modding fears?

The biggest thing for me is I've always been too nervous to send my dolls away, even though I really want someone else to do their Faceups. I am happy with my modding/carving/sculpting I've done, but I would like other makeup than I can do, especially on my boys. But I'm to worried about them getting lost or broken in the mail, so I just live with the Faceups I can do.

 

I'm just jumping back into the hobby but my fear held me back deeply before. I can't do face-ups but I was so nervous I never sent anything out. I'm looking to purchase something now and again, I'm nervous. If I can't convince myself to get it done I'm not going to purchase one.

 

On the flip side, I’m not at all nervous to do things to my own dolls (I mostly do just face ups/minor face mods) but I’m far too nervous about having someone send me their doll and that I might accidentally break it or it might break in shipping. I do commissions occasionally but only for people that I can deliver their head/doll to in person.

 

im so scared to do things myself after i botched an eye opening in 2007 but with usps being how it is currently im more terrified to send my dolls away...I wish i knew ppl more local to me so i wouldnt have this anxiety

 

im similar to most of the above posters in saying that i'm a bit too nervous to send a my doll out for a faceup. so that forced me to learn how to do faceups myself lol and now like, mainframe110, i offer faceup services to people local to me with in person drop offs/picks who are also too nervous to send them out.
In terms of modding fears, I've done several dye jobs, but that i was much less fearful of due to the mostly reversibility of it with alcohol. and i haven't really felt to need/desire to do any permanent additive/subtractive aesthetic mods. I have done small subtractive mods in nonvisible areas for functionality such as posing, but again since it wasn't in a visible area, i was okay with going ahead with it. i'd def be a little more iffy on doing permanent visible aesthetic mods.

 

Modding my dolls at all is something I'm currently too afraid to do. Even quote - unquote simple mods like dying a doll. I'm perfectly fine painting, and with the exception of a few specific dolls I think I could handle sending the head for a face-up if it was absolutely something I couldn't do and I knew they could.
My into into the whole dolls that are made to be customized world began with Groove's Pullip Make-it-Own kits, I got myself an Isul and sent him out for a face-up that was/is beyond what I could do and even though I was a nervous wreck about something going wrong in transit I couldn't be happier with the results. So I'm pretty sure with the right doll and right artist I could do it again.
Still scared of the idea of modding or having a doll modded if I wasn't, and I could know it would turn out, I'd get Myca dyed instead of the extensive painting/body blushing he needs to go from normal skin color of his resin to the grayish color that I want him.

 

I tried nodding a Dollzone head ages ago and it was bad. So very very bad. That poor guy was ruined. When I sold him, I basically gave him away. Thankfully, I didn’t spend too much on him.

more recently, I’ve sent dolls away to professional artists, and I’ve never been disappointed!

 

When I started the hobby in '07 *cue dinosaur roars*, I was also afraid of everything. Afraid of doing face-ups, mods, shipping things out, taking dolls to events... you name it, I was scared. However, in time I really wanted to make my dolls my own and that meant stepping out of my comfortable spaces.

One of my first doll friends did amazing mods on her dolls. I always envied her for her skill, and wished I could do the same. I convinced myself I didn't have the skill to do it and decided to commission her instead because A. I knew her/we lived in the same city, and B. she had the bravery to do it. However, we ended up falling out before the commission started and I never got my dream character created. I did look for other mod artists, but I was apprehensive because I knew EXACTLY how I wanted the doll to look and couldn't find anyone that I felt could make it a reality.

Fast forward 5+ years... I'm stubbornly committing myself to learn how to do it. Am I freaked out? Yes. Have I botched other practice mods prior to this? Yes. I've screwed up eye mods, face mods, nose mods, etc. However, I am learning and practicing on low value heads before attempting to mod my rarity. Free event heads make great guinea pigs (thanks Luts!). Now that I've done a few for fun and taken the pressure off of myself, I really enjoy it and have a few successful projects under my belt. I don't think the fear every goes away (it shouldn't, otherwise you get careless)... But once the drill meets resin, its a bit of a rush knowing you're making something special and unique! I've had things go south... drill meets resin, resin is forever marred. But hey, I don't buy these dolls to make money! If it's junk, I'll pass it along to someone else to have a go at it (people like restoration projects too).

Bad mods are a lot like looking at old sketchbooks. It makes the artist cringe and want to burn it with the fire of 1,000 suns. But all of those resin Frankenstein's were helpful and necessary steps in overcoming the fear. Failure is a necessary ingredient to success. I can honestly say, learning how to do my own mods/face-ups/whatever gave me a new fire in this hobby. I feel like the possibilities are endless when it comes to customizing my dolls! So my advice to anyone... is don't count yourself out if you really want to try it out and learn.

