"Talking" Dolls

For me is the point you know a character very well, maybe for those who don't write think of a favorite character you have in any media. You know what they like and dislike, how is their personality, how they act and talk. So I know how they would react to a wig, a piece of clothe or making them pose a certain way. An always positive character that love cute things would react different than a broody character, they get embarrassed and excited by different things. It's the same for BJDs, I'm basically seeing their character react to things on my mind and may react talking to the doll because is fun to me.

I don't see the doll standing or pinching me as part of this and stead joke about they behaving or not. Like when they fall stead of stand for a photo they are misbehaving lol But is a joke and I don't see it as part of their actual reaction unless their personality would match, I could joke they dislike it so much even the doll fell. But everyone see this different and other may personify they deeper.

 

They don't. I'll just say "X told me she wants this dress" or "X hates Y thing" because it's shorter than saying "I think this dress would look really awesome on X so I'm buying it" or "Y thing doesn't fit with X's character" and all those instances where a doll is giving me a death glare or looks totally pleased/happy are just instances of different lighting and looking at them from different angles.

 

Khell has put it extremely well.

When I say," I was on ebay and saw these perfect black pumps, and Carina screamed, " Get the red ones too!!'" it is just me imagining what what my doll would say, if she could, and using a kind of verbal shorthand to express the thought.

 

I only own one doll right now but I believe each doll represents something to their owner. I am only just "getting to know" my guy but I think that means for me understanding what I need from him. What i need him to be. And so him talking to me ends up being me listening to my own feeling of what fits my needs and what not. Cos he symbolises something and i am slowly figuring out what that is. I don't know if this makes sense but yeah...

 

Yes, same as your first owner partially. I had a doll and he hated any wig I put on him. "I guess he likes being bald", meaning that every wig would slide off or sometimes the way he would move , he always tended to be knocking it off. Or look at the posing too, when you put on a new shirt on them and they tend to slouch when you sit them down, it's almost like a sigh and "I hate this shirt". Or look at a their faces in some pictures and they look really happy or angry. They kind of are expressive.

 

I just get a feeling, usually, it's kind of hard to explain it. It's more based on the "soul" of their character than the physical doll.

 

For me, it's just my own personification of my character. That's kind of why I get dolls in the first place; they represent my characters, and I know just how my characters would react in a given situation, so like...if I'm trying to put Ilya in an outfit he'd never wear, for example, and he flops over, I'll be like "yeah, yeah, I know you hate it but that's too bad!"

Really, it's all about imagination. I know my dolls are inanimate chunks of resin, and that's fine with me! But imagining their reactions or what they'd say in a situation or pretending they're feeling a certain way that day is just fun. We buy dolls because they're fun and we like them, and they're a great canvas for imagination, so I let it flow~

 

I have always said I let the dolls speak to me to tell me who they want to be, but I don't feel that the dolls do this through "body language" or any active physical means. It all happens in my imagination as I look at them, interact with them and feel inspired by them. So I don't think I'm influenced by funny situations such as wigs falling off or such.

It truly is hard to explain it, but I guess that thinking about your dolls often feels like shopping for someone else's gift. You imagine how someone with another personality would feel about things in order to find a good present, and this is how some of us customize our dolls I think. We create a personality for the dolls that we then feel empathy towards and when people talk about the dolls speaking to them it's just a way to express this idea that the doll has a personality not completely like our own. To make them complete with customizations and clothing we then address their unique needs and wants which we have imagined for them.

 

For me, it's mostly about the character I have written for them. "Loren is demanding those Nine9 Style shorts" really means those shorts are absolutely perfect for her character, and I can't stop thinking about them, so I better buy them!

I usually don't put "body language" into the character based on the doll, since restringing the same doll could completely change everything. Sometimes if they do seem abnormally floppy/kicky while dressing or posing them, I might joke that the doll hates whatever I'm doing, but it usually doesn't become part of the character. It usually just means they need better sueding.

One example I do have of this when I did keep it in character was when I was trying to get a picture of Luc and Erica holding guns and looking badass, then Erica's chest joint popped, which caused her to do this little cutesy head tilt and lean back on Luc. I thought that was too adorable to ignore, and from there, Erica kind of became this silly playful character, rather than a tough girl. Luc looked less than pleased that his photo was ruined, and I could definitely see his character being frustrated at her goofiness in that situation. XD

 

Hehehe :: raises hand ::

I'm quite guilty of letting instances of random doll floppiness/side eye/posing/pinching/what-have-you influence my hobby decisions.

No, I don't think my dolls are alive, but I have more fun letting my hobby just evolve organically like that.
For instance, I had a doll that was blank. He was going to be made into an original character of mine. Then, one day I glanced over and noticed him "looking" at another one of my dolls. And I kinda laughed, like, "What, do you have a crush?"

