Shelling a DND character, what's your timeline been like?

Hiya! My doll in my profile pic is actually a sentient doll artificer that specializes in making ball jointed porcelain dolls. Most of my dnd dolls I made character sheets for but don't really put them in action. If I did, at this point only one doll is for a character I used in active dnd. The initial campaign is over, and some attributes I actually decided to keep in doll form

 

I don’t usually play DND but I do shell my own original characters, and, at least for me, it takes a long time to get from the concept stage to finally having the doll completed. I would say for me the average is about 2 years between when I first decide I want to shell a character and when I have a finished doll completed with outfits, faceup, and final wig. This is partially because it just takes a long time to decide (and commit) to a sculpt, get the funds, and then wait for the doll. Then finding accessories is a whole other mess. But, at the same time, I’m also working on multiple dolls at the same time. Maybe if I focused on only one it could be done faster.

That said, I think that having the expectation that your doll might take 6 months to a year to complete is a reasonable one, especially if you’re not ordering an in stock doll. So if you’re a part of a shorter campaign, it might be better to wait.
@juni-fee , you might have better insight on DND dolls in specific.

 

This is essentially what I did- Crow (the moron staring into the sun in my pfp) spent several years as the Only Healer (Druid) and Tired Party Dad in the D&D campaign my roomie was DMing. But he existed before, and continues to exist after in other forms as well. I didn't actually intend to shell him in doll form - it just sort of happened with a doll I'd bought mostly because I'm Elf Trash. I've had him for years and I still wouldn't call him done, lmao.

Now, take this with a grain of salt - I don't usually collect with the intention of having a set, final "done" point. Slowly collecting bits and bobs over time is part of the fun for me. But! I think if someone loves a D&D character enough to spend the time and money on creating them in a doll form, then that character is also loved outside of the set frame of a campaign, and continuing work after the campaign ends is probably not entirely an issue. Especially character's like, say, a tiefling that could potentially need a massive amount of customization.

 

[raises hand] I have a project journal documenting my journey shelling my tiefling rogue! I will say given that my first post was in October of 2023 and I had ordered the doll on layaway about 5(?) months previously, and my most recent post was just last month, so...it's taken quite a long time. But to more directly address your first question:
- the campaign I'm in is very long term (we started in January of 2020 and have only gotten to the end of what the DM is calling "Act 2"). And I had been wanting to shell her for a while before I actually found a sculpt/skintone that worked for her and was able to start pulling her together. I'm going to be totally honest - it's been a very slow process, but I've also had other projects/doll events take up my time and energy between the start of the project and now and she's still not done lmfao
Ultimately I think that shelling a DND character isn't all that different from shelling an OC? You just get that extra level of interaction with the character/really knowing who they are while you play the game and work on the doll shell. And, additionally, events in game can shift your plans for the doll (which is how I ended up trying to do a crossbow bolt scar mod on Magpie), which can be fun if you like to craft or play with mods.

 

I've run into the issue of finding a perfect sculpt with my current long term dnd character, she's a halfling with facial features I'm very particular about, and between looking for halfling proportions and wanting a strong nose profile for her it just hasn't happened (this is her). The campaign has been going on for nearly five years and probably has two to three years left, so maybe I'll get lucky before it's over lmao. Instead I've started taking the opposite approach, and have a couple dolls on their way who I think will make fun dnd characters in the future, so that they're already here and ready to go when I actually get to use them in game. For example I ordered Dream Valley's Sonata because I think she would make a really fun warforged bard.

 

Ahhh, I fell head over heels in love with my D&D character. I found a sculpt that fit him pretty well (he’s a half-orc), and during the period of waiting for him, my campaign exploded in a horrific period of drama, and all of my friends in that campaign…well, we no longer speak. I had so been looking forward to sharing him with my friends. But, well, life happens…

I could’ve let that destroy my love for the character and the doll, but I didn’t. I loved him beyond the campaign, and decided to pick up his story where we left off. I used him as a character and then him as a doll to help me process what had happened with the real life people who I thought were going to be my friends for life!

All that to say; if you really love your character, I think that love will stay beyond the campaign, so that’s not something to worry too much over And, if your character changes throughout the campaign, I think that’s fine too!

