Pin head syndrome

So interesting to read everyone's feelings about proportion and the reasons why their personal taste wanders away from the anatomical norm or Classical ideal.
I find Dollshe hands to perfectly suit their long limbs. Classical proportion states that the hand from base of palm to fingertips is the same length as chin to hairline, but since most early ABJDs had child proportions that seems to have distorted the standard for newer dolls that are depicting adult bodies. The other one that bothers me is that feet are generally too small as they should be the same length as the forearm. Thus I don't take issue with all of those huge Volks boy shoes, since they make feet look big enough to me!

 

I never knew that about hands, and just had to check my own against my face lol Classical Greek beauty I am not. I have very small hands and I actually am sometimes repulsed by the extremely large, very veined hands found on a lot of male dolls. There is probably some subconscious reaction to that on my part since smaller delicate hands are what looks normal to me.

 

It's funny that the pinheads are the outcasts, because they are usually more anatomically correct than most dolls.
Your shoulders are as wide as three times your head. Most dolls have bobbleheads and their heads take up half of the shoulder width.
Hands are supposed to be as long as your face when spread out (in general. there are exceptions of course)(Oh, I see St. James already explained that!). Most dolls don't have this. Most dolls have tiny hands. For instance, the Minifee's from Fairyland have a pretty much correct body, but their heads are too big to be anatomically correct and their hands are too small.
I honestly think we have gotten too used to this aesthetic (nothing wrong with it, I really like it) and don't see the more correct dolls as correct anymore.
This doesn't go for all dolls obviously, but most cases of pinheads are usually anatomically correct.

 

The only true pinheads I've seen are the fairyland Chincline dolls. Everything else falls into "giant head" or "well-proportioned." This is admittedly what bothers me the most with my own doll. Even with larger dolls, most have too narrow shoulders -- the FL65 line is also guilty of this, I found that hilarious given how buff the male is -- which makes the head size look awkward a lot of the times.

 

I think with many of the larger 'pin headed' boys (like the glamour models), inspiration has been taken from the bishounen style of art. Bishounen tend to be drawn with very wide shoulders (might make the head look smaller?), long limbs in proportion to the torso, and extremely long hands and fingers, so they are very big but still graceful at the same time. It's all about a balance between that graceful delicateness with strength and manlyness

It's funny that you think the EID boys have small heads, I think their proportions are generally very good and lifelike once they have a wig on. The superhero body was probably inspired by superhero art, and again with an art style like that certain features are exaggerated like the shoulder width to make the character appear more powerful.

For me and my collection I play it by eye. I may be less fussy then some people, but I have sold dolls that 'didn't fit in' becuase of head and eye size. For me, i'm happy for certain features to appear to be exaggerated to match a dolls personality, so for example a cute child like character I may allow to have a slightly bigger head and eyes.

Also, one has to remenber that classical human proportions that you are taught in art class are just a guide. There are variations in things like head sizes and hands sizes among people even in real life! Like Kim mentioned she has very small hands. My sister had a close friend for many years, who did have a very large head! She and her group of friends (a bit cruelly) nicknamed him 'Frankenstien' becuase of it XD

 

Definitely true! The DM model boys and girls give me a definite CLAMP vibe (particularly Tsubaki Nekoi's art), which I love.

An ideal is just that-- and usually unrealistic. My uncle, as another example has massive hands that do not fit his 6 foot 2 inch frame. They are much bigger than his face. Lots of athletes have the same.

 

I think it depends what body the head is on - I think my Saint looks perfectly normal on the Popodoll body, maybe a teeny bit Clamp-esque with the wide shoulders, but the rest of his is lean and I love how it looks. However I don't like the Saint head on the Spiritdoll latest Spiritdoll body, the whole body looks much too large.

I have more of a problem with my dolls' hands being too small than large - my Dollmore Lisa Rubik has teeny tiny hands compared with her fat head. I only really like larger heads on msds and tinies, I don't really like the proportions on taller dolls and it's harder to mask a big head, though you can make the illusion of a small head bigger with the right wigs.

 

This......Spot on!

 

I like pumpkin heads and distorted proportions I guess. I tend to draw that way, always have, so I guess it just appeals to me in general. Most of my dolls have big ol' heads, feet that are too small, etc.

 

Well, since I prefer the more realistic-looking dolls, I also prefer the "pinheads" (anyone ever considered doing a Pinhead doll, as in - Hellraiser? *gg* - just crossed my mind). It really bothers me when I percieve a head as being too large for a body. That's why I got a new body for one of my Minimee heads. It wasn't even an inch too big (the length of the face) but it still bothered be because, to me, he looked bobble-headed and I simply don't like that. The other Minimee head that was a little smaller is alright on that body - barely so. Read: only with clothes on. I'm ok with larger heads when the doll, all in all, looks kinda child-like in proportion. But not when it's supposed to be an adult.

 

I find that most dolls are pretty bobble-headed, even my Dollshe Hound. ._. Haven't actually seen any doll that I found 'pin-headed', though Fairyland's Chicline comes pretty close...

