Paring Down. Less is more?

I'm not paring down my current collection, but I have drastically slashed my Must Bring Home List. It used to number something like 10 dolls. It's down to 3 dolls that need to come home to complete pairings of dolls I already own. I have 10 in-house dolls, BTW, and a few months ago was when I realized that I was reaching a saturation point and getting all the dolls on my list would've left me feeling overwhelmed. I actually feel better about paring down my necessary doll list.

I'd never say never to more dolls coming home than the ones I currently plan for because that's just asking to get smacked with a sudden desire to have a doll you never planned for but absolutely must have. That's pretty much how I ended up with 2 dolls (the same character, but in different sizes). I don't regret those purchase and get a lot of joy out of those dolls, but I hadn't intended to bring them home and never would've if they hadn't been going for an absolutely killer deal on the MP.

I'm also warring with myself over the purchase of YO-SD sized twin dolls. I don't list them as being on my Must Bring Home List even though I really want them and will likely cave in the not-so-distant future and get them. I'm currently playing a mental game with myself in that since they're not MSD or SD size, they don't count as full dolls *rolls eyes at self*.

 

Currently I have 5 complete dolls(heads with body) and one head which I am paying the body off. So far there have been 2 dolls which I can't let go of, my collage bernard and my sim marianne. I doubt ill let go of my joker or volks iris tho. Currently im happy with my crew I recently got two of my dream dolls so I think my crew will stay around 7 because I plan to get bodies for the two heads. I d'oh t id go over 10 dolls considering sometimes I sell off certain dolls omorder to pay for another. For me I don't have enough placess to put so many dolls plus I get overwhelmed with several dolls.

 

I have never had to pare down my resin bunch nor thought about it either. I have 12 BJD and a resin pet. Since I thought about owning the crew I have I felt the less (The main ones and maybe some few others and no one else) the best. The fewer, the more time to enjoy every of them from time to time, besides other advantages (More room, less expenses and so on). They are more than I thought I would ever have, but I am absolutely glad with every and the whole. There is none I could be able to sell. But that is just my case. In my opinion, there are as many ways to get to the point of the resin group you really wish to own as people into this hobby.

 

I'm not thinking of paring down currently, since I've only got one doll and zero on the way--cutting down would basically entail starting over, and I love my Agatha too much to do that. XD However, it's not that hard to imagine myself ending up in such a situation in the long run. ^^; It's happened to some of my other collections--my beanie babies, my breyer horses, my mlps. . .I should probably cut down on the duplicates in my Figma collection, too--so it's a pretty easy situation to picture. I think in the long run I'll probably end up with three dolls, maybe four if I find a bargain I can't pass up, but much more than that would probably get a little overwhelming. Not that I'll be facing that for a while, though; it'll probably be another year before I can even seriously consider getting my second.

 

While there are many doll sculpts I think would be nice to have, I don't see myself ever actually owning them. I want to indulge the few I have, which is only three with a fourth on the way. I don't see myself having more than one or two more. And if I did, would definitely never want over ten. So yes, in this case, I think less is more!

 

That is true. I think I would only get no more than 5 dolls. I like the feeling to be able to take care of each of them and spend time with them. Too many doll is just going to be overwhealming.

 

I don't think I could own more than a dozen, or at least more than 6 msd-sd sized dolls. I have two more msd's I'm hellbent on (and one tiny), but after that I'm a little more hazy on.
Tinies I'm more lenient with, I'd like to get my trio of pukis eventually, other than that though I'm not sure.

 

Unless one has a hefty wallet and a desire to spoil and spend, there is a very obvious correlation between quantity of dolls and their 'care' - defining care here as money/time spent on wardrobe, painting, customization, planning, etc. If you have one doll, that doll will receive your undivided attention when it comes to care. If you have multiple dolls, your dolls are going to individually get less care. This isn't to say there's a right or wrong way to do things. If you're like me when I had multiple dolls in various sizes, you didn't feel guilt or such silly feelings when one doll got something new and the others didn't. At times it was annoying to have plans and wants for many dolls but a limited budget, but similarly, it's easy to feel bored focusing on just one doll. Right now my magic number is one doll.

