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

Right now, it's the secondhand market. I'm so annoyed that when I message sellers, they don't answer me. Sometimes for weeks. Sometimes not at all. Why would someone put something up for sale and then ignore the people who want to buy it?

 

I know it's likely because of the current pandemic... but packages from overseas are taking 2+ months to arrive. Others are dealing with this, too. And it's purchasing from companies too, not just people from the secondhand market.

A couple of my packages seem lost in the mix. I tried contacting a seller (secondhand) and they have not gotten back to me, and I cannot file a claim on the package myself... they have to. One seller is being really good with communication and understanding and said they'll open a claim if the package hasn't moved by the end of the week.

Annnd I'm downright frustrated with doing faceups lol. I don't understand why they have to be so difficult to do. Pigments too little or too much, having to wipe the whole thing if you mess up one little detail... it's frustrating.

 

Right now I'm annoyed with everyone who bought a ventilator mask with n95 filters for inorganic particles because of covid. It means that I can't find a mask in my size, and the filters cost twice as much. >_< It's total overkill for covid, and instead is making it more dangerous for people who work with sprays, solvents, nasty stuff in general.

I know people are anxious, but I want to do stuff, but can't because I don't have a mask. It's frustrating. I sympathise with people needing a mask, but I wish they had bought the correct type. I know people are buying these masks for covid, 'cos the reviews say so.

Also, dolls that can't sit are my pet peeve of the moment. -_- It's sad to see a pretty doll, and then know it has no place in my collection because it cannot sit on a shelf.

Another thing that's not really a rant... But I wish I could make things for 1/3 size dolls. I don't have any, and they wouldn't fit in my collection. But still, it would be nice to have reference. I don't have enough faith in my sewing skills, but I do like to make accessories! XD

Edit: when I first got here, I started reading through the lost/stolen dolls thread and it broke my heart! Taking something so personal to someone is just... Horrible!

 

@bentosmile The mask thing IS annoying. I saw a woman wearing a rare N95 mask at the grocery store - just over her mouth, not her NOSE! Sometimes ya just gotta laugh 'cause it's too crazy.
For 1/3 dolls, would you consider making accessories anyway and selling them here or elsewhere? That way you can make, make, make and not have the results pile up in your place. If you could get just an SD hand (someone's GOT to have parts that didn't work out or remains of a ruined bjd), maybe that would be enough of a reference for purses, books, pillows, etc. Just a thought.
Stay safe!

 

@Answer42 At the moment I'm just making some woven kinda bracelets which can be tied to fit any doll, and have the ends trimmed off, like people do with friendship bracelets. Kumihimo (the weaving technique I like) is great and chill it's the opposite of ranting haha

 

-i preordered a doll in november. it was supposed to get here in march.
-in january i changed the shipping address. the company said it was no big deal and that they'd ship it to the proper address.
-corona happened. understandably the doll was delayed, but then the company proceeded to go completely missing in action for a full two months. no social media posts. no one could get into contact with them. they literally had people thinking they were dead, or that we'd been scammed and we wouldnt be getting the doll or our money.
-on may 12 the company emailed everyone back. they basically said "haha sorry for disappearing! you'll get a tracking number soon"
-i got my tracking number on may 30. my doll took 7 days exactly to get to the USA from south korea. except!!! surprise surprise the company sent him to my old addressmy old address is three hours from where i currently live and due to a tropical storm i couldnt drive there. my old address is student housing, and they're not accepting any packages due to the pandemic, so they marked my doll "return to sender" and sent him back to the post office.
-i call the post office a billion times. no answer. i had to get my girlfriend's mom to get a representative on the phone. after waiting six hours on hold, they took all of my information. they said they were going to contact the post office we thought my missing package was.
-the next day i get an email from the post office the package is at. they said "fill out a new change of address form, and we'll forward the package to you." i did so within an hour.
-a day goes by. i call the number given to me in the email from the day before. no answer. i call again. same thing. i send an email. no answer. i try to fill out an information request, and the USPS website is down for maintenance.
-today, my doll is on a plane back to south korea.

i'm just so frustrated and angry and TIRED. this experience has effectively ruined my first time ordering a brand new doll. my other dolls have all been secondhand, hybrids, or both. this was my first time ordering a full doll, my first time doing a preorder, and my first time ever ordering from an independent artist company rather than an established, larger company.

