Planning your doll family? Did you have a plan? How did it work out?

Delurking after ages...

I had a plan. I was going to have 4 Resinsoul MSD size dolls - a male and female with elf ears, and a male and female with human ears. In white resin so they didn't look too much like toys (yes, that was my reasoning; yes I'm heartily embarrassed by it now ) and because they were all going to be sort-of ethereal and goth-ish. I then discovered that I didn't like Resinsoul's white resin at all, and I couldn't get any character to stick to them. So sold them, and got 4 Impl dolls (at this stage I was sticking mostly to 1 company to try and keep some kind of cohesive look). I had the characters planned out in my head and everything. Any new doll I bought was going to be for a character. Except for the DC Bella. And the OT Hujoo Chicaloca who was just perfect for her girlfriend. And a Resinsoul Ya in coffee, because I love the Mei sculpt but didn't want an MSD elf and the coffee colour is lovely. And then I sold the Impls because they just weren't working for me (characters not sticking, not liking the character ideas and them just not fitting in now). I was going to stick human sculpts though. And no fantasy colours. And no more white resin ever from any company apart from the Bella. Which is why I have an ice blue Colline, all my Real Pukis and my Pukisha are white...

Now my plan is:
Buy dolls I like with no preconceived character in mind (but who I think will very loosely fit in with something)
MSD and above - human (with the exception of the Rong/Yao hybrid)
YoSD and tinies - humans, elves, fairies etc
No animal/anthro dolls beyond my FL Pukisha, RS Rong/Yao hybrid (and my OT Hujoo Freyas)

 

I had. And it does not work. At all. So far every doll in my collection was random and was purchased by a simple luck and being in the right place at the right moment, plus amazing bjd related friend of mine

 

I expected the BJDs to become a "tribe" in numbers and came had the plan of having mature tinies about 30cm as the adults and proportionally smaller dolls as younger characters. So far I've managed to stick to my plans about scale. The fan characters I had planned have all so far decided to become original characters. Only one has the original name, and all have very loosely based-on personalities. I planned to get my blank dolls painted sooner but that didn't happen. Hopefully I'll do that this year. I wasn't planning on buying a Soom female fairy, but they made a black version of Noellia, who stole part of my heart and wouldn't give it back unless I brought her home. Sorry if that was kind of random!

 

I did have an original plan, which was to get one doll for the purposes of fitting clothing... Then maybe a couple, but mainly MSDs, and only my original characters. Definitely no more than 6, at most, all with a matching scale and all from the same group of OCs.

Now I have 27 here (plus one extra head still waiting for its body), two more on order, and several more planned. I have one main group of OCs, and one side group of them. Plus one main group of fan-based characters with two side groups. Plus one group without set characters. And about half my dolls are YO-sized. Oh and two SDs showed up the past year.

 

I stuck to my original plan pretty well. When I started the hobby, SD-sized dolls (especially fantasy) interested me, and that is the majority of my collection today. Some things I did "grow out of" were wanting tiny anthros and "teenage" dolls. I used to really like the angsty look of some of the Migidoll and Volks boys, but I kind of stepped away from that a bit and focused more on dolls that look like they are in their mid-twenties.

 

I didn't plan out my doll family. I had always thought I'd get the more human looking dolls....but, it's worked out so far that my anthros out number my human BJDs. The only thing I have to be considered a plan is, a wish list.

 

After my first doll, i ended up creating a story so all new doll acquisitions have to connect to a character - naturally. So far its working well, the only problem is figuring out which character is the more important one for me to buy next!

 

I'm basing my doll purchases based on my favorite OCs. But right now, I can't decide, male or female? Evan or Flame? Argh!

 

Now, I have 5 dolls, ( I received lati doll yesterday >w<").

SD size: His name is "Reion" (Enrill from little monica). He is big brother in family. I plan to search one of SD size to be his couple.

MSD size: I have 2 boys, "Renren" (Francis from Mystic kids) and " Eugene" (little kliff from LM). But eugene is on processing.
I plan, I want renren to be "innocent & cute SEME" and he is eugene couple. Eugene is "Ugajin Ke" UKE Type. >/////w////////<

Tiny : I just received my first Lati doll yesterday. I am thinking to name him ( Will be Haru,Rinrin ...etc) I plan his character is shy boy.
And I order one of this size.He is Jadu from sseiren company. I plan,he is sunshine boy character.

 

Nope, never thought I'd be interested in dolls. Always preferred stuffed animals. Till I saw a pic of RP SoSo.......only have the 1 so far and trying to convince myself I don't need a bunch more....that's probably hopeless.

 

I learned my lesson the hard way - I don't bond well at all with spontaneous buys. Hell, it took me a few months to bond with the SWITCH head I bought to be Kyrian. So, no more of those. From now on, I only buy dolls I have fully planned out - sculpt, character profiles, clothing wishlist, wig wishlist, etc.

