Price Aside, what intimidated you about BJDs

Then: Stringing

Now:…stringing
(and now also yellowing. I’m afraid to get certain resin colors in fear of significant color change)

 

Best cure for that is to educate yourself about what causes yellowing and fading and about different companies and their history of how their colours change over time. That way you can make educated decisions and you know what to expect and there will be less need for fear.
A slight tonal shift over time is unavoidable, but it's unusual that it goes as far as to beome unsightly. My oldest doll is well over a decade old and she has gone from a stark paper white to slightly off white, for example. If I didn't say she used to be lighter, no one would ever guess she had changed at all.
Uneven and and drastic changes can often be prevented by making smart decisions for display and storage.

Radical colour changes such as the old Iplehouse Tan turning green (due to red pigments not being as light fast as they are today) or the now (in)famous "Beauty Green" (due to oxidization) are not common and even less so in more recent years, as the materials are better understood and casting techniques constantly improving. Not to say that it's entirely impossible, but it is extremly rare.
So by all means, be aware, but don't let it limit your enjoyment of the hobby.

 

for me I think it's maintenance and yellowing that were most intimidating - and restringing tbh. I already managed to chip a tiny bit off of my boys wrist when adding kips ( I didn't hold onto the hand as well as I should have, and the hook snagged on the resin) and it has me paranoid about next time lol.... hopefully won't have to think about that again for a long time yet.
my boy is very new, so I'm still in the discovery phase for a lot of stuff, too. I did so much research but actually doing things with a real doll has certainly changed up some of the things I was worried about vs things I hadn't considered prior to receiving him!
but for the most part it's a lot less intimidating now that I'm getting some hands on experience.

 

An item that is a deadly combo of large, heavy, expensive (plus customs), fragile, and made-to-order, travelling across the globe after months of waiting for it to get made... It's so stressful.

 

When I started, I was in awe by all the artistry involved in the hobby. Loved all the custom face-ups. Eventually, I bought a blank doll head and a cheap one for practice, figuring I'd give it a try. A decade later... said head is still blank, and the practice one looks terrible.

It's a bit intimidating, seeing all this great art stuff, because I can't really contribute. But it doesn't bother me much: I'm happy just collecting and looking at everyone else's awesome projects.

In the beginning, I used to be really, really scared of yellowing. But after 10+ years my dolls look fine to me. I guess keeping them in a dark space really works. (Still a bit scared, so I won't ever change their storage.)

 

@brickcat It's a bit hypocritical of me because I'm getting new dolls with faceups done, but when it comes to other people's dolls I always end up liking the ones that look like they have a history of being owned by someone the best. The squeaky clean professional side of the hobby is great, but the dolls I love seeing the most always show trial-and-error, restoration efforts, custom jobs, sometimes even damage or defects. My favorite doll photos were obviously taken with a phone.
Doesn't mean I like faceups scribbled in with a sharpie, just that love and dedication have a presence of their own even when the end results aren't as polished as what you see on the internet.

 

The posability! When I first started, I was enamored with the dolls with strange sculpts, like Doll Chateau dolls, or Island Doll's Alice, and while I quickly got over the price and fragility because a friend had introduced me to the hobby, what I was NOT expecting was how kicky or floppy or just plain difficult to pose these dolls could be. I was used to Monster High, and the fact that sometimes these ones couldn't even sit was really discouraging. I probably would have quit entirely if my Dearmine girl wasn't so well engineered, or if I hadn't found vinyl dolls in time.
Nowadays I'm very careful with which resins I pick up. They have to really wow me, and I have to take a close look at how they're engineered before I'll even consider them...which is why I seem to go for small or animal resins, these days, because they're sturdier and less likely to fall and freak me out. Modding magnets into their feet (an idea I got from Obitsu dolls!) has also helped immensely - at least now I'm confident they can stand upright!

 

Makes sense to me! I kind of feel the same, actually. I don't just appreciate the perfect/pretty stuff.

I guess it's easier to see the good in other people's work. Love and dedication, as you put it, really do shine through. (My own work makes me focus on the flaws too much, but I'm always happy with the factory face-up.)

 

Now that I have one, it's definitely fear of damage. Today I was changing eyes and while I did make sure to be over somewhere soft, I realized my thumb was squeezing on one of the ears while I was pushing the eye putty in, and I got the cold sweats (I had moved my thumb away from the cheek's face-up a second before). Then while I was trying to close the gaps in the eyes and adjust the line of sight I felt the "grind" against the resin and realized I was pushing too hard. I got really paranoid that I might have cracked something. I am rationally aware there's a ton of pressure from string tension going over much thinner pieces but I constantly expect to see cracks and resin chips flying as soon as I handle her with a little more force. I can't wait until this feeling goes away, which is partly why I decided to remove the head and change the eyes on day 2 even if I really didn't feel like it.

