How has your style of dolls changed from when you started collecting?

I used to like pouty or frowny face sculpts but now I’d rather have neutral faces or even smiles. I like my dolls to look they are content on the shelf not unhappy to be here lol

I’ve been through a lot of Fairyland dolls from Feeple to Realpuki. I kept my absolute favs and sold the rest. Now I’m branching out a bit. Though mostly cuz I’m interested collecting fairy styled bjds Maybe one day I’ll have a whole garden of fairy dolls!

 

Not really! I started out with wanting:
1) lots of flexibility
2) realistic or semi-realistic faces, often slightly melancholy
3) female sculpts in the younger-looking range
4) a small collection

Nothing has really changed except for size - I started out wanting 1/6 dolls, but then I fell in love with a 57cm girl and even though she is still a tad heavier and taller than I can manage with perfect ease (I am short) I really love the capacity for detail in her clothing, eyes, wigs, etc. I think the 47-50cm size would be a perfect blending of both worlds, but that size is a bit rare.

Currently I own two full dolls (plus one more that I'm hoping to sell) and I have two on the way. I might add 2-3 more in the future, in addition to sculpting my own heads and bodies at some point. But I doubt I'll ever get into the double digits.

 

When I started collecting, I only had 2 Soom Mini Gems and figured I would stick with the mature tiny/fashion doll sized dolls. Then Soom released a Super Gem that I fell in love with along with another mini gem. I kept on collecting Soom Super Gems and figured I'd be a Soom person forever.

Then I bought a B&G sculpt...then an Asleep Eidolon sculpt...then I won a Volks MSD...then I bought a Dearmine YoSD...then an Island Doll YoSD...and after that I lose track. I thought I would keep my collection to 10 dolls...now I have 41 and 2 heads. That's more than my age!

As for the look of my collection, the majority is still elves. I've let in a few non-elves and I admit, they may be the ones that go if I ever feel the need to downsize. I never thought I would own Volks dolls and now I own 5. I never thought I would own Fairyland dolls and I will have 3 by the end of 2024.

 

My tastes have definitely changed since I started the hobby. I began collecting dolls when I was 15, and now I'm 24, so needless to say a lot changes over those years. There are still some things that have stayed the same, but most things have changed.

When I started collecting, I pretty much only bought boy dolls, but now I buy a pretty even split of both (with maybe a slight preference towards girls). Back then, I also very much had a preference for soft, pretty boys, feminine boys, and a more pastel look or street style outfits. I painted most of my dolls to just look like regular, everyday people.

This is definitely not my preference anymore, because now I style the vast majority of my dolls in a dark, gothic and punk look, and my boys are definitely more masculine now. Almost all of my dolls today are vampires, punk, goth, gothic lolita, visual kei, or some other generally dark look (with a few exceptions for decora and elven looks, or second hand company faceups that I don't have the heart to remove).

One thing I liked when I first started collecting, and definitely still like a lot, are dolls with a clown/jester look. I haven't painted any more clown dolls recently, but I still love the aesthetic and plan to make more eventually. With the clown aesthetic being more popular nowadays than it was back when I painted my dolls, it'll definitely be easier for me to find what I want for my dolls. I also had a preference for elf ears, which still holds true for today.

My doll profiles on here are definitely not reflective of my current taste in dolls (minus my clowns), because I only made profiles for my dolls prior to my 4 year hiatus, and I have yet to update them with any of my more recent dolls. I have plans to repaint 2 of the dolls on my profiles, too, so needless to say they are especially not reflective of how I want them to be, haha.

 

I'm not sure my taste has changed a lot.
What has changed are the means I spend on my collection and my skills.
When I began collecting BJD I was around 20 years old and I was a student, so I had not a lot of ressources to put in BJD (expecially in clothing and faceups). I tried to sew but it wasn't very good, and I also did my own faceups and it wasn't good either. After that I have been an employee who earned a decent living, and I bought better outfits for my dolls. I kept painting my own faceups and ended beeing not that bad at it XD
Now I own a nice collection of clothes, and I try again sewing (even if it's not perfect, it's better than 15 years ago). So my collection fit better my taste.

