Making Boy Dolls....Boys! [~Small Edit~]

When i take Dakota out 99.9% people think he's a girl..one time the person belive tha it was a girl but still wanted me to take his pants of ...LOL

 

Well - Tharesion could be mistaken for a girl by non-BJD-people, I guess. Lemme see ...

- bit feminine-looking face - check
- looooong hair - check
- last seen wearing a medieval-style outfit that could be mistaken for a dress (it's a ROBE!!! like Gandalf wears!!!) - check

Luken - no way, he's an Ark and whoever mistaktes THOSE for girls, needs to have their eyes checked. *gg* Morgan's got a beard and the IH superhero body. Celaran - well, I'll have to try it out once I got his new body here. He's another elf, so maybe ... But his face does look more male than Tharesion's ... Then there's Lil' Loki who could be male or female but he's wearing a (relatively) short wig and pants, so I guess most people would think he's a boy (a Realpuki Soso).

 

I think a lot of it has to do with People-Who-Read/Watch-Manga/Anime and People-Who-Do-Not-Read/Watch-Manga/Anime.
Manga/Anime fans tend to be already used to 'girly' looking guys, and we are rather adept at identifying the male, albeit girly male, amongst a group of real girls. My friends are all Anime/Manga people and so they always recognise that my doll is a boy. Non-Anime/Manga-People can't seem to identify the subtle differences between a very pretty boy and a genuine girl.

 

I sent a picture of my boy doll to a friend of mine and she was scared sh!tless...probably due to a majority of horror movies, games and scary stories focusing solely on creepy little girls. I told her it was a boy and there was instant relief...lol

Anyway...my doll is identified as male more if he wears pants...for some odd reason...

 

I actually think I have something interesting to share.
I had a problem with people calling my first doll a girl when I got him. Now first I want to say that the doll I'm talking about is a mega gem. Yes... in my town... people mistook a MegaGem as a girl... *facepalm* He has long blond hair... And freaking huge ripped muscles. Anyway,
the original face up he had included the glue-on type lashes on this upper lids... "Oh what a pretty looking face! What's her name?"
But then I redid his face up, and just because I didn't have the supplies, he didn't get glue on lashes on his upper lids, just thin painted ones on his bottom lid. Now... "Oh he's so manly!"
So maybe that will help some people? Since men in real life don't have long lashes usually, so they are hardly noticable.
I always think of guys with longer lashes as girly, even if that's the only "girly" thing about them.

 

I have this happen to me all the time, but I never really bother to correct it. My doll is a cross-dresser, so he's almost always in some sort of dress or miniskirt. Having to explain why "he" is in a dress is a lot more frustrating then having him called a girl.

If I had a manlier doll, though, I could understand the frustration.

 

@arcadegel Interesting point, about the lashes! I noticed how the look of Morgan changed when I gave him eyelashes to the upper lids. With Celaran, they aren't really as noticeabel, since they're blond. But Morgan's got dark ones and they really made him look more - real, I guess. But I can see how long lashes are associated with girls. I don't really like long lashes - I'll usually choose the shortest I can find. Tharesion still needs some and my guess is, with that arrogant, half-open-eyed look, it'll look way cool! But also, make him look more "girly". Hm, maybe like one of those early movie star divas ... *gg*

 

Some people will never learn, no matter what your boy looks like or what he wears. My AoD Chen is ALL MALE. He has never worn girl clothes, the only ruffles he wears are tuxedo shirts. He has a very natural faceup. There absolutely nothing girly about his body (at ALL >.> ). He usually wears business attire (masculine, not girly or childish) or skin tight pants and low shirts that reveal every curve of his body. He does have long hair. I've had him for three and a half years and he's had various wigs, but my dad STILL thinks he's a girl! Even though I've told him countless times that "Amir is a guy, dad." I don't know what the issue is. I don't thinkit's the hair, as my husband has had hair down to his butt and my dad has never mistaken him for a girl!

Others do this too. But Loki on the other hand, almost never gets called a girl. And wears makeup! @_@ He's my DZ Mo hybrid, a bit punk, little gothy on the eyemakeup. But people just seem to instantly know he's a guy. Maybe it's the baggy shorts or tshirts or Vans/cons....maybe it's the "I'll kick your @$$ if you call me a girl" look on his face...I really have no idea.

Mikko, my DZ Hid/Lati blue hybrid has never been called a girl. I think the chest hair and beard helps. :P

 

None of my boys look at all girly. And most don't get mistaken. But my poor boy, Quinn, does all the time.. and I can only assume it's the fact that he has wavy black hair to his waist. Because NOTHING else about him is girly... he wears jeans and t-shirts and boots, his face is pretty but not too feminine, and there's certainly nothing girly about his body (he's AoD... 'nuff said).

 

My first doll Shin a Angel Region boy ((who now is belonging to my friend XD I get visiting rights!)) I used to take him to college classes with me. And someone said "She's your doll?" I and replied "He's a boy and yeah" This was followed by a how do you know its a boy question and then the poor little guy got his pants stolen and ran around the school like that.

Other than that, I haven't had much experience with it. Mainly because I most of my boys don't see the light of day...except my doll Butters and he does have a rather girly face...

 

To this day, there are many more female dolls than male dolls made, both for children and adult collectors. In the past the imbalance was even greater, so most of us grew up with the generic image of a doll as female. This may have something to do with why, for some, all dolls are 'she' until proven otherwise.