 

Ya know, I would love to have a smaller collection! But, I'm definitely a collector who likes to have one of each type and when I mess up that pattern, it gets uncomfortable, I'm a bit obsessive like that. I'd rather just box someone up for a while and then sell them later. At least that way I know I have them somewhere and I can line them all up, proud of my complete looking collection! I actually just realized now that I have 14, which is the most I've ever had. Part of the problem of being unable to pare them down is also because several are gifts and I hate to sell gifts. The more gift dolls I get, the harder it is to pare the collection down...

I hope, though, that one day I can get my collection down to five or seven tops. (I like odd numbers. e_e; I just don't foresee it happening anytime soon. I am somewhat jealous of you who only have a very small amount of dolls!

 

I, personally, am fairly new to the hobby of collecting dolls but I can see how addicting it can be. I have one PF and one I just adopted on the way and now I'm wanting another to add to my family. The thing that's stopping me though is the mindset I had when I began. I sorta had a "story" I wanted to build on and some guidelines for myslef so, after trolling forums and photo sites, I have to remind myself to stick to the story I had. So, right now, I have 2 dolls and maybe 2 more in the future so we'll see. Now, pairing down on clothes and furniture for them? Well...that's another story...lol But pairing down to 2 dolls with alot of clothes is better than 10+ dolls with alot of clothes right?
Good luck to those that are pairing down! I think sometimes less can be more

 

PS: Thank you gwenithcoy & apricotkiss & polyhymnia & lula78, you are very kind. I'll fall on that grenade anyday. ^~

Your theory would absolutely hate my collection of 31 dressed painted planned pampered beauties.
(OK, OK, only 29 of them are dressed. I admit that 2 of them go naked-- one fetus who can't wear clothes, and one incubus whose job-requirements include constant nudity.)

Anyway, my point was that you cannot judge/guess ANY owner's habits or intentions or level of care, simply by hearing the number of how many dolls they have. Any correlation between quantity & level of care is 'very tenuous', at best (as opposed to 'very obvious').

 

I think about this a lot. I am not one for excess, and that includes bjds. I have plenty of room, so that is not the issue, I just try and keep my life as uncomplicated as possible.

My all time high was nine minis. For the past couple of years I have been happy with 5 minis, (2 boys, 3 girls). I spent time cleaning them, re-blushing their bodies, and doing new faceups. They are where they need to be, with little left to be done. But I have so many clothes so, a few months ago I added a new mini I had been eyeing for some time.

Last week I bought yet another mini from the DOA marketplace-this time a hybrid. So that makes 7. Four of my dolls I simple adore and they are not likely to ever leave. (Unoas, DM Momo, Lati Rucas) The other 3 may be voted off the island sometime in the future.

It could be that the number pf dolls one has, is in direct correlation to the amount of time one can give to the hobby. When too much is going on in my life, this hobby takes a back seat, I put the dolls in their boxes and don't think about them.

In addition, over the past six years, I have seen many bjd makers create some truly amazing new sculpts, and who knows what they will develop in the next few years. Will the new outweigh and overcome the old??

 

While I like the idea of paring down I dont think itll ever happen for me XD I like to have alot of variety, and I like to have things in either pairs or 3's (like how I somehow got 4 pairs of twins?? that was an accident...) I just counted 9 planned sd's, 10 msd's, 11 tinies, and 6 anthros. The number part of me also likes how that worked out... maybe my anthros will double one day then i wont be able to get any more dolls without upsetting the numbers! I try to limit myself on the dolls by size though, the way I see it tinies have no limit, but the bigger the doll the less I plan to have.
Ive also been trying to convince myself that anthros dont count... so to make myself feel better in going to try to stop at the 9-10-11 and just call it a flat 30 (+anthros) lol When I move out after college into my own appartment/house with my boyfriend we have already discussed having a 'doll room' for me and a 'mancave' for him. Just because I want to own so many dolls doesnt mean they wont be well cared for! quite the opposite... Once I have space and money from a full time job my dolls will all have settings/furniture/wardrobes/painting/etc the little ones already have houses!

