Mobility vs. Aesthetics

I love dolls that can hold natural-looking poses, and I usually keep them fully dressed, so I'll take low detail and lots of joint lines any day if it means great posing. But aesthetic is important to me for the parts of the doll that show: the face and hands.

 

For me, aesthetics overrule posing, as you can always work and mod to improve posing! I myself am planning to mod a lovely single jointed girl I have into a double jointed and suede her so she can pose better.

 

It depends on the character and the story I want to tell with said character. I like a decent amount of mobility and the ability to hold poses for taking pictures or using as reference for drawing.

I have a big thing about how some joints look though... Example of a deal breaker: I really do not like weird "kneecaps" that stick out obnoxiously on double jointed knees. I don't care if it poses AWESOME.... I refuse to buy a doll with weird looking knees.... lol

 

For me personally I like a balance of both. I feel like if a doll´s body has got a lot of very obvious joints i wouldn´t be able to enjoy it. (of course this could be fixed with clothes) I used to love jointed hands a lot but at the time I´m thinking about if they still fit into my aesthetic. I would prefer a double jointed body over a single jointed one any time, I don´t mind how thigh joints look like on dolls that can hug their legs but I feel like toros with a lot of mobility seem to be sculpted... very obvious and not aesthetically pleasing to me. I am also not a fan of seperate neck joints

 

Both, or the doll won’t last long here. I’ve been in the hobby for a long time, and I’m finding I’ve gotten more picky in what I want in a face and body’s aesthetic now. On the flip side of that I photograph my dolls outside a lot, and I’d rather not have to lug along heavy metal stands on a hike when I’m already carrying big dolls and a bulky DSLR. With few exceptions, they need to be able to stand relatively sturdily and assume natural poses when sitting and standing. A doll that can’t touch its face drives me insane. I’m a little picky about how the elbows look when they’re bent (a little boxy is fine, awkwardly independent of the rest of the arm look is not), but for the most part I’d rather the doll have obvious joints and be a joy to play with than look super great because their joints can only bend at a 90 degree angle and fight everything I try to do with them.

 

I agree heavily with Amet.

Mobility is very important to me. My first bjd is a terrible poser (Soul Doll Lappy Bunny) and I hardly ever mess with her because she is only good at standing. I think a combination of frustration of her, plus I like to actually 'play with' my dolls made me 'team mobility'.
Fortunately I love seeing joints on my dolls so as long as they are actually functional I am not picky on how they look.
I almost only get/look at dolls with double joints (I like doll that can sit on their shins), at least one torso joint(preferably two), and ones I can find pictures of them holding good poses.
I can be picky about how torsos and heads look which would be how I might show some favoritism in aesthetics. I also like hands and feet to look natural. Sometimes it looks like a sculptor just 'forgot' about the hands and feet when making a doll, or only made them because they had to.
There have times that I have seen a doll and said "I want that" without paying attention to mobility (like Elfdoll Hana Devil, the doll that got away) but they are few and far between.

 

Middle for me but leaning towards aesthetic than anything because I don't really take a lot of pictures of my dolls and often they are just sitting or standing most of the time.

 

I don't even know how to answer this. Most of my dolls are single-jointed and the first time I encountered "mobility jointing" I wanted to break out the glue to stop those things from twisting the legs every which way.

My favorite is actually CustomHouse's old SD girl body.

 

Hmm it depends. For bigger and male dolls, I choose aesthetic over mobility. But for bigger and female dolls + smaller dolls, I choose mobility first. I like to take topless pics of my hunks, so...

 

When I first came into the hobby, my answer definitely would’ve been aesthetics, heck just a body to put clothes on and could stand and sit. Now almost a year later I am definitely going for poseability has become VERY important to me. There’s nothing more annoying than trying to get a doll ready for a photo and your back is hurting because your messing around trying to get this thing to stay put for a photo . I’ve done all the wiring, sueding, etc and its still a headache.

