Making Dolls based on shows, games or art

Honestly I think nowadays there are as many people with dolls that ‘cosplay’ or are based on characters of their own making as there are people who just have dolls. It wasn’t as common years ago but seems to be as big a part of today’s BJD scene as anything else.

I see ‘cosplay’ and ‘based on’ as two different things although some use the term cosplay as an all encompassing term.
To me ‘cosplay’ is when you’re making the doll (or yourself) into that precise character and therefor clothing, wig, eyes, faceup are going to have to follow strict guidelines to achieve that. It’s still open to interpretation though as we all see said characters or people through different eyes.
‘Based on’ however is just another way of saying ‘influenced by’ and is fully open to one’s own interpretation. @oneironym if you use that mind set then you don’t need to feel intimidated by your intended project. It is after all your doll.

As previously mentioned certain companies used to make heads and there are a few independent makers that have recently began producing sculpts of well known faces or characters but that’s playing a dangerous copyright infringement game which tips over the moment they cease being for personal use and become part of the product line no matter how you try to justify it.
DIM kind of tiptoed along the middle of a very fine line by mostly selling the heads as commissioned pieces and not going for 100% likenesses, the pressure did get to them in the end though and they ceased production.

Collaboration dolls are different as the two companies are working together with permissions and licenses.

From the view of my own collection I intended to make one based on my FFXIV Viera character using a Minifee and using my other FFXIV Lala as inspiration for the look one of my Realfees will have.
I’d quite like to have Sandman/Morpheus doll, have done for many years as I read the graphic novels way back in the 1980s when they originally came out but I think it’d be very much inspired by Tom Sturridge’s version, I do love the way he played him.
I’m also waiting for the rerelease of a particular SartoriaJ sculpt because of his resemblance to a particular person however the look will be again more inspired by rather than exact as that feels a bit stalker-ish to me, I’d be uncomfortable handling the doll.

 

This is the route I happily went down (thank you @Blodeuwedd for your excellent synopsis of this topic.) As I was building my collection, I fell in love with creating characters much as one does in certain video games. It just seemed like a natural progression to extend that to some of my dolls as well. From my love and delight of Pokemon games, I’ve created a small group of trainers to reflect the ones I play in the games. And I even have a couple of favored ones from Diablo and Heroes of Might and Magic as well. When you spend so many hours playing your characters, I think it’s only natural (and certainly a whole lotta fun) to create them in doll form because they come to feel so real to you over time as you play them, it’s nice to have a representation of them in your collection. Basically anything that inspires me is grist for the bjd character mill, so I’ve created one from the cartoon “Beyblade” to remind myself of the countless hours spent twirling those spinning tops with my young grandsons. And I was so inspired by the manga series “Chobits”, I jumped at the chance to buy the mechanical-bodied Doll Chateau Gladys to make my very own discarded “early prototype” chobit.

 

I'm not brave enough to do it on a bjd, but I've made a custom American Girl doll to look like Ahsoka Tano from Star Wars! I have brought her to meet Ashley Eckstein twice someday I'd love to remake her on a bjd, though!

 

There are lots of media/characters-based dolls out there. For example, I know I've seen a Link from Legend of Zelda on IG recently, and I remember there were a fair share of Final Fantasy based dolls when I began collecting dolls back in 2013. I do have 2 dolls myself (one completed, one on the works) that portrait characters that belong to Marvel (Doctor Strange and Storm), though both are my own iterations of the characters based on a series of fanfics I've written.
Having your favorite characters from video games, movies, books, etc. is an idea as good as any other to form your collection as long as they make you happy (and I love KPop Demon Hunters, so I'm sure they would be awesome as BJDs!)

 

I've made a few dolls based on my favorite characters from books, comics, or movies. I have a handfull of dolls base on the original Oz books alone. A few Marvel, and DC superheroes and villains. I've Puck from a midsummer's night's dream and am working on making Puck from Gargoyles.

Also Volks made dolls of my two fav NPCs from the MMO FF14 so I didn't have to make them I just had to order them. XD

 

I have a few dolls that are inspired in varying degrees by media I've enjoyed, from vague concepts of how those worlds work to being inspired by specific characters. I have a head with an artist friend at the moment for a character-inspired faceup.

I don't think I could own a pure character doll because I feel the ideas would be limited for what I could do with that doll, and how it would interact with my other dolls.

 

I have recreated the Trailblazer trio (Caelus, March 7th & Dan Heng) from Honkai Star Rail, and I've recently gotten a head to be Sunday as well (because he's part of the little fam as well) because I love them so much. And although I'm recreating their hair, eyes and several of their props (and even some costume pieces) I'm treating them very much like real 'people' than cosplay, so I dress them up in things I think their characters would wear in different scenarios rather than their in-game costumes. That's just a lot more fun for me and I never have to feel limited by having them look a certain way.

 

This was what pushed me to take a more in-depth interest in dolls outside of seeing them as toys, when I was younger, actually. I saw a character I really liked back then, and wanted to make a custom doll of her. I never ended up doing it (and it was a non-BJD doll anyways, so not super relevant here) but I still love the idea!

