More unusual reasons you’ve bought a specific doll.

I feel like I personally don't understand the question very well. do you mean any reason for buying a doll other than just liking a picture of the doll on the sale page? Such as shelling characters? Which is very common... Or a bit like your example are you wondering about free association trains that kind of led back into dolls? Sorry if I'm just being dense but would definitely like to hear more.

 

Mmmm I tend to look at nature and go "I want to take a photo of my doll there" but I also lack the creative mindset (and skills) to mod a doll into a dryad or nymph. I know I am still searching for a perfect Lafayette doll but since we have life masks of him, it's hard to put the image of an 18th century Frenchman aside and settle for a doll who only has one aspect of his face - large brows or large nose, never together. If only I could still order a minime head...

 

There are a few Sims characters that want to bring into the physical world via doll lol I'm also inspired by the song "Afterthoughts" by Sleepthief. It's so ethereal! I want to style a doll to have the same vibe that song gives me.

 

To help a friend pay for her wedding?

Her budget got a little out of control after a few things cost more than she expected. To make up the difference, she decided to sell a few of her dolls. I bought one of them, mostly as a way to help the cause.

 

I'm in one of these weird situations now I feel content with my collection. But, suddenly my cousin needed a car, and I had an old car in good condition that I never drive... I was going to give it to him for free, but he didn't find that fair. So we agreed on a "trade," and now I get to pick out something for him to buy for me Well, I don't need a vehicle so hobbies it shall be.
I still don't know who to spend this rare opportunity on... Almost no dolls cost anything near what the car is actually worth, so I basically have free pickings

 

I studied Biology in university and I like animals in general but there are some unusual ones (in the sense that they're not the kind of animal you can have at home or see everyday) I happen to love mostly due to my experiences on real life with them or things I've learnt about them while studying.
So, when I saw Dearmine's giraffe I just had to buy it and named it after an extinct species of giraffe that my Paleontology teacher had spoken about in class. Same only months later with the same company's bat doll, because one of my teachers was a bat's expert and she really made all the class love them to pieces.

 

I bought a doll because I thought she was ugly, does that count?

Up until that point, I'd only had beautiful girl dolls and I wanted my crew to be a more realistic mix. So I bought her, planning on her being the Ugly Duckling of the group. It backfired, though. She ended up just having terrible company photos and was gorgeous in person.

 

I bought a doll specifically because of their height and would very much like to buy another doll specifically because of their height.

Shelling characters on 1/4 scale who are supposed to be specific heights is hard.

 

My brain does this thing where specific curves will just trigger the "this is perfect I want to stare at it" with the way certain body parts are drawn, or sculpted. It can be anything from the line of the nose in profile (I have a very vivid memory of a specific CLAMP drawing that I stared at for a long while just because of this) or a neck, etc.

This will apply to doll sculpts as well. Specifically, that occurred with DV's Dream Valley Rah (I got the eagle version). I was loving the eagle parts of the sculpt, and kept coming back to the listing but not willing to commit for one reason or another. I actually ended up missing the order window because I couldn't quite bring myself to do it. But even after the window, I kept coming back...and during one of those visits, something about the way the full body promo pic was posed, and the line of his spine...it triggered this happy little thing in my brain. And oh no, I need him. One did happen to pop up in stock, and I was able to nab him. I wouldn't have been tipped over the edge if it weren't for the line of his spine xD

 

I was browsing through bjd sales one day, and I caught a glimpse of this doll that reminded me of one of my favorite singers, Fleurie. I happily worked out a trade for the head, which I knew nothing about but just liked the way it looked (I was very young in the hobby, only had one full doll). Later I showed it to my sister, and she informed me that it was an F60 Soony and it was one of the most beloved FL sculpts in existence. I've had her for five years now and she's still my favorite girl I've ever owned.

