Things that annoy you... *Rant Thread* - pt.2

Alright, this is the rant thread, so here goes.

My current biggest pet peeve is with getting dolls and doll stuff home to me. Shipping, EMS shipping in particular. This is the second time in less than two months that I buy a doll and for some reason, instead of arriving it's returned to sender right after it enters my country, meaning I will have to pay expensive shipping again and wait longer. Last time it was because my province wasn't filled in on the shipping address apparently (never been an issue before, in fact in the Netherlands we usually don't put our province because it's not necessary, the postal system works by zipcode+ house address), not sure if it's the same this time or why the fact that this apparently vital information is missing isn't noticed or mentioned when the parcel is handed to the postal service on the seller's end. Anyway, that's my biggest pet peeve right now.

Wigs are another one, I've recently returned to the hobby and I'd forgotten how much I hate the thick seam ridges in regular wig caps. I get that that's the only way to construct a soft, sew-on wig cap, but the chunkiness really messes up the shape of the wig, especially if the doll who wears it happens to have a slightly flattened cranium.

Also, mentioning length on shoes but not width is annoying. If your shoes are 7.5 cm long, but only 2.4 cm wide, my Volks girl is not going to fit them with her 6.5 cm long feet, no matter how often you say they're SD13 size=_=.

And lastly, A few trends I noticed in sales pictures. Not showing the bottom of the dress, only showing the outfit on a doll who is sitting (and usually in a fairly close up shot) and mostly (people do this a lot on Yahoo!Japan) posting only photos of the outfit in the original packaging without any indication how it's supposed to look on a doll. I get that removing a NRFP outfit from its packaging reduces value, but I can't see what you're selling if it's all packaged up! Same goes for dolls btw. I want to see what you're offering, and not just the face, but the whole body, especially if it's a hybrid or on a body that has different jointing options.

 

A few things bug me...

"PM with offer" I am a relatively new to the hobby, I have no idea what you doll is possibly worth, I have no idea of what range price it should be in after X amount of years. I might either offer a price that would make you laugh me out of existence, or cheat myself to death and back on the price of said doll. So, nope, I may like the doll, but I wont even try to buy it.

Used sellers that don't take off the dolls clothes. I want to see the body. I want to check for damage, and I also want to check that the seller didn't switch out bodies, or body parts. Some dolls look really weird in their clothes, like something is wrong weird, and if the seller isn't going to show me the whole doll itself, I pass.

Companies that don't show the body of the doll, or the blank doll. I am going to eventually wipe it anyways. Also, I want to know how it moves, what joints it has. I don't want to chase around the entire internet trying to get a nude photo of said company doll, because the company wont show it to me in the raw.

 

Agreed. I'm not familiar with a lot of "newer" companies or sculpts and a lot of the time neither is listed. It's just #bjdphotography or sommat. And then there are those that use all of the tags for a Barbie or a Wal-Mart baby doll.

 

Right now I'm really annoyed with almost all companies. They seem to offer only one kind of SD male body: really athletic, muscular straight out of gym kind. I just bought my grail head and he desperately needs a body but I just can't find thin (I'm not talking about Doll Chateau thin) body! Spiritdoll Dolce would be just perfect but it is waaayy too tall. Few have been close but they have awful torso joint. My OC will be without shirt most of the time so his chest has to be without seam.

 

You could say this is more of a personal pet peeve/frustration with my bjds as of late...

Lately, it's been extremely frustrating trying to shell one particular OC of mine. I'll find a particular sculpt that would be just perfect (maybe a couple little tweaks needed)....only discover the head is too big. Or too small. Most of the heads with the details I like are in the 75-80cm range, and I don't want to size up from the 68-70cm range I'm at. But, at the same time, most of what I've found available in that range is too soft. Too youthful. Too....bishie for a lack of a better word—ie: The Luts, Switch, Little Monica, LoongSoul, etc. stylized pretty boys.

My boy's not exactly hyper-masculine, nor am I expecting extreme features for him. He actually should be relatively easy. I mean, his appearance is inspired to a degree by Adam Lambert. Yet, it's been a nightmare finding something that'll work that won't require selling everything I have already for him (and I really like the body I've already got for him, and don't want to scale up, even if the company has larger bodies), and sinking a lot of extra time and $$ into starting over from scratch with him.