 

I would rather have a doll that has a more aesthetically pleasing body over incredible possibility. If I had a choice over a doll that has beautifully sculpted hands and single joints compared to a doll with sausage fingers and double joints, I would pick the single jointed doll with no hesitation. For aesthetics, I don't always look for realistic proportions, I just look for something that matches the character well and obviously looks good (no sausage fingers!). I really just sew clothes for my dolls and make them normally stand/ sit in them, I rarely need them to do crazy poses that would require incredible possibility.

 

for me it's aesthetics... i don't really mind if the doll can't do complicated poses, as long as the shape is good. in fact, a lot of dolls with pretty faces don't make it into my wishlist, simply because i don't find the body attractive.

 

I really want both, like when they have double jointed joints escpecial in the knees. joints in foot and hands i dont care for.

 

Ah, an age old question every hobbyist has to endure.

For me, i think it's a little of both? I greatly enjoy dolls who look great when dressed but also i like ones that can pose well while looking great. One of my previous dolls was a fashion sized dollshe amanda and while she looked amazing in anything i put her in, she couldn't pose very much.
Now i say this after having put a resinsoul mei on the single joint body on layaway but i digress.

 

I love beautifully sculpted bodies, so I lean more towards aesthetics than anything else. I don't care if my dolls can't do super awesome poses, as long as they can sit, stand, and touch their faces without much fuss.

 

Aesthetic is more important for me.
I don't play with my dolls, I don't make pictures, I just want them to be nice.
For me, it's enought if they can stand or sit

 

I'm honestly divided. I love aestetics, but I also love mobility.
I've seen the new Bimong Narae40 body up close and can say that this body has great mobility and looks really nice.

 

I'd prefer to have both nice aesthetic and good poseability, though I am more forgiving if the doll isn't the best poser in the world if it looks pretty. Most of my dolls are fantasy dolls, and most fantasy clothing is cut to show some of the body so aesthetics are really important. My favorite body all around is the Soom Super Gem 2012 male body with the mobility joint. I find it aesthetically pleasing while still maintaining good mobility for what I need. For just poseability, I enjoy the Dollshe Pure Body, and going off of aesthetics only the Idealian 72M is one of my favorites.

 

It's a balancing act for me. I don't care if the body's the best posing thing in the world, can get into any human pose, can balance easily on one foot, whatever, if it's ugly? I won't be happy with it. And likewise, the body can be an absolute work of art to rival the old masters, picture perfect at every angle, just completely gorgeous, but is limited to "sit" or "stand," I'm still not going to be happy with it.

That's not to say there's not ways around those kinds of things. I have a boy whose body is kind of awful (the company switched bodies without warning for a "type 2" that is far less aesthetically appealing than a "type 1," and as the company was also in the process of shutting down there wasn't much I could do about that), but he generally wears longer clothing that covers the ugly jointing they gave him, and I can switch his hands out for something less sausage-fingery in the future. His posing is satisfactory enough that, at this time, I'm not motivated to buy him a new body just due to the level of annoyance I have with his current one.

I have another that's just perfect aesthetically for the character I bought it for, but it has some quirks that affect the poseability. But they're things that can be easily fixed with a little sueding (I just haven't bothered to do it yet, for various reasons).

And I have one headless body laying around (quite literally!) that looked just okay, posed for nothing, and didn't suit the character at all. I did a bunch of work on it, and ended up hybriding the head onto a more suitable body... but then I kept the original and I do plan to buy a new head for it in the future. Why? Because separate from the character it doesn't match, I realized it looks better than I originally thought, and all the work I put in made it a decent poser as well. And buying just a head is cheaper than getting a full doll, so if I can keep that body around to suit a new character, why wouldn't I?

 

I prefer aesthetic more!
I really like joints that art subtle and neat, I love it when the joints and lines can slightly be seen, they’re gorgeous!
But sometimes it’s really such a shame they can’t pose well and the pose for photos, angles, tend to be repetative because they can’t post much