Preference: Permanently Sculpted on or Attached With Magnets/Joint?

With the amount of people that mod elf ears on/off their dolls, I think having easily changeable ones are a great option. Personally I would rather make easily adjustable magnetic parts for my dolls then mod them - ears and tails are a lot easier to get clothes and wigs around that way.

 

Honestly, if it's parts I'd like to remove often, i.e. it makes dressing easier, then magnets. Otherwise solid because glue and magnets wear out.

So for small, non-conflicting ears solid is fine. Otherwise, I'd like magnets, or maybe just have a hole and string them through the head or something like that!
Articulated cat and elf ears would be really cool.

 

I prefer removable parts. You might love a sculpt but want human ears instead of elf ears. I have a Doll Love Lenon with magnetic elf ears. He is beautiful but, those ears fall off easily.

 

Considering that I hate magnetic faceplates and hands (due to how easily they get knocked off in this house), I definitely don't want magnetic ears either. But I can understand they would be a nice option for some people.

 

I don't like magnetic parts at all, and if I had the option, none of my dolls would have them. They fall off way too easily and magnets sometimes fall out, and it's just more frustration than I care to deal with. For things like ears or horns...or penises...I prefer them sculpted on. For things like wings or tails, strung would be a really nice option! They need to move for dressing and posing the doll, but magnetic just falls off too easily (though Dearmine has some of the best magnets I've had and they do a pretty good job of staying on most of the time). Besides, depending on how they'd be strung on, like maybe not part of the main stringing but separately, you could skip the part entirely if you didn't want it attached.

 

I'm not a fan of magnetic parts, either. They're fiddly, easily lost and never as stable as they need to be. Plus, as already mentioned, a lot of those magnets will degrade over time, making all of those problems WORSE as the doll and/or part age.

 

I like magnets for feet and hands, but everything else I aestheticly prefer sculpted on. It's not the ease of use that sells me on magnets though. Companies that make magnetic parts seem to make more interesting option parts. If they were offered in solid construction I'd be happy with either.

 

I have one doll with removable human and elf ears. I am constantly fearing they'll get lost. She's a human character, however, so if she only had elf ears permanently, I'd either have to mod or (knowing me) not buy the sculpt at all.
That being said, I'd still love to have a doll with magnetic hands

 

I love that my RML R20J heads have human ears and two differnt sizes of elf ears, but hate that the attachment is to plug a thin stick of rein into holes in the sides of the head. The plug-in bits snap so easily. Some sort of magnettic connection that isn't reliant of a relatively thin piece of resin would be far better.

One of my dolls with magnetic hands option is great except for the fact that one of her hands got damaged, and the company no longer exists so I can't get a replacemnt so have had to swap one hand back to the non magnetic version (but I made several of her outfits with narrow cuffs because I could take off the magenetic hands to dress her).

Teddy

 

I like magnets for small parts that are not necessarily going to be holding up the weight or supporting the doll as a whole. Like face plates/backs, hands, horns, or other small pieces that wouldn't hold the doll's weight in anyway -- or hold weight other than the part itself. I am a fan of swappable hands, because I am a huge 1:6 enthusiast, but only have one BJD that has magnetic hands. It's a pain in the gut with him, because his hands are small enough to be 1:6 scale, so there's no much room for any thing else to hold the hands on there, beside the weak magnet. Whenever I want him to be holding something, it has to be weightless, or the hands will pop right off. The magnets are not strong enough, so it is a bit of a downer. However, I think that with a bit more room in there for something else to help hold the hands in place, it would be a dream come true -- it makes un/dressing so much easier and also (obviously) switching hands out. I'm not a fan of S hooks for hands because it makes the writs joints very aesthetically unpleasant to me, so I would rather have magnetic hands for all my dolls, but only if they are not going to suffer from them falling right off, all the freaking time. I haven't had any trouble with any of my dolls that have magnetic faces/head-caps. I much prefer those to the old-school S-hooks on the head-caps mechanisms. I don't own any dolls that wear horns or other optional parts, so I can't say for sure, but I would imagine it would be much easier and more aesthetically pleasing to have magnets on those as well.

My one doll with the magnetic hands does have a lot of extra magnets all over his body and head, because Fairyland was planning on releasing a bunch of optional parts for the line of dolls he came from. Unfortunately, the line wasn't popular when it was released; it didn't sell well, so they discontinued it. I would have loved getting a bunch of optional magnetic parts for him. Now it's just a pain in the gut when I sew for him, because my needles/pins get stuck to his back magnets all the flipping time. DX

 

I prefer the magnets. I like the freedom to be able to change things up

 

I like magnets for big ears, horns or even faceplates, but I don't see much reason for magnets in hands. It feels like they fall off way more often then you'd actually want to change them.