 

Well, originally I wasn't planning a doll family because I was in the "I'll only need one" mindset. But after that blew over I decided that I wanted 6 dolls in total. One MSD couple with a 27 cm YOSD child and an SD couple with a 35 cm YOSD child.

The number of dolls I want bumped up to 8, however, because I won a free anthro doll that doesn't fit into the families of 3. She's adorable and I know that I am keeping her; she's just going to be a friend for the YOSDs. I also really want an Alberta from Doll Chateau, but thankfully there are no other dolls I want from DC, so we should be good with the limit of 8. ^^'

There are so many pretty dolls out there, so at the moment I am just doing my best to plan out the SD couple to ensure that I get the two I absolutely want. Otherwise, I know that I'm going to want more and they'll always end up as family units. XD

I only have two MSDs at the moment, and I am very pleased with them. I already know which YOSDs I want, so the only uncertain ones are the SDs.

 

The reason I got into bjds was to have a medium through which to best represent the characters in the universe that I have created. I tried smaller dolls, but the detailing that I needed to actualize the character was not possible at the smaller scale. As a result, the characters for all of my dolls are preplanned, as well as the general appearance (eye color, hair color and style, period of dress, bone structure, head sculpt requirements--teeth, etc.), and the size is set (originally I was thinking msd, but I wanted characters that looked older, so I eventually settled on sd. The sculpts were not set, but I have determined a sculpt as I go along--before purchasing the doll.

I tried to be a little more flexible in my doll collecting before entering the world of bjd, but became rather upset when I got too many dolls that looked alike with very similar personalities and styles. I have tried to be more careful in this hobby, as I would prefer to have a collection of dolls that I like, and feel that they are too expensive to be wrong about!

Who knows though. I'm not the most self controlled person ever, especially with dolls.

 

When I first got Hana, around 9 years ago (omg), I didn't plan. I just liked the sculpt and chose wig and clothes of styles I liked. When she arrived home that a story and concept started to form. But when I got Dante one year later I knew I wanted them to be part of the same story and had an idea for his personality.

Now I have a plan for the remaining ones, a long time passed, and I know their personality and universe well. I would like to rewrite it and expand with new characters and the sculpts are being chosen with concepts in mind. Of course I'm picking sculpts I love but also already with ideas of what I will do with them. So everything is much more organized.

I don't think there's a right way, everyone is different and what work for one person won't work for another. People need to do what feel right for them and that's it.

 

I definitely bought my first BJD thinking that she would be my first and last, so I never planned a doll family. Now that I'm considering buying more, I am slowly formulating character background, personality, and outfits before I buy more.

 

When I first joined the hobby I only planned to get tinies. I wanted a horde of them! Just a little army of cute tinies. Now, I have two tinies, a YoSD, an MSD, and one SD. I also have 3 floating heads. I never ever wanted heads or bodies, only full dolls. Doll plans never work out with me, lol. I just roll with it now.

 

Only one doll that I currently own is a shell for a previously created character and there are a few more in my wishlist, but most of them created their own personae. I try not to buy dolls that don't speak to me and give me a sense of who they would be if I brought them home, but that's my only real buying consideration when it comes to planning out which dolls to buy and which not to.

 

Event and extra heads have been my undoing. XD I had some pretty set doll plans, and those got unraveled the first time I got an extra head with a doll. Almost every extra head or event head has ended up staying with me, unplanned or not. I've given up on trying to stick to a plan and accepting that if I really fall in love with a sculpt (which doesn't happen as often as one might think), then they are meant to be here for whatever reason.

 

I had a 'gist of an idea' for my "doll family"... I've got back into being able to read books again (before eBooks and my being able to afford a reader... I went nealy 10 years not reading 'books'). But when I did get back in I also got into a new genre 'romance' and more specifically 'regency' romances... I found myself wanting to turn book characters into dolls.

My first doll "Marauder" was like a composite of the 'type' of hero's I was loving in books. I bought him so fast it made my head spin lol. Then I found a company I adore, great for me disastrous for my wallet ><... THEN that company found my weakness (piratey, rogue types of a comparable era...) So the company half dictated my buying so far so I could get all the great outfits and etc my dolls would need to 'play book characters'...

My doll just need to fit an image of a type of character since I could not possibly shell even just the lead couples from the books >< ONE series has 14 books in it . But then there are the dolls that beg to come home for me to find a place to 'fit them into' LOL. I'm still new enough in the hobby that my 'doll family' is not fully planned as I feel my way around it... Some things are like certain dolls for specific needs... But more and more 'unplanned ones' on the way... the BID in my sig.... never crossed my mind but she started writing her own story the day I ordered her... which I did to get limited stuff... not for the doll itself O_o

So my family is about half planned and the rest seem to "tell me" what's what lol

 

I don't plan my collection, other than to say that i will only ever get one doll from any one company. I don't have much room to display or to store, and like to display them all individually as they would not work well sat together as they are too ecclectic. My tastes evolve and change all the time and so planning is futile for me!