Modification Ethics

I think people should do whatever they like with their dolls. The dolls are meant to be customized, like you said. Yeah, it's kind of a bummer if a limited edition doll that you've wanted gets severely modded--it represents one fewer untouched doll that might go on the market, you know what I mean? But at the same time, it's none of my business! You just spent an ungodly amount of money on a doll, so you have every right to do whatever you want to it.

 

In my opinion, the line would be drawn at the modification of artist made dolls. Most of the dolls that people get and mod are sculpts that are produced in quantity (from what I understand). You go to the shop, pick out a sculpt you like, buy it, then you mod it. That's just how it works. . . but if the doll is a singular piece of art, that's the only time I'd think it would be kind of wrongish to modify it heavily.

 

I think ethics is the wrong word, personally. To throw in my two bits, I firmly agree with those that feel that once you buy something it becomes your property and it's just too darn bad what anyone else thinks. This is what we're discussing. Property. I don't think it's American to say that no one has the right to tell me what I can and cannot do with my property. I'm also not American but I believe very strongly in personal freedom and the right to do what I please so long as I don't bring about harm to others.

While it may break your (or my) heart to see a doll literally destroyed (like the extreme art example) it's still that person's right if they own the doll. If I want to buy a $1000 doll and smash it with a hammer, that's my business. Even if they weren't meant to be customized, once I've plunked down my hard earned cash and received my doll, it's mine to do with as I please.

And yes, it might be horrifying to an artist to see something they created dramatically changed. I can absolutely appreciate that side of the argument but again, once you sell something, it's no longer yours and you no longer have a say in what happens to it. You just can't dictate to other people what they can do with their item beyond any issues of the law (such as copyright). As horrifying as it is to think about, I could buy a van Gogh and cut it up into a puzzle. I'd have to be completely insane to do something like that but the reality is, as the owner I certainly could! I'd be throwing away the money I paid for it sure but beyond the foolishness it is in fact my money to throw away. (I accidentally typed throw up at first...)

It's hard to separate our feelings from the debate but reasonably I don't see how anyone can justify an argument against someone doing what they want with their own property. And can you imagine if people actually could tell you what you can and can't do with something you've bought. (Ignoring homes in the argument because that's a whole other issue involving property value.) So you've worked very hard and saved and you've earned enough to buy, I don't know, a book, a very expensive and rare book. But ahhhh, just wait, you can't read it, you may crack the spine. The oil from your fingers may damage the pages. Maybe I'm just a liberal hippy but dictatorship over my property really irks me.

I would never destroy a doll, not intentionally certainly! But if someone wants to do that, they can and I would fight to allow them to do so because when we start limiting what people can and cannot do with the things they own, for me that's a scary realm of one too many dystopian novels.

It's a shame when people do destroy (literally - not just mods you find ugly) a beautiful doll. I hate to see it and it actually pains me but beyond that, well, it's theirs. I may wish it had been mine but that's about as far as it goes. We have to be careful too, not to try and impose our taste on others. Because if we're talking about mods that we find ugly and using the word destroyed, well that's our opinion and not actual fact. If the owner is actually happy with what they've done then I think the doll has accomplished its goal. It's brought joy into someone's life and that's something everyone deserves.

I wish that I knew how to do a lot of modifications and how to do face-ups. I'd like to learn but I don't exactly want to practice on a doll I've paid over $100 for and risk doing permanent damage (in my eyes).

I always find it really interesting to see what people can accomplish and how vastly different dolls made from the same mold can become.

(tl;dr I know, sorry, sometimes I ramble)

 

I think that the reason questions like this arise is partly because people fail to understand that there is a fundamental difference between "fine art" and (for lack of a better term) art-like-products. Now -- let me say before I go any further that I do not mean this in an insulting way, to anyone, the fact simply is such.

For example. Say you are a kid who decides to study studio art at the university level, you major in it, you graduate. . . now what? You now have a formal artistic education, what is seen as a tiny (but important) stepping stone on the way to possibly becoming a fine artist. . . possibly. More likely you eventually land a job somewhat outside of your scope of study or interest, you design video game graphics, do concept art, work for an animation company, design web pages, put together magazine spreads, the list goes on. So what is the fundamental difference between "fine art" and everything else here? Fine art is a thing in and of itself. It is not a means to an end. It is usually a singular object. There is only one, and it serves no greater purpose than to exist. For everything else art-like, yes, a person, or a group of people did make it, and yes it took time, skill, and effort to create something that most people could not or would not create for themselves. This creative product is then marketed and sold to people for a purpose. And in almost every case there are many many more copies than one.