Then there's the dilemma that, with him at a new size, I'd probably have to consider doing the same for a lot of my other OCs from his storyline. And that is extremely frustrating to consider. I don't want to have to do a massive overhaul of OCs that are already nicely established for the sake of my one guy.

I'm getting to the point of considering sculpting his head myself. But that'll leave him for a long period without a head, and with him being one of my main muses of all the OCs in his story...

I just want to have my boy complete in a satisfactory way until I can create something for him myself!! Is that really so hard??

I have appreciated all the suggestions I've gotten from people I've asked for sculpt ideas, and some have been kind of close. Arsene looked decent, but I couldn't get past how wide his eyes happened to be. I've eyed DragonShell Doll heads on Etsy quite a few times, but the ones I really like would better suit another OC I have yet to shell into bjd form. Iplehouse has some really lovely boys (unfortunately it looks like the EID/HID heads scale a bit too big), but I just need the head—and finding one secondhand is somewhat of a chore (especially without having to settle with buying the whole doll because many don't want to split the head from the body). I ordered a Granado head thinking he would work—only for him to look a bit pinheaded on the body planned for him.

So, in short: my pet peeve is finding that Goldilocks zone for the perfect sculpt for my guy. They're either too big or too small, and I need it to fit just right. And that's the struggle.

 

My biggest issue at the moment is how few fantasy males there are. When I finally do see an adorable SD fairy boy or merman, he’s discontinued.

 

This seems to be wildly different from what other people are griping about. But I hate how much time it takes for me to make grey and black patches look intentional. I swear, the phase of looking desperately in need of a bath lasts forever.

 

What a great way to get things off our chests.

I personally am getting really annoyed by the direction the hobby is going in general. Dolls are losing their "souls" to me through the overuse of 3-D printing and modeling (3-D modeling in particular I feel will really kill the soul of this hobby. I'm not old school, but it defeats a lot of the purpose ) and the perfection people seem to be drawn to. Most people want the same few faceup artists or styles and fantasy dolls are on the decline. It seems most companies are going in the direction of pretty, perfect, realistic human dolls (looking at you Loongsoul and Soom). The Kpop idol aesthetic is really nice to look at, but the lack of creativity that the hobby has been seeing as a whole is pretty obvious. A lot of people just want to play it safe and are drawn to what's popular - but I miss seeing flawed faceups and imperfect pictures and imperfect wigs.

Related, but side rant.... EVERY NEW SD DUDE LOOKS THE SAME! Look I love male dolls more than anything, but I've distanced myself from the majority of them. They aaaallll look the same. Prefect pretty boys with the same eyes, same noses, same chins, same structure. I want to pull my hair out. I need some round faced adult male dolls! What about cheekbones dangit. This has made it absolutely impossible to shell my male OC. Finding a body for him was hard enough because he's a thin dude and now that I found one - nothing fits it.

Also - where the heck are all the Medieval fantasy style dolls at now?

Also non BJDs in the BJD tag. Stttooooopppppp. And BJD collectors who sell their non-BJD related items and use the BJD tag just because they feel they have a free pass to because they collect. No! Ugh!

 

Why do so many girl dolls nowadays seem to have the same vague, wistful face? Half-open eyes, half-parted lips, looking like some drowned damsel on a YA novel cover. Half the time when I see a sculpt or default faceup that actually appeals to me, it turns out to be a boy doll. (Which, yes, can be put on girl bodies, but sometimes the proportions are off.)

 

Long wait times is definitely a pet peeve. I mean when a company gets so backed up that you wait 9+ months for a blank doll thats estimated at 6 or less, there is definitely something wrong there.

 

I understand supply and demand...but I am really getting annoyed with Fairyland Minifees. Like..All of them LOL

It seems the entire BJD hobby is catering to this one doll size with this one body type. It makes it incredibly hard to shop since most things are banking on the idea that the buyer has a MiniFee. I have a "true MSD" sized doll, apparently, and she is definitely thick compared to a slim and trim Minifee.

I just kinda wish the fad of minifies could die down a little, so other doll brands and body types could shine through. Its hard as a new hobbyist to learn about what's out there to purchase, when all I get is Minifee shoved down my throat.

