Sculpts on social media vs IRL

Minifee Rin is a sculpt i adore when its other peoples dolls, But i can not see it as a part of my collection. The expression she has is too pouty for my current collection.

 

I've had to teach myself to look at the tag for each sculpt, not just the one account. It is possible to fall in love with the one doll, and not actually the sculpt. I've found a few times that I get distracted from the one I was searching for by another doll altogether, so clearly that one wasn't for me.

 

What you can do to avoid this: learn to look behind the faceup. Try to find blank photos of the doll in question. You can ask the company to send you blank straight and profile shots. Then you can see for yourself better (still no guarantee) whether you really like the sculpt.

Also, if not indicated, ask the person posting whether any additional or substractive mods were done. That can certainly also change the sculpt significantly.

Anything else can be changed with colour.

 

I've come to learn I have two ways of loving a doll: either I love it and I want it, or I love it on other people's collections but it won't work for me. Some dolls I can easily tell which one it is, others are harder. I've bought a head once that I absolutely loved the sculpt for. Nearly every owner photo (save a couple with customizations I didn't personally like, but that's perfectly normal) looked great to me and I wanted one, which is saying something because it's a male doll and I rarely ever like a male sculpt enough to want it. Then when I got mine, I felt no connection to him at all. Over a year with him and I never had the drive to do anything at all. In the end I realized I didn't really feel the need to shell that character anymore and I wouldn't regret selling the doll, so I did. Still love looking at what others do with the sculpt, but I have no regret over selling and no desire to buy him again.

I think one thing that helps sometimes is trying to visualize what I'd do with that particular sculpt. Do I only want it because "ohh pretty!" or do I see something special there that calls to me? With time you also get a better notion of what works for you and what doesn't, which helps too. But at the end of the day, this hobby relies mostly on seeing dolls through photos rather than in person so it's pretty easy to fall into these traps. There's no reason to feel bad, if nothing else it's a learning experience!

 

I had nearly the opposite. One of my doll sculpts is not something I was drawn to at all when I looked at her owner photos at all. Yet she’s among my top 5 faves now that I’ve painted and styled her. It’s really weird though, how much a doll can turn out to be so different in different hands. I both love and hate that at times but I think it’s some strange kind of dolly magic. Agree with everyone above saying to look at many examples of a sculpt, and to look at the sculpt itself closely for more clues. Sometimes it also helps to save some photos and turn them to greyscale if the colors/scene are distracting.

@Yuns makes a great point too. I love a lot of dolls that I’ll never need to own, I just really always enjoy looking at them and their photos. I really love to see photos of a certain company’s dolls but their posing limitations make them an eternal ‘nope’ for me ever owning one.

 

All the time - there are many sculpts that I love seeing in friends' collections but know wouldn't fit in to mine or wouldn't be right for me. That's the nice thing about the BJD community - it allows you to enjoy a wide range of dolls without having to own all of them.

Teddy

 

I actually love some people dolls but I would never buy them cause they don’t fit my personal ahestetic. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s like liking THAT doll from that person, not the sculpt.
As a pratic example: I would probably never want to have a Venitu head, but I have a couple friend dolls shelled with Venitu that I absolutely love.
I actually am pretty demanding with heads, and I like to see them blank: if I find them nice as blank heads, it’s almost sure I will end up liking them irl too. Faceups often don’t show well how that doll is, colour really masks a lot the sculpt and can change a doll totally.

 

I have the endless problem of "do I love the STYLING od this doll or the base SCULPT". I have to always search for a blank head picture to confirm this as there have been plenty of dolls i've loved the look of in either company or owner photos but found the blank sculpt to either be kinda a bit bland or to have surprising elements like eyebags that a faceup hid in photos and I don't really like at all.

The annoying thing is, sometimes it's impossible to find a blank picture. I've been searching for ages for a blank image of Doll Family's Abu but to no avail and it means I can't work out if I just really love how they painted and styled him or if his face sculpt is just really appealing to me.
ARGH.

I like to see a head blank from the front AND the side (surprise long noses annoy me) as well as multiple owner pics to see how they can be styled.

There are also dolls that fall into my "this is cool but I wouldn't know what to do with it/wouldn't fit my collection" dolls which i LOVE to look at and find extremely appealing but also find super intimidating or just not quite the right style for me. I recently sold a Dream Valley dragon boy because while I loved him in images, by the time he arrived I was just far too intimidated by such a large ornate doll that I couldn't handle trying to make him work. too big, too detailed, too much for my nerves.
I really liked his face though, so I might one day reorder him in human form. I dunno.
I adore some of the small animal anthro like sculpts for example but ultimately they wouldn't fit my collection and I wouldn't really know what to do with them, so I admire them from afar.
with others it's a cost thing. I'm like "I love this but it's £800 so i'll just admire it from here" lol.

I tend to try to curate a wishlist and go back to it regularly to cull things or add new things. Every few months i'll go back over it and a few things i'll realise I don't "LOVE" as much as I thought I did initially or don't have as much inspiration for as I had hoped. Others I continue to be drawn to. I know i'll love a doll when every time I see a really appealing doll on social media and click it and notice it's that same sculpt over and over again lol. I do this all the time with Doll Chateau Hugh and Resinsoul An. I'm all "oo that doll is pretty!" and then sure enough, it's one of those two lol.

