Is collecting BJD's your only hobby? Which hobby came first?

I’ve actually spent most of my life collecting video games. That is my first and longest running hobby. I think that anime figures, then obitsu, led me officially to bjd but I was aware of them for years before I started collecting. I believe at this point my three main hobbies are games, bjd, and rockhounding.

 

My other hobby is building & flying model rockets from the months of may untill end of October

 

I'm one of those people who has always loved collecting! As an adult I've collected everything from manga to lipstick. I currently only actively collect indie perfume and bjd items, although I'm active in the anime figure, make up and nail polish collecting communities.

 

I've collected multiple kinds of dolls all my life- never outgrew them; just graduated to more expensive and fragile types as I got older. I actually have more antique dolls than BJDs, although I'm rebuilding my collection after a serious setback at the moment.

I'm also a hobby seamstress, which dovetails incely with the doll collecting because I can dress my dolls in offcut scraps of fabric.

 

The holy nerd trilogy of video games, anime figures and dolls here

 

@Mariemisu Ooo I also collect indie perfumes! It's such a niche hobby & I love them. At this point I almost never buy new ones, though, as I've found quite a lot of favorites that I rotate through. Same with make-up, and I'm not really active in those communities anymore.

I tend to rotate through video games, reading, and various collection-based hobbies, as I often have trouble focusing on more than one hobby at a time. This year video games have been the dominant hobby by far, but I've managed to add in BJD stuff a bit recently as well. Dolls overall was the first thing I was into (I adored Barbies as a child), then reading, then video games, then BJDs specifically. Anime & manga used to be a major one, but these days I only watch new series occasionally and casually.

 

I have all kinds of dolls, not just BJD's.
I have a lot of Barbie dolls, over a hundred, some had been my grandmothers.
I also have a fairly large American Girl Doll collection.
I have a handful of reborn toddlers as well, but they take up too much space to have a lot of them.

 

I have... too many hobbies

My main one is actually pixel art. Especially an obscure variety called "dolling", which is based on the idea of paper dolls or dress-up games. It's pretty similar to bjd's, in that you take a blank humanoid canvas, and add your own make-up, eyes, hair, clothing, etc. After doing that for many years, the leap to styling non-digital dolls is pretty easy!

Unfortunately I'm not able to do much pixel art anymore, because I struggle with migraines. And the "dolling" community... I don't know if it even exists anymore! I'm hoping the bjd community can fill that spot in my heart

 

I have lots of hobbies. My main one at the moment is that I follow figure skating. This one definately came early but probably not first as I always liked my dolls. I watched skating as a child but found it difficult as there was never any on television in the UK. Apart from the Winter Olympics or when Torville and Dean competed. Got back to watching when I chanced upon (and fell in love with) a marvellous skater called Yuzuru Hanyu. Joined one of his fan clubs and they gave lots of links to watch all the competitions throughout the season as well as information to do with Yuzu. Since then I've been in person to many competitions, made lots of friends, met many of the skaters I adore (sadly Yuzu was too much of a superstar to ever meet although I was lucky enough to see him skate live twice) and I absolutely love it.

 

Oh I have a small collection of kimonos too. Different sorts. I wear them when I can but find the weather in UK makes it difficult as don't want to get the silk wet. Haori's are the most wearable but sometimes if I want to feel luxurious I use my longer tomesode or kimono as dressing gowns or an evening coat. Do you wear yours out and about too?

 

BJDs are actually one of my newer hobbies!

Writing's been my main hobby ever since I could string words together and form sentences, so that's a huge one for me. I write fiction on my own (used to write a lot of fanfiction lmfao) and do a lot of roleplay writing with my best friend as well. I work as a fiction editor—primarily developmental editing—and also do some ghostwriting from time to time, so that's the hobby that sort of become my career!

Art is another of my long-time hobbies, but I didn't start REALLY studying the fundamentals and properly learning anatomy and whatnot till around 12 years ago. I'm nnnot a pro, but I'm not half bad for being self taught! Still always more to learn and improve upon. I mostly just wanted to draw my OCs

Skiing and figure skating are my active hobbies. I'm admittedly great at skiing since I've basically been doing it since I could stand and it's like second nature to me. Figure skating . . . decidedly less so lmfao. It's just for fun anyway though; I didn't start young enough for competition and am never gonna be flinging myself around performing quadruple axels and shit ahaha.
I can't afford to actually go DO either of those things as often as I'd like; both are expensive and involve a long drive.