My character for example is a Hexblood, and over the course of the campaign his skin color changed, he grew a crown, developed scars, and more. I decided to make the doll reflecting my favorite parts of the character and also to the skill level I felt comfortable with. So he has a skin tone that’s a blend of the original two and he has a removable hexblood crown. In the future I’d love to add more of his scars, but don’t feel ready for it.

I also decided that the doll version didn’t have to be a perfect reflection of the campaign version, and that helped me loosen up a lot about details. What also helped was delving deeper into the character’s backstory and becoming invested in other characters that belonged to me and were still tied to him. I starting turning some of them into dolls as well!

I hope my experience gives you some ideas or the confidence to take the leap!

 

I don't shell my D&D characters (I have too many for one thing), but I don't make characters for campaigns. I create characters ahead of time and when I play a new campaign I pick one from my list. So a handful of my characters have been in multiple campaigns and I hang on to them long-term.

 

I’ve shelled a few DnD player characters:

-Vidania: campaign ran from 2018-2020 and never finished due to covid. I shelled her after the campaign didn’t finish, because she mattered a lot to me (shelled in 2020, reshelled in 2023). Shadar Kai death cleric, somewhere between lawful neutral and lawful evil.

-Illyra: campaign ran from 2019-2020 and also never finished. Shelled her because I had a doll that had no character, and she fit perfectly. Would 10/10 play her again the next time someone needs a lawful good aasimar life cleric, who refuses to kill sapient humanoids. Dm beware, she will try to rehabilitate all your villains.

-Zilvriia (and co): I shelled the whole party from my longest running campaign. Zilvriia, Eden, Vesuvius, Nira, and a few of the DM’s NPCs (Vermilion, Dev). I shelled Zilvriia before I brought her to this campaign (bought the doll for her in 2020, reshelled in 2022ish)—I joined this campaign in 2021ish, and we’ve played very few sessions since I joined, due to my DM being busy with work, but it’s still ongoing!

-Kyorlin is another character that I’ve shelled who is technically a DnD PC, and I shelled him in around 2022, and may play him in a campaign I might play in in 2026, if the DM finishes his extensive rewrites of Out of The Abyss.

I also DM, and that’s given me a tonnnnnn of characters to shell, with NPCs from my campaigns. I’m currently running a wildly homebrew Curse of Strahd module, from which I’ve shelled a handful of characters. I’ve run that campaign 3 times: once from 2019-2020 (disastrously!), and then again from 2023-present, and then a reboot with more players that I haven’t started. I have a few “act 2” characters shelled as well, from the part 2 of my Strahd campaign. That accounts for: Ilya, Oriel, Ez, Phoenix, Ithuriel, Mercy, Devotion, and Victory

the Bulk of my shelled DnD characters are from my rewritten 9 hells lore, which you can see the full list of on my profile, because it’s too many to even bother to list here. All of them are being shelled before the campaign, given that I want to run the campaign after Strahd and I’ve never successfully finished Strahd.

 

