Purpose of heel feet?

They're usually missing an ankle joint which makes wearing heels so much easier! Vinyl dolls are not strung and can therefore hold poses better on average than resin dolls, especially their ankles and wrists.

 

Just to quickly clarify, resin dolls do typically have an ankle joint with flat feet as default. Resin dolls are often sold with special lower leg parts that are streamlined with a high heeled foot, which provides stability in the ankle joint. These are usually referred to as heeled legs to differentiate them from high heeled feet, which are also separate parts that have a higher arch (and sometimes narrower toes) to accommodate high heeled shoes. The drawbacks of just a high heeled foot part vs. a high heeled leg are that they're sometimes more unstable. Vinyl dolls like DD have a slightly higher range of motion in their ankle joints so they can accommodate a high heeled shoe without needing special parts.

 

For high heels it is often better to have "high heel feet option parts" because the feet will fit and look better in them. Some companies offer just the foot as a heel option (like Maskcat) others offer legs with frozen ankles (like Volks SDGr), then you can even find some companies who offer both options.

When talking about frozen ankles (no ankle joint), it can come down to stability or 'looks' preference.

While some, like mustbeMissa noted above, prefer the non-jointed ankle high heel legs, I personally prefer high heel feet parts. Changing out the foot vs the entire leg is much easier and my Maskcats have no stability issues in heels (some brands do though. . .)

 

Just to add, sometimes the foot shape is slightly different as well. For example, my Souldoll flat feet for my girls are somewhat like boat paddles, they're really flat and kinda fat. The heeled feet are a bit slimmer and look more like feet. Its actually easier to fit them into a lot of different shoes, whereas the flatter feet are harder to fit into most shoes.

 

I own a doll with heeled feet and flat feet. The heeled feet just look nicer on open-toed shoes, and its nicer to have the option of swapping. Some of the shoes I have for her are a bit more delicate, so I'm not keen on testing my luck by forcing it onto a flat foot.

 

okay, i got curious and took a few photos of the feet i had:

comparison:

so the heeled foot is quite a bit larger than the flat foot, and at much more of an angle. I was a bit surprised by the difference side by side!

Heeled foot in shoe:

It went in nice and smoothly. No difficulty placing it in. The shoe fits nicely onto the foot.

Flat Foot in shoe:

It couldn't go in. The front of the shoe was not shaped to allow the foot inside. The back could not go over the foot's heel either.

 

I have bought the high heel feet in the past but they have lain unused in the box because all the high heel shoes I have fit perfectly well on flat feet, look fine, and stand fine, so it's not been worth going to the bother of changing the feet when I want to put the doll in heels.

That being said, none of the heels I have for my dolls are open style, which would make a difference to how good/bad they look on flat feet.

Teddy

 

Vinyl dolls weigh so much less than a resin doll. I’d imagine if they don’t fit into their shoes perfectly, it affects them less than a 6lb resin doll with weak ankles that’s fighting its own weight to stay upright.

I want to add that there are different kinds of heeled shoes for resin BJDs—older heeled shoes had a lower arch, and could accommodate the flat feet on dolls like the old Delfs or my Peakswoods girls who have a decent range of motion in their ankles. (At the time I think they were standardized to the SD13 heeled foot.) Most heeled shoes are now more standardized to SD16 proportions though, and that means a much steeper arch (because SD16s have a dedicated heel leg that caught on with other companies) that it’s much harder to get flat feet into. (And even if you get them in, it might be at a weird bent angle that makes it impossible for the doll to stand.)

I have several dolls that I just get the heeled legs on, because it’s what fits best in my shoe collection, but it’s dependent on what you want to put your girls in.

 

I try try get a heeled option whenever I can. I think that the curve of the heeled feet just looks much nicer even if they're bare.

 

Usually it makes heeled shoes easier for them to wear, but some people like the aesthetic of the missing ankle joint or the more shaped feet

 

Thank you for asking this question!
For anyone who knows I just wanted to ask as I'm just learning about heeled legs and feet myself.

If you're getting heeled feet does anyone think it's necessary to get heeled Legs? Is it genuinely more stable or primarily just an aesthetic choice?

Also to put on the legs you'd need to restring the doll correct Vs the feet you just switch via magnet or hook?

 

Heel legs are genuinely more stable because there’s no ankle to wiggle around when the doll stands. I’m biased towards them both for that and because they look good.

How you get heel legs on depends on the company. Some have a bar in the knees so the lower legs can be hooked on separately and others really only require that you unstrung part of the legs to swap out. It’s rare that you have to pull the whole doll apart for them. If you’re getting multiple pairs of legs you can usually ask that the company put the pair you want on when assembling the doll so it arrives in the configuration you want.

 

@Amet Thank you so much for clarifying for me!!! I'll keep that in mind as I order my new doll body. I love the look of heels but I hate going through the trouble of replacing parts so I'll definitely take your suggestion and ask that they build the doll with the heeled legs to start

 

I never gave heel feet a thought, one way or the other, but then I saw a pair of shoes that I fell madly in love with and HAD to have. I didn't even have a specific doll in mind for them, but I figured I'd just keep them as a collectible on their own, without using them on a doll. But then I got a doll which I knew would be perfect for those shoes. Trouble was, the shoes were high heels, and the doll had flat feet. So I ended up buying heel feet for her just so she could wear those shoes..