Scarring dolls. How come? Curiosity...

I originally gave Liam [DOD Tender Too head] scars just to practice doing them for a future doll [since as I didn't pay for him I had no problem about using him to experiment on. I also practicing maying an empty eye socket for a future character on him.] but he soon had a personality and a history. xD So, his missing eye and scars now have a meaning... And I'm not worrying about his value. I never planned to sell him before and now that he's more then just a spare head to use for testing I don't think I could sell him if I wanted to.

 

I have no special reason for giving my doll Pandora a scar over her eye.. I just thought it would look cool ^^ And it would be a reason she has one blind eye.

 

I think that scars symbolize strength and hope for the future, but appreciation for the past.

I have many scars all over my body (mostly healed over to the point where you can't see them anymore) and someday plan to get a doll and scar it as a way of embracing that part of my life.

 

i cannot answer this for anyone else, but i like scars because i find scars attractive in real life. my BF is a martial artist and has many and various scars that i absolutely LOVE, so naturally, i want my dolls to have them too. i have also always felt the need to protect needy people, thus liking amputee dolls and such.

 

I love how scars can really add to a character and done right on a doll they can look amazing. Sometimes they can add to the sexy factor, other times to the fragility of a dolls look, etc. It adds unique aspects to their personalities. I have plenty of scars myself and just about everyone I know has a few so it almost adds a sense of realism or life to a doll by having that 'imperfection'. I'd love to have a doll with some scarring oneday.

 

Well, the only doll I have with a scar is my Lati who came with his foot that way - there's a big uneven gouge in it, probably a casting flaw. Lati sent me a replacement for it, but while it was on it's way I started thinking... A lot of people with scarred characters have some kind of a grandiose over-dramatic drama associated with their character's scars that's "a big part of their character/past/etc" and that is so overdone.

So I decided to add that scar to Russel's character. He split his foot on a sharp rock when he was little while hiking with his new big boy friends and didn't tell anyone because "real men don't whine". For several days. It ended up infected and left an ugly scar in his foot. Very bland considering his "normal" day-to-day life, but I like it because it definitely adds to his character without unnecessary dramatics and hand-waving. His replacement foot still sits in it's wrappings. So I guess my reason is "the doll came that way and it ended up as part of its character".

I have a whole bunch of other characters who may have scars, but they're not really... scars. In fact I don't really know what to call them. So I won't talk about those.

 

I haven't had any dolls with scars yet, but I love them and think they're beautiful, if it's not taken too far. I've seen 'horror mods' that just gross me out, but I'm not crazy for the current zombie fad anyway...

On a real person, I'd feel bad for them, and it's kind of horrifying because you know it's real sensate flesh and feelings and experience and they'd probably opt *not* to have the scar(s) if they had a choice. But of course that's another matter.

I've always wanted to have a beautiful girl character with a scar through the eye, because it'd be a symbol for some kind of psycho-social trauma, yet I'd want to render it tastefully, if such a thing were possible.

Lots of things about dolls are necessarily freakish, though. People wouldn't really want those scooped nose-bridges, or hyper-huge eyes or painfully sharp chins either. It's all part of the wonderful non-literal-ness (uh what word should I have actually used there? Sorry I'm tired!) of dolls.

Raven

 

No angst or deeper meaning for me, I just think they look cool XD

 

How many people do you (the hypothetical, all-of-us-here kind of "you") know who have no scars? Almost everyone who's lived any kind of interesting life has a scar or two, whether it's a mark on their eyebrow from running into a tree, a line from a surgery they survived, or thirty-odd marks beneath their clothing from a slightly disfiguring illness?
As humans our "battle scars" are a map of our experience, so I like to give some of my dolls the same touch of reality. My Lir has a raised line on his jaw from his pet raven, Scratch. Incidentally, that's how the raven got its name.
Scars tell stories.

Also, it has been mentioned in this thread that many characters have scars that are usually artistically placed and almost always have something to do with the character's...*dramatic pause* "past" -Dun dun dahhhh.
The older I get and the more I learn to accept the scars I have myself, the less appealing I find this overdone tactic. Scars in comic books and anime might be "cool" but real scars are almost never neatly sliced over one eye without damaging it or whatever, and they hurt. They're a mark from something the person endured and survived. They can ruin the way other people perceive you, sometimes indelibly. And they almost never result from magic shards of crystal or the blade of the man who killed your father/village/girlfriend etc. Usually they're the afterimage of a painful mistake or a trying ordeal, and I personally prefer to try not to trivialize that, so when I give a character a scar, it's not there to "look cool".

 

I had one heavily scarred doll before (Part of his character, he was a demon lord thing who had been careless when he was younger) and when I sold him, I actually had no trouble even though both his head and chest were scarred with permenent scars, as they were very well done.

His scars were usually the first thing people noticed in his chara, so I thought he really should have them...

 

I guess I'm in the minority here but I'm not fond of scarring on dolls. I guess I prefer to keep my dolls' "scars" mostly like my own, on the inside.

 

I'm not into scars myself, I never found them pleasing to the eye. But I must admit Cecil the Scarface is really cool. If I had the cash I wouldn't mind owning one of his versions.

 

I think scars can "look cool" if done well, but really wasn't too huge on having more than maybe one on my own dolls. One of the dramatic "doll scar" type where they are always over one eye or something like that, anyway. Then the MNF Scar Shiwoo came out, then the Scar Breakaway. So I'm having two of those. No big mystical story behind them, they're pirates and got them in a fight. Not with each other, even. The Scar Shiwoo I loved because hey, it's a Shiwoo, and I immediately thought "there's my female pirate!". The Breakaway I would happily have gotten with or without the scar, since it's a Breakaway. The scar arm I have coming will be going on another character. He may end up with a big story behind it depending how it ends up looking, but at the moment I'm considering it a dramatic body mod.

Sure, the over-the-eye scars are way overdone - but we have no problem with cliches here. We have pirates, after all.

 

Ehhh, okay, re-reading my post, I said nothing new.

 

I'm thinking of maybe putting some 'healed' scars on one of my future boys because it would fit his character but about what you said (four years ago haha) about reselling dolls, if I saw a scarred doll I'd probably be able to bond with it more easily because it would already have a strong personality, so if anything it would make me want to buy it more.

 

I don't think I would ever be able to mod a doll for scars myself, but buying a doll with the scars already incorperated into the mold is no problem for me. I saw the MNF Breakaway and immediately created a character and backstory for him that would allow for the scars while not breaking my liking of "pretty" dolls.

If I had a character in mind with scars when the sculpt did not already have them, I would probably chose to shell a different character instead.

 

I think scars can be really helpful in portraying the characters, as others have said. I don't think I'll ever do a scar-over-the-eye thing since it's done sooo much, but I have more than a couple of doll charries who don't mind getting their hands dirty (and one was a mercenary) so the scars would be natural on them. Scars can be seen a little like tattoos sometimes, except people don't willingly get them. They both *generally* tell stories though, be they simple or not.

 

Sometimes, scars are just aesthetically pleasing. I think it's really as simple as that. Maybe they also do add to a character, but more often than not, they look good and fit the look the owners going for. Or at least they look good to the owner, I mean. XD

 

To me, it's all personal taste. I have and plan to have more amputee dolls, scarred or with various disabilities. I just find this very attractive. Don't ask me why, trought, because i don't know either.
But i make my "doll world" to suit what *i* like, and this is what i like.