How do you decide which dolls you REALLY want and which you're just infatuate...

oh yes 4kix - owner pics are ESSENTIAL in helping a decision, because the company pics are so useless half the time! I'm not very imaginative either and can't visualise any other way of styling the dolls than the way the company does it. And wishlist-weeding is one chore I quite enjoy too LOL

 

I've bought dolls on an impulse before and even though I never regretted any of them later on, I've been being more cautious lately. If I like a doll, I wait for a while and see if I still want it. And most of the time that doll I really wanted starts looking less appealing after a month or so... Now its a different story if the doll we're talking about is limited edition. Then I just go ahead and make the purchase if my bank account can handle it. xD

 

when i appreciate the the entire structure of the doll's face and body, i keep him or her in a list. then, i continue searching for other companies and dolls to see if there is any other doll that i would want more. i also look up opinions and issues regarding the doll i want. if all turns out well and i can bear with the challenges of purchasing that doll, i go for it.

 

A mixture of many things listed throughout this thread - like to think the doll sort of chooses me. : )

 

Either the sculpt has to blow me away, or being able to shell (or suddenly inspired to create a new) character is a must. I cannot allow myself to get a doll just because it's adorable or has a gorgeous face because otherwise i'd be totally broke.
The only doll that i would seriously want to buy that i have no idea of a character for is a Soom Turb/Roxen Fog Elf (fantasy not human). It's my grail doll and i descovered it the week after they stopped selling, was gutted.
My first doll will be arriving soon and she actually not one of the sculpts i was most attracted to beauty-wise. I brushed her aside when i first saw her with just the thought that she reminded me a bit of the Ghost In The Shell anime for some reason. But for some reason I just kept thinking about her a month later after spending ages planning then rejecting another doll. DZ's Annie just had this potential that seemed to be overlooked. It hit me that she might be great for a character i was struggling to write about, I had a fit of inspiration and it all went from there. =)

 

I know I need a certain doll when I keep going back to look at her/him almost obsessively. I've learned the hard way not to buy dolls that I merely love for a moment as I end up selling them. Also my tastes have changed over the years & I only keep the ones that still make my heart beat faster. And I've cut my purchasing really down as finances have become quite limited so I really have to be obsessive over a doll before I finally buy it. (Of course that doesn't always hold true as I just bought a doll on Ebay that was love at first sight & had so many watchers that I panicked at the thought of missing out on her. Not to mention she was a good price & instant gratification.)

 

Definately a feeling! I make a list of the ones I see and like and then I go through the list again, to see which ones I really love! (Oh dear, I'm such a sad person!)

 

I`m trying to fight that very battle myself, there are plenty of dolls that I want, my heart thinks it `needs`but in reality, it doesn`t, it just loves the concept of such a beautiful doll. Sometimes my heart overrides my brain and I have to step back and look at it, sometimes it just doesn`t work that way, there was many a time when I thought i`d wanted a doll (didn`t get it) it got sold out, but I wasn`t really as depressed as I thought i`d be, and I didn`t need to long for it anymore either, so I guess it`s just kinda weird like that. Override the heart, I say,

 

Dolls that stay with me forever and gnaw at the back of my mind until it's impossible to take anymore. Most of my grails were like that if not all of them. I tried to ignore one because I didn't want to support the company but later decided I couldn't do without. The other it built up slowly... as for the third I always knew I needed him ever since I first saw him but thought I'd never get one because of his price... needless to say I own him now.

The same goes for my grail doll that I'm currently saving towards... I wanted her ever since I first saw her... her price always put me off (she costs as much as half of my entire collection!!) but I have finally surrendered to the fact that there's nothing else I can do... I really want that doll. It's physically painful to consider giving up on her... and so I save.

 

For me it's dolls that make a distinct personality form in my head. I look at and appreciate most BJDs for how beautiful or unique they are, but there's a difference for me between thinking a doll is beautiful and knowing that I really want it.

 

I've certainly had the obsession problem where I'd get so excited about the specific doll and that I needed it and I almost always end up selling that doll because I was only excited about the idea of a new doll. Not the doll itself.
Other times, I'll do research and realize how the doll is perfect, but when they arrive they aren't what I was expecting so I'd sell her.

 

There's this time when I search for a dolly that could fit my OC's, others I see BJD's that are so cute and I just want to buy them ;w; that's how I got my MSD, and I don't regret nothing even though it was just something like 'oh, see, i want it!' i felt like it was gonna be awesome, so yeah i guess there's a feeling when I really like a doll or no

 

Ooh, this is a hard one. I've been in this hobby for a looong time, but this is still hard for me.

When I didn't have much money, it was much easier to buy only dolls that interest me enough to save money for a long time, but after I got work and I started to get money more easily, I bought dolls that I *thought* that I wanted, but I noticed later that I liked the idea more than the doll itself. Now I'm trying to learn it slowly again, that I shouldn't buy every doll that interests me, because they might not fit to me, even though they might be awesome.

But it's actually pretty hard after I had work, because it's much easier to buy dolls when I don't have to save money for half a year for one. So I still make mistakes, which means that I buy dolls or heads and sell them later. But I'm getting better at it. :3 Mostly it helps if I wait week or two and if it still haunts my dreams later, I'll get it.

But sometimes, I just *know* it if I see it, but it happens pretty rarely.

 

This is a tough. I have been learning my lesson slowly but surely. When a company releases new dolls, I get so excited and want so many, but I also then like to take a few days to think things over, look at the pcitures and really assess what I really love.

Trust me, I've been collecting many things for many years and it's a lesson that all collectors learn at their own pace and time.

If I don't really think about a doll after seeing it for a few days, but was overly excited about it when I saw it, I think I was more excited that it's "new" which makes it exciting.

When I keep going back to a website to see it and look at it over a span of a few days, and obsess about it a little bit, that's when I'm sure I need to buy it.

 

I trust my gut. I have this overwhelming want for the dolls that I have and thus far I have no regrets.

 

I have a BJD wishlist on Microsoft Word that I add to, and also subtract from, regularly. I'm new to this hobby, I've gotten all four (tiny) dolls this year. I only joined DoA last winter. When I find a doll I really like, it goes on the list. I come back weeks to months later and consider how much I actually like that doll after the initial wow factor wears off. Comparing the prices in how much I like different dolls, as in "would I be willing to pay this much for a doll I like, when I could put that money toward one I love?"

 

Leo, I do the same thing, LOL! It's a wishlist that continues to change and evlove as time goes on. Sometimes putting a doll physically on a list makes you really think if you should purchase or not...and then others get added while others get taken off. It's a great way to keep track of things.

 

I am trying to decide what doll to get next but its sooo hard I have a simple way of choosing a doll which is to get the prices of the dolls and buy the cheapest one as I can never afford the £300 ones if I could I would buy them

 

I haven't bought a doll yet, but when i started getting into the hobby i was looking around all the different sites, Fairyland, Luts, Dollmore, and as i was looking at all the dolls i just fell in love! A few weeks ago i was looking around Luts, seeing if they had any really really adorable ones and that's when i saw her, Kid Delf Nana~ OMG my heart stopped when i saw her. Everything about her was amazing to me and i knew that she was perfect. I tried looking at other dolls, thinking how lovely they all were, but i kept going back to her. That's when I knew she was the one I wanted to get. Now I'm hopping i can get her sometime around Christmas or some time next year.

So in other words, i guess you get this feeling like you know its right and worth it. LOL