Silly Mistakes You Have Made In This Hobby?

We all make silly mistakes don't we! When I got my very first doll I treated her like a newborn baby- no excessive handling, don't you dare touch that faceup, and piece of cloth she touches will stain her- that sort of thing. It took me until I started casting things in resin to realize that dolls are just glorified hunks of resin They wont crumple into dust if you touch them!

 

I accidentally made clothes out of fleece that hadn’t been washed. To make matters worse, it was red cloth on a white skin doll! Fortunately all it took to fix was some magic eraser, but damn I felt bad. (Then again, this is the same doll that I had to remove five years worth of black wig stains from, so maybe it’s just a bad habit....)

Also the first time I ordered a doll on my own, I sent them the wrong currency! And then later, buying my grail, I screwed up the shipment option, and was generally a pain to the dealer..! Alice’s Collection was super nice about it, though, and it got resolved within a day.

 

I couldn't figure out why Parker's posing was so good until I restrung him and then he couldn't even stand. It took an embarrassingly long time to realize I had accidentally switched his calf pieces, so they didn't fit right, making him fall a lot.

 

In case you don't know -- they aren't cleaning sponges.

They are abrasive sponges, like a very fine sandpaper.

They can be used for cleaning, but they will damage faceups or body blushing, and can remove fine detail on faces and whatnot if you're not careful.

 

This is me but with arms! I had a SoulKid body for one of my hybrids for the longest time, and I could never figure out why her arms snapped into such weird positions until the day (a couple of years later) that I realized, when I'd strung her up (she came in pieces), I'd reversed her arms. They weren't trying to go into weird positions, they were doing normal poses backwards!

 

So I accidentally order a normal skin Lati Yellow head for normal skin Asleep Eidolon because someone said they match. Well, I misread that. Lati's white skin matches Asleep Eidolon's normal skin.

So right now she's on mismatched body. I might get her a new one or trade her for a white skin head.

 

I don't know whether it's myself or the sellers but some folks on eBay list YOSD, 1/3 size, MSD & a bunch of companies together. Foolishly I've ordered items not realizing that it was just their way of attracting attention & ended up with 1/3 size stuff instead of the MSD size I wanted. Some sellers are very understanding but I've had others get real nasty about it. Hey, if it's not a size listed & especially in the correct section, how is a customer supposed to know? Now I'm much more careful & check with the seller about size before ordering but my 1/3 kids ended up with nice stuff that they didn't need while my MSDs went wanting.

 

Same!!
I restrung my Dollmore Model body the day I got him and must of mixed the arms up so his left was his right and vise versa. This many years into the hobby and I still don't know Dollmore's dot system. The worst part is, because he has upper arm breaks, his arms could lay in the correct position so I didn't know for months. I found out one day because I was working on the tattoos on his arms and hands. I went to put his hands on and realized the dots didn't line up and was like *whispers* Oh no. In denial I checked him against the picture I'd taken the day I got him, then against my smaller-but-made-the-same Dollmore Adam body....and yep. Backwards arms.
Then i was all "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" because not only had he been strung wrong for months but he was fully tattooed. And once I saw it I couldn't unseen it! But I still left him like that until more months had passed and I got him jointed hands and decided it was time to redo all that work. *sobs*

 

I haven't gotten my first doll yet, but this is something I'm kind of nervous about! Which fabrics stain resin? Is there a master post somewhere that mentions this? I hadn't even thought about it until I saw a post about staining a few days ago...now I'm a little scared!

 

I used the magic sponge on my boy's chest to remove a tattoo I'd just made and didn't like, ended up completely removing his -already sealed- nipples as well .___. I mean, I knew that the magic sponge was strong, but I didn't expect the sealed pastels to completely go away just like that! D:

 

For my first doll, instead of getting silicone head caps, I went for the strips of balloon stretched around the head instead- and one day I went to remove the wig, and the balloon had broken down and melted I still can't get the bits of rubber completely out of the wig and the carved letters on his headcap.

 

It’s not so much a question of the fabric, but of the dye. A good rule of thumb, though, is just to wash every piece of fabric you’re going to use for sewing projects. This cuts down on excess dye as well as other potentially harmful (or irritant) chemicals like formaldehyde. (I actually thought the fleece in that story was okay because I had used it for a sewing project years ago - whoops!) Delicate fabrics should be washed by hand, and you may want to invest time or money in a washing bag. Stains from wigs can be prevented with wig caps, lighter coloured wigs, or routinely taking the wigs off. But these can also be taken off pretty easy with a basic magic eraser. So don’t worry too much!

 

One time, I deeply conditioned a doll,s hair and didn't get all of the product out and I stained his head! I tried magic eraser, but I was really scared because it was so close to his face!

 

I made one last night. I was handling one of my girls, and perplexed why there was ink all over her arm. The more I wiped, the more I found more patches of wet ink.

It turned out I had picked up a leaky pen before I touched her, without realizing it. Thankfully she sin't stained, but still.

 

Overtrusting my gut and others help. This has caused me to get the wrong skin tone and wrong size for items. I'm always like, "well they said it was correct and worked great so this must be the correct one." I have been wrong so many times. I spend tons of time researching now and it has paid off but it is such a big hassle...

 

When I was much younger and much newer someone told me to super glue on eye lashes. So I did that to a practice head I was just done painting. I ended up not being able to dissolve all of the glue (and the paint trapped under it) and had to sand it down many years later... Before sanding I had been advised to let it soak in acetone but decided against it after learning my lesson and double checking haha.

 

When I got my first Minifee I wanted her to be near her all the time, so I set her on the edge of my computer desk (with her legs dangling off). Well she did a nose dive onto the floor, of course, and scratched the sealant and blushing on her chin. I was devastated at the time, but I don't mind it much anymore. I never bothered to fix it because I've heard that it's hard to fix blushing and make it look good, and I plan to get her a new faceup eventually anyway.

Those melamine sponges (also called Magic Erasers) are abrasive so should never be used on doll faces or any area that's blushed. Even a very light touch can take sealant off. They're useful for deep-cleaning a dirty doll or removing any stains.

 

Not a mistake exactly, but I legit couldn't figure out how to maneuver my doll's arms to put shirts on him when I originally got him. It was a mixture of the larger 68cm size being hard to maneuver and me being nervous about somehow damaging something. After trying for like a half hour, I ended up giving up and needing to take a couple days before trying again. It was bad enough I tried googling how to put shirts on a bjd. Apparently though this isn't a common enough problem cause google gave me nothing.