Morality of Modification

I've been thinking about this lately as I really REALLY want to shell a dnd character of mine who is an elf... but one of her notable features is an un-reversible mod.

The facial scars I could probably pull off with just a faceup, since it's meant to be a lot of little scars, but the big thing is that she's missing half of one of her ears due to someone taking offense to her elf nature and trying to cut off her ear tips. I keep going back and forth on whether I should break off an ear to the head I'm purchasing for her... or if I could pretend she's from an earlier time period before that specific event.

I don't know if I'll ever want to SELL her head, but I might end up re-making the head eventually as a different character, and wouldn't want to be limited by a mod like hers.

I'll likely be going back and forth on the idea up until I put her all together.

 

that sounds awesome!!! I can't wait to see how the prosthetics in particular turn out. I have a character I might be doing something similar with eventually, and I love creeping that kind of project!!

 

I once had to watch someone buy and unmod a modded head that I had been admiring for months (hadn't bought it because I had no idea what I was going to do about finding a body that matched it).

It was sad. It was painful. It was agonizing. And then someone sold me another of the same sculpt (WITH compatible body!!!!!) and I was able to pay someone to modify it to be even more fantastical than the original modded head I missed out on. The point is that it is very hard to truly destroy something in this hobby. Mods can be removed, sculpts can be restored to their original appearance, just as easily as changes can be made, as long as you (or someone else) are willing to put the time and energy in to change it. A modded doll might not sell for as much as an unmodded doll, and that is something to consider, but when the goal is to achieve a dream rather than to make money, why does that matter? It's not like I'm ever going to sell Aeona anyway!

 

That kind of mod would be fairly easy to "correct" with a little sculpting skill if you ever wanted to either by using epoxy to restore the elf ear tips or to carve down the ear even more into a human ear shape :3 I'm just some internet random so who cares what I think but your character sounds so cool and unique, I think the mods would be worth it

 

One of my boys came to me with both ears totally removed. It's tough to find a mod that's truly "un-reversible," he's got ears now and looks just fine

 

I do of course agree with the general sentiment of this thread - do with your dolls whatever brings you joy, and no doll should ever be lost because of a mod.

I just want to add for the sake of completion that if you mod your doll under the assumption that everything is reversible/ can be repaired anyway, you might still have to deal with disappointment once in a while.

I am friends with someone who owns a doll whose facial features had been modded according to their wishes, and after some years, those tastes changed and they wanted to have him restored. Now this was an old doll, and even during its production time it wasn't super popular - hence few people owned it, no recent secondary market appearances or the like. The owner found a modder with a good reputation and a great portfolio who acceptet the job. Facial features had been lost due to the original mods and had to be resculpted just by using photographs, which the owner luckily could provide in abundance from all angles the modder could wish for.
Well, the head came back and I'm sure the modder did what they could, but it was a disaster. It looked worse than before, nothing like the original, and removing the new additive sculpting again would always mean danger of removing even more original features with them. My friend did not want to risk that, and has found no modder better suited for another attempt since.

So, in theory all mods are reversible, sure. But not always in practice. Also, even a successful restoration involving things like apoxie requires color matching/ dying/ air brushing and so on, so it will not be like original even if it might seem so from afar. My advice would be to at least think twice before you set to work, and then have fun.

 

Speaking as someone in multiple other collector's hobbies watching bespoke, limited items get modified per the owner's wishes... I don't see the issue. It's common enough in lolita to have garments altered/fitted that there's not really a debate about it even if a lot of people don't necessarily appreciate the mod being done. (Except pocket mods. Everyone likes those.) At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is if you, the owner, want to do it.

Even though there's a finite source of these items, the nature of these hobbies means that there will always be some that slowly circulate the market, I think. There's enough inherent appeal in preserving limited items in their original state for any collector hobby that a subset of buyers for any item will end up doing so, and BJDs aren't really an exception to that. The number surely will dwindle over time, but it's rare for it to truly hit 0 in the sense of, no one has an unmodified, undamaged version of [x thing] anymore. Whether or not they'll be for sale anytime soon, though...

This also isn't speaking to anything about the prices for those items, of course, but that's a whole different issue.

 

When it comes to extremely rare heads, I'm not happy, if someone mods it, but it's still your doll with which you can do whatever you want. Only my feelings may be hurt.

But I also modify some bodies sometimes, but currently this only happens in the area of non-functional joints.

 

Good to know it's not as intense of a mod as I would think, lol. Altho I'm not sure I could make her ears match when trying to reverse the mod, since I would only clipping one ear down (asymmetry and all that).

