Turned off by a doll sculpt because it seems like everybody else has it?

I'd only care if they looked better in it than I did.

Seeing tons of dolls of the same sculpt is part of the charm of a meet, though -- because it doesn't matter whether or not you see one, two, or ten Shiwoos in the same Anotherspace outfit (for example). They will still be different. Yep, every single one of them. Different wigs, quirks of the faceup, eye colors/types...the sheer variety of things that can be done with a single mold is part of the charm of this hobby. (Example: at this past Otakon I saw two Shiwoos, mine and Ryuichi Sakuma 13's. You could not find a pair of more different dolls if you TRIED.)

I've never felt it necessary to have the most unique XYZ ever. I have what I like. My dolls, while mostly very popular sculpts, have their own quirks and styles that make them different from every other Shiwoo/Yder/Red/etc. on the board. I own a Shiwoo -- everyone and their DOG owns a Shiwoo (unless they own an El and sometimes they own both a Shiwoo AND an El) -- but my Katen? Different from all those other Shiwoos. He has his own style and his own flair and there is absolutely no way any other doll on the board could match what he is. I have an Elfdoll Red. Now he's not one of the most ludicrously popular sculpts, though he's not exactly uncommon -- but no Red on this board is anything like my Kiyo. Hell, I have a Kirill and I know of someone else on this board who owns the same doll based on the exact same character (this is no joke, we got the dolls at around the same time to boot but had no idea about the other until after we both had them) and they are still very different dolls. Limited availability doesn't instantly make something special. Every doll is special because their owners make them that way.

Avoiding something you like because it's popular makes no more sense than buying something you don't like because it's super-limited. I've seen both mindsets and they both baffle me.

 

For me, it's half and half... I seem to like dolls that aren't very popular anyway...There are people who like them but their photos rarely show up on the forum.
On the other hand, as an aspiring doll seamstress, I did think of getting a Luts doll because many people seem to have them, but none of the molds shout 'buy me' to my heart, and I'm rather reluctant to get one just because lots of people are crazy about them.

 

I have a KDF Bory girl. Bory is a very popular mold, and I know people who don't like it because it's popular. I got her because she fit the character I wanted her to shell. She even has default faceup from Luts that make her even more generic. What's funny is I don't really like looking at other people's Borys much, though I don't know why. One or two I find cute, but for the most part I don't really like them.

I know that there are a few molds I get sick of seeing over and over and over again. I know there's one or two I used to absolutely love, but after seeing it everywhere, I fell out of love. Mold overload, I suppose. It just proved I wasn't as in love with the mold as I thought I was ^^

I won't tell you that you should like what you like and to heck with how popular it is. It's ultimately your decision. The following is my opinion. I had a friend who followed that philosophy (don't like/get what's popular!) and she was miserable to be around. You try so hard to be different that that's all you end up thinking about: how to be different, instead of thinking about what makes you happy. You can get your Akando and post it amongst the slew of other Akandos and think 'who will care? It's one Akando in a thousand', or you can post it thinking 'this is my Akando. I love him and it makes me happy, and that all that matters'.

I'm not telling you to change your way of thinking. If that's how you feel, it's not wrong, because that's how you feel. What I typed is how I feel. I will admit though, that at one time I felt the same as you about a mold. I changed my mind now since I look at it and still want it despite its popularity and surrounding clichés. All avoiding it did was make me conflicted and miserable in relation to it.

Cross-dressing and/or boy-lovin' Els have been the cliché for I have no idea HOW long actually XD; Years. I think it just migrated to MNF when they were released.

I one day want a MNF El, and my friend flat-out insists that no matter what, "HE WILL BE GAY. IT'S IN THE NATURE OF THE MOLD."

Of course, no offense meant to anyone.

 

Pretty boys in general. I just don't like doing what everybody else does, and I guess that's why I've been reluctant to have a boy in my collection who is bishy-pretty. Oh well. Winter is gorgeous, and he isn't pretty in a feminine way, so he makes me happy.

 

Never.
I buy what I like and what works for my characters, no matter how many other people have one. I've got a CP Shushu, a Breakaway, and I'm getting a Karsh, an Ante and the much less popular Dollzone Chen.
Apparently what I like in dolls, a lot of other people also like. Does this bother me? Nope. It doesn't matter to me if they're super popular, or if they're super unpopular, if I like the doll, I'm going to get it.
I think bjds are incredibly versatile; 50 people can have the same sculpt, and no two will look exactly the same. You could have 50 of the same sculpt with black hair and blue eyes, and I doubt that two of them would look the same.
Buy what you like, no matter how many others (or how few) have the same one.