Perhaps it pains people to think of it this way, but I always assume that the artists responsible for designing these dolls may not be living their dream. This may not be what they would like to be doing with their artistic skills. Making dolls may just be a job. Why do I think that? Because it's ridiculously hard to just wake up in the morning, create what you most want to create, and have that somehow put a roof over your head and food on your table. Some people are lucky, but for many people finding a creative job is the best you can do. Although I'm sure that many people create dolls because they love to, I'm sure that (especially for the larger companies) people are doing this because they have the skills required, and they get paid.

And even in the fine art world, things become vague. For example, any doll, no matter how heavily or lightly customized could be put in the category of "appropriation art." I hope that my little rant was not seen as too far off topic. But all of it was a forward to my view which is simply this:

When an art-product type item is sold it does not belong to the artist anymore. In fact, where larger companies are concerned, often times the prototype for the product hardly even belongs to the creator. The simple fact that multiples of the same item are marketed and sold indicates that the item is not a work of "fine art" but is a commodity. All dolls that are customized in any way -- even the slightest way (changing the color of eyes for example) are now "appropriation art" of the owner. They are a new item created using objects from various sources. There is absolutely no question of ethics where truthfulness is involved. If you did not sculpt the raw doll, you did not make the doll. You have made a new doll from a doll that somebody else made, more likely than not, all as part of a day's work. People should feel free to do whatever they like with their dolls, because they are (after all) just objects -- they have no more artistic integrity (once again, if they have been produced in large batches) than a print of an original painting. Now, to pay good money and then "destroy" one of these art-products (to render it incapable of its intended function) is wasteful, yes, and in the context of limited edition items, is also a pity. . . but every time one of these limited items is destroyed, the value of all the others increases, both monetarily and culturally.

I have really enjoyed reading everybody's views on this topic. I hope that mine have been insightful (as I intended) and not offensive. For the record, I majored in fine arts in college, and am a painter. Take this into consideration.

 

I believe that it all just depends on the person. What one may find perfectly alright others may find totally offensive. Whether it is an artist doll, a limited doll, whatever, all dolls are works of art, and I'm sure each one, no matter the quantity means something to it's original artist but once it is sold, the new owner can decide what they would like to do with it as long as they still give the original artist credit for the doll itself.
I myself don't have the guts to do any heavy modding on my dolls, but I would not be against it, and I enjoy seeing modding that everyone else has done~

 

I find it interesting here that 2 different ideas are being discussed as if they were the same.
One idea is the rightness or wrongness of customizing your doll to fit your character needs.
The other is the willful destruction of your own expensive, beautiful things.
As far as I'm concerned, I really don't see any problem w/the first idea - these dolls are made to be customizable. I may not like the mod but whatever. I don't necessarily like the wig, eyes, faceup, clothes, whatever. Not my doll.
The 2nd idea? Well, can't do anything about it (not my doll) but I agree w/Monkeypaws. Wanton destruction leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I will definitely have a distasteful feeling about you if you do that. And there is nothing you can do about THAT!
NOTE: I do NOT think that modding a LE doll is wanton destruction!!!!! Even if you mess it up - I just feel sorry for you since I expect you feel worse than anyone that it didn't work out

 

in my personal opinion bjd's are dolls you can do everything with what you please.
But do keep in mind what kind of owner you are. If you are a owner that can't hold on for a doll for very long maybe extreme modding is out of the question because not a lot of people will be intrested your personal mod.
Never keep expressing your self none the less

 

The owner gets to do what they want.

If something needs to be saved for posterity in a pristine condition, then a group or person needs to go ahead and buy one. Second-hand isn't going to do for that, anyway, so the original owner might as well go ahead and do what they wish.

If people decide at a later point that they need to save some doll for posterity, then they will have to find what they can. Many owners DO keep their dolls in great condition, un-touched, in box... so it's possible. But you can't expect all owners to look to the future and save the doll for some group that MIGHT want a pristine full-set of a doll! That's just crazy!

