Mistakes Made In The Hobby

Trusting my iplehouse boy to stand on his own while I did something else. Outside.

Of course he face planted and messed up his face up. 8|

Leaving a red shirt on my boy for ages... At least the stains look kind of like body blushing.

 

Wearing fingernail polish while doing anything with my doll...

 

Bought the wrong size elastic (too thick) for my El and a stringing tool that was also to big and wouldn't fit through his arms or legs.

 

Not checking and searching DOA enough for my first doll. A doll company I later bought from had a opening sale and I could have gotten my first doll, much cheaper and a year earlier. :-(

Buying clothes for a doll before getting the doll. I bought some clothes in the dollheart Fukabukoro (sp?) and the I thought the doll would wear certain things, so I traded some regular clothes off and kept frilly ones. She said no way, when I got her.

 

On of the mistakes I made was not waiting for the company and not sending them questions. I ordered my doll head when they did not have the face-up option and in the description it said boy face-up so I assumed that the doll is with face-up price. Later I found out that they added the face-up option a couple of days before the limited time sale's end date and it was too late to modify my order. ;; v ;;

 

I've not been in the hobby for that long but I've made my fair share of mistakes.

I ordered my first doll after doing a whole lot of research. No mistake there, I was going to make sure I'd get the right doll for me. Mind you, I'd never seen one in real life before. I wanted to go for a YOSD girl to start out with and there were two sculpts that drew my attention. Both very beautiful girls. It was before I had access to the marketplace so I scouted Ebay and low and behold the two girls I loved were on sale, both in their original fullset. It was hard for me to choose between the two so I let my partner help me decide on the sculpt. I really couldn't decide and didn't want to flip a coin so I ordered the one my partner liked the most. I was very happy when she arrived and I still love her but in the end she wasn't suited for the character I had in mind. So the other girl I had my eye on back then is currently on my wishlist again. Not really a mistake but I could have saved myself some money in the end...

My second mistake was impulse buying my second doll which is an SD-sized doll. She is currently on her way but I already regret the purchase and wished I would have gone for a YOSD/Tiny instead. I secretly hope I really like her when she arrives but I just know my money would have been better spent on a smaller doll. Selling a doll is very hard for me at the moment because I bond with them really quickly.

Third mistake is not purchasing wig caps because I didn't think my dolls would need them. Some wigs stain and others are so slippery and won't stay on...

Other mistakes include several faceplants my YOSD girl took because I thought she would be able to stay put while I went to grab something. Dolls are silly and long to touch the floor when left alone. Her faceplate also fell off once when I was dressing her and I was so certain she would have some face-up damage but luckily she was absolutely fine. Another mistake I made is trying to squish her in a bag without a face protector, no harm done but I did have to redo her eyelashes since they shifted up in her head.

 

Settling for my first doll.

Purchasing dolls just because I have enough $ in the bank at the moment to afford them. Somehow they seem so much more appealing when I can afford them right now. :P

Deciding I can trim a wig

Hot glue seuding

White pants for my doll *lol*

 

Wow this sounds fun, and informative.

I've been in the hobby for a bit and have made similar mistakes:

1: buying wrong size clothing/wigs (with the clothing at least they fitted someone else XD)

2: Leaving a pipos in DOG RANGE (my dog LOVES my pipos and my dearmine, if she can get her paws on them she takes them to bed and tries to "mother them" (thankfully she is SO soft-mouthed there's never been any damage, just drooly, my dolls now live on a higher shelf WELL out of the way XD)

3: Believing that the magical OXY trick for removing dye/ink stains works.. the OXY itself stained my Vinyl with tea coloured stains, she now looks like she has amazing giant freckles.....and the clothing dye stains are STILL there (This is a current QUEST for me; find something that can fix it XD I've been through so many vinyl cleaning products XD)

4: When sewing for my dolls: measuring in inches and then cutting patterns in Cm..... -_- .... epic blonde moment.

 

Oh that measuring one sounds awful!

 

I'm new, so I haven't had a chance to screw up too many things - yet. But here's my record so far:

Putting a very textured (curly!) wig on a doll I handle and photograph a LOT. It turned into a clump in less than a week.

Every pair of shoes I've bought for my DT Seola. Either they're too wide, too narrow, too long or too short. It's a very good thing the friend I bought her from included several pair of boots, or she'd be permanently barefoot.

Thinking my poor PukiPuki was balanced on the windowsill for a photo when she wasn't. She wasn't damaged, but it took almost a week to find her right hand.

Forgetting to seal my Seola's manicure with Purity Seal before I put the Liquitex over it. It lasted about as long as my own nail polish does - maybe a week? (Poor Fawn. It's a good thing she's so beautiful that even I couldn't make her ugly when I redid her badly fading faceup.)

 

I don't think I have made any mistakes yet, but I am glad to read about pitfalls to avoid.

 

When I first got in the hobby I didn't know that it was a bad idea to leave them in a room that gets a lot of sunlight. My second doll who had lovely lavender skin now is more greyish. I sure learned my lesson.

