Just how delicate are dolls?

Well, in my experience (MSD head fell out of my hand during an eye change, bounced off the carpet and dinged into a cupboard before settling down again...and not a scratch!) resin is pretty durable stuff. I think that you don't have to be too careful to take good care of a resin BJD. The aim, I think, is to treat BJDs with respect and to not be careless with them, they cost a lot of money and while resin is durable it won't survive repeated knocks or being left around for the dog to chew or being left sitting on a windowsill everyday.

I'm absent-minded too, but these dolls cost such a lot of money, and I worked so hard to afford them and paid for each one myself, that I don't forget them or leave them behind anywhere. I've forgotten where I left a pair of doll shoes before now, but I found them in my room again pretty quickly Also, the average SD is a lot bigger than an iPod, so you would have to be very absent-minded or very unlucky to leave an SD somewhere! Probably it would be better to avoid the smaller BJDs if you are prone to forgetting things because they are so much smaller they will be easier to accidentally leave behind.

 

Well, I've dropped mine a few times... nothing happens (I guess it depends on how high she is...) The faceup only wears off if you touch the face too much... I avoid touching the face at all. And the resin only goes green depending on which company they're from... the most coloring resin gets is yellowing, but it's not that yellow. It's more of a... skin-ish color.

 

Yellowing and breakage depends on the quality of the resin, the type of the resin, and the additives in it.

Smooth on resin, which I've used in some of my casts is very heavy and very thick. i dropped an elf head cast from it off a balcony and it got a small scratch but was other wise fine.

On the other hand my Elf Shiwoo I bumped his finger inside the bag against the corner of the trunk and the finger broke(thankfully it was easy to glue back on and then get new hands). His ear also broke off at one point and had to be reglued. I don't even KNOW how that happened. I just came home and it was gone.

as far as yellowing and greening, that has to do with the resin itself and colors used. Red dye, which is used in every flesh tone, is not very stable. It tends to fade and sometimes go green in sunlight. The resin itself will turn yellow from sunlight, heat, or just over time. In 50 years all our dolls will probably be yellow to some degree or another.

Most dolls are made with a UV additive in them that helps stabilize the color and keep it from yellowing or turning other colors or fading- but it only works with sun. Over time or when exposed to heat ( like leaving them in an un-air conditioned house or car in the height of summer or deciding to set those super sculpey mods with a heat gun or oven) the doll will still yellow. UV additive also causes the resin to not release it's bubbles as easily when it's setting up. This is a reason why it isn't often used in french resins. Miniscule bubbles deep under the surface of a urethane doll doesn't show, but on a french resin doll it might show.


Also, like iWurlz says, the yellowing is not exactly "yellow". It turns more of an ivory color. Your doll is not going to turn the color of a pickled daikon radish in just a few years unless you forget her by the flower pot for days on end. :3 in 100 years, the doll may turn that color. who knows!


Face-up wear and tear depends on the materials used. Face-ups done with inks or paint and airbrush tend to last longer than those done with pastels. It's just the nature of the material, paint clings onto the surface better. Good coats of MSC to seal the face-up will help it last. If you do your own keep an eye on when your can starts to run low. You don't get quite as thick coats of MSC and may need to do more individual coats.

 

probably the ear breaking. I actually started crying because Ghaleon is very important to me and it took me awhile to find the ear!

My Hound had his fingers broken by someone who was being very irresponsible at a meet-up once, and that wasn't a terrible injury... just a bad situation.

 

I think they're pretty durable. I am always careful with my doll, but I have seen a friend's dolls slip off of their shelf numerous times, and so far there's no damage. (It's quite lucky!) They're not impossible to damage, but they won't shatter into a million pieces. (I think that would take some effort!)

 

The original dollshe bodies have floppy waists sometimes, and so my hound isn't safe to leave standing. I asked the girl to please not leave him standing, but she did and then walked away. I heard a crunch and he'd fallen over and broken two fingers off of a hand. The girl looked at me, shrugged, and walked away. :< I've never had anyone like that at a meetup before or since! it's not normal behavior at all.

With Ghaleon's ear, he had a hole for an earring in his ear and I think the heat of the desert got to him. We'd just moved from kansas to california and even though he wasn't overly hot, we don't have AC anymore and CA is so dry compared with KS... I think the change caused a crack to form.

