Removing parts to get clothes on?

With the exception of Lord Mandali, I won't take off body parts for clothes. It's too much of a pain. There's too many beautiful clothes that can be put on without that trouble to dink with the ones that can't.

Lord Mandali, I could be talked into taking his head off, because it's easy. (CP MNF El) But hands and feet are right out. Again, too many beautiful clothes that are easy to put on to dink with ones that aren't.

 

Basicaly I had to removes my girls arms once to get on a dress I made her. I ended up making a velco opening in the back

 

Lol...Sometimes i need to remove my boys heads to put on a shirt XD But i agree that it's too much pain (Yes,i'm too lazy for that :p)

 

i prefer the snaps or velcro simply because of ease. Dressing an SD for me is a task sometimes...and dressing a tiny is even more diffcult! Oh boy Motoko doesnt get changed very often because of it.

I dont mind say removing Ringo's head cause he has the new delf system, which is a piece of cake...but really i dislike removing his wig to get to his head, to get into his head...because theres always the whole "opps i messed up his wig." "opps i smacked an eye and now it needs to be re-aligned." By the time i'm done re-dressing him its taken just as long to re-string him. lol!

It takes me longer to dress Ringo then it does to dress myself. O.o; (And women by nature have more undergarments to wear...^_~ So generally it takes longer)

 

Nooo...some people are really hardworking and don't mind the removal of body parts to dress their dolls. But I always aim for convenience and I refuse to have to remove my doll's head or hands to pull on a shirt. The easier the better.

 

I'd rather remove a head then have a wide neck or closure up the back on most shirts. It's worth the trade off for me b/c it makes the clothes look more realistic when worn. I woudn't have a zipper up the back of my turtle-neck sweater so why should one of my dolls?

 

And never the twain shall meet . Which only goes to show you can't please all the people all the time, but that's another discussion .

Yes and yes. First, doll heads, even on the most pinheaded of dolls, are generally larger in proportion to their necks and bodies than human heads. And I'm not just talking my beloved melon headed anime-styled dolls - the newer, smaller headed dolls still have greater than human head to neck proportions.

This is generally because it looks better in doll scale. Without going into a long explanation that will wander off-topic, you can't just shrink proportions down and have them look proper - light is reflected differently when you have smaller surfaces and even though the proportions are right, some things (like noses and necks) can look hideously out of scale.

Second, we're using human-scale fabrics for doll clothes, and they have human scale stretch. If you look at a really small piece of tshirt fabric, it really doesn't stretch all that much. It stretches a little. But when you take a bigger piece and pull, you get a larger absolute stretch because all those little stretches add up.

You need a certain amount of fabric to give enough stretch to get over a human's head - which also has a wider neck beneath it for the collar to lay around. Now with the doll, which has a bigger head to neck ratio, there simply isn't enough fabric in a neckline which will lay properly around the skinny neck to give enough stretch to go over the doll's larger head. Unless you end up with the outsized neckline.

Third....there's the matter of faceups. When we humans pull tshirts over our heads, a lot of time the front collar just slides right on down the nose and over our faces. We don't mind - we close our eyes and pull. But dolls have painted faceups that you don't want fabric pulling over. (This is why we put on our makeup afterwards!)

I hope this has all made sense!

Marcia.

 

I've had my boys since October, and I'm still a new BJD mommy--I'm not entirely comfortable taking any parts off to put clothes on. Sometimes putting the clothes on is a little ordeal in and of itself, so I don't really want to take the head or hands off. I've never even attempted it yet, and the only thing that's made me really consider taking anything off was when I changed my boys' eyes. That was really hard to do with their heads still attached, but I managed. Next time though, I will take the extra effort and just remove the head--but it's a scary thing for me to even think about doing the first time.

 

I admit I like the convenience of snaps and velcro, but I prefer clothes to look real, even if it means taking the doll apart to a degree to get her/him into the clothes.

 

I prefer if I didn't have to take off any parts to put on clothes but I've done it a few times for t-shirts.

 

With my big dolls, I'll just remove hands to get jewelry on. Both have awkward enough head and S-hook setups its really too much of a bother (which sucks for me since they are both getting repainted soon). With my mini, its no problem to remove his head due to the one-touch system.

 

Heres a reason I like faceplates. I do take those off for clothes, but not heads or hands.

 

I won't remove body parts for clothes. Too lazy.

 

Taking off hands and feet are ok. I've done that many times already. But having to take the head off? That's too much trouble. =T

 

Thanks for the explanation, Marcia. I noticed that "human scale stretch" thing, but I thought I was imagining it. My mind is not a technical one so it is good to have some technical back-up.

I've noticed that most (not all) people who don't mind taking off bits have dolls with designs that facilitate the taking off of parts...like pureskin Volks (one-touch system), Mini Fees and the newer Delf (head removal system). Which makes sense, doesn't it...I think if all my dolls were oldskin MSDs like my Hewitt, with no easy system for hand-changing, I would definitely balk at taking off a hand just to get a tight sleeve on. It would be waaaay too much of a hassle.

 

I won't buy any clothing that would require removing any part of the doll in order to put it on. I am too scared that I would mess up the face up, or that I would get the head and/or hands off and not be able to put them back properly.

Oh, not that it would really matter but I do prefer snaps to velcro. Snaps give the garment a nicer look. Velcro doesn't seem to do that as well. But I will buy clothing with either. Buttons are fine also but can really be a pain. I spent a long time buttoning a Volks shirt for my SD13 boy. But I have to say that the Volks shirt is just superb workmanship and that buttons really add to the realism.

Lastly, why can't they make clip on ties for the dolls? I put the tie on my SD13 boy but I have no idea if it's tied correctly. My husband could probably do it but I just know he doesn't want to help me dress my dolls. LOL

 

I don't mind doing it with my newest boy, because he's got a Luts type-2 body and his head comes off with about a second's fiddling. With my other three boys, though, I absolutely refuse to remove body-parts for the sake of clothing. If I buy something that won't go on any other way, either it gets left somewhere where no-one wears it, or else it goes to my type-2 boy ^^

 

I prefer real buttons with large doll sizes, but for minis I greatly appreciate velcro. The kind Doll Heart used on one of my outfits was a thin kind that only stuck to itself and didn't look bad at all.

 

My Volks boys all have that lovely one touch system, so I don't mind heads/hands/feet coming off for clothes - same with my YoTenshi. My B-El, Bobo, and oldskin SD10 on the other hand... Oh gods X_X My F-08 girl has had her head sanded down so the head cap doesn't really fit right and it takes a lot of effort to get it to rest, just so without popping in some weird direction and she doesn't have S-hooks, so hands/feet are a real issue for me. I'd never be able to disassemble her in any way. This means I try mostly for corsets and elaborate knot work, looks just as real on her as any human sized counterpart. I don't have any hidden velcro for her shirts because she just doesn't wear T-shirts. XD