Hmm, I decided to have a doll of my main dnd character and her friend (so she doesn't get lonely, and in case anything really super terribad happens to them in campaign, at least they can be together and happy in some universe) after we'd been playing for a couple years. It's a longer term campaign, and due to everyone's schedules and our tendency to have more RP focused sessions, despite playing for over 3 years now, we're actually not that far into the storyline (our characters have only been travelling together for about 2 months of in game time!). I have a project journal for them!
I didn't intend to make dolls for them, but eventually, the "hey there are blue dolls, and wouldn't it be fun?" thoughts crept in (I could probably go back through my tag about it on tumblr and compare when i started thinking that to what specific thing in game kicked me hard enough in the feels to make me want them as dolls xD). I spent a few months debating sculpts, and then threw that all out the window by impulse ordering a doll head because it has the same name as my character. It took about 5 months for her to come in, and then I wasn't sure what to do for her friend in the meantime, and eventually decided on a sculpt for him, put a WTB in the marketplace not expecting it to be answered for a while, and was surprised when it was after a couple weeks xD Then I waffled about bodies for them for several more months because i really don't want dolls taller than like 65 cm (I'd initially wanted to make them with 1/4 scale dolls until the impulse purchase ><)
In all honesty, I'm still not completely sold on the sculpt for the head I ordered for her, and have ordered a different one to see if it might work a little better. That probably won't arrive for a few more months, pending tarriff issues ><
I wanted to have them ready by the NYC Dollcon back in March, but their bodies didn't arrive until a couple weeks before it, so that didn't pan out. That's sort of the only time frame i really had in mind. I'm not too worried about it taking a while to get them customized, though I am enjoying the monthly sewing project threads giving me a sort of push to keep working on their outfits and accessories. I find something like that helpful, otherwise I know i'd probably let them sit without being worked on for a while. My main goal is to have them customized to a point I'm happy with, and make a couple of alternative outfits for them and get some nice pictures of them before the campaign is done, which probably won't be for few years more at least (I hope! It's a fun campaign, and we're only level 4 still, so I hope we get to play for a while to come) so is perfectly achievable i think
I have another dnd character I'm shelling too, and I'm not even playing him in an active game xD I've only played him in a short module several years ago that fizzled out, but I like the character and think he's fun, so even though I can't play him, I can still have him around. I don't have a time frame for him either, and his body is on order at the moment. I'll work on getting him sorted after i get my main girl and her friend sorted though, since they own more real estate in my brain. He's an off topic doll, so I won't be able to post him here, sadly.
Minus the stats involved, I don't really see them as that different from any other OC's I have, but I play a lot of RPG's and other games where creating a player character is involved, too, so maybe that influences it. I've shelled a character from my favorite visual novel game into an Ever After High doll before, and might do something similar for my Rook from Veilguard depending on my mood eventually. That's what i would do or plan to do for characters I'm attached to before I was able to afford bjd's.

 

I'm jealous of everyone whose campaigns last long enough to shell a character into a doll and actually take that to the table someone always bails halfway through in the games I join and I never take that campaign to a finish what a curse.
I've played a lot of John McSwordsman for meat-grinder style old school games, but my favorite D&D characters are usually too weird to make into dolls - I've got half-giants, hobgoblins, undead, disfigured or cursed characters, and even more impossible, elderly characters who are pretty much nowhere to be found in sculpts. I've got a thing for end-of-run adventurers looking to prove themselves in that last big quest or go out with a bang (it's my cheat for low-level campaigns, half-forgotten former heroes).
I was big on Vampire: the Masquerade before D&D and I think vampires are more doable, but there's only one character I played in Vampire whom I truly enjoyed (actually that was a Requiem character) and she was a Nosferatu, and a Masquerade style Nossie. Good luck shelling that...

I have never made a Drow character but I do love the Drow and grey resin, so I'm going to take the chance for someone to show me some Drow dolls

 

Thanks for tagging me, @kiraabsol !

- Maybe they already have a doll with a character sheet ready to go before they even start the campaign?
For my character, I made him specifically for the campaign. I hadn't even considered making him into a doll until I got a ways into the campaign. That's when I really started to love the character enough to want a physical representation for him.

- If you decide to shell a DND character at the beginning or partly through a campaign, does that only work with super long-term campaigns?
This one I can't really comment too mcuh on because my campaign has been a long one. We play weekly (only had a few short breaks) and we're going onto 3 years now with the end nowhere in sight at the moment. At least for us players, that is, so I have the luxury of taking my time in making the character into a doll. I've been trying to shell him for a while now though and only got lucky enough to have the sculpt I wanted for him be re-released (Minifee Karsh).

In regards to gathering the necessities for him, in the meantime of my waiting for the doll, I've been doing research and purchasing things I'd need for him. For instance, I've got his wig already (which I commissioned) and his eyes have been ordered with the doll. I know who I'm sending the head to for a face-up and while the face-up is getting done, I'm going to commission the outfit from someone I've looked into. All in all, I'm expecting up to about a year or so for him to be complete.

I guess it really comes down to also is if you see yourself greatly enjoying the character even after the campaign. If it's a one-shot thing I'd be hesitant to make the character unless I was exceedingly attached. Granted, I've had a bunch of other merch made for my campaign (including two custom plush dolls), but I feel that a BJD for the character is a much bigger investment so you'd have to weigh your pros and cons.

 

For me it was a combination of long campaign, character I'll want to play again in a different campaign, wanting a smaller doll size I didn't already have for taking around on adventures, and an in-stock doll.

98% of Entropy's backstory hasn't come up in campaign at all. (That particular group tends to be very objective focused.) That hasn't kept me from also shelling Entropy's brother and keeping an eye out for her sister.