 

Absolutely!

Most of the dolls I have in hand have slightly (or majorly) oversized heads, and I've learned the hard way that any doll with "realistic" head proportions, no matter how great it looks in every picture I can find, will look out of place next to the other dolls I own. (No Dollshe for me, apparently, although I do have a Robin on order and maybe his more childlike proportions will look ok with my other beans.)

Also, posing can be a major turn-off for me if the doll has less mobility than I expected: I've sold on 4 BJDs for this reason that I had been planning on keeping when I bought them. (I avoid this now by watching posing videos, and being sure to watch more than one.)

I tend to over-research rather than under-research, so browsing a sculpt's hashtag on social media has saved me from several misled purchases other than the ones mentioned above. Usually when this happens, I realize it's the faceup I like about the doll and not the actual sculpt.

 

I love people’s Feeples and bigger Iplehouse dolls but I won’t buy any because I have a collection that’s somewhat in a scale to itself. My MSDs are either teens or grown ups, The YO type dolls kids, tinies the toddlers. I’m trying to build a family, I shell my potential kids in them while praying to be able to adopt a child some day ( after almost two years no luck) that’s why I don’t buy the big dolls, they won’t fit. But I also don’t want to start over with clothing etc. but I’d love to get a few actually. Mhm this makes me thinking...

 

I've had that happen so many times. I just love the look of a doll, even without a face up or from multiple people's accounts, then I see them in person and they're just... Not it. Then I'm like okay maybe I just need to do a face up. But I end up selling them because I just don't like them as much as I thought I would. Now I pick dolls based on company blank listings rather than owner pictures, its the only way I can be sure I actually like the sculpt, especially because of all the little mods people do.

 

I absolutely love the big dollshe boys but having owned two, I've come to realize I just can't handle the size. They're not for me to own but I will always admire them from afar.

 

I’m glad you came to terms with it but still enjoy them, that’s a good thing that you did not get completely turned off from enjoying them in other collections! That’s really something to ponder on sometimes too with ‘getting into’ any size/scale. This is a difficult question for me as well as I look at the larger Lusion and Trinity Dollmore girls. I really love their look and I know I’d enjoy sewing for them...but...they are so big! It’s part of their charm but wow. Large. Same with little pukifee. I need some sort of 1:12 dollhouse doll besides my Heidi OTT lady but...maybe not with those proportions. And I definitely would NOT enjoy sewing too much at that scale.

 

I am not a fan of horror dolls in my own crew, but I love seeing horror sculpts, mods and faceups on other people’s dolls. I have one favorite hobbyist in particular —most of her dolls’ sculpts have no place in my crew, but damn do I love looking at her collection!!! She has a Musen Dual head painted like a cracked egg. A head I’d never want for myself, but I just can’t get enough of that one and others she owns.

I’ve also got several friends within the hobby whose characters I’ve fallen in love with, even if the sculpt isn’t to my taste. When I see those specific dolls, it’s just loooove!!

 

I used to have a Bobobie Isabella and I thought she was the cutest thing ever when I saw other peoples' pics of her. I got one through Denver Doll because she was relatively cheap and I was trying to grow my collection but when I received her I was a little underwhelmed, both with her sculpt and her articulation. I couldn't help but find her plain. I thought it'd go away when I did her faceup but that didn't help much and I ended up selling her a few months later. I still think she's a cute doll but just not for me. I'm sure other people can do more creative things with her sculpt.

 

It's Fifth Motif Venitu. I really don't want him in any way, I am not sure that I like him or not. But I totally enjoy lookin at pictures about him.

 

I had a Dollzone Moon dragon made years ago that I got second hand from the Marketplace since I was drawn to her unusual face and dragon body in owner photos. In person I liked her, but I couldn't figure out what to do with her. She didn't fit with most of my dolls and had limited posability. I sold her onto another owner. Another doll I had fit fine with my collection, but I never really did anything with him. The person I sold him to gave him a face-up and a wig and shared his new look on DoA. Its great to see him getting the attention I never managed to give him. He didn't work for me, but I love seeing pictures from his new owner. I love seeing pictures of mermaid dolls, but I don't want to own one. Being able to sit looking lovely is nice, but that isn't enough for me to own a doll.

I wasn't sure about Soom Juchy's face when I ordered her, since her company photos only showed her with a face up that made her look worried. In person, her face sculpt seems more versatile in terms of expression.

 

I have ADHD and this happens to me too, but I don't think it's an ADHD issue. I find that it comes down to the lighting and the camera. Most times, people take photos really close to the doll so there is lens distortion. If you notice that you like a sculpt photographed by a particular person vs. liking all photos of it, this is likely the case. What helps me now is searching for videos of the dolls, as those are usually more accurate to the real thing.

 

@purple_monkfish Same hat on "is it styling or sculpt I like?". You'd think that after collecting dolls for over a decade we'd get our eyes settled with our brain and it just doesn't happen.

I have this scenario recur with LLT Roderich, Migidoll Jina, and almost any Pygmalion doll. They're so gorgeous I can't believe it, and then I prove I don't believe it by actively trying not to own them...?? I think the perfectionist in me just wants to leave faces that pretty in other people's hands, I don't think I'd do them any justice. My doll family might be subtly insulted.