 

Damn... that's horrible! I feel like the company should compensate you in some way for this considering they confirmed they would send it to the right address.

 

I plan on asking them if they can pay for shipping it back to me again. It's just sucky

 

@taichas
Oh no, that sucks!! >_> What an incredibly frustrating ordeal. I hope the company pays for the shipping, this is definitely on them. It's a bummer that this has ruined your first experience of buying a new doll straight from the company, this pandemic has really messed things up. I myself finished a layaway on a doll head, asked the dealer when they would send it, and they said "soon". That was a couple of months ago. Asked them again last week and they were really apologetic about it because they completely forgot. It's been so hectic at their end that mistakes happen.

//EDIT// I forgot to add that my order included a wig, but they said that Doll Chateau stopped shipping completely at one point, so they didn't have it yet. No wonder things are messy when items don't move from point A to point B.

 

Wigs! I hate buying them! I measure, do my research, carefully pick out the color/style, and hope it fits, or looks good. I had to buy a couple wigs today and it wasn’t fun. I’ve resorted to making my own wigs, but am trying my luck with these as I haven’t bought a wig in a year.

 

I am absolutely fed up with the lack of any kind of proper "scale" systems among various doll makers. Like... I get if you're a small artist with a very specific vision and a stylization that simply doesn't match anything else on the market - by all means knock yourself out and make it whatever size and shape you want. But if you're making a doll within an already-established niche (i.e. realistic MSD-sized dolls, anime SD-sized dolls, whatever) would it kill you to spend two seconds and a few sheets of paper to print out a few to-scale images of other makers' dolls that fill your niche and go "I wonder how my creation is going to fit into my customers' collections?"

Like, on the SD-sized spectrum it's MAYBE ok, they've roughly fit into the 1:2.75 scale (usually) and by unspoken convention, most sculptors stick within a range of sizes. Some of them can share clothes and shoes (sometimes), have heads of similar enough sizes and generally scale well enough that if you squint, you can put together a crew of different companies and have them look normal.

And then you look at the MSD-sized market and go oh my god, what the hell is going on here? First of all, they're usually marketed as "1/4 scale dolls" - well, they're NOT 1/4 scale. Half of them are actually "1/3" (1:2.75) scale children. The other half range from 38 cm to 50 cm "1/4 scale adults" with similar stylization and extremely different scaling ratios (anywhere from 1:3.5 to 1:5). Very few of them are actually similar in any of the measurements, some of them have heads half the size of the others in their group (or twice the size, depending on your perspective), they cannot share clothes and shoes and you can forget ever assembling a crew of dolls from different companies. And I just... I don't get it. Why do you enter an already-existing market and go "You know what this market needs? Something that will not look good with literally everything that already exists!" That seems counter-intuitive and counter-productive to me (why would someone buy your odd-sized doll that won't work with what they already own? That they can't dress, unless they know how to sew?), and frustrates me as a customer (and has meant that I have not spent any money with a large number of companies even though I liked the look of their dolls).

 

Just some tips to help you, @bentosmile, just in case you didn't know. You would be better off using a N95, or better yet a P95 mask, which can be found at auto parts stores, or home improvement stores. You'd actually need something like this.

and NOT a medical-grade N95, which is designed for filtering things you breathe in and out, like bacteria and/or viruses, NOT the dangerous oils and chemicals that happen when you spray MSC or any other sealant. Once you buy the mask setup, the cartridges can be replaced, so it saves you a bit of money.

I'm also hoping that you have read What you need to know about respiratory protection! before you spray or do any other kind of modification on your doll/s. Once resin dust is in your body, it stays there forever. But then again, I'm hoping you knew that. Sorry, I'm a Paramedic and I was having a Paramedic moment for a bit. Oops.

I used to not be able to sew much more than being able to do a quick fix on a torn shirt. But back in the day, when I got Ryuichi, my first doll (In my icon pic) I was pretty broke after paying bills and whatnot, so I hit the sewing tutorials section of DoA pretty hard. Through stubbornness, determination and lots of swear words, I taught myself how to hand-sew. Even though I still make a lot of mistakes, I can now make clothes good enough to take to BJD meetups. You really only need a few basic stitches to be able to do the most basic things. I started off with sock tutorials, and I still have the things I made for Ryuichi. I'm hoping that I've learned how to do better, but its a easy way to get started.