I don't believe in randomly destroying beautiful things. But I can't control what other people do. If you don't like messing around with the dolls, then DON'T. That's all anyone can do!

I don't think it's a cultural thing. Even Europeans have to have a museum purchase a national treasure or they won't be able to control what an owner does, European or Asian or not. Plenty of pieces of artwork and historical items disappear into private collections and may never be seen again. One person's view of preserving an item isn't the same as another's. The Elgin, who took the Acropolis marble friezes and pediments out of Greece and put them in British Museum argue, with some validity, that without doing so they would have been destroyed in the elements or by warfare or vandalism or split up in private collections or whatever. But Greece views it as having had art treasures stolen from them.

There is nothing clear-cut about the ethics other than that the owner isn't responsible to posterity... but they might at least consider the item they own and think about whether it is something they want to be a care-taker of, or something they view as theirs to do what they wish with and they don't care about the future or the artist or anyone else...

 

I think, in the aesthetics of the doll, you got it because it was perfect for the character, or near-perfect, needing a few little changes. Taking from the sculpt at least to me isn't okay. Frankensteining the doll, that's fine. That really is a good part about BJD's; you can take other pieces from other dolls and make the perfect doll you see in your head.

If you're willing to shave off parts of a doll you bought, you should be willing to just sculpt a doll yourself, in my opinion. I just don't think it's right to change the face or body of a doll[unless you're replacing it with another bust, another set of legs, new feet, etc etc]

 

Being able to sculpt a doll yourself is significantly different from being able to perform extensive modifications on an existing doll.

I plan on eventually having someone mod my Souldoll Rye. Souldoll's Souldouble body has the perfect leg, arm, and hip shape for my character. I want her to be proportionally smaller than my Super Gem boy, and she is. But the Souldouble is much too... well endowed... for the character, and I'm eventually going to ask someone to please mod her so that her breasts are smaller. Additionally, Souldoll chose not to give their new body a thigh joint, so my Rye is not capable of kneeling. This character is very flexible, so I'm also considering having someone mod her legs for increased flexibility. It is very true that some companies choose to sacrifice flexibility for aesthetic, or aesthetic for flexibility, and I don't see why someone who likes most of the decisions a company chose to make should not be able to mod their body to reverse the decisions they do not like.

 

if i might? from what I've gathered the difficulty in pinning down this issue may lie in the fact that although yes these dolls are made in such a way that they can be modified with wigs and eyes and face ups and that it is in fact the intention that the owners do so; they are still considered by many to be a piece of art.
Again from what i can gather this idea of BJD's being a piece of art is because the original cast is sculpted by an artist and that even after that each doll is cast by and sanded by hand. however because it is still possible to somewhat mass produce these dolls it creates a paradox.
And if i were to equate them to another piece or art it would be the print. Where the original plate is made and then used to create the prints. Now despite the fact that prints are capable of being mass produced each one is still considered a piece of art. Each one still takes time and hands on work to create.As with BJD's there are also limited prints that are worth more because of their rarity. However not only do they have a higher monetary value because of this rarity the lack of complete mas-production is often considered a moniker of being "higher" art.
A few years back (okay most likely more like 5-10 years :p) some young men bought several limited prints by a famous artist who had passed away. The young men then proceeded to draw all over the prints.
the young men stated that they were making an artistic statement and showed them off proudly.
Many were incensed angered and infuriated at what had been done that these pieces or art had been destroyed and that the young men had showed such callousness.
Others stated that it was in fact there money that they had spent and it was thusly their choice to make.
yet i myself personally still cannot think back to it without a small clench in my stomach. Because yes they did own it yes they did pay for and yes it was they're choice; they still took something from the rest of the world when they destroyed those pieces of art.( And i say destroyed because they are no longer the same pieces no longer what they were meant to be.)
This is my opinion because i believe that art is something that does belong to the world. Because we as humans need art. We need it to inspire us. To bring us together. To give us hope. To allow us to communicate. And when a piece of art that has done that for hundreds of people is destroyed the world looses something.
however that is just my opinion based on what i believe art is ^-^ there are also those who believe that art is completely e femoral and thus changing or destroying it is simply part of the process of "art as a greater whole"
so basically i think it boils down to if you consider the dolls art in and of themselves and then if limited dolls would be considered "high art" ^-^
anyway anything that has to do with art is extremely hard to pin down because we still don't have a true agreed upon definition of what "art is"

 

I think you're only bound by whether or not you plan to re sell the doll. If you plan to own it forever, have at it.