 

Hmm, seems like a difficult question to answer without apparently sounding very stupid or childish to alot of people. Oh well. But yes, I find it difficult at times to really come to truly love a sculpt I otherwise think is pretty if it seems like everyone and their mother owns one. Yes, these dolls are highly customizable and yes, no two are the same. But it doesn't erase the fact that I feel if I owned one that the doll would never really feel like my own. Instead it would feel like #13846 Popular Doll.

I don't "force" myself not to like a doll. If I find a doll I fall head over heels for, popular or not, I'll always take a step back and consider it. If the doll happens to be overly popular that does make me think of it from a different angle-will I be able to make this doll really feel as though he is mine? Do alot of other owners' dolls tend to have a similar look, will mine blend in? Usually considering these things makes me see the sculpt with a more critical eye and I realize I'm not as crazy about it after all (obviously this doesn't happen all the time as I do own both DoC Kirill and Ivan, probably 2 of the most popular DoC's out there. In their case, the love of the sculpt ultimately won out). Fortunately this doesn't seem to happen too much anyhow as I think I've got a taste for the less popular sculpts in the first place and they blend well together in my doll 'family'.

 

Haha, no. I have an El. 'Nuff said. XD

 

It doesn't bother me.

When I buy a doll, I'm creating a character. In the end, this seems to lead to me hybridizing my dolls across companies to find a doll that truly represents that character I've drawn, written about, or just had sitting in my head without a real storyline yet.

My doll "Jin Li" will likely be a hybrid of a not-so popular body (DBDoll boy) + a popular head (Zaoll Luv). Hopefully the proportions work to suit me, if not, I go on a hunt for a more perfect body... But I couldn't have found a more perfect head for him - and it's not from not looking either!

I hope to eventually buy a Dollmore Model (the sleepy eyes Bella) for my samurai girl as she's the only doll I've found so far that had her perfect mixture of a strong-but-beautiful cool/cold warrior-chick. And the "sleepy" eyes work well for her Asian features. I'm not sure how popular or not that particular doll is - but it genuinely doesn't matter to me. I'd probably have a face-up and hair exactly like the sample photos to boot.

I've been spending the last several days looking at doll heads that speak to me for my "Nixie", who will be a sort of water-sprite girlie-girl as my samurai-girl isn't much going to care for lace and bloomers. She'll be using the Zaoll Luv body - see again the 'popular' bit - and either an entirely different Dollmore head (haven't decided which Eve sculpt for certain) or a Leekeworld Wien head. Most likely the Wien.

There are very few dolls that come "out of the box" the way that suits a character I have in mind. But I no more look down on someone for getting a doll and leaving them in the clothes they were sold in than I would someone customizing their obscure doll into something completely one-of-a-kind. As long as the owner is happy with their doll, I'm happy for them.

 

I can't say that's ever really happened to me, and my tastes do co-incide with a lot of other people's on the forum - many people have Els, Shiwoos, F-16s, School As etc... that said, my boys are my boys and there aren't any dolls like them even amongst the hundreds of others here: no-one else has a tan El with an amputated arm and custom blue-black urethane eyes, for instance; no-one else has a School A on an SD17 body with mismatched eyes and a faceup painted to match my Shiwoo... and so on. That's the beauty of these dolls for me, really: you can take fifty Els and throw them in a room together, and between their faceups, eyes, hair, clothing, bodies and so on you won't have two that look the same... brilliant, really

 

The popularity of a sculpt does not sway whether I like it or not, the face does. Most of my dolls are unpopular sculpts by pure coincidence, oftentimes it is these unknowns that happen to carry the exact thing I really like in doll faces. As the dolls are doll-incarnations of my characters, I'm not going to pick out a facial sculpt for them that is unsuitable just because it is popular/will make my dolls popular with others.

I will mention that there is one sculpt people think I do not like due to it being popular (Shiwoo, in any form) however, as something that even made my friend think 'are you ill or something?', I have found a Shiwoo that I would be willing to buy (it is very heavily modded, whatever I dislike about the mould appears to be modded off this one), so popularity doesn't come into play there at all.

I almost came into posession of a MiniFee El...but in the end I chose to take the MiniFee Ruth over El because Ruth's face suited the character more, not because I saw El was more popular (I had only been a member of DoA for a month back then, I didn't even know El were popular ^^; )

 

To me it's not having an unusual sculpt that matters but what I do with it.
I like to mod my dolls and do their faceups, which is what really makes them different from anyone else's.

