Imperfect/Asymmetrical Sculpts (ﾟヘﾟ)？

I prefer asymmetrical expressions. Eye bags, winks, etc.

Unoa 1.5 Paradise Skin Comparisons by ÆON & ENIGMA, on Flickr

 

perfect symmetry is unnatural and would ping the uncanny valley in a lot of people. It's pretty much impossible to get things symmetrical if you're hand sculpting anyway.

Now that said, some sculpts are way wonkier than others. Resinsoul has some really wonky ones that makes painting them a challenge. Song has his lips and filtrum shunted too far to one side so it doesn't actually line up with his nose, which is a bit annoying when trying to blush and contour.
Yao has one squinty eye lol.
A few of them have crooked noses or uneven ears.

I don't personally mind it, at least it doesn't put me off because I kinda LIKE wierd unconventional faces and find perfection and generic prettiness really uninspiring. So yeah.

thing is, I haven't noticed wonkiness to be a sign of "quality" really. Perhaps cheaper companies don't spend quite so much time refining but I dunno. I have quite a lot of cheaper bjds and the vast majority are absolutely fine. The quirks of the sculpts I mentioned are just that, quirks and something I accept as part of their personality. Doll Leaves is the same, so many of their sculpts are really bottom heavy and for a few of them that appeals to me.

you will definitely notice more problems staring at blank sculpts, faceups hide a LOT. I've seen some dolls where i've loved their faceup look but the blank face has wierd details that the faceup hid (i'm looking at YOU Souldoll with your weird molded eyebags)

but if massive wonkiness bothers you, it's best to move on to a different doll because if it bugs you now, it'll always bug you.

(I ended up giving my resinsoul Yao an eyepatch to embrace the ridiculously wonky eye hahahaha)

 

@mimimontoya Oh wow, those are super adorable!!! They just have the cutest winks!!!

@purple_monkfish Crooked noses? Do you know which ones specifically? I'm very interested in that, it sounds really cool.

 

Well it's more their noses are kinda.. wonked so they veer off to one side lol. It's subtle, something I didn't notice till i was trying to paint them. Song definitely has the most obvious wonk with the whole dang mouth being shunted to one side but none of the resinsoul sculpts are symmetrical.

 

I have sculpts that are purposely asymmetrical. They’re custom & I wanted the sculptor to make them more like the real people used as reference than perfect dolls. He did a really good job, so they have slightly asymmetrical mouths, scars, ears that ares spot on the same. One in particular has ears that don’t match. The person he’s based on has mentioned it in interviews & I wanted to keep that in the sculpt!

I’m learning to model BJDs on a computer and once I’ve got the basics down, I’ll probably take the mirror modifier off and do some final touches because I like the realism that way. That said, I’m a fan of certain asymmetries in real people too. I love crooked smiles.

 

Dollzone Carter comes to mind!

 

@Shirayasha Oohh, Carter is super cute... I love that he's winking but his expression seems to be pretty ambiguous!

 

I found out Volks Tony is asymmetrical when a friend was redoing his faceup quite a while ago, so I wouldn't say it makes a difference in price range. I remember being offended that the sculpt wasn't quadruple-checked, but now I appreciate knowing there's a touch of the handmade! He was sculpted with the intention of making someone happy despite his flaws and, if that's the face that belonged in my home, then so it is.

 

Momoni/Momonita from Atelier Momoni are intentionally asymmetrical -- she's got a crooked little smile that's relatively visible even with her faceup. I love it! I have a lopsided smile myself and it makes my doll feel just that little bit more relatable and lively, I think.

 

I like the asymmetry of Doll Leaves' eyes, though I definitely have seen a lot of people get very upset about it for some reason. I just think it gives the face sort of a super-subtle expression.

I have to say, the only doll I've had that actually bothered me with its asymmetry is Dollzone Raphael. I got my Raph in a lot of fire damaged dolls, and for the first year or so that I had him I thought his eyes were like that because the fire melted them slightly. But eventually I looked at other owner pics and noticed that nope, they're all like that....

 

Happy to go against the grain, here.
I DO mind unevenness in doll faces, and I've definitelly been in a situation where I was like, "wow I love them!" And then I realized how uneven their eyes or jaw or nose was, and was like "oops nevermind, not any more" (jaw especially).

I'm not talking about smirks and winks, i'm talking about the actual inherent structure of the face is janky. For the price point of these dolls, that doll-like symmetry and perfection is something that I both like and want.

I feel that these dolls are so heavily stylized (even semi-realistic ones) that unevenness in the face doesn't add a touch of realism, it just... well, looks uneven. Clearly thats the minority opinion here, though.

Maybe it's just because I'm a sucker for symmetry in daily life as well, but I can spot an unevenly-sculpted face a mile away. And, yeah, it can be, has been, and will continue to be a deal breaker for me, if it's bad enough.

As someone said, though, the degree to which sculpts are uneven vary DRASTICALLY, and i don't think its indicative of the quality of the company. Just depents on who sculpted the face.

I appreciate that hand-sculpted heads will never be perfect, but it definitelly can drive me away. More power to the artist and everyone who loves it, but i'll shamelessly admit it isn't my thing!

 

Honestly, I could ditto pretty much all of this. When a sculpt is clearly either stylized or idealized (which is most of them), the entire argument for "realism" doesn't make much sense. That said, I don't expect a hand-sculpted head to be perfect, nor do obviously intentional design decisions like scars or expressions bother me. But unless the character I'm shelling is meant to have a crooked nose (for example) then I don't want that in their doll.

 

I love it, its one of the things I really like about Doll Leaves sculpts. Not just smirks or winks, but uneven eye holes, crooked noses, asymmetry is just something I think adds an interesting element that a more symmetrical one wouldn't have.

 

I also think there is nothing wrong with asymmetry. This is normal for a hand-sculpted doll faces, plus it is normal for real human faces and somehow makes dolls more natural. I noticed asymmetry on almost all the heads that I had (in those cases when I did not notice, they were always in makeup).