Poor body type representation in the doll community!

I'm lucky I can sew. While I'd like the option of chubby bodies, I can make fatsuits if I really wanted a plump doll. The question then would be getting a coordinating head. I have no experience with additive modifications, and would need to commission someone to alter a head for me.

 

I think it would be great if there were more body type options. I've noticed many comments on this thread saying that diverse/unconventionally attractive dolls aren't as desired as conventionally attractive dolls but I am curious if someone made a poll about doll body type preferences, how it would look. I myself would assume most people would want something on the more conventional side but it would be interesting to see what people actually want, be put into numbers.
Another thought I had is about individual artists(idk if this applies to large companies too, I'm still new to the hobby so I'm not sure how everything works still. Forgive me if I say anything incorrect ) making sculpts. If an artist really enjoys designing a certain body type, I feel like the quality wouldn't be as good if they branched out to please other people. I'm not saying artists shouldn't practice things they're not experienced with but if an artist isn't passionate about what they are making, then the quality will suffer greatly. These are just some thoughts I had but I am interested to see what other opinions or ideas people bring up about this topic.

 

This is a good idea, but the result would not be reliable. If this were something that Volks, for example, were to consider, then the would want to poll their domestic customer base in Japan. This will be more helpful for guiding them than a poll on from a foreign audience.

Another reason that a poll here would not be reliable is that many people may say that they would like to see more diverse body types on the market, but would they buy them? I suspect that, in general, people would not. If there were a huge untapped potential here, there let the first company to do it win the gold rush. But my strong suspicion is that there's only fool's gold to be found in this endeavor. And what's more is that the companies know this, which is why it's not being done.

 

Those grannies are amazing!!

But onto the question at hand,
like others have said, it's cost prohibitive for these small companies to all have such a large variety when they do not know if it will sell well.
Would I enjoy seeing the different types of bodies (and there are a few artisans that have made older/shorter/chubbier dolls)? Yes of course, but I also understand why it's not so widely available. Just makes it more special when you do come across one.

 

I think the vast majority of collectors and sculptors use bjd's to esacpe reality not recreate it. (Much like authors, readers, and movie-goers.) Which is why mythical beings and antro dolls sell well.

The fact of the matter is, for most of the world's cultures, the idealized woman is young, thin yet shapely, and young, muscular men. This is evidenced by hundreds of years of paintings and sculptures.

Beauty is easy to market and it's enjoyable to create. So most artists stick to standard beauty. Though niche artists do exist in all mediums! DXgirly sculpted her own bigger body and Isla dolls has chubbier anime girls, for example. And much like every other art, if there is something missing that you want to see, create it! Or commission it lol

 

Because bjd's are artistic collectables and "art" like anime and pop art which take in mind market and sales / profits and not pure art like the impressionists or expressionists of 18-20th century were. They are not ready to starve or sell less just to fullfil an artistic vision that's why.

 

This is interesting because I feel my dolls are not the skinny ones. Mine have big butts and big busts. This of course means that I have to buy clothing from the company that makes the doll (sartoriaJ). If they did not make the clothing, I probably would have stopped at one body from them because I don't want my dolls naked on a shelf or in a box. I have also debated making a 'chubby suit' for one of my girls, just to add some girth around their waist....but then I don't have anything that would fit them so that has been put on the back burner for now.

But in the grand scheme of things, I am happy with the other options and ways that I can customize my doll within the limitation of offered bodies. It's all about the clothes for me, the makeup, the wigs, the eyes....the accessories. I find my focus isn't on the body necessarily, but how I can create a character or a feeling with the 'outside wrappings'

 

Go to any museum and look at women in Renaissance art—they’re beautiful, idealized figures who would be considered fat today and your eye might not even realize it because they’re presented in such a positive light. Too skinny meant you were ugly for hundreds of years.

If you want to say that today’s conventional beauty standards in X culture are young and thin? Sure. But it’s not always true, it’s something your own culture has drilled into your head as fact when in reality it’s just bias.

That said, I don’t think Asian ball jointed doll companies particularly care about this, but who knows? I just bought a doll that looks like a Botticelli painting from a Chinese sculptor who’s just really into it, so maybe a new body type will be some other person’s pet project some day.

 

Renaissance was one of many periods. The medieval art that came before depicted thin women. Artwork from the Enlightenment period and Victorian showed small waisted, shapely women. And that's just Europe. Paintings from Japan and Egypt show slender women. That's why I said most not all. The standards of thin are more extreme today, especially in Eastern countries where these dolls come from. But much of historical artwork does depict slender women.

 

People tend to ask for less idealized types of dolls but either tend to be in the vast minority or tend to not put their money where their mouth is because those types of dolls when made don't usually get much financial support. Doll artists either make what inspires them (in which case requests have no bearing) or what people are buying. When Soom started making dolls with fantasy and animal parts the reason other companies started doing the same is because so many people bought those dolls with fantasy parts. The doll in my avatar has an arm that's amputated halfway into the forearm (I modded it to be this way) I love him and I love this quirk but how many people would buy the same scarred stub? Probably not enough to justify a production line. Long story short if you want more of something you NEED to support those already doing that. If it becomes a popular trend other companies will take notice and follow suit. Once upon a time there were no muscular male dolls, only skinny androgynous ones but enough people bought the muscle boys coming out that it's become more common than the previous slim androgynous bodies.

