are all inspired by comic characters. Some are my own creations while others are Marvel comics folks. I'm not sure if I could by a doll simply because it's pretty. They're all shells for characters I love.

 

How many of you base your doll characters on real life people, or your friends? None, but at the same time, all, because all my characters have personalities built with aspects of people that I know, mixed with other features.

If you don't base your characters on real people, how do you create your doll characters, or OCs? I "ibridize" them. I take something from a book character, something from a friend, something from other sources, and try to put them together in a coherent way to create the personality that I desire for my doll or OC.


How in depth is your doll's character/background story? It depends from the doll. Dahlia (My incoming Dollmore Catish Reaa) has a really detailed background, because I RPed her a lot and created lots of details on her story: Mian Mian, that doesn't shell a premade character, has just two lines, giving a general idea of his personality and why he lives with the other characters/dolls.
Do they even have a story? I'm currently creating it. Most of my dolls have a premade story, because they are RP characters, and I'm trying to made a story that tie all they stories in a single one.
If your other dolls are involved, to what extent and how many?Well, I decided that my dolls all shares the same house in a city set between all the Multiverse planes (like D&D Sigil), and then some of them are more involved together than others: two are lovers and fellow bounty-hunters, but just flatmates with the other two. But I'll probably have more ideas as time passes and I get dolls for all my characters, and I don't exclude that them will become more involved with the developing of the story.

 

I buy dolls I like the look of, their character then suggests itself once I have the doll - sometimes straight-away, sometimes gradually as I interact with the doll and my other dolls.

Generally, trying to create a character for them before they arrive fails in the face of the doll refusing to fit in with my plans for them.

My Narae, for example, was meant to be a super-sleek/glamorous secret-agent type character, but the instant I opened her box I realized she was a hippie.

Teddy

 

To create characters, a LOT of people make spin off/fan characters from famous games/book and television series.

 

I'm an old-school, paper-and-funky-dice tabletop RPG player and many of my crew are resin avatars for favorite game characters. Even those doll characters that didn't have their origins in Exalted or some other game tend to have been created in similar ways to their RPG cousins, though....

... Meaning that they generally start with a basic who/what idea and a name, with the whys and the hows and the with-whoms coming in somewhere later in the process. Often, when it's a doll that I didn't purchase to be a specific, pre-conceived individual that basic idea is, at least in part, based on the look of the sculpt and the first impressions I have of it.

And yeah. Sometimes even when I don't INTEND to make a "fan doll", I end up with one. That's what happened with my Bishonen House Steve. With the white hair, blue eyes and way-too-pleased-with-himself perpetual smirk I just couldn't see him as anything but a (very) tongue-in-cheek take on Devil May Cry's Dante.

 

Inspired by William Burroughs and Bryan Gysin's cut up experiments I take old magazine and cut up articles about people. Then using John Cage's chance operations, including using I Ching coins, I choose various paragraphs from articles out of old editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Using dice methods laid out in Luke Rhinehart's novel from the 70's, The Dice Man, I then reassemble this material and create new characters with wild and sometimes obtuse qualities. If I'm feeling lazy then I just contact ghosts using my Ouija board and ask them what their stories are and write them down.....

 

I write novels so coming up with characters is a common practice for me. But it kind of really depends on the doll. Some, I give them a name and not much else, but others, I've got an entire story written around them before they even come home. Or sometimes, a doll won't be who I thought they would. When I got Puck (my minifee Shiwoo elf), I'd had a story plotted out about who he'd be that tied in with the other dolls I already owned, but then his character ended up being someone else altogether with a story of his own (and this happened several years after he came home, so it wasn't an instantaneous transformation). He has no relation to my other dolls' characters. I'm actually writing a novel about his story now.

Either way, the process of coming up with doll's character and background is just something I enjoy doing, and ties both of my hobbies (collecting and writing) together very nicely.

 

The majority of my ideas come at night when I'm trying to sleep. I've literally woken up at 4am, exhausted, to write a brief character backstory that I didn't want to forget

 

I'm a hardcore hobbyist writer, therefore I need OC's to write about and I'm really lame at using characters which already exist -for example, videogames or anime ones- so I just come up with them randomly mostly as I went doing a new story

 

I usually get inspiration from several different sources. Usually from day dreams or inspiration from existing characters on TV shows or even from worlds I've made up.
My main characters are usually based on aspects of me.

 

I honestly think I'm going to model my first doll after an already existing OC of mine. The thought of high quality dolls of my OCs that I've only see in drawings just tickles me happy!

 

I have a webcomic that's been in the works for 7 years, it's every ounce of my soul. So my dolls are based around the characters from it. I already have a large list of dolls I want [which ones from which company] for all the characters I want, because I love bringing my webcomic to life as much as I can and I feel that, other than myself cosplaying, my dolls are a perfect way of doing that.

It just sucks that I get the perfect sculpt then 3 months later I find a better suited doll. @______@

 

I have never bought a doll to be any specific character. I'm drawn to dolls that "tell" me who they are. The minute I saw the batchix machina sculpts, a whole story and world popped into my head. When I got my dolls, their personalities and characters developed over time, just like getting to know someone. When I order from a company, I've usually been stalking their websites for a while, all while developing some sort of world that those dolls inhabit and hoping that if I order a sculpt, I'll end up with an interesting character. Although sometimes this method gets me into trouble because I've ended not liking other dolls as much once I get them in hand, which is sad because the sculpts or other people's pictures inspire worlds and stories in my head but the character I get out of the doll doesn't suit me or is boring.

 

To make this very short:

I have 8 dolls based on the 8 Chinese elements (Qi, Yin and Yang, Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water). Each have a specific trait taken from my personality, but one that matches their element. For example Harmony (earth) has a personality that is very caring, Lotus (water) is a very shy and scared personality. And so every element has it's own specific trait which comes forth most for that element. I did a lot of research for that too and I still do. I decided on some characters first end then I started to read and did some investigations as in which element would fit what part of my character best. It was like making a thesis all over new ^-^

Then I have a DollZone DongDong which came unplanned -_- As well as my Fox Pet doll. I decided they can live in my 'fairy village' where my earth element lives. Get it? Earth - Fairies? And Earth vs. caring for others? Okay I should stop here before I blabber to much.

Bonus Points for who noticed my doll's names also have something to do with their element (except for Angèle, who is my oddly named one compared to the others).

 

One of my characters was created through just random events. My other character is based around the other one.

 

Most of my dolls personalities developed on its own, I just know when I look at them.

Some of them are supposed to be based on movie characters or musicians but they don't really stick to it much.