 

1. buying a doll that i didnt like a lot
2. buying tooooo much supplies, clothes, wigs, eyes for her
3. using wrong arcylic color for her face
4. losing her
crying alot :'(

 

The only mistake I know I've made in this hobby, is to be too nice. (Let me explain) I know there's this wide issue with beginners and them asking a lot of questions that Google can answer just as easily as any person in the hobby, and as I'm too much of a sucker for beginners (we've all been in that position and I feel for them) I always try to be nice and answer every question I get. Even though plenty of them are... dumb. I do respect that much of the information is in English and people here in Sweden might not know the language that well, so finding understandable information can be an issue.

But, when spending hours on answering ... What's MSC? Why do you use it? When do you use it? How do you use it? Do you have to use it? Where can I buy it? Is there any cheaper brand? Can you give me a link please? Does this stop the resin from yellowing? Can you spray with it inside? Do you have to use a mask? What kind of mask? How toxic is it? How do you use the mask? Can I do it under the fan in the kitchen? How long does one can last? How many layers do you have to spray? How long does it take for it to ship from the company? How about if it's raining? And cold? Can I do it in the winter? Where do I dispose of the can when it's empty? ...

...you sometimes just feel like you want to snap and go "just use google, ffs, how do you think I learned the stuff I learned? Make an effort!" But now I'm considered nice and always helpful, so I don't dare doing anything but to answer newbie questions over and over, since I'm afraid that people will start hating me for being rude if I do anything else xD And since other people have the "google ffs"-attitude towards beginners, many beginners turn to me instead, for I'm too stupid and too meek to do anything but help. If I'd known this in beforehand, I sure would have been a bit more firm from the beginning and said no more often.

Such a silly mistake, really. I just really don't like the idea that people think I'm rude xD I'm so Swedish.

 

Hmm...

I bought a few dolls that looked great in pictures, but who I ended up not liking at all once I saw them "in person". I had to learn what my tastes actually are the hard way.

I got involved in a shared-world, RP-type thing with a friend. That ended up not being a great idea for anyone involved. 'Learned that lesson the hard way, too.

I bought white resin CP dolls, not knowing at the time how much I'd dislike the greening/yellowing they're prone to.

 

Buying a body to fit the clothes. I fell absolutely in love with an ensemble by DOD and bought it while I could (before I had any dolls), not necessarily intending for it to be for a DOD body, because at the time I couldn't bring myself to like the cylindrical legs they sculpt. Did a ton of research on measurements of different doll bodies and settled on a DZ body with practically the same measurements.
Didn't fit.

Also just missing an awesome Soom Rosette free choice event (May 2012 I think) by a couple of weeks because that was just whenever I discovered them, spending the next 2 years building the winged pure Vela I would have ordered then. She's nearly complete

 

I've done that too! I have a gorgeous plum nail polish that was my favorite until I discovered plum streaks on my white doll legs...luckily it all went away with the magic eraser but now if I do something with my doll I remove my nail polish before!

Anyway, the same doll seems to be my favorite victim, maybe because is my first and most loved (and so the most handled). I had her just for a few days and changing her wig her head cap felt on the floor, with some blushing chipped on her ear. I discovered in that way that she has only one magnet in her cap and it's not enough to ensure it when made heavier by a wig and having her almost upside down -_-

Wrong buys... well, I bought a pair of shoes that doesn't fit ANY of my dolls because it is too arched for flat feet and not enough arched for my Reaa heel feet -_- and a beautiful YoSD dress too large for my 1/6 dolls. And luckily I sew almost all my doll's clothes by myself...

And last, I greatly regret making my mind on buying a second hand Dollzone Freddy-1 only after his owner sold his body. Now I have a floating head and no heart to wait six months to get the body from Dollzone, at least not now.

 

I first assumed that all dolls in the "SD" range were generally the same size/proportion, so even when I ordered my 64cm boy, I based all of my wig/clothing sizes off of the 60cm boy that my girlfriend had. That resulted in having to order a new wig (apparently he's a 9-10in rather than a 8-9in) and I still don't have pants that fit him right.

I've also learned that ONE CENTIMETRE can make all the difference.

 

Well, in the beginning of the hobby I bought a Minifee Shushu with a default face-up. It was a little damaged, there were two little chips in de face-up. So I decided to take the face-up off and do it again by myself. I don't know what I was thinking but I thought it would be easy to do it again. After three hours trying, I gave up and I could hit myself in the face. I had soooo much regret and I started to cry. My mom came into my room and asked me why I was crying. So I told her what happened and she told me that I could send the head to a face-up artist and my mom would pay for it! How sweet is that?

 

There are many mistakes I made with my first doll :O but these are the most stupid ones:

1. I hate those wigs where you can see small spots of the wig cap and my boy was wearing one which showed a big hairless spot on the front...sooooo, I had the amazing idea of gluing hair strands to hide those spots...while my doll was wearing the wig and I did it with super glue ....I almost died when I saw glue all over his forehead x.X

2. Thinking that cleaning your doll with magic eraser everyday just to keep it clean was a good idea...no it is not!. I didn't know that it can erase the face up but also damage the resin if it is used too much. Well, it did erase part of his face up because that's what I used to remove the glue from his forehead...and it also cracked his arms...luckily, I was able to find the perfect hybrid body for him and I gave him a new face up so I guess I'm forgiven

My other dolls didn't suffer so much like my first baby though ;__; I learned my lesson! other mistakes I've done is buying clothes, shoes and many wigs and eyes that don't seem to fit any of my current dolls, but luckily, new dolls seem to like those unused items so it really is not a mistake when I have eyes I never used but it fits the new doll!