 

To me this is only relevant if we're talking about the original piece of art. A print (unless the print is the only thing left and the original had been destroyed) or a cast doll are not originals and not one of a kind. Society loses nothing when they are modified.

 

I don't think anything in terms of modification to be unethical regarding BJDs.
The work of art here, that needs to be conserved in all it's beauty, is the original sculpt, not the hundreds of copies.
Like others have pointed out - I might (or... not really) feel a bit hurt if the person who bought my original artwork ends up cutting it up and using it for their crafts or something. But if they do that with a print they paid for... I do not really care what they end up doing with that, they paid the production cost and now own that copy to rip it to pieces, draw all over it, whatever.

Of course one can still appreciate a doll without any mods, just how it was made, but at the same time I think it's completely fine and the owner's business alone to mod a doll so much nobody would be able to recognize it.
The doll can be a canvas - if I want to be free in my art I might wanna cut the canvas to my desired shape in order to paint on it.

There's things to factor in, like whether it was a 100 or a 5000$ doll, or if the doll only ever had 3 copies made or 2000. These might change how other people view the whole thing. But in the end, none of that matter, still, and the owner can do whatever they want.

 

I think the thing that is being gossed over here is that no one, at least from what I've gathered, has considered the mods themselves as art. People have been saying that art needs to be preserved and thus extensive modding may be unethical. However, aren't the mods people do another form of artistic expression?

 

Personally, I would never modify a doll - I think of them as sculpture. I MIGHT if it was a really really cheap and easy to get doll, though, and I've certainly seen some amazing mods! That's just me, though. I really don't care what other people do to their stuff. In the extreme case of actual destruction for the lulz though - man, I disapprove MIGHTILY, but I can't tell someone what to do. Some people just want to see the world burn I guess. :/ Thankfully, most people are more respectful than that.

@maykoh The topic is about modifying existing sculpts, not about whether mods are art. To answer your question, though - of course mods are a form of art - so are scribbles on a famous painting, technically (and I'm not equating the two). That's really not what the topic is about though.

 

I understand that. I guess what I'm saying is that it seems like people are equating mods, or at least mods done by the inexperienced or ones that don't turn out perfectly, as destruction of the doll itself. Personally, I think that once you purchase the doll, you can mod it as you see fit. I don't have the skills to do heavy mods, but I admire the people who do and those who try.

 

You can think that poorly done mods are destruction rather than art but also think that the owner has the right to do whatever they want to their own doll including throwing it off a cliff and into a bonfire.

 

That is true. However, destruction appears to imply that the mod shouldn't have been done in the first place. Whether or not it is good is, at least in part, a matter of opinion. Someone who likes gore mods would have a very different reaction to such mods than someone who doesn't. The person who doesn't may even consider the mods to be destruction of the original sculpt.

 

Problem with modding is, you have to start somewhere. Of course, nowadays there are tons of tutorials and information available, but you still have to start somewhere. And in doing so, modding always carry the risk of failure in itself. This is a possibility you should always be aware of (though I have to admit the more excercise and experience you collect, the likely it gets).

Though you have options to train e.g. face moddings. There are training heads available, which are made for just that purpose. I think it would be wise to excercise on these before you take on a super limited head. Just to get a feeling how e.g. eye opening or nose modding works.

Another aspect: What about hybriding? This is technically also modding. If you do not want to put on the head onto the corresponding body, is this also disrespectful? (I do not think so.)

At the end, as the doll - an expensive toy - is sold, you can do whatever you want with it. I had to learn that the hard way with the horse I owned. I bought him 3 years old and trained him up to advanced dressage (Piaffe). Sadly, I had to sell him. The buyer did things differently, she was not yet at my level. But I could do simply nothing about it. If she had chosen to do show jumping or racing with him or braid pink ribbons into his mane, I could have done simply nothing about it.
Simple as that.

Same goes for dolls, methinks.

(Exeption: In the model horse world, artists tried to forbid that their sold models to be customized in any way. This goes for not changing the paintjob, or not modding of the shape (e.g. you are not allowed to remove the plastic mane and tail and put on mohair). I really have no clue if this is really legit (but I live in Germany, so things may be different).