 

Like many, I'm afraid of sending heads off for faceups (but I will definitely do it in the future). But my biggest fear is not so much screwing up the doll or doing badly on faceups (I am pretty artistic and think I could learn to do a good job) but of having to deal with the potential health risk. I have too many allergy issues to use spray sealants, and I'm pretty scared of resin dust. I might be brave enough to try modding/faceup-ing with proper protection in the future, but eh...I don't know. And anyway, I have too many artistic goals and not enough time for all of them! So I would rather sew clothes (something I'm familiar with and am good at already) and pay other people who are good at modding and painting.

 

When I first learned about these dolls around 2003, I was mostly excited about being able to customize them myself. I was afraid of ruining such "expensive" toys at first, so I kept my first three with custom factory face ups, for a long time. I later got my fourth doll of this kind blank, and kind of lost all fear. I started doing light mods like seam removal on my second one, but with my fourth one I went with heavy additive mods.

I would probably never dye one, but that has more to do with me being lazy, and having a preference for body blushing, rather than fear. I suck at most customization aspects, even after a thousand years of practice on my own dolls. However, I don't want to have my own dolls painted or carved by anyone else. Even if they could look much nicer, I enjoy modifying my own toys to my own limited abilities. (:

 

I can definitely relate to everything said above. I try to only buy dolls with company faceups, but I do have several that are blank. I successfully sent two dolls out for faceups, and got wonderful results, but that was a few years ago, and the two artists I used, are no longer available. I am nervous about trying someone new, especially because it seems like faceups are more expensive than they were a few years ago.

I would LOVE LOVE to do my own faces, and when I was working, doing art was part of my job, so I know I have the skills. But since going through chemo and radiation, I have nerve damage in my hands. My hands tremble when I try to do delicate work, plus the tips of my fingers are totally numb. Not ideal for holding a paint brush.

I would like to do modding on one of my dolls, but am afraid. I have a Soom Zak floating head. The body I got for him has a neck too fat for his neck opening,. I bought myself a Dremel tool so that I could reshape the neck, but I'm too afraid to try. The body is an inexpensive one, so if I mess it up, it's not so bad, but it still scares me.

 

I have ended up with several blank heads, and I can't do my own faceups because of nerve damage in my hands. I really need to send some dolls out for faceups, but I fear having someone interpret my wishes wrong, or do a bad faceup. I did send two dolls out for faceups several years ago, and they came out perfectly. So I don't know why I still fear it so much. The artist who did my dolls, is no longer taking commissions. I need to find a new person I can trust. .

 

I was afraid to do much more than restring and change eyes until I dyed an old, yellowed body in 2018(?) and then got into modding in 2020. Basically, in 2020, I was laid off and Canada hadn’t yet started their stim checks, so I couldn’t buy (until the doll purge started and I sold almost everyone). I was also depressed out of my mind, and so anxious I couldn’t sleep, because everything shut down and it turns out, I need a routine to regulate me, and I need my friends around me. So I was in pretty much rock bottom. And I had this doll body that I couldn’t make work for a character. It was a resinsoul body. It was replaceable, and I was in the kind of reckless abandon sad place where I needed a project.

so I bought an off brand “king Canada rotary tool” and a respirator, and I threw caution and several large pieces of Vidania to the wind. And she’s not perfect, or finished, but I don’t regret it. I love modding, but it pretty much took hitting rock bottom for me to let myself explore it. Honestly my best advice is to find something low stakes like my resinsoul body or an event head and give it a whirl

 

Honestly, when I first started collecting art dolls (back to the Pullip days up to the earlier part of rejoining the bjd hobby), I was a lot more brave when it came to doing mods. Some worked out fine, while others were a mess. Some remain unfinished, waiting for me to build up the nerve and get out the tools to work on them again.

I will say this of most mod projects: it's not so much fear but a sense of caution (and maybe laziness) that causes me to procrastinate on some of them. Most I did get to eventually, with only a couple of them where I decided not to pursue them further. In general, I love doing physical mods—carving, sanding, adding, subtracting, dyeing...

Something I seem to be most hesitant with has actually been clothes making. I have worked on a few simpler projects, but I haven't been able to build up the nerve to really work on the ensemble pieces a few of my crew really need. Yes, I could commission somebody else to do it—but there's this part of me that's pushing me to be the one who'll accomplish it. However, there's just been this creative roadblock preventing me from doing so.

 

Check out @sillymysteriouswoman on IG. She might be exactly who you are looking for. She did my Sandor Clegane and Beric Dondarion. She is also going to do my Brienne of Tarth and Tormund Giantsbane. All of them required or will require some level of modding and she rocked Sandor and Beric and I'm sure she will rock Brienne and Beric as well.

 

I've had the intention to mod a sleepy head. Make their eyes open. But I'm too scared to do them by myself. What if i sand them to much? That's a point of no return If anyone knows any faceup artists who does mods, please share