 

Ok so mine was just buying in at all. I always have buyers hesitation so the traditional pre-order system constantly lead to me never buying a doll. Ive got to have weeks to think, it has to be right and I never owned a bjd so how was I meant to know if I would like them? The magic of the second hand market allowed me to find project dolls and sculpts. Found out I do indeed love bjd’s

 

Restringing dolls. I haven't done it with any of my dolls yet, but I know I will need to eventually. It's also the reason why I avoid certain dolls. I see all the extra parts and joints they have for better posability, which is great, but then I think about how difficult it might be the restring them.

 

As a new collector, the major concern for me is decision paralysis over too many aspects of customization. Like do I buy this wig or that one, these cheaper clothes or that gorgeous expensive full set, that sculpt or this other one? Will I still love this doll once I have it, or will I end up disappointed with some aspect of it and instead find myself drooling after a new sculpt that shows up?

Hopefully the longer I go with the hobby, the easier this will get for me. (Also not spending too much early on and overdoing things is legitimately a worry.)

I probably don't know enough yet to be afraid of restringing, but I'm sure my time for that will arrive, lol. Or else I naively assume my crafty husband can handle that for me, which is hopefully something he doesn't mind doing. But he does woodworking and some blacksmithing for fun, so I suspect he'd find the physics of restringing a fun change from what he usually does.

 

Wigs and faceups! I'm still learning

 

This is going to sound strange but, buyer's remorse. I have had several other hobbies where I've made impulse purchases and regretted it. I've gotten a lot better, and the price helps stop me from impulse purchasing. But I've been afraid of getting a doll and then realizing I don't like the hobby.

 

Restringing sounds terrifying. Especially my doll with a ton of joints. I worry that I would put something back incorrectly and cause stress fractures in the resin. I hope I don't have to restring her for a long long time.
I also get intimidated by taking "nice" photos of my dolls. I am not the best photographer and sometimes worry my photos "aren't good enough". What does that even mean!? LOL. I always try to remember that as long as I am having fun, that's all that matters.
Lastly, I am also very scared of breaking a finger. The fingers are so long and thin, I worry they could easily get bumped and break off!

 

Kind of related to the price, but I thought since they cost so much they would also be super fragile. I was also not sure how I would display them (I was use to seeing mostly 60cm+ dolls). Now that I have one and discovered the MSD size, that isn't a concern for me anymore. They are just the right size to display and I'm not at all afraid to handle my doll.

 

Strangely fingers don't scare me at all. Even when I'm using jointed hands which are definitely fragile I just feel like being a little more careful. Actually the ears scare me more because I tend to push on them sometimes when I'm putting on a wig or taking off the head. But when I accidentally touch a sealed area around the brow with my comb or a finger? TRAGEDY. HORROR. DEFCON 1

 

The cost and size, at first. As a kid, my fav doll size were the 6" Sailor Moon dolls and other small dolls like that; I kinda had to get pushed into mature 1/6 scale because I wanted to make OCs and at the time, Obitsu and Volks offered blank mature 1/6 dolls whereas good and accessible 1/12 offerings from stuff like Figma, Revoltech, etc didn't exist yet. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do SD or MSD and I didn't want to blow a ton of money on a size I didn't want (especially since the head I've been considering for an OC of mine wasn't available in MSD until late last year). Occasionally seeing BJDs at meetups and cons didn't really help push me one way or another either - I needed to really be able to just interact with/cuddle/sew for a doll on my own time and terms rather than just kinda seeing them for a couple hours.
But then I realized I could 3d print an SD, and that if I made him a pumpkin man, then he's a Halloween decoration if I hated his size. I don't hate the size, but I kinda hate how much fabric it takes to sew for that size and he's still big enough that I'm not wild about the size, so that helped me finally land on MSD being the main size. I still like him though, and with my crew being mostly fantasy creatures so far, him being bigger than the rest works fine.

Now I mostly worry about ears and faces getting damaged; one's got elf ears and my DollZone MiYou's fox ears are magnetic and sometimes fall off/get knocked off.

 

YES! YES! YES!

 

-They're relatively delicate sculptures. Staining and chips and breakage can be common, so I am always paranoid about where I keep them. Can't having them sitting down on dyed cloth for long, etc.

-ANY sort of modding chops down the resale value by lots. So I am always put off from extreme modding my dolls

-No garage kits whatsoever this is what gets me the most. All other customization hobbies I participate have garage kit culture... just not here somehow?? It frustrates me lots. I would be a much more active buyer if companies offered garage kits. They're great, affordable and raise the bar on creativity for artists

-The recent aesthetic for male bjds is big buff muscle man. Not my taste, so I've been out on a lot of recent body releases

-The communities can be a little.... strict. That's all I'll say on the matter.

-Importing drama. Gods... where to begin? It's always a stress everytime. Until the doll is in your hands, it is at mercy of whatever warehouse person bounces and kicks the doll box around. Sometimes I'll refuse to buy from a company solely based on the shipping methods they employ (even if I might love the dolls)

-Like others mentioned, I also really dislike stringing a doll. It's such a hassle and kinda hard to do alone. I always postpone it the most I can