 

As others have said, paying an artist or becoming one is another option. It may be the only option as companies are only going to produce what sells ne the variation in wants is too great. I’m sure someone out there wants minced beef Oreo’s but the company are never going to produce them for that person.

I’d love a male body that just doesn’t have super definition, six pack, cleft down the abs. As well as being broader & less long legged. I know this isn’t ‘idealised’ which is why I’m likely to go down the sculpting route, as I did with heads (because I like funny looking people who probably wouldn’t sell).

 

Yess I would like to see more older looking bjds!

 

I don't recall their name but there used to be someone who was selling custom bust parts for Dollfie Dreams. DDs are already soft vinyl but these parts were even softer for more realistic squishing behavior when dressed in revealing tops. Theoretically it could be possible to apply this principle to the rest of the torso or the upper arms/thighs on a vinyl doll for more realistic fat bodies but I don't know how this could be done on a traditional BJD that's held together by tension alone.

The future of more diverse and realistically flexible fat dolls may be outside the realm of traditional BJDs.

That being said, a lot of resin companies add details that have zero impact on the clothes sizing or engineering, and it would be pretty easy to just *not* add ribs or washboard abs to every sculpt. I'm trying to find a body for a floating head that belongs to a middle-aged dad bod kind of character and I'm so tempted to just get a ripped body and fill in the abs with Apoxie....

 

There have been many makers of squishy boobs for vinyl frame dolls. They are made from silicone. There are silicone dolls already and that kind of doll would be more friendly to realistic moveable plumpness, but if you have any idea the upkeep of silicone, and the lint, my god the lint, you may not enjoy the outcome.

This talk about diversity in bjd is almost as old as time now, and on that note, I personally think the hobby has come by leaps and bounds. There is an incredible amount of variety as opposed to ten years ago and earlier, and yes, it's still biased towards fairer skin, certain styles of Eurocentric ideal faces and lean/slim/low fat bodies, but in this case I have to see the state as a glass half full.
As a person who does sew I have been making my dolls non-skin-tight clothes forever, because the super slim/ super stylized curves at best (in my own collection) are not the aspects of the dolls I'm interested in highlighting. If that's what you love, no problem, but of course, it's best to try to understand that everyone here is coming from different cultural and personal backgrounds and has different motives and interests with their dolls.
To create dolls that represented something I wanted with what is available I would sew the loose clothes, sometimes on dolls with a large frame or large chest, and after styling them this way I thought they had a very "average" body type, not so thin and idealized, which was what makes me happy.
My main contribution here I wanted to be that the dolls available are actually getting way more diverse in the long term, probably largely because of the demand within the hobby, and to encourage you to find workarounds in the meantime if possible. I think a lot of us have done stuff like that and it's been fun to see that.

 

I tend to see more unique or plus sized dolls like that being made by independent artists who post them and do preorders through instagram. I think it's a good place to start looking for those who are interested. For me I would love to have some 65-70cm adult proportioned/broader shouldered male doll bodies that are skinny rather than muscular. There are some that are skinny AND muscular but not what I'm looking for in this case.

 

It seems like there are a surprising amount of people who are offended, defensive or upset by the suggestion that other people want more diversity.

Diverse, interesting, and unique body types certainly sell when they reach the right audience. Puyoodoll and their chubby bear girls defined an entire subgenre (with mountains of specifically tailored clothes) of chubby anime dolls with thick limbs, thick waists, and chubby hands and feet. Pear shaped dolls with large bottoms and thighs are hugely popular right now. The skeletal, lanky, definitely-not-the-ideal-man A-body-03 from Doll Chateau are staples in the hobby despite being exactly the kind of body you'd expect to be "niche".

Doll companies also take financial chances on niche projects that likely wouldn't sell well quite frequently- Look at Dream Valley and their parade of weird, huge, bulky, wonderful -taur dolls that most people wouldn't be able to buy simply due to how large and cumbersome they are. Look at Miracle Doll's huge, rabid-looking muscular bunny man... AND the follow-up weasel man. Huajing Doll's creepy crab women? Every bloody or rotting or horror themed doll?

The idea that "nobody wants these dolls but you, and even if they did they wouldn't put their money where their mouth is" smacks of gaslighting to me. People DO want these dolls, they are frequently asking for them, AND they are often paying large sums for them when they are available.

The biggest obstacles to more diversity, in my opinion, seem to be stigma against ""imperfect"" bodies and sheer sculpting difficulty. Loose or chubby features are difficult to replicate with a hard medium, and they require extra skill to pull off convincingly. Unfortunately a lot of the newbie sculptors who are trying to sculpt these kinds of bodies out of necessity run into roadblocks because their skill level just isn't advanced enough to translate what they want to create into an actual doll. There's a reason many of the diverse dolls are heavily stylized (besides just that stylization is popular and appealing)- realistic details are very difficult to sculpt.

 

I think that non-idealized bodies may be harder to sculpt joints for ? I own a plus-size body (The Argodoll plus-size, which is also an idealized voluptuous body, but while I absolutely love, love it, it's undeniable that she's much harder to pose and is the least stable of all my bodies. But aesthetically speaking, it's perfectly to my standards, so it's fine by me! XD