More diverse doll ethnicity?

ohh that is a nice colour..

marina of enchanted dolls use to make 2 ethnic ones,here is one



and iplehouse has this one, or had, i dont know how old this pic is



this one is sold out at iplehouse, so more people want this too. and the lighter one is still available

 

ALL of us belong to SOME ethnic group - the notion of 'ethnic' sculpts has no meaning. Again, most sculpts can look like pretty much any ethnicity if given the proper hair, eyes & skin color. There are sculpts w/mono-lids, w/large lips, w/aquiline noses etc etc that will look more like one ethnic group than another. But someone did mention the biggest problem - the lack of skin color diversity! It's understandable since darker skin colors are trickier, but it would be nice to have more choice there.

 

Pretty much this. The skin color options are what would help more than anything. There are a lack of facial shapes specific to certain ethnicities though, however, but a good 80% of it can be accomplished through how you paint it, the wig and the skin color. Along with a cool name and back story ^_^

 

Personally, I would love to see more diverse sculpts like the ones shown in 'Yeelen' (=Brightness/la lumiere), a film by Souleyman Cisse. It is a very slow film though he has tried to show a lot of beautiful and diverse African faces (not all young) and landscapes. It has been ages since I watched it, so I am probably biaised!
By the way, it depicts old witch ways (the film was made in 1987 and reflects the times) and, consequently, some animal cruelty, so do not watch if you are sensitive to these.
I love series which use actors of different ethnic backgrounds as well as the ones who are the results of mixed ethnicities. I feel I see the rich tapestry of life everytime. A pleasure for the eyes.

 

I think there is a wonderful choice out there already. Lots of resin colors and many many sculpts. I see many dolls that I think would fit a certain ethnicity really well. There are full lips, thin lips, rounded eyes, almond shaped eyes but the one thing I find less common are different noses. There are not so many sculpts with aquiline or wider flatter noses. Some could be changed with modding though. Doll companies make their dolls to be what they consider beautiful and will sell well for them. Individual artists and some smaller companies do some more unusual sculpts. Minimees look different as their features are based on a real person or character and often have more pronounced features.
All in all i'm pretty happy with the choices out there and trust peoples own creativity to bring their character to life whatever ethnicity they represent.

 

I would LOVE for a site to come out that only sells (sorry if this sounds very un-PC) black dolls. Like dolls that dont look like white ppl with bad tans. I'm so glad to see some places do sell dolls like this. I wish someone would like make this their specialty, like sell wigs that have the correct hair texture but isnt made out of alpaca fur (I never cared for those wigs they never look right to me)

I'd also like to see more latin looking dolls. Latin people have a different kind of face and I'd love to see that shown.

 

We couldn't go wrong with some dolls that look like Bollywood stars! Seconding Kavarr's wish for more aquiline noses.

 

I would like to see African American dolls, I hardly see much of them.

Also African American dolls with dreadlocks wigs would be cool too.

 

Wow!!! This is such a beautiful doll!!! I love it!

 

Indeed. I would like to see more African dolls and Native American dolls (which I think there are currnetly zero of). As for Indian and Middle Eastern dolls, while it might be good to improve upon what is available, the issue (at least from my perspective) isn't so much a lack of available sculpts, it's the available resin colours because facial features of Indian and Middle Eastern people aren't that different to European facial features. The right resin colour and a good faceup can significantly change the perception of the doll's ethnicity. But no faceup, not matter how good, is going to make an Asian or European sculpt look African or Native American. As far as Native American dolls go, the best I've seen is an Iplehouse Bichun in generic Native American dress. But as nice as it was it still just looked like an Asian doll dressed as a Native American. Something that would be really cool would be for a BJD company to work with various Native American tribes to produce dolls that represent their facial features and dress, with some of the proceeds going back to the tribe. That would be cool but I doubt it would ever happen.

 

Ohh you know Danzig, I've heard of a non-BJD doll company doing something like that with a Native American tribe (it was those American Girl dolls people). I remember reading that they did a lot of research and consulting on which tribe to reach out to, and it took months of communication before the project to make the doll was agreed on. Then, a committee of tribal historians deliberated on the details and the accessories, which were very different from the normal accessories of every other doll from that company, including a different facesculpt that didn't have smiling teeth (as smiling with teeth was considered offensive, not friendly, to them). There was heavy emphasis on having the doll represent their culture at it's peak, as well as making her added reading materials educate on their existence today.

I don't really see that happening with BJDs, not because there isn't an interest, but because that endeavor required the efforts of a large company and its specialized employees, coordinators, and directors (again, it took months of communication before the tribe's coordinator was even convinced of letting this be brought forth to the tribe). The only big BJD companies are in Asia (they don't have any reason to be interested in specifically the Natives of the U.S., as they have different sorts of native cultures near them), and the one's in the U.S. are typically small artist/one person operations (unless I'm missing something, I'm no expert). In addition, I don't think that Native Americans would be keen on having someone use their culture to sell an item that can be manipulated (as BJDs are customizable) into something that may have no benefit to them, so I wouldn't see Native American partnerships with BJDs unless the sculptor themselves were a Native in a tribe.


