If you had not started collecting BJD would you still be a doll collector?

I don’t think so. My initial collecting fixation was anime figures as they are very aesthetically appealing, and for a similar reason I am into BJDs. The neat thing about these guys though is that they are customizable. But to me, non-ball jointed dolls aren’t high enough quality for me to personally want to invest in. MH and Barbie’s are still super cute, I just don’t feel the same draw to them. I’d rather spend $500 on a very nice sizable resin doll than a $30 ultra light one.

 

When I discovered BJDs, I’d already been collecting other types of dolls off and on for over a decade. I was caught up in an endless cycle of buying one type of doll for the experience and then selling that collection to start anew with another type of doll. I was stuck in an unhappy loop of endless recycling of the same doll funds and never really growing my collection. It’s easy to see now, in hindsight after BJDs, that everything else in the doll collecting hobby just wasn’t holding my creative interests…but I wanted to be a doll collector so badly that I was still desperately searching for “the one.”

Collecting resin BJDs solved all that! The endless creative possibilities gave me all the bang-for-my-buck I’d been searching for. After so many years, my collection has happily grown into a wonderful (and fairly large) group of fascinating characters that keep me happy, endlessly engaged, and creatively inspired. No other type of doll has even come close to fulfilling my heart’s desires the way BJDs have, and I’ve been focused on collecting them exclusively for nearly two decades now.

So to answer the question, yes, I would probably still collect dolls of some sort, endlessly cycling through the various types in a desperate attempt to fulfill my creative needs. But my collection would be much, much smaller; my home decor would be a lot less fascinating; and my creative soul would still be yearning. I’m just much happier with my resin on-topic BJDs.

 

That's a very interesting question, and in my case, yes I would still be a doll collector because BJDs were kind of a secondary type of dolls in my collection, as I am much more into "fashion dolls" and related (rainbow high, my pullip that I love so much, a couple of barbies and tiny dolls). So from my point of view, they are like a nice addition to my already-existing collection.

However, in the principle, finding out about bjds made my tastes in doll and the way I see doll grandly evolve. They, for example, made me want more with a doll : they are among the first I found to have double joints, customisation possibilities, ... and also, some models in bjd size just don't exist in other types of dolls, so my collection might have felt "incomplete" or could not have been developed to its full potential if that makes sense. The creation of characters with my dolls is also very influenced by what bjd collectors do with their dolls, and how they develop their OCs.

So in the end, my collection would have been very different, and my knowledge of dolls and the way I see today them might have been quite different as well.

 

Nah, I wouldn't really collect other dolls. I've had an American Girl doll since I was young, and I love that doll, but I've never felt an itch to get her a dolly friend or anything. I also have a small collection of Mulan Barbies, but that collection is naturally pretty limited and doesn't scratch the itch that BJDs do.

BJDs fill a specific hobby need for me, which is to have pretty, posable, and customizable pieces of art that I can do all sorts of things with. Although I'm sure there may be other items that could fulfill that need, I really love resin BJDs in particular. I like their look, the variety of sculpts, the variety of clothes/wigs/eyes, and I just like the feel of them in my hand when it comes to handling them! The material is nice, and getting them into just the pose I want is satisfying! I also enjoy posable figures, and BJDs are like having big posable figures that are especially pretty and even more customizable.

 

maybe. I collected rement sets before bjds, so maybe i would have gotten into the nendo/ob11 dolls to go with the rement sets, if i hadn't found bjds first. and of course the bjds i got into are ahe 1/3 scale which def don't work with the rement sets lol.

 

Definitely! I used to collect Barbie, Bratz and a few other fashion dolls until this crew came along. We also used to make— (mom and sister sewed) and we painted home-made ragdolls. I guess you could say I never outgrew dolls at any point in life ❤️.

 

I’m not sure, actually. I’ve collected various forms of dolls since I was very little, but the customization aspect specific to BJDs is what I think has allowed me to maintain interest for fifteen plus years. They can change when I want them to but also be the same. I do have other types of dolls in the house but I don’t know if they would have held my interest for this long on their own, being more static.

 

Yes, I collect cloth/soft sculpt, playline, vinyl and porcelain dolls as well. I honestly kind of mix in other doll purchases between my bjds. It's a hobby my mother and I share so dolls in general are important to me.

 

Honestly, if I hadn't started to collect BJDs I would not be a doll collector. Playline dolls never really interested me, nor figures. I'd likely have invested even more into art supplies. The biggest draw about BJDs for me is the customization potential. I am an avid hobby writer, I just do it recreationally with no intention of publishing, so the dolls are often real life avatars of my characters and OCs. BJDs just have such a presence, that figures and playline dolls lack for me.
I love to draw and paint, so I think if I hadn't started with BJD collecting I would have just focused more on my 2D art instead.

 

nope. tbh I don't consider myself as doll collector in terms that everybody understands. I don't collect my bjds, I used them to express my vision and they are my models.
probably without bjd I wouldn't buy RH (I own 5 now), one anime figure and 2 game figurines that I have now. With bjd it become a bit easier to spend money on smaller things

 

I was going to say 'no', but then I realized the answer is probably, 'I'm not sure'. Based on the other fashion dolls I've acquired, it is possible I would have a few dolls, but not be a full-time collector.