I think this is related to the way we tend to call all dogs 'he' and all cats 'she.' I have found myself getting my pronouns tangled up even when talking about my own (female) dog and (male) cat, so I think maybe we've run into something that's either hard-wired into our brains or imprinted at an early age.

On the other hand, I think girly faceups are to blame for a lot of the confusion, especially the "eye makeup."

 

Actually, on average, a human male will have longer and thicker eyelashes than a human female. ^^ Probably related to the fact that men tend to have ah, longer and thicker hair everywhere else too. Long eyelashes have always been a trait pushed towards women (probably because they don't have them as often, haha) so it's mistaken for a female trait (especially considering the amount of women who wear eye make-up,mascara and go for "eyelash extension treatments"), but that's not the case at all. It's really the boys who are naturally born with pretty, long lashes.

I love thick eyelashes on guys, especially if it's that one natural soft touch amidst what is otherwise very boyish and/or manly. I'll also never make a guy doll without eyelashes, because "bald" eyes just weird me out and makes me think of having all of the eyelashes plucked out one by one.

I'm currently making a very gender-ambiguous doll. He'll have long black eyelashes, rosy cheeks and a short Cleopatra-type bob haircut, wearing a bloomer jumper. I refer to him as a boy, but I think most people would think of him as a girl and use female pronouns. And honestly, that's okay by me. 'Cause really, to most people he's probably a stereotypical slightly tomboy-ish girl. I had another tiny character who wore jeans, sweaters and boots with a really short wavy boy haircut, and despite his looooong eyelashes, no one ever had any doubts about his gender (as far as I remember, anyways).

I think the two thing that make most people think "girl" is long flowing hair and shadow-y eye make-up, along with general shapes of the face, since a lot of (read: almost all) doll companies offer faces that are much softer and effeminate than the bodies. Also, dressing your boy in flow-y skirts and frilly robes doesn't give too many manly points either. Generally. I'm planning a few adult man dolls (an EID and an Idealian) to put in suits and the like, and give them masculine haircuts (the younger one with a short boy bob and the older with shoulder-length layered wavy hair). And if someone mistakes one of them for a girl, then... I don't think I'm even going to try correcting that, because, really. That's some manly girls I'll have there.

 

This is definitely a piece of it. Dolls were primarily female, and made for females. I used to think it was great that Barbie, for example, had a few different kinds of friends, but it really intrigued me when they introduced male dolls other than Ken into the Barbie line. I guess it seemed kind of mind-boggling to some degree when I was younger. The usual formula for Barbie's line-up would be Barbie, Ken, and all of Barbies friends who were girls. Ken basically was left alone. Only when I was leaving high school did I notice that they were creating a lot more male characters for Barbie's line, and they weren't Ken. It was interesting.

With BJDs (I don't know if I said this before), there isn't some kind of storyline for these dolls. There isn't a "main character", like Barbie would have been, followed by her boyfriend and her other friends. Each doll stands alone without a story behind it. None of them are related to each other in any way, which also seems like an interesting concept. The boy dolls aren't just in-the-background boyfriends to the girl dolls, they're also front-and-center. They didn't create the boys as secondary to the girls. I find that refreshing to the typical doll line-up.

 

They all, save one, get taken as a girl every time. Bless my friends, they have started to say 'He's a boy!' for me. Poor things have been stripped too many times
The one that doesn't is dressed as a mechanic, so maybe that's it?

 

It makes me laugh sometimes that my least girly boy of all is the one who gets mistaken for a girl the most. The reason is probably because he's an MSD with a younger body type (less muscle definition, softer features). My long-haired boys are more mature, especially my DZ Virgil who has the muscles and body shape of an adult man.

 

Even a beard didn't help my boys. My father flatly replied "oh, I thought she just had stuff on her face"
-_-

Only solution? No pants. Never any pants. bits out at all times.
Even then, i'm sure SOME people would find a way to delude themselves into thinking "she" has some sort of growth lol.

 

I live in a town where there are no, repeat, NO other ball-jointed doll owners. No fellow BJD-owners means a greater likelihood of having my boys mistaken for girls. It doesn't help that both Johnny and Alistair have fairly long hair and tend to wear bright colors (Alistair is wearing pink right now, in fact). When someone says "I like her hair" I usually just grin and say "actually, he's a he." So far no one's demanded proof, so that's a plus.

 

So far no one has ever mistaken my one boy doll for a girl. He has a feminine face but he has a short haired wig and usually wears a suit. Although I've never taken him out, which means the only people who have seen him are my family and friends who come to visit.
Personally I think long haired boy dolls are probably more likely to be mistaken for girls. It's kinda the same with long haired male anime characters.

 

Níon gets mistaken as a girl all the time. Even if I write in the description "he", in the end the comments say "she" and it really makes me angry. If you don't know which one is it, just call them "they". He gets offended if being called a girl.
Well, girly fantasy face-up, eyelashes, fantasy medieval robe-thing, long hair... even his fingers are girly...

About the lashes tho, my other males don't have lashes as they are manly so they have never been mistaken as girls.

 

my doll is a luts kid delf and they offer a choice of either a male or female body so i can see how my boy would get mistaken for a girl lol (his face is v girlyy too) ^^ i once took him to my art class for a project and everyone was complimenting about how pretty she looked and they were so shocked when i told them it was a dude hahaha it was so funny bc one girl wasn't convinced and was like "but it has lashes" and i said "yeah but hes still a dude" and she just walked away in confusion