And thank you for your kind words about my dnd character. She's a forge cleric eladrin elf from a desert country who lived a pretty rough life, but found love and family through her adventures, and post-campaign lives with her wood elf boyfriend, freed from his soulgem-prison, and works as a legendary blacksmith. She's definitely a weirdo and I love her.

 

I know from lolita communities that similar discussions crop up there and my stance is the same across hobbies: If you own it, it's yours. When we purchase something, even a collector's item, we're not renting it, we're not borrowing it from future owners or "the community", it's ours and it's up to us to modify it how we please, to even fully destroy it if we wanted to. Will it fetch the same price in the secondary market? Who can say. Oftentimes no, but sometimes your mod may increase the price tag of an item, it really depends on prospective buyers. I can't say that I exactly get going through the effort of modifing items you may want to sell, but if it comes to that, I don't really see how it's anyone's business if you have.

 

I plan on modding my girl because finding the body to go with it is hard at the moment but I don't plan to sell it I think all mods are good so long as you are aware that modding will typically decrease the value. I see some people do mods and expect almost the same price as brand new which I don't know if that is really morally correct but if someone wants to pay that much good for em. I think I would understand the heart pain some people may feel if they see a super limited grail of theirs being modded but in the end they should mind their business about it. I only say that because I have seen some people comment on others modded dolls saying they ruined the sculpt which was super sad cause the owner loved the doll.

 

Interesting discussion. I have many thoughts on this topic as I've been reading through the comments, sometimes conflicting. I guess what it comes down to for me is 'do no harm' in general, I never make a permanent choice. I try very hard to make anything I 'enhance' un-doable, so the doll can return to original without too much fuss. But, I have a history of trying to responsibly preserve for the future. I'm looking forward to learning to embrace more fully MY choice in determining the character and look of a doll as you're expected to do with bjd's.

 

For the most part owners can do whatever they want with their dolls.

While some doll companies are a little less accommodating towards people wanting to do something modified (like companies that tend not to sell heads separately to make hybriding more easy, etc) and some doll companies will do crazy things if asked (like resinsoul will do weird colors and modify sculpts), neither sort can really stop you from modding your doll. There's splits and not like they can police you after you have your doll (companies that do that are like.... nope right outta there...)

My personal rules, I do prefer to only do big mods on dolls that aren't super limited. I'm definitely a bit of a revolving doll collector at times so there's always a chance I will flip a doll.

My most heavily modded doll is a head that had its nose bridge nearly sanded off by a previous owner and was severely unevenly yellowed so it was going to get modded either way to look new again or look like something new.

And I had a doll with cheek mods. I don't think I would have done this one if I was to do it over again today. I changed my mind about the character and I have learned to sculpt my own heads. I don't know what it says about me that I would rather make an entire doll head from scratch than mod... sometimes I want like that level of control, I guess???

As I have learned to sculpt and have been thinking about trying to cast dolls, I don't think I would mind people modding my sculpt. My only WHY?! about selling artwork is seeing people fold paper in half... I guess I might also be confused if someone folded my dolls in half, but I don't find that quite as likely lol

 

There's definitely nothing immoral about doing permanent mods on your own doll, but I do understand what you're getting at. Especially with very limited and sought-after dolls, it can be frustrating to see one for sale only for it to be intensely modded. Of course it was the modder/owner's right to do what they wanted with their doll! But it can be a little annoying when you're looking for a doll that's hard to find. That's not the responsibility of the people selling modded dolls, but it's a understandable feeling!

As others have said, most of us don't buy dolls with the specific intent of selling them in the future. For me, any doll I buy I intend to keep, but there is always a distinct possibility that it will end up being sold for whatever reason (don't like it in person/don't bond, my tastes change, need the money, etc.). Personally I'm not into modding, but if I was, I wouldn't worry about whether I might end up selling my doll in the future. If I wanted to mod a doll, I would do it, because what's the point in having it if I am not going to do what I want with it and enjoy it, you know?

Of course, if you mod a doll, you can expect that if you do end up selling it the value will probably go down. So that's just something you need to be okay with when modding a doll, but it doesn't make the modding wrong or immoral. On the other hand, I've seen really well-done and/or unique mods that made me want to buy a specific doll just for the mod! So I think in certain cases, and for the right buyer, mods can actually increase selling value.

Anyway, in the end, I agree with everyone that it isn't wrong to do permanent mods even if you might sell the doll. It's your doll and your choice. But I also understand why it can frustrate/annoy potential buyers and I think those feelings are valid. And who knows, there might be a buyer who LOVES your mod and will even pay more for it!