About the dolls themself, I was in love with Doll in Mind at the very beginning, but switched for ANother Secret dolls in 2011. Since then, it is still my favorite company.

 

I don't have bjd doll yet but As an observer, I can say that at first I loved something fantastic, like fairyland now I prefer more realistic sculpts, also proportions and mobility are more important to me as an artist

 

I started in the hobby in 2007 and my vision has changed a lot.
My size was MSD, bigger ones weren't comfortable and smaller ones just looked like children, although I always wanted some 1/6 adult-looking doll, there wasn't one at that time.
I also collected boys, I don't know why, but I discovered that girls were much more fun to dress up, so of all those boys only one remains.
Luckily there are already 1/6 adult-looking dolls and that's what I'm collecting lately. Beautiful little girls, cute and sometimes in fantasy colors. At first I don't think I would have dared with fantasy colors, to be honest, because I thought I wanted something more human...

 

I have never been stuck on one particular aesthetic for my guys. I purchased the sculpts that were the characters they needed to be. I did need to be more careful in the past with purchases as far as money goes but as that situation got better, I was less constrained (but still hyper vigilant about what I do spend).

I started with MSD and thought I'd never have SD (too big) or tinies (too small and almost always child-like) and never have a collection over the double digit mark (how the heck could I afford that?). 15 years later.... The largest chunk of my collection are SD's (although, to be fair, a good number of those are 50-ish cm boys), I have a a good number of tinies (almost all mature) and I'm currently sitting at 80 full dolls (not really sure how that happened but whatever).

My collection runs the style gamut of anime inspired to realistic and always has because it's based on characters and how I envision them and not any set standards. I have dolls that, in-story, are related or appear together but their doll selves don't match up if you put them together. But, as long as the couples/thruples match each other in height and generally look right together to me, I'm happy and I've always been of that mindset.

I also have a lot of the weird/rare/little seen dolls in my collection and I've always been drawn to that. My dolly brain is very happy to see companies be more daring with new dolls. My wallet hates it because it makes it even more likely that I'll want to buy.

 

Its been over 10 years since I got my first BJD, and some elements of my tastes have changed and some haven't. A few of my dolls are more realistic, but most are the semi-stylized style that my very first a Soom Mini Gem is. I stuck strictly to mature tinies and smaller kids for the first 7 years before getting my first MSD. Now I have 5, with 3 more pre-ordered. I've always liked fantasy, and have a number of tinies with elf ears, and two of Soom's Faery Legend dolls. I've embraced my attraction to some of the weird and quirky with a Gem of Doll Capricorn, a Dream Valley 3rd monster arm guy, and Dream Valley dragon child.

I also now value posability a lot more than I did when I started. I still have most of my single jointed matured tinies, but I won't buy any more, and I certainly won't buy a MSD without double joints and decent posability..

 

I still prefer what I guess is considered semi-realistic, however unlike as a newbie I no longer have any interest in dolls that have the more typical doll-like look. I have some very vague memory that back then I didn't care for very realistic sculpting, but nowadays I could see myself falling for a doll like that. So I guess my preferences have moved towards more realistic in general.

I don't think my other aesthetics have changed at all, I still like all the different fashion styles and so on.

 

It didn't really changed just focused, my first doll is still my favourite, my favourite aesthetic is still my favourite I just realised that the rest of styles I like but are not my favourite I don't really need them in my space

 

I'm looking for more custom dolls now

 

I only really jumped into the hobby about a year ago, so it's kinda been a year of figuring out what my aesthetic even IS!

I started off going only for semi-realism. My first two dolls were Minifees, and at the time I had it in my head that I would ONLY collect Minifees. POSSIBLY other dolls with the same aesthetic.