 

Nahh, I like what I like because I like it.

That being said, yes it can get annoying when everyone has the same headmolds as you, but weeeell I can't help it. It's alright. I can share.

 

I'm actually usually like that, having a hard time liking stuff that EVERYBODY likes, but when it comes to BJDs I'm specific to my characters. I do seem to have ended up with mostly dolls that few people seem to own/post pics of/have interest in .

Honestly, I spend so little time around other owners and their dolls that fitting in/standing out is not an issue.

 

I know when I was a teenager I had those kind of thoughts, like I felt like I had to differentiate myself from the crowd and I couldn't like what was 'mainstream'.

And then I had the realisation that sometimes? Things are popular because they are good! There's not much fun in being elitist, but there's a heap of fun in being able to share the love with others.

I think everyone's doll can look unique, with very little effort. The simplest change in faceup can completely alter the doll's feel.

The mould is like a blank canvas, and what you put into it makes the difference. I don't really see it mattering if a lot of people have the same starting point as me!

 

I don't actually own popular sculpts at all right now. That's not something I set out to do originally, it's just what happened. Why? Because I happen to like artists sculpts more... this tended to just happen, I suppose. So I ended up having heads from Astral In Rainbow (and lord knows there's only a few other people that have them - three to my knowledge on DoA) and Ninodoll... even my DOI boy isn't that popular (because I haven't seen many A&Ds around either).

That isn't to say I don't like them - I'm getting my first really popular sculpt at the moment, a Migidoll vampire Ryu and I ADORE him (the only other really popular one I have at the moment is a Crobi Yeon Ho). It's just that I look for specific traits in dolls for my characters to fit into and it just so happens that most 'popular' sculpts don't fit my criteria.

Honestly, before I found the V.Ryu I'm getting now, I liked the Ryu sculpt but I thought 'wow... so many people have them... how could I really make mine not so.... generic' you know? But I happened to see the head in the MP, already faceupped and it just SPOKE to me. I knew he fit one of my characters exactly and I knew how to make him completely mine.

That being said.. I think that's just what you have to do with every doll you get. No matter what, that is your doll and if you make them yours, then nothing can take away your enjoyment of them.

 

I love my CP El! Even when I got mine after everyone and their granny got theirs. I also have to take a look when I see other people's Els in the gallery. Can't get enough of that sculpt. ^_^

I got my MigiDoll Ryu when he was fairly new and not many people had him. He is such an interesting head with lots of character, but when he got more popular I felt saturated by seeing him all the time in the gallery. Now that I see less of him (although he's still popular) the "I've seen enough of him!" feeling went away. I still have my Ryu and I wouldn't sell him just because he's popular.

When I buy a doll there's something about the face (or the whole doll) I just love to look at, so I won't mind seeing that doll in other places too. I have some pretty rare and unpopular molds and actually I'd love to see more of those dolls. My dolls are not special, because they are rare or unique. They are special, because I think they are pretty and they are mine. I can play with them whenever I want.
I don't feel I need a special doll to make me look special in the doll community either, so I don't care how popular or how unique my doll is compared to the doll community. It's nice to be able to just buy what I like instead of first checking a doll's popularity rate.

So I agree with the sentiment that you should buy the doll you like and worry less about what other people will think.

This made me laugh. It's true! (I never thought I'd give a boy head mold a bright pink face-up, but somehow my El's face-up doesn't make me flinch.)

 

Ugh, I'm sorry but I really hate people who don't get things because other people have it. There's alot of people that do this with alot of different things. It's just trying too hard to be different. But you can just aswell be different if you put some imagination and thought into the sculpt and make it your own.
There's tons of 'the same' dolls here on DOA, but most of the time it's very distinctive which doll belongs to which owner.
If YOU like the mold, then I don't see why you shouldn't get it. "Everyone else has it" is the dumbest reason not to get something.

 

i really like the face of the hound doll but honestly i could never own one because everybody and their mother seems to want or have one and frankly i want my dolls to be semi unique

oh and muisje i agree with you! the CP EL's are everywhere! (even i have one ) but i still love them to death...

 

I don't know, there are popular sculpts that I can't stand and there are popular sculpts that I love... but of course I'd prefer a sculpt that I love and is less popular. It would feel more like an original.

But of course, dolls are customizable, you can buy a popular sculpt and still have it look original with a little work.

 

Nope. The next doll I'm going to buy is a Lusis. Go figure.

The only reason I'm cashing out $$$$ for a limited is 'cause I love his/her face and I only have hybrids because I think it looks weird owning different dolls with the same body-sculpt.