Sure it just happened to be the way he was posed, and the lighting, and a myriad other little random things...but it just stuck in my head. So now whenever I would look over at them, the first doll would be "looking longingly" at this other doll. I couldn't not see it anymore. So I finally gave in and posed them together and took a photo. And they looked really good together! Whoops! Just stylistically and their relative heights and such, it all just worked. And...then I fought it for a good while still, but said doll totally switched characters in the end to be with the doll he had been "staring" at.

Ahem. :: clears throat :: This is how I ended up with the Victor and Yuuri dolls that I have, and I love them to bits as a couple and the sculpts that they ended up as, so...I guess I'll just chalk it up to "those dolls wanted to be together" and call it a day.

 

I just base it on the character and how the character would react, and then sometimes the doll's posing or a certain look from an angle and the like will match that and so I'll joke that they're confirming what I thought, but I don't usually take posing to mean a doll likes or dislikes something. If I put my doll in an outfit and she slouches, but I know the character would like the outfit, then I just ignore that, if the character would dislike it I joke they're slouching because of it. If that makes sense?

On the other hand, last July I bought my first vinyl doll at a convention and because of how big the bag where I was carrying her box was, I kept either hitting other people or myself as I moved, so my friend and I joked that she was a very aggressive little thing and kept kicking me. She also came with fist hands as the default so it was even more perfect, and now it's basically part of the character I'm slowly developing for her. She's also the shortest among the non animal dolls so the whole "fight me" thing is even funnier to me.

 

Hmm, this is an interesting question! For me it's definitely more on the imaginative/speculative side. If I look at something for my doll, say a pink frilly blouse with bows, and in a vacuum I like it, I always glance at my doll to see if it'd suit his aesthetic. And nine times out of ten it's very obvious the object in question doesn't suit Annix at all. But from the outside it's like I'm "consulting" with my doll on his clothes and props.

 

My dolls definitely don't talk, and I definitely don't perceive them as talking.

When I personify my doll, it's really usually the character they're the shell for that I'm referring to. Since my characters are mine, and I invent what they do and how they behave in my head, that's what going on. I'm determining what that character would say or how they would react in that situation.

The few times I'm actually referring to the shell (the doll) and not the character, it's less that the doll is actually talking or that I'm even imagining it talking, but rather because I choose to entertain the notion of (because life would be a hell of a lot funnier) irony, serendipity, and strange coincidences (like karma, but without the religious or supernatural undertones).

It'd be funnier if my doll was biting me with a knee joint because it hates me, even though I truly know and believe that it's just partly random chance and partly how I'm holding it and how tightly it was strung. It'd be funnier if my doll faceplanted because it grew frustrated with my posing, and not that gravity is working.

Because I prefer to live in a funny world, and not a chronically sad or depressing one, I consider this part of my sense of humor rather than suggestive of hearing voices. I'll admit my sense of humor is strange.

 

I don't think of or "interact" with my dolls in that way, when I occasionally make a comment like "my doll is going to kill me in the night for chopping off his arm..." it's just me being silly which I do in every aspect of my life.

 

@Nefla a lot of my friends find dolls unsettling so sometimes I'll tell them if they annoy me my doll will come for their souls. It's all in good fun but it's another aspect of the whole personifying an object thing.

 

Authors talk about this all the time - characters taking over from them, talking to them, etc. It's the same thing. Frankly, the nano-second some rationalist starts insisting on analyzing, parsing & dissecting this phenomena, it dissipates (at least for me - & a lot of other creative artists). So, think whatever you like about what is 'really' happening. Just know that it's very common among artists of any kind to have their creations in progress 'talk' to them & it helps the creative process!

 

Sometimes my dolls would tell me they want to go out! I bring my them to work but usually 1 at a time so i rotate them. But in the morning b4 work, i always end up with a different doll to bring along cos they would love at me wif loving eyes

 

It's definitely a writer thing for me. I know their characters and I know what they like. But I also have a sense of humor and as it stands their personalities tended to change on how their doll shell behaved a certain way. Or how they look in certain pictures.

It's all in good fun. We like to joke around and play too. Very often me and my bestie will joke about characters we have and sometimes go: "He/she is so gonna drag you down to hell for this."

 

I know them "talking" to me is me projecting my perceptions onto them, but its more fun to say the doll said something. When I got Yumiko and had planned her to be a timid character, that just seemed wrong for her- to an extent I say she said, "That's not me!" Or Blaze not liking pants in general because the only ones I had when I got her didn't fit, of didn't seem to fit her character. I didn't even try pair on her, since it was almost like she said, "I'm not wearing that."