 

I've found so far that they're a lot more resilient then I had previously thought. I mean I'm ultra careful with my dolls but accidents do happen, so far I haven't had anything chip, crack or break, but then again maybe I've just been lucky

 

I'm a little more careful than I was this time last year and two years ago (when I first got a doll), but I've had a few bad accidents in that time. One of my dolls had two fingers broken off and I never found them so she has a new hand. But her fingers are very long and thin so they are a lot more vulernable than say my YoSDs default hands that are shorter and closer together.

I think the highest fall my dolls have taken is about 10 feet and none got a ton of damage, a chip on the face up and other minor things. These dolls can take a fall if need be, but they are not indestructable. But you don't have to treat them as you would a porcelin doll. Just be careful and a little mindful.

As far as yellowing it depends what color the resin was to start with. White dolls you'll notice yellowing opposed to a normal skin doll. Resin that isn't UV protected will yellow faster than resin with it. A more yellow normal skin will look more yellow than a more pinky normal skin. But they aren't going be bright yellow. It like batchix said, "yellow" for BJDs is more ivory colored. My first doll was a more yellow normal skin and did not have UV protect, so in the two years I've had her yes she has yellowed some, but that's to be expected.

Word of advice get a doll stand if you plan on leaving your doll standing. So many falls could have been avoided if the doll had been supported with a stand rather than just by itself.

 

My little AoD Wang Zi, I say little cuz I have an EID, stands like a rock. Especially in shoes or boots, I can stand him up and he'll stay that way all day, even on my headboard with me moving around on the bed and bumping the headboard. He is astoundingly stable.

My B&G is fiddly but once I get his feet right, he stands wonderfully. My Dollzone Yuu, however, is a tease. He'll be standing beautifully until I get in position to take a picture then its TIMBER and down he goes.. and he always smirks at me like "Hah! Scared you!"

But so far the only damage my dolls have sustained was my fault. I wedged too large of an object into my Wang Zi's hand and when I went to remove it I snapped off him thumb. But it's glued on and were doing great!

 

i just recently slammed my first DM Kara Klum into a wall D:
luckily he didnt even suffer a scratch...he's resilient that way^^

i dont bother with stands, all my dolls stand well on their own, but i dont leave them standing unattended. theyve all taken falls, ones broken an ear, but its removable so i just got him a new one. i was very paranoid about them when i first got Alex...im over it now (and im only slightly paranoid XD). theyre really not as fragile as they seem.

 

oh dear vamps. 3 karas xD Sounds like my dream ahaha. My own dollmore kara has taken a few spills, and he's been scuffed but nothing a magic eraser can't fix. 8d Otherwise, he's very resilient!

 

For the most part, they're pretty durable, but concrete is not your friend. x_x

All of my dolls have taken falls, and as long as it's not on concrete, nothing seems to happen. But throw concrete into the mix and I've broken an ear, two fingers, and most recently a nose. ;_;

 

I don't leave mine standing unattended, though the Dollzone ones in particular are very stable. Riddick's taken two 4-foot falls (one my fault, one my sister's) without a bit of damage, but a short faceplant into the camera lens gave him a slight shiny scuff on his faceup. It's only visible if you really look for it, though, so I don't worry about it. Crow's head once decided to jump away from me and roll across the floor, and he did get a couple very light scratches behind one ear - but no damage at all to his faceup! I could probably sand those out, but his wig covers them so I haven't bothered. His ears like to fly off whenever his headcap is removed, too (they're changeable), so I stuck some sticky tack on them and keep his hair and goggles on as much as possible.

They're pretty durable. I wouldn't toss them around or leave them standing unattended, but they don't have to be handled like glass, either. I've NEVER heard of one shattering into a thousand pieces. I think you'd have to run over it with a car or smash it repeatedly with a hammer, to do that.

 

Both of my Dollzone mini boys and my DoC are always standing. They've been standing untouched for months in my room. They're never fallen.

Phaedra, my BB sprite, is loose even though I tightened her, is also always standing, unmoved, but her wings have her braced against a candlestick so she's stable.

Aya fell once and was fine, it was on carpet, though. On my end I've never had a break, dolls have arrived with broken fingers in shipping, though. When I re-string I really jerk them around, I usually hold their bodies down with my knee while I yank the string and no one's ever broken.

They're tougher than you'd think.

 

One of my dolls has done this
http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa194/Morgans-Random-Photos/PHOT0011-1.jpg
And came out without a scratch, she flipped over and slammed her head on my wall. I think I took more damage in fear than her XD They are really durable but I wouldn't purposefully throw one across the room to test it