The only thing stopping me from starting the custom Scaramouche (Genshin) or Hiiro Amagi (Enstars) dolls -- the current chartacter doll projects that interest me -- is the cost of custom work. As a kid I was more okay with the subpar work I could on my own, but I'd rather pay a skilled crafter for things like wigs and faceups now, but I can't really afford it on top of the cost of the base doll itself right now. The only things I could attempt to do alone is clothes and maybe simple props. I've also been flip-flopping over whether I want Scara to be a resin or vinyl doll, too, so I can't even begin collecting things for that project until I decide.

If I was rich I'd have tons of "cosplay dolls"! There's so many characters I would love to have in doll form from various shows or games.

For now, I'm happy with official character collab dolls, like limited Volks Dollfie Dreams and such (I do have one of an official character, Nero from Fate/EXTRA), but I think there's a certain aspect of creating it yourself (or ordering custom work) that's really special, too.

 

I would love to delve into making dolls based on characters from my favorite media. I was very tempted to buy Doppel Maiden's Beta head when it came out years ago. He resembles Lee Dong Wook VERY well and I thought about making either Moon jo from Strangers from Hell or the Grim Reaper from Goblin, both played by Lee Dong Wook. I sadly didn't purchase it...but maybe someday..

However I did purchase Dollfie Dream's Alphinaud which I am VERY excited about since he's coming in November. He will be my first true character doll.

 

i have a decent handful of dolls that are video game characters-- but they're all either the player character that's customized in the character creator at the beginning of the game (the Vestige from Elder Scrolls Online, the Inquisitor from Dragon Age: Inquisition) or OCs from the game universe (mostly The Elder Scrolls). none of mine represent canon characters/NPCs. i don't think of them as cosplay dolls, because to me they are the game characters; they aren't meant to be real-world people cosplaying the game characters. a lot of their game-accurate clothing and armors are still works-in-progress just because it's a lot harder than sewing regular modern fashion, but i'm slowly working on it! in the meantime their personal appearances are character-accurate and they wear regular modern fashion that feels like what their character would choose to wear in a sort of "modern/real-world AU" situation.

 

I love fan/cos-dolls. I'm currently working on bringing a favorite movie character to doll-life-- I have always had a long wishlist of characters I'd do, both fan and OCs, and my priorities often shift, but I've loved this guy since I was five years old.

 

I can agree to what others said that it was far more common a while back (early 2000s, the 2010s) of people in the BJD community creating dolls that resembled characters from shows, games, manga/animes, and more. Heck...there was a time where there were BJD sculpts that were being custom made looking like real life celebrities (Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston, etc). I remember a lot of WoW (World of Warcraft) and FF (Final Fantasy) inspired BJDs back then as well as Rozen Maiden and Legend of Zelda, Twilight, and Star Wars too. I think if you find specific discussion threads like others have suggested then you can find what you are looking for.

I think there are still BJDs out there that are still inspired by a lot of characters but there is just so much BJD content out there that it just gets lost. That, and when companies do official collabs with animes and mangas and video games, I think it might make some people feel a little intimidated, especially if the original artists or developers of said animes, mangas, and video games are like, "Yes! That is how I imagined my character would look like!" Or worse, if fans are like, "Dude...that looks nothing like the main character."

I'm sure if you posted a thread of "Show me your BJDs cosplaying as Love and Deep Space characters" you'll get a decent amount of entries. Hahaha. There are so many BJD companies with hotties that look like they could cosplay those characters, but it's just getting someone out there to go the extra mile and do it and post it. Same with K-Pop Demon Hunters. I'm sure you'll do a great job making something like them. Just give yourself time to get the looks right and even then allow yourself grace that you are doing the best you can with whatever materials you have at hand.

I don't know much about other companies, but I know that Azone did an official Hestia doll from Danmachi a long time ago. Might be also a reason why it is hard to find dollies inspired by games and animes/mangas as I think Azone is technically off-topic (vinyl) so what you are looking for might be in off-topic areas instead of in the resin doll areas.

Volks has done a lot of official collabs (some in resin/SDs and some in vinyl/DDs/technically off-topic) to show you that stuff is out there but takes a bit of digging to find (this is not a complete list but what I could remember off the top of my head):

• Black Jack
• Disney Princesses (Anna and Elsa, Ariel, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Belle)
• Final Fantasy - Y'thola, Alphinaud, and Alisaie
• Frieren and Fern
• Harry Potter - Harry, Snape, Ron, and Hermione
• Hatsune Miku - they have done so many versions of her and the Vocaloid crew over the years
• Lina Inverse
• Nier Automata - 2B and 9S
• Ranma and Shampoo
• Rozen Maiden - they did Suigintou, Shinku, the twins, and Hinaichigo
• Saber/Fate
• Sailor Moon - they did all the Sailor maidens
• Shining Hearts
• SpyXFamily - Anya and Yor Forger
• The IdolM@ster
• The Rose of Versailles - 3 characters

I think in the end, just have fun with your K-Pop Demon Hunter project. As long as the journey of making your characters brings you joy, that is all that matters. Have fun and please share with us your journey as you create your characters.

 

You can still buy Bowie but now it's Major Tom from Demiurge Dolls. I love that sculpt so much!
And I like cosplay dolls or ones based on game/movie characters. However I'm not fond of anime style dolls, I prefer realistic ones. The exception was Spike Spiegel from Danny Choo.
I'm not sure if I fall into this category but my Ren is heavily inspired by Felix, a member of Stray Kids. Though it's still my own OC, just with Felix's look.