 

I have both realistic dolls and dolls with larger heads and like them both, but to me, there's a fine line between an anime-type head that is in proportion with the body and a head that is just too big, especially compared to the doll's shoulders. Bobble heads bother me more than slightly small heads. I can disguise a small head with a wig, but there's nothing to be done about a bobble head except to buy a larger body. I also love big hands and feet, and love Dollshe, Spiritdoll, and EID guys. I had a male doll that had little hands and it annoyed me so much that I got rid of him. My own hands have always been long and veiny (although slender) and completely cover my face. The Chicline dolls' heads look too small to me, so I have never wanted one.

 

Chicline and Glamour Model dolls both have rather 'small' heads compared to many other dolls, but that doesn't really bother me much, as long as it's not a huge nodding-dog head or one so small it can't even pivot on the neck.

What bothers me more is TINY HANDS. The biggest problem I have with most YOs, even the ones I love and desperately want, is how itty bitty their hands are. I like slender, well proportioned hands on dolls, in general. They don't have to be elegant, but I just can't get over chubby, stubby fingers!

Although, in saying that, if a doll had really massive hands I probably wouldn't like that either...
I'm so fussy!

 

Weirdly most of my dolls are the other way around, lol they all have bubble heads.

 

I don't mind some variation in head size, but I do tend to veer away from the very small headed dolls. While they might often be closer to real human proportions (that is what I usually hear argued), dolls being what they are I find personally that some things look good on dolls that would be freakish in a real person and vise versa. Also, if a doll has a head on the very small side, they wouldn't go well with the dolls I already have. At one time I considered getting one of the Lati Red boys for a character of mine until I saw one in person. It wasn't that he was unattractive, but he would have look ridiculous next to the other members of that storyline.

 

Totally agreed! But for me even Chicline dolls look small-headed only without wigs.

 

i love smaller more realistic sized heads..i tend to chose all my dolls that look that way..supia roda...limhwa luna and half elf..my smallest sd headed doll being my Soul Doll Tae (he really looks odd without a wig tho! and wears smaller eyes than my msd!) ) i really dont like the bobble head looks...i think only child dolls can get away with it and look cute (like pukipuki, littlefees etc)

 

ooooh, agreed with hating tiny hands. I'm SO picky about hands. I LOVE Loki, my DZ mo-b on Doll Leaves body....but I couldn't even look at him without cringing at his hands. They looked too small, too delicate and too girly. I ended up buying him AoD hands. Which some say are too big but I LOVE them. Loki is not a child or girly, they look right to me. MAN hands! Though really, realistically, they are still too small.

THIS! I absolutely cannot stand the pudgy sausage fingers on some dolls. (no offense to anybody who likes them, just my opinion) That could actually stop me from buying a doll. When a hand is not much bigger than the eye, but looks so fat they couldn't even pick anything up if they were real...it's an issue to me.

 

Heh.... well, it's all just personal preference, isn't it?

As Sillypeach says, people don't have ideal or classical proportions... and definitely dolls can go from something more realistic to very stylized--but even the more realistic are stylized to some degree (unless someone takes a read human and shrinks a mould of them down or something like that).

Big Hands-- Kim makes a good point in that many of us are female and have smaller hands than males and are used to those proportions--so seeing huge hands can look odd... but big hands are actually a masculine characteristic. Just think of the big hands as making your boy look more manly!

Silk makes a great point in that heads may look small bald, but with a wig, they can look much larger... Dolls often have smaller feet so they can look more natural in shoes and fit more of them. And the same might be said of heads that get larger with wigs.

The whole classical or ideal proportion thing is just a sort of rule for creating a pleasing form. They don't really have anything to do with realism--but can give that effect in some cases. Smaller heads (going up to 8 or even 10 heads tall--or 12 or more) are used for fashion models or super-heroes--basically people that are unusually tall. So Dollmore's fashion model-types aren't really that strange when using the idea that smaller heads make the figure look more tall, like an extremely tall and slender model. And Super-heroes can be so stylized in art so that their heads really do look pin-sized in comparison, because that makes them seem more muscular and tall and overall HUGE. I'm sure you've seen this in super-hero comics. And... as others have said, manga styles have influenced a lot of doll proportions--both the bobble-head cuties and the legs longer than anything type of older guy.

Personally, I like a huge variety of styles in my dolls. Although I am made a little more conservative because I like to pose some together... usually not the ones that are more realistic with those that are more anime-style, though. I don't think of them as being bobble-headed or pin-headed, really. I just think that they are just what they are--and I like their looks, or I wouldn't have bought them--so I'm not going to be derogatory about it, even in a joking kind of way. (I know I've used the terms here--but MY dolls--they're DIFFERENT, if you know what I mean! And I wouldn't really refer to anyone else's dolls that way, either, 'cause it's sorta rude.)

Anyway--People will have to decide what they like in their dolls and either not buy them or swap stuff around or something... but they shouldn't really think the big hand and small heads are BAD or WRONG, because people come in all forms and so do dolls! It might be bad or wrong from a particular owner, but the doll itself isn't bad or wrong, if you know what I'm saying.