 

I hate clutter in general, so I do have the 'less is more' mindset. More ever, I want to travel one day and I could never drag around so many dolls with me so I am planning to cut down to one or two as a 'souvenir' and entertain the people I meet with them.

The only thing I may regret by doing that is that I will miss customizing dolls. That's part of the big fun of the hobby for me. I guess I might as well enjoy it now before I don't get to. :/

 

One of my dollie resolutions this year is to "thin the herd" a bit. There are dolls on my wish list that I'd love to bring home, but space in the doll room is at a premium now. It's hard to decide which dolls are going to go, though. When it comes down to it I think maybe other things will have to go to make room for more dolls (ie my huge action figure collection that I never do anything with anymore).

 

Ah, thank you for calling me out on my poor wording - I certainly would never think my 'theory' was the infallible truth of BJDdom, I meant it as my personal observation and experience. There are always outliers, I know several "big name fans" who do have incredibly large collections and still manage to spoil them all absolutely rotten! I simply meant that for the 'average' collector, that I often observe this correlation - more dolls = less spoiling, less dolls = more spoiling.

 

I always liked the idea of keeping all of my collectibles...until I got married. Then my husband's toy collection met my toy collection, and it was a vinyl/resin explosion of epic proportions. We live in a tiny apartment, and by necessity had to get rid of a lot of cool stuff. It was tough at first, but now I'm content with what I have (which also makes my wallet happy). I learned to live with less stuff, and have now come to prefer it. So even though there are a lot of wonderful sculpts out there that I really like, I don't have any pressing need to buy. I'm happy with the dolls I have, and am content to live vicariously through others (so keep posting lots of photos, people!)

 

I can relate to this topic. I have a huge collection of all kinds of dolls, but when I got my first ABJD it was after looking at them for a couple of years, and I thought I'd be content with only having her. For a while, that was true, but then my dream doll my collection started to grow, and now I have a lot more ABJDs than I ever expected to. In some ways it almost has snuck up on me, and I don't really count any of them that are smaller than Yo-SD size. Possibly this is my mistake, because it's the teeny little buggers that have really taken over, although oddly enough I still think of myself as being mainly into Volks. At this point, I go through phases of playing with various types of dolls, and while I could certainly pare down, I'm not sure which ones I'd want to part with. As for my wish list, there's one doll I still long for (Volks SD16 Ruby), but she only exists as a prototype right now, and it's not certain if she'll ever be produced as an edition. Probably the best thing for me to do would be to put of my ABJDs into one place to get a better idea if I'm really still smitten with all of them, or if some could move on.

Juli DC

PS: Jenny N--It makes me feel better that you seem to do some similar with your collection, finding the perfect look for them and just leaving them in it. This behavior is perfectly acceptable in the world of fashion dolls. Yet somehow because so much can be altered on ABJDs, I think some in this hobby try to put pressure on those of us that don't change things on our dolls very often, if ever.

 

Hehe, actually I don't always leave them unchanged! I mix them around the room every few weeks, and some change their looks more often than others, so it always looks like the "party" has progressed in its mingling. It's one of those parties where some guys keep coming out of the bathroom in different outfits.

But I know exactly what you mean. There is this pressure-- and I don't know exactly where it comes from, or whom-- to constantly repaint and change and play with every doll every day, and haul it around with you on your errands all day long, otherwise it's a "waste of money" and "doll abuse" and "neglect" & all manner of other nonsense. If you have too many, you can't possibly love them all. (And if you purchase a fullset doll, you're also "uncreative", by the way.) It just sounds to me like a lot of people are intimidated by their own toys, and struggle to "live up to" them by following some code of conduct that will ensure they seem sufficiently engaged by their peers.

I would hate to live like that-- to feel like my hobby is running me! That is not what I want out of my leisure activities. I like to play with whatever I feel like playing with, at any given time... and that is why, in the end, it doesn't matter whether I have 3 dolls or 30. I'd still love them one doll at a time. I just like having a crowd.