In addition to BJDs, I also collect nendoroids, all of which I make into little dolls with obitsu or YMY bodies.
I just love cute little tiny things

Annnd photography is the only other MAIN hobby I can think of! One I get to use with my BJDs and obitsuroids! I'm still learning the secrets to making my dolly photos better.

I've been working on improving my sewing skills so I can make little clothes and whatnot for my BJDs and obitsuroids. Also looking to get into really learning to do faceups for BJDs and make custom faceplates for nendos!

 

I got into BJDs in my teens, and I think back then the hobbies that my life revolved around were 1) reading/writing, 2) drawing, 3) rock-climbing/sailing/snowboarding 4) textile art (making clothes, accessories and toys... I knew the basics, but was never super great haha). I also watched a fair bit of anime and collected anime merchandise, though I never liked it that much and often re-sold parts of my collection. BJDs quickly became an obsession and pushed out pretty much all of these hobbies, which is something I slightly regret.

These days, the writing/drawing is sort of a career, in addition to becoming a librarian coinciding quite nicely with my rare book collecting hobby. I got injured some years back while working, so unfortunately I can no longer rock-climb, and am afraid of trying snowboarding again (I think I will break), though I am sailing a little and have picked up snow shoeing. I also got into American football and hope I can play some friendly touch pick-up games eventually, when I do enough rehab. All these hobbies currently take priority over dolls, which usually get pushed to the back of the spending list.

 

I got dolls as teenager. Back then I did cosplay, taekwondo and horse-riding very actively. I would say dolls were not my number one hobby back then. Currently lots of my "hobby-life" involves dolls, I like sewing, thrifting, face ups, DIY, story-telling/writing, photographing, just browsing dolls stuff... Still I do have lots of other hobbies as well. I don't really consider my animals as a hobby, they are my family members. However, I love to build stuff and design little worlds in their enclosures. I love reading, visiting museum and galleries, restoring vintage stuff, Japanese street fashion, study languages, DIY, read webtoons, cafe-hopping, Steam gaming and so on. When it comes to sports I am very into pole dancing. I actively do training every week.

 

I started my adult doll collection with vintage dolls to replace childhood things and got into restoring them. In the doll community there is a lot of crossover and that is how I found bjd so they are my most recent hobby.

 

My main hobbies are art and writing (I also used to sew a lot when I was 8-10). Bjds came about because I loved the photos I would see of them and I wanted some to represent my characters that I was writing/drawing at the time.
I've been drawing for 8-9 years and collecting bjds for one year atm.

 

Definitely had hobbies before starting to collect dolls, but I think they all make sense as to why I ended up collecting BJDs. I really enjoy/enjoyed drawing, making stories, crocheting, and cooking. I've always wanted to learn how to sew and having dolls adds another reason as to why I need to pick up sewing as well. Overall I tend to like very creative and even borderline tedious things that let me use my brain and hands

 

i rotate ravenously between hobbies. i started out with art/drawing when i was really young, and graduated to liking dolls as a kid and then still liking them when i was "too old" lol. my art and imagination and love of barbies/monster high/action figures etc led me to bjds when i was...12? 14? so it makes sense why i love a hobby that combines so many of the things i do and love.

 

@sunkissedklutz - I hear you about the rotating.

My first real hobby was crocheting for tiny dolls. From there I moved on to knitting, collecting Barbies, dollshouse miniatures, cross stitch, then BJDs, making cards, and then back to crochet... Somewhere along the way I started playing The Sims, and then Sims 3, and I still play that almost every day.
I just do whatever I feel like doing. Sometimes I spend hours on my dollhouse, sometimes I spend a lot of time doing face-ups and finding/making outfits for my BJDs. There are days when I don't feel well - I spend those days on the sofa stitching, because out of all my hobbies that is the most relaxing, for me at least.

 

I’ve been drawing since forever so that’s probably been my lifelong hobby. I used to cosplay which was what got me into BJDs. I used to read a lot of fanfics but I’ve never really written any myself apart from when I was like 15 lol. Other than BJD’s my main hobby is book design, tattoos and heavy metal music (concerts etc). I used to sew a lot when I was younger and for my first few years in the hobby but I lost a lot of enthusiam for crafting it feels.

 

Technically doll collecting was my first hobby. It started with baby dolls as a child, then Barbies, then Bratz, then porcelain dolls, then Monster High / Shadow High, and eventually evolved into BJDs about a year ago.

My other main hobby is makeup, and I hope to combine the two and work on becoming a faceup artist x