How do you pick a doll? The company faceup or the blank sculpt?

I generally go by blank because I've been fooled by good face-ups in the past. Still, sometimes it takes the finished doll to give you an idea for its potential. Generally, though,, if you find the blank features appealing, the head is going to look stunning once painted.

 

I look up the company faceup as well as the blank sculpt. Sometimes I notice things in the black sculpt i hadn't with the one from the company. Like they tend to make the eyes looks bigger or smaller. I also like to look up other peoples pictures of it, for more angles.

 

Company faceups draw me in, then I look at the blank sculpt and then I scour Instagram for various faceups and to see different photo angles/lighting. Also, if I generally like the company’s dolls, I usually end up looking in depth at every available sculpt within the size I want. So for example, I like Fairyland Minifees, and I’ve looked at Instagram photos of all of the readily available sculpts in the Minifee size to make sure I was happy with the sculpt I chose.

 

I absolutely HATE the thought of buying a doll without seeing it blank, I personally have a hard time seeing a sculpt beneath a faceup. I did have to buy my Akagi Doll Ban msd boy without seeing his head blank because I couldn't find a single owner picture at the time, but I was very anxious and apprehensive about it afterwards.

 

I look at blank sculpts and usually order them blank.
If the sculpt is not limited edition, I'll find references of other owners' with that doll sculpt for range of possible looks.
If the sculpt is limited edition, I'll just have to look at the company face up and imagine, Haha!!

 

Find as many owner pictures as you can. On here, facebook, IG, flikr. I obsess about it. If i dont like most of the owner pics i see i know it may not be the actual sculpt im attracted to.

 

For me its the face up, it just shows the potential of the doll ! And I think that's the fun part.

 

Unless the company face up is just absolutely AMAZING, I'm usually looking at the blank sculpt because I already have my own personal character in mind. Blank sculpts hold a lot of potential and it doesn't feel like I wasted money if I end up hating and wiping the company face up. I have a desire for my dolls to be completely unique and have their own stories. so that's my main reason for blank sculpts. I don't think ill ever buy anything from them due to bad reviews online, but often I use DOLK as a reference for blank sculpts considering they have a huge catalog for just doll parts.

 

I like to look at both. I definitely wouldn't buy a doll without seeing the blank sculpt but seeing the faceup helps me to picture the character of the doll and makes it come alive a lot more. Sometimes the faceup can be hiding things about the sculpt that I might not like, so it's important to keep both in mind.

 

Usually, I try to buy my dolls blank, but before that I look up pictures of as many different face-ups as possible and try to find pictures of the blank sculpt as well. Then, to check if I really love the sculpt, and not just the paint job, I'm trying to find the most unappealing pictures I can online (bad lighting, uncomfortable angle, you name it) and if I still think the doll is the most beautiful in the world, it know I really want it XD.

I tend to buy them blank, because I want a custom face-up anyway.

 

I prefer blank. Then just send it off to a faceup artist.

 

When I'm looking at a doll I might want to buy, I have to see it with a faceup (company or owner is fine, but of course it's usually the company's faceup I see first) because I'm physically incapable of visualizing things in my mind. Because I can't visualize what a face could look like from just the blank sculpt, all blank dolls end up looking the same to me, generally.
Despite that, I usually end up buying the dolls blank and sending them off to faceup artists, so I can get a more personalized faceup, but the only instructions I ever give to the artists are "I want him to look sad" or "He has to have black eyebrows" and everything else is up to the artist, because I can't picture details like eyeshadow or lip color, etc. in my head. I can't tell if faceup artists love or hate when I do that, though.

 

Definitely blank. I love customized things a lot, especially when it comes to dolls.
I choose them by the shape of their noses, jaw, sometimes eyes. Nothing saddens me more than a doll that looks perfect, but has ridiculous < shaped nose (in the sense that it is too long and pointy - I do not mind if it is on purpose to add character, but some companies just have plenty of dolls with the same facial features.)

 

I choose my dolls by sculpt, because faceups can always be changed but sculpts cannot.

 

Blank sculpt and send it to face-up artist.

 

I look at the faceup, the blank sculpt, and I look up what other people have done with the doll to get an idea of how versatile the sculpt is. Some speak louder than others and occasionally there have been some that surprised me.

 

I click on an image first because of the faceup, but that's mainly because most websites have the faceup on the thumbnail. Then I immediately go to the blank face to judge if that looks right!

I'll actually get really irritated if a wig or faceup completely changes the look of the doll from what it is without too.

Like if a face mold is round but the face is contoured to be sharp in the pictures!

I feel like it might be because I'm a makeup artist and a portraitist but it gets me unreasonably irritated lol

A wig can quite alter the look of a face too! Alongside the faceup. And if a website also only has pictures of the faceup with a beard/moustach that alters the look of the head as well.

So yeah, blank face all the way for me. And I wish more websites just had the blank face in the thumbnail.

 

When I see a new sculpt I like, I try to find pictures of the head without a face up as that helps me see the details as I usually buy dolls without face ups. If there are no blank pictures and I really like the doll, I get the doll anyway. So far no issues. Though there have been a few times when the company face up just isn’t my taste at all, and it made me not like the doll, but blank owner photos changed my mind. I would prefer the companies have good clear pictures of the head and body along with the fancy promo pictures.

 

a bit of both, but I usually tend to look more on company/owner faceups to get an idea how it lays on the sculpt, and to be able to visualize a version of my own
but if it doesn't work that way, then I search for more sculpts and repeat xD

 

I used to be really focused on the faceup (especially company faceup), but nowadays I tend to pick out a few blank sculpts I like and then google to see how people have transformed them with faceups, wigs, etc. Helps me get a good feel as to how many directions I can go in!