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

Like a lot of people here most of my hobbies are art based including BJDs as it was the customisation aspect that drew them to me in the first place. I’d probably say that my other hobbies came before BJD collecting.

Drawing and painting are the main ones. It’s mostly animals, people and fantasy as that’s where my strengths seem to lie and I prefer using either pencil or watercolour paints. I did meddle with digital art for a while but a few nasty experiences soured that for me.
For a short while I managed to combine art with another hobby, gaming, when The Sims first came out. Can’t remember how it happened but somehow I ended up doing some stuff for a small Sims site called ‘Nighttime Sims’, it was mostly faces, clothing and when Sims 2 was released I did eyes as well. It was only ever ‘skins’ for me as messing about creating meshes was way above my skill and patience level!
I daresay doing that gave me the customising bug that led to BJD and doll repainting.

I’ve been a gamer pretty much since video games first emerged, never hardcore though.
Mostly play fantasy RPGs, some MMOs (FFXI, FFXIV, WoW, ESO), simulations (Sims, Farming Simulator, fishing, colony building that preferably doesn’t include warfare) and occasionally others that usually involve collecting pets, etc.
Can’t play anything that’s first person as that gives me motion sickness, useless at platforms or anything that moves too fast, zero interest in any sport!

Photography is another sort of hobby…..sort of in the sense I enjoy taking photos but as with most hobbies I kind of skirt around the edges and never go all in. Mostly it’s macro photos of plants and insects although. Don’t have the eye for landscape or the patience for people.

I’d like to say gardening is a hobby as I do really enjoy pottering about in it, need to muster up some enthusiasm to sort it back out though.

I feel your pain and am dreading my 350l failing, the heater did just over a year ago killing all of my Malawis. Planted tanks are beautiful but not easy and can become an utter nightmare to maintain!
Fish keeping is another hobby, both love and loathe it at the same time. Tried giving it up several times, failed miserably! Currently only got 2 tanks, did have 9 at one point including a small marine setup. Never kept any really big fish though as they need more space than I could ever provide.

 

At this point in my life bjd collecting is far my only hobby nor was it my first. My first hobby would have been playing video games or collecting plushies. Now since I gotten older I have a ton including lolita, archery, knitting, gun shooting, collecting gemstones/crystals, playing trading card games, playing board games, dungeon and dragons and collecting makeup.

 

Lately I've had to acknowledge that BJDs is a slow hobby... months of waiting for everything. I'm still relatively new so I don't have a lot of wardrobe, no good camera and so on. It will take me more time to get in a comfortable place so meanwhile I've gone back to painting as my main thing. I'm not in love with it as much as I used to be, but it's a more immediate pastime.

 

My first hobby was videogames, but BJDs is one of my main hobbies, even though I took a hiatus recently. My other hobbies are crocheting amigurumi, drawing, customizing other dolls, comics etc. It’s mostly art or craft related things.

 

Sewing came first! I had American Girl Dolls growing up, and when I learned how to sew as an adult, I thought they'd be perfect to practice sewing outfits. Then I got super into dolls and the rest is history.

 

BJDs are far from my only hobby... too many other collections and hobbies to list, honestly! But since two of my oldest hobbies are art and character building—something I've done since I could pick up a crayon— BJDs were pretty much an inevitability, given that they exist precisely at the intersection of that particular Venn Diagram of hobbies. I just needed the money and the equipment/supplies to do DIY on them first, and once those planets aligned, my newest hobby emerged!

 

My first hobby was writing stories.

 

The original hobby, that got me into dolls, is writing. I have so many characters that came into being to justify a doll purchase, but the writing came first (and when NaNoWriMo comes, it’s decidedly the priority). I also keep reptiles. My profile pic is me and my late chameleon, Loki. Pic was taken in like 2017-ish, I lost the little man in 2020. I currently have 2 snakes, who are very easy on the maintenance, but keep me a little bit busy.

 

In addition to being a doll hobbyist, I’m also into making earrings (especially kitschy ones) and amigurumi crochet!

 

Nope, not the first. Actually, I have more interest in dolls now than I had as a chil
Drawing & writing definitely came first. Not that I am good at either (but that's not what hobbies are all about to me).
I have various other interests that I'd like to pursue in the future. Gardening for example (but where?!).
And then there's the crafting...
It turns out I'm NOT good at things that require fiddling.
Crocheting and knitting take one hell of a long time for me to learn compared to other things.
I keep trying and getting frustrated, then giving up on it for a while. Ugh.

 

I have so many hobbies now. I'd say the BJDs are actually a minor hobby, though I spend the most money on them. But definitely not the most time. Like a lot of others, it was writing and drawing that came first and writing is still the most important to me. I initially was interested in the dolls as a way of shelling characters, but I've since become more interested in them as pretty objects, and prefer to keep the writing mostly separate (I still have some of my story characters as dolls though. They'll always be important to me).

I spend a lot of time knitting nowadays too, and I've started other collections (Blythe, Steiff, Lego). I tend to cycle through my interests so sometimes I won't touch my dolls for months because I'm too focused on the other things. But that's okay. Whatever makes me happy!

 

Somehow almost all of my hobbies - sculpting, making eyes and wigs, photography - originated straight from my interest in bjds. Which is a bit sad honestly, I have no idea what I'd do if I somehow lost interest in dolls My only hobby that's not connected to bjds is playing video games (it came before everything else)