If you could make the hobby your job would you?

I firsthand have experienced a hobby being ruined by making it a job. I can no longer enjoy that other hobby, and I don't really desire doing it again to any of my current hobbies, this one included! I've definitely considered it before- who hasn't dreamed of getting paid to make doll stuff or do faceups when they're so fun? But you'll find doing something for yourself and doing it for other people can really take the passion out of it, especially with the pressure of needing it to be 100% perfect or else you'll risk a bad review, or losing your livelihood. It's honestly rough, and I applaud those who can handle it! I just wouldn't ever want to lose my love for a hobby again, some things you just gotta separate from work!

 

I am hoping to work on making sculpts to sell after my last year of uni. I would love to sell eyes, wigs and clothes too. The dream

 

If I had the skills needed, I definitely would! I have so many visions but they are all locked inside of my head without a way out

 

I think I could someday, with lots of practice. I’d like to start selling fun, inexpensive YoSD dresses on Etsy or Instagram but I’m still a novice in sewing. I’m a stay at home mom and a pretty big introvert, too. So having a job to work from home would be a dream. Obviously I wouldn’t be making much income, but anything would help. Then I can at least continue to fund My hobby!

 

Certainly, and I am planning to make makeup for dolls as my second career in the future. If possible, I will also try to make my own dolls. I think if it is a hobby, I will be very happy at work.

 

As someone that has a job a lot of people do aspects of for a hobby, absolutely not. I love to draw costume designs. I love making prosthetic for a show. I love dyeing things to get the color just right. I love when I make a costume exactly like I envisioned, but I don't even hem my pants if I kick out a hem. I've never finished a sewing project for myself outside of millinery. I rarely draw in my free time. That's because I do that stuff at work every day. I don't want to do it when I get home.
Dolls are the thing that's just far off enough from the things I actually do that I can enjoy it without it branching into 'the stuff I do at work.' If I were to end up making dolls or doll clothing it would become another one of those crafty type things I just do for a living. I don't want that! I love my job and my hobbies and I don't want them mixing.

 

I think making my own dolls would be the part I would be most interested in career wise if I could turn the hobby into an aspect of mine. As someone studying to be a puppeteer, I think the hobby goes somewhat hand in hand with that career field as I am now much more familiar with the articulation needed for movement and posing of a puppet because of BJDs. I would hope I have the opportunity to sculpt my own dolls and puppets eventually!

 

I don't think I have the capacity to make dolls into a job. But there's always the middle ground, where I can produce things because I enjoy it, and if anyone wants to buy something that's a bonus. Kinda more serious than a hobby, but less than a job. ^^;

(I think about it, and I think I would be running away. If it comes to it and I cannot do the job I'm trained for anymore, then I might have to take dolls more seriously. This got heavy...)

 

hmm.. maybe clothes making? faceups and wig making seems too stressful

 

There was a time when I would have wanted to make BJDs my job. I probably still would not mind figuring out something related to dolls as a very temporary, part time thing. Unfortunately, I don't think that is feasible.
If, somehow, I lived near a place with a BJD related store that needed part time help, or if local people wanted to pay me to repair their dolls or something, I would do that assuming I was still in classes and the BJD stuff was not competing with an opportunity to do something relevant to my long-term career goals.

 

It would be a dream come true

 

I find that adding money to situations destroys enjoyment and creativity. I do not want to try to live off making products to please customers and spend time worrying if my next creation is going to sell or be a good investment.

If I was only making a minor income from it that I did not at all depend on, I would maybe consider making a few things. It almost seems impossible to do better than break even so I don't think it's worth the effort. I think a dead end minimum wage job is a better use of time.

 

Definitely. I've always loved to draw and I so wish I could make sales for commissions but in all my years of trying to get myself out there, there's just no interest so I haven't had any luck. I would love to be able to live off my art though

 

I already do my former-hobby as my job (artist), and it’s true that when you do your hobby as a job, it no longer feels like a hobby to you anymore. It feels like work. I love what I do, but I’m definitely not painting or drawing on the weekends in my free time. So to answer your question, no, I wouldn’t turn my BJD hobby into a job, because then I’d need to find a new hobby, lol!

 

I’m a perfect world, I would love to be a faceup artist but my skills are just not there yet. Maybe one day tho

 

I don't think so. For starters, I love my current job (I'm a teacher) and I wouldn't like to change it. Plus, I don't think I would have enough commitment to not end up hating the same thing that used to make me happy when it still was just a hobby.

 

Making bjd? no. Styling OMG and rainbow high girls? 100% I would. I think I enjoy the fashion side of this hoby more than the technical side of making a doll and being good at 3d programs or sculpting, so that's where my job preference would be.

 

When I first started learning to do faceups and got relatively decent at it, I took some commissions to see how I’d like it. I felt like it was expected that I try and monetize my skills (to justify why I was spending so much time and effort on it, I guess), especially because at the time I was very active in my local community. I know how hard it is to send your doll halfway across the world and hope they make it back to you just to get a faceup, so when people were complimenting my work and asking if I’d consider it, I thought, “Why not?”

It felt like having homework all the time. I couldn’t work on my own dolls until I’d finished my commissions, I couldn’t proceed in a faceup as I normally would because I kept having to pause and photograph and ask the commissioner how they felt about it and then wait around for a response, I was worried I’d get a speck of dust in the sealant or a smudge in the pastel because I felt like work I was paid for had to be perfect. (In my own dolls I’d just ignore a minor flaw.) I knew people who were waiting on faceups from me could see me posting on social media and it made me really conscious of trying not to be that artist who spent every weekend posting hiking pictures instead of working on the dolls I’d been trusted with. Good outdoors weather and good faceupping weather are unfortunately a perfect overlapping circle on a venn diagram, so it kept me in more than I’d like.

I was getting paid $35 a faceup at first, and then eventually worked my way up to $65. That’s like half of minimum wage here when you spread it across eight hours of work (which is how long a faceup takes me from start to finish), and I was supplying all of the expensive materials, so that’s not even all profit. I was also exposing myself to sealant at a level that didn’t feel safe, and on top of all that, I was stressing myself out. Commissioners are very emotional and fickle, and they let you know when you haven’t read their mind. It wasn’t worth it, and I quit before all the aggravation took my love of painting with it.

 

I used to sew custom Lolita garments and had to switch to pre-made only because of this. I had so many people not read descriptions and leave reviews because they didn’t have information that was literally the first line of the description, or I’d ask them about such and such bow, they would make a decision, and the next day redact their decision after the bows had already been made. That and the it takes 6 hours +$25 in supplies to make this dress but I want to pay $45 for it. Sorry you had to deal with that and it’s disheartening but an eye opener to read your story. Thank you for sharing.

 

Do something you love and you’ll never work a day in your life should really say
Do something you love and it will also become work, which will eventually burn you out anyways.

The hardest part is learning the hard boundaries, allowing your prices to be paid what you’re worth, making sure you get enough full time off where you don’t check any messages at all (and are strict about it.) And of course, the discipline to work on days you really just don’t want to. It’s a job like any other on some days.