In the beginning, I passed on BJD for Pullip because of the price difference and Pullip's anime aesthetic. But after a few years through my teens of enjoying Pullip, once I got my first BJD, collecting Jun Planning / Groove dolls was over. In no small part because it's all the same face. They can be customized to look radically different, true, but by default you're limited. I still have all of my Jun Planning dolls- one of every member of the 'core' family and one 'extra' Pullip- but I haven't touched them in years except to add Yeolume when she came out, and a Byul I picked up last year for future customization / completion.

I also have two custom Blythes, but it's telling that there are only two. Blythe did not appeal to me when I was younger- she grew on me over time. And there are lots of Blythe customs I would bring home... were they not upwards of a thousand dollars or very close. So I'm exceedingly picky with my Blythes- they have to both appeal and be within a certain pricepoint- and I haven't bought a new one in years. I have no idea where / how I'd resell them if I decided to get out. I tried joining the one big Blythe forum I knew of to read up on basics, and I think they're dead- two attempts and no response. The portions of the website visible to the public never change. Blythe community is out there, but I have no idea how to find it aside from enjoying pictures on social media. And while I've always been more of a solo player, enjoying my toys for myself whether or not anyone is watching, I do need community.

Dolls have never been my thing. I hated them when I was small, except for some vintage ones my mother owned called 'Liddle Kiddles'. I played dolls with other children to be polite, but my female friends stopped suggesting it after a while because allegedly, I made it weird. I hated playing 'house' in general, so Barbie and friends were martians, mermaids, agents looking for Carmen Sandiago... Transformers, Star Wars, Bionicle, and other action figures and building toys have always been more my cup.

Hypothetically I would have still been open to the idea of a highly posable, highly stylized doll on the grounds that it would be something different, but 'like' an action figure. I don't know that I would have collected so many though. Every other toy collection I've run has reached a stopping point except for Transformers and BJD. BJD is by far the most flexible of all the doll lines- it has the most choice of aesthetic, colour, size, body type, and articulation. That made it very appealing for a high fantasy nut who couldn't just go to the store and buy a generic dark elf action figure off the peg. Other doll lines could be customized, but it would require paint that would wear off of joints with play, no different than action figures. And they'd be locked into one specific aesthetic.

 

Definitely! I started off with playline and branched off into resin once I had grownup money. I still collect playline in addition to BJDs!

 

Since my entire life revolves around dolls of any kind - resin bjd, hinge joints, paper dolls, porcelain, etc - and my studies revolve around it, too. Yes. I would very much still be lol. I don't collect figures or playline dolls (not western, but I sort of collect Japanese playline) and likely would never, but I just love dolls more than anything else! There's not much else for me I love books and drawing/painting, but I find more joy in dressing up my dolls and making things for them than any hobby I've ever had. I've always had a doll somewhere in my life no matter what it was and before resin ABJD, I had Obitsu (and didn't even know it!) or I was making my own dolls out of wire and other materials. To me, dolls are everything. They're visions, they're community, they're my academic study, my dedicated life, my OCs, my stories, my creativity and imagination for writing. I couldn't live without them!

 

Honestly I don't think so... I've never been a doll person, even as a little girl I kinda hated Barbies. I was gonna say that I would've probably collected Living Dead Dolls instead, but I already had my favorite living dead doll of all time (Thump) and all of my other favorites (Purdy, Maggot) are too rare/expensive for me to ever justify buying. I also really don't handle my LDDs since the boxes are like 40% of the appeal for me, so I just don't see myself ever being able to "bond" with them in the same way I did with BJDs.

For me the appeal of dolls is mostly the customization, and I actually don't like having a lot of stuff (especially expensive/valuable stuff) sitting around. If it weren't for my BJDs (and the other BJD-like dolls like Dollfie Dream/Tinyfox/imomodoll vinyls) I don't think I would be a collector at all.

 

I'm a doll collector. I love to display them all through my home and have five glass display cabinets though I do need more display space. I started out collecting porcelain dolls, then vintage 40's and 50's early hard plastic dolls, then I transitioned to Momoko/Ruruko/Azone and Volks WTG guys, then finally to BJD's. I still add the former types to my collection here and there and prefer small dolls because I can collect a lot of them. I must have though I haven't counted at least 250 dolls in my collection a lot are displayed but I have a fair amount in their boxes too.

 

I don't think I ever stopped collecting dolls. They just kept getting fancier.

 

Mm... I don't think so. At the present moment, I don't collect any other type of dolls besides BJDs.
I used to have some barbies when I was a kid and I liked playing with them a lot and I also had other types of doll-like toys I really cared for, but as I grew older, most of them were gone. I started gathering some anime figures when I was a teen, but I didn't even display them on most cases cause I didn't like having to clean them so I stopped completely.
When I found out about BJDs and started collecting them, I started discovering the customization communities for other types of dolls and decided to try my hand at MH but never got to customize one fully and instead decided to focus my doll-time on my BJDs.

 

Probably not other dolls. Maybe custom MHs? I do collect anime figures of characters I love, and some other art figures, but I like BJDs for their customization potential, posing, and all I buy or customize into are fantasy dolls, so most dolls don't hugely appeal to me.

 

Absolutely! I'm happy I found bjds because they are my favorite dolls in the world, but there are many other types of beautiful art dolls I would be happy to collect if not for bjds!