 

Just a small thing, but when you are doing a photoshoot and have your doll in the perfect pose, but when you get ready to take their picture your dolls limbs move and fall out of position, your doll falls over and you have a mini heart attack, or when your cat decides that NOW is the perfect time to get your attention after hiding from you ALL DAY

 

This is way saltier than I usually get, like, ever. I'm a little surprised I dragged all this out of myself. So plenty of (unusual) negativity ahead, be warned

I know they're an incredibly popular company, but I absolutely can't stand anything Volks. I hate how prevalent their sizing labels are, that's my worst nitpick I think in the entire hobby. The distinction of SD, YoSD, MSD, SD13, 17, whatever, is confusing and totally unnecessary. How often do any of the dolls lumped into that label fit the measurements for clothing for those? I despise having to try and figure out what pulled-out-of-nowhere number of SD my larger dolls will be, all because that company is older than a lot of others, when my dolls look and fit nothing like those dolls. Yes there should be standardization, especially in clothes sizes, but wouldn't it make infinitely more sense to just make those standardizations by actual measurements rather than height, when height means nothing compared to the fit of clothes, shoes, etc? To top it all of, "SD" isn't even an abbreviation of a size or measurement, it's just a brand! Is typing out the extra few keys in "45cm" vs whatever SD size it is too much? I don't get it, I don't think I ever will, and I've given up with bothering with it.

That was way more of a rant than I anticipated, but again, it's my only complaint with the hobby that's that big, lol.

 

@wubspon3 YESSSS OMG YESSSS!!! You are so right *claps insanely*

 

Kind of a continuation of my last post, but also kind of separate.

I was interested in shelling my OC with the Bimong Narin N61E head, but I can't get answers out of anyone about just how big his head really is. I've got the boy currently shelled as Simply Divine Thomas, who's noggin is too huge for the scale I'm going for with characters from his storyline, and I just want to be certain N61E's noggin isn't huge in the same respect as Thomas is. The numbers crunch differently on the head circumference (Thomas' is bigger by around 3mm, maybe more), but that's no guarantee I won't end up with another bobbleheaded boy if I take a leap of faith on this. (Don't get me wrong: I do actually like Thomas' sculpt, and if his head were on a more proportionate body, I'd jibe with him. He just isn't suitable for the size I'm currently working with.)

I'm ready to throw in the towel on even bothering with ordering this head and just going after an Iplehouse one instead.

So, I guess my general gripe would have to be: measurements. I wish that companies could give more precise measurements for certain features for us proportionate-obsessive folks. Length of the nose from the brow ridge, the size of the head, length of the head from the top to the chin, whether the facial features will realistically match up in scale with other bjd heads from the same size range, etc. I know that there is some variation in head sizes in real life, but I don't think there are adults running around with child-sized heads, or watermelons on a post sized heads, along with all the more average ones out there. I just want to be certain I won't end up with that degree of strangeness when I reshell this boy (and other OCs from his story in the future).

Is that too much to ask?

 

Volks was the first resin BJD company ever. They started the entire hobby as we know it and set every standard. Volks standard sizes ARE standard sizes, not just heights. It's just the natural progression of artists that have altered it. It is super annoying when you have other artist companies and all you want to do is buy them clothes! Yet you have to shop at this website for pants, this website for shirts, this website for shoes. All because different companies and size standards.

And like... what does SD even mean in terms of clothing anymore anyway? Volks doesn't make SD size anymore xD It's all SD*insert 17/16/13 here*

 

Volks is NOT "the standard" it is only the 'first' and when other companies started making dolls they did not have to be the same which is implied when you say something is standard. Being first does not make you standard... it just makes you the first and most common for a period of time. That's it. ONLY the 'names' were borrowed and buyers are the ones who are not sharp enough to learn to use them as 'general' size categories which is what the names have become for ANY doll that is not strictly Volks. What is more sad is that "companies" cannot seem to learn that 'volks' is not the 'standard'... ESPECIALLY now, and that 'measurements' are a necessity now

 

When checking sites like Leekeworld, Formydoll, Alice's Collections, Crobi, Legend Doll, etc... there are VERY few / almost no ombre wigs! Just the same single colors repeated (black, every shade of blonde on the planet, brown, light blue, orange-red, gray...). The only way to get unique wigs with 2-3 color blends is to commission an alpaca wig, which can take months! I wish companies would make interesting color combination synthetic wigs like brown to green, blonde to red, or maroon to pink. >_<

 

I'm going nuts waiting for fairyland to bring the rest of their dolls back. I'm managing to get the basics for my pukipuki secondhand. But I REALLY want all the options parts they used to have

 

Size differences... not like SD or MSD. When I buy clothes I look really exactly what measures they have and If they fit my doll but when the clothes arrived they didn't fit...