I think it would still be cool for people to make Native American-inspired sculpts though. Still, I would have to agree that faceups, wigs, and dyejobs CAN change the ethnicity very easily; I wouldn't say Native Americans and Africans have such odd faces that none of them can be reflected in the sculpts we have today. I'd even go as far as to say that you'd be hard-pressed to not find a facesculpt that you could call 'African': it's a huuuge continent with MANY ethnicities and facial features, all umbrella'd under the term "black". Within one ethnicity, people will have thin lips and thick lips, round noses and pointy noses, monolids and folded lids, etc. etc. I think we should say that, instead of emphasizing we want sculpts of a certain ethnicity, say we want sculpts with X features or Y shapes, whether it's calling for hooked noses or round faces or thicker bodies. One ethnicity isn't defined by one look, but many looks can be found under one ethnicity!

 

I'd love to see more diversity within BJD companies. My girl is multi racial, even though she is in the NS, and even though she "passes" as white, she isn't fully.

Iplehouse I feel is really great at creating their more diverse sculps, perhaps the best I've seen at doing so.

 

I would adore seeing dolls with more variety in their features! Tan dolls are my favourite, and while the right wig and faceup can do a lot for achieving the right look, I find that many sculpts do still end up looking more European or East Asian facially. This works fine for mixed dolls, like my own boy who's Mexican/Korean, but sometimes it makes it difficult when you have a character with more atypical features for the doll world, regardless of ethnicity.

Personally, I would snatch up any doll with typical Cree facial features in a heartbeat! Although I'm sure there's a BJD who could pass for a different Native group, I haven't had much luck myself. The only doll I've found that I think fits this look at all is the highly stylized Dust of Dolls Cham Nabi. I'm not sure what it is about her, but maybe being a child doll with less distinguished features helps?

 

More companies seem to be making tanned resin colors available. Bjds are all about making a doll distinctive and individual, so I'm sure the range of sculpts will become more and more diverse.

I think companies and buyers have always wanted these things, but the ability to produce the colored resins had to improve first. Also, bjds started in Asia, so they followed a more Asian aesthetic for a while because that was what they knew and loved. Now that people are making and selling bjds all over the world, the sculpts are much more diverse. That can be made even more so, of course.

Support the companies that are making the sculpts you like--knowing what sells will make more companies go in that direction.

Write to them about what you would like to see in a doll, because other than what sells, they might not know!

Look around for artist sculpts that might be what you like.

Or try sculpting or modding yourself!

 

I find this thread good and the responses interesting and informative. However, I feel like we are asking for the "stereotypical" look and generalizing a bit. Which is good if that's what you want but someone in this thread said that they want "latino dolls" and I'm here thinking to myself "I'm latina and I don't think I look that different from americans or even europeans so that means that they want the stereotypical latino- mexican-dark brown look?"

I'm not mexican but that's how the majority of foreigners see latinos (as brown mexicans even though there are many white mexicans). My skin color is white and my hair is reddish brown, I have dark green eyes but from afar I look asian because of my eyes(or so I've been told by the majority of my friends, on my new job, the guys didn't talk to me at first because they thought I was chinese and that I couldn't speak their language hahaha). I got the "asian" eyes from my Dad and my Dad is a green eyed, red head and white skin man. My mom has light blue eyes and black hair. My siblings have blond/red /black hair with green/blue and hazel eyes (we're a big family lol). We are from central america and we are not mixed, we are all 100% latinos. Then I have family and friends from South america who are white as snow with blue/green eyes and also those who are black. I also met african people who are white.

This is why I think that any doll can be of any ethnicity if you want it. I don't look at skin colors or facial features as a must-have to represent a certain type of culture or ethnicity. Unless you go for the stereotypical route.

 

yumi -- I hear you! I'm of Chinese decent and I don't think many of the supposedly Asian dolls look all that Asian-- BUT-- there is such a huge difference in how people of all ethnicities look, within that ethnicity... I often think people DO stereotype it sometimes... or even more than sometimes. I know I would draw some Asian characters based on actual photo ref and some people would say they didn't look Asian enough... and I know that they were thinking of more stereotypic features. (And, ok... lots of the actors and models and whomever does get photographed have eye jobs and are sometimes mixed--or chosen because of non-typical features, like being incredibly pretty/cute/handsome.) And about the really stylized Asian style, well, some people (like me sometimes, I confess!) will say it doesn't look Asian enough, too, but, again, other people will view it differently. So, yeah... there's lots of different views, culturally and individually. It's not possible for everyone to be happy... That's why it's good to go off and sculpt or customize your own head... or get someone else to do it... The good thing about bjds is that this is not only possible, but encouraged.

 

yumi - I think that that's a really good example of the diversity within a group! Coming from a mixed Cree/European family, there are lots of people in it who are the same way and don't look at all like the stereotype, and who don't even get recognized as Native immediately. If I were to want to shell them as a doll for whatever reason, I would have very little trouble finding a sculpt for them.

However, I think the issue when it comes to dolls is there isn't always a ton of diversity facially? Going back to the Cree thing (because it's what I know best personally) there are also members in my family who do look like the stereotype! It's not a bad thing to look like the stereotype, and there are always going to be people that do. So the problem isn't that nobody can make a Latino character, for example, because there are already a lot sculpts that would work perfectly! It's just that there are Latino characters who couldn't be made easily given the sculpts/resin colours commonly available.

I'm not trying to discredit your point or anything though, I love your example because I think it really shows off how much diversity there is in the world! There are so many different ways for humans to look, and hopefully BJD's will continue to evolve and reflect that as well.