 

For me, it was a commercial from several years back…a couple meets on a snowy street and starts dancing in a beautiful, romantic and seductive way. I don’t even remember what that commercial was for, but the sight of those dancers’ lithe performance and the way they later gracefully and slowly parted to continue on with their separate lives just really struck me in a very poetic way. I had to come up with a character to embody that…my brain just wouldn’t let it go. So I shelled a character named Twigg, as a snowy tree branch who wanted to dance like that couple from the commercial, and who became sentient and humanized so she could do so. I chose the most etherial-looking doll sculpt I could find (a Doll Chateau Bella on one of their very lithe and elongated bodies with the extra joints) and added a pair of twiggy looking antlers by Doll Chateau that I found here in the marketplace. Perfect! That was 5 years ago and she’s still one of my favorite dolls to this day.

 

I have a specific character in mind that I want to bring to life but there isn’t yet a doll that matches the size/design I want her in. I’m saving up to have a custom made.

A few weeks back I randomly thought it would be cool to have a Baphomet doll and did a search not expecting to find one but then I found one on Mydollection and now have him on layaway because I absolutely can’t live without him. It also felt like I was meant to have him since he’s a pre-order and I just found him at the right time. Very serendipitous. The universe definitely spoke to me.

 

I think all my reasons for buying a doll are not doll related. Some reasons are that they remind me of a favorite character or story. Sometimes it's because I love their "canvas" and I can transform them into something I never thought I would find interesting.

 

I had to do a bit of thinking over this subject, wondering if I had anything that would fit into the topic of the thread. Most of my crew is based mainly around OCs I've created for a couple different story-lines I eventually intend to indulge in writing into a literal series of sorts, and few are based on existing characters I've taken a strong liking to. Not many would really be something that would arrive on a whim—be it inspiration from an experience, a theme, other influence.

I do have a couple that might fit into this. First off, when I was looking at minifee Mika/Mir, I kept pondering on making her some spiritual muse for my main guy Tahmos, but—as I thought more deeply on the matter—she began to fit into a very different character from an entirely different story. When I decided on her look, my inspiration was a celestial/space theme. Pearl-ex powder was applied to create this galaxy-like imagery/tattoo upon her forehead, with specks of glow-in-the-dark paint mingled into it to resemble stars, with some starry marks on her left cheek cheek and a starry trail beneath her right eye. Her back tattoo is a blend of a sun and moon. She eventually became my character Kismet Jaide, but she also was my celestial themed canvas.

My Dream Valley Moon might fit more into this than Kismet. I've always had a love/fascination for winged cats, and DV Moon sparked some celestial/aquatic muse upon seeing their promotional photos. I just kept picturing this winged creature in gradients of blue, resembling both the variating hues of water from the shallows to the depths, mingled with elements of stars and shimmer. Like clouds cast upon a midnight tapestry of inky blue/black, sprinkled with pinpricks of illumination. Throw in a bit of Ancient Egyptian flair, and—my incarnation of DV Moon was born. Moon upon completion became Tahmos' celestial winged feline companion.

As you might've noticed by now, I have a thing for celestial/galactic imagery. There's something beautiful about photographs taken of galaxies, planets, space—along with the fantastical representations presented in various art-forms (Starry Night by Van Gogh is one of my favorite paintings for a reason). When I'm not specifically focused on the creation of established characters in resin form, the celestial theme serves me as a muse

 

I see some dolls on sites like Mandarake where it looked like a few dolls belonged to the same previous owner due to time listing was posted, clothes, theming, accessories, and other small things like how the eye putty was put in. You can't really tell on those sites, but I have bought some dolls together because I like them and don't want them separated.

 

In general it isn't but when it comes to making doll versions of specific characters I want to preserve their heights through the transition to 1/4 scale. Because otherwise it looks and feels wrong to me. And if I'm going to spend money, time and energy on doing this I want it to be right.

 

I like to buy dolls that don't look like any that I currently have.

 

I'm similar with doll heights, tbh. I even made myself an Excel spreadsheet that calculates heights at different scales so I can be like, "Oh, if they'd be X in real life then they'd be Y at such and such scale." And for better or for worse, I make my male character OCs at various heights instead of just tall, so many of them have proven difficult to dollify at various scales. :/

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I'm not sure what's really the weirdest place I've drawn inspiration for dolls; I come up with character ideas all sorts of ways and then eventually some of them work their way into being dolls, though not necessarily strung BJDs (mostly mechanical jointed dolls). It's hard for me to figure out what counts as "weirdest" since I'm so used to the ways I make characters.