And to keep this thread on topic, I agree completely that dolls that can't sit are a real bummer. Dolls that can't stand are too. I adore Twyla, my EID Iplehouse Luna Tamer girl, but she can't stand unless you place her ankles just right. It means she sits in most pics I take of her. Its a real bummer.

Ryu

 

Currently very annoyed at myself for continuing to look at new releases, mktplce listings, ebay listings, etc, and finding so many dolls I love and can't afford haha recently reentered the hobby and I don't have funds for new dolls right now and don't want new dolls anyway, just wanna focus on finishing/fleshing out what I already have, but PHEW every day I see something new and beautiful that I just wishhh I could get while it's available... I need to train myself to just stop looking at doll news posts

 

When doll companies make something specifically for their own doll line and it doesn't fit. -__-
I have three dolls for which I ordered with their wigs (the same wigs that were in their company photos) because I wanted to make SURE they fit. Two of those dolls have special features: one has a SUPER big head and the second one has sculpted horns.
So. One of the three wigs is too big, one is so small that it jumps off the doll's head, and the last one isn't the same as in the pictures and doesn't work with horns.

This has happened with a few clothing items as well. It's frustrating because one relies on the company to make things that fit their own dolls, ESPECIALLY if the doll line has unique proportions. >_>

 

Oh nooo I feel that pain so hard... I bought a fullset that I really could not bond with and sold recently because the outfit and wig were just... not a great fit... additional parts couldnt fit very well because of the poorly fitting outfit and wig... posing was hindered because of poorly fitting outfit... it was still really cute and everything was great quality on its own but so hard to manage and deal with when it was all put together. I dunno how they got that fullset to look so good in the pics >__> granted it was a slim 1/8 tiny so I can see why it's hard to make clothes and wigs that arent gonna dwarf the doll because no matter what the fabric and hair fibers are gonna be too bulky for the scale, but aghh

 

That's actually the exact kind of mask I have been trying to get. But people are buying them for covid o_o;;; For real, there is a review on a UK DIY/trade store touting that those masks (and especially ones for inorganic particles) work for covid. That's why I was complaining - because I got dolls coming and I can't get a chemical proof mask. And the filters have gone up in price too. I maybe should check with the actual trade shop in town, as they might have stock, being more for professionals than your average DIY dabbler. ^^; But I'm not that hopeful, and don't know if they are even open.

(the medical grade masks are moot anyway, as places like amazon only sell them to key workers. Which is fair enough tbh. And it wasn't what I was looking for.)

 

Oh excellent, I'm glad you are aware of the differences!

Have you tried your local auto parts store, or craft store? If they're sold out there, I suppose you would have to wait until COVID is cured/gone/etc, and people calm down from buying respirators. Sucks, but better safe then sorry, right? Its a good thing that our dolls are more patient than us.

I want my newest dolls to ship NAOW~! The wait is killer! Intellectually, I know that it takes time to create something of such high quality like a BJD, but I still want my boy NOWNOWNOWNOWNOW!

The only good thing about waiting for him to come home is that it gives me time to build his wardrobe.

Ryu

 

I'm broke AF right now and I'm scared the releases I want will come out soon after waiting for years. I just need time to save up money, hold on a sec!

 

I think my rant jinxed it, and I found a place selling masks for the right price, and luckily they had (hopefully) the right size and (definitely) the correct filters! So hoorah for ranting!

(I only have one small subtractive mod to do to a doll, so I mostly needed filters for sprays. I can hold off on that mod until I can make sure I have the right stuff. But yay, I shall be able to give my dolls faceups without risk!)

A rant - I feel all the shipping woes. My dolls are stuck in Heathrow airport and not moving. They've been there since the 1st. ;o; I know it's a big airport, but come on! Totally not imagining my dolls riding round and round on the Heathrow trains haha. XD That's a pretty fun image. If only they were doing that instead of being in a huge parcel pile at customs...

 

@Lelite I laughed out loud with your comment! I read it as a monologue of someone really really pissed that throws a chair at the end, damn it was good xD thanks for that!