Then . . . I bought a little DZ MiYou on a whim, and his stupid little adorable face just melted my heart and I fell in love with him! w He's still my favorite babyboy. He's a spoiled little creature who lives in a little nest on my bed and gets cuddles all the time lmfao.

I hadn't intended to add anime-style sculpts to my collection initially because I felt very strict about 'okay no, I can ONLY do ONE or the OTHER because I can't take pictures of two different styles together and my aesthetic won't be COHESIVE and rrrRRRHHHH!'

Now I collect both and love both!
I do keep them separate from one another because otherwise the anime boys look like aliens of some kind lmfao, but there are too many adorable semi-realism sculpts AND adorable anime-style sculpts for me to pick just one or the other!

 

I love Volks dolls as much as when I first saw pictures of them when I was a teenager, so I don't think my taste in sculpts changed that much, just the company and collector face-ups improved and there's now lots of companies with beautiful dolls to chose from. It's only been 2 years, but I don't see myself ever selling anyone, just collecting much more slowly

 

When I first started collecting resin dolls I was way more interested in dolls from different companies than I am now. All of my newer dolls are either from Volks or Fairyland, and a lot of my other dolls have either been let go or shoved in a box in the closet. I've also become much less interested in realistically proportioned dolls over the years, and I'm not interested in fantasy skin tones anymore. I guess my tastes have changed to wanting my dolls to look more like real people, but not stylized too much like real people.

 

Mine.... really hasn't?

I'm still most drawn to "old school", relatively stylized dolls (Think CP/Delfs and classic Volks-) in the regular 57-65cm, 1/3 size. I've added some dolls to the gang over the years that are larger or smaller, or who aren't exactly in that particular sculptural style, and I am fond of them... but on the whole, my primary focus has never changed. At this point, I doubt it ever will no matter which direction the rest of the hobby moves.

I still tend to style them in the same ways I always have, too. You know... my "boring weeaboo brats who all look alike", as another collector once put it.

The one thing I HAVE changed? I tend to avoid white resin these days, with any company but Volks. I found out the hard way that I'm just not partial to the way most white resins age. I'm much, much happier with peachy skin tones or tans.

 

Hm.

When I first started looking at BJDs, I was convinced I only wanted SD sized dolls. Then I started looking at smaller dolls and fell utterly in love with the Resinsoul pups, so much so that one of them was my first ever resin doll. That had me convinced - from here on, I was only getting anthro type dolls. The type that play line collecting couldn't really scratch the itch for. That was great!

And then I discovered what gets called 'mature tinies'. The scaling and style I loved, with the poseability and customization potential of resin? I was sold. It's my preferred scale, it's the scale I know what to do with most and how to work with. It's perfect, and I love it, and this will be my scale going forward.

Yeah, I got a 1/4 scale doll after that.

Think I will be sticking with the 1/6 though. I love my 1/4, don't get me wrong, but 1/6 is what I know best.

 

I guess my tastes changed I finally got my 1st 1/3 doll & also blue elf-male. For years I had only human 1/4 human girls in white or tan

 

I've only been in the hobby for a couple of years, but my aesthetic has definitely changed a bit. I started off with one Minifee girl who was going to be my contemporary fashion girl, but my collection has since evolved into a few different Minifees with differing modern aesthetics (goth, Barbiecore, etc). I've added in some anime style dolls for lolita and kawaii looks, and a few fantasy/medieval era dolls as well, which are all either Legend of Zelda characters or DnD characters I've made up. I still generally stick to 1/4 scale dolls since I find SD's to be too large for my liking, however I have started acquiring the occasional 1/6 doll and have taken to collecting the tiny Penny's Box BJD's since they're so small and affordable.

 

My first doll was a Luts. I've had two other dolls since then. IMO Luts quality is still fantastic. I'd like to buy from them again this year.