Were You Afraid to Start The Hobby?

Yes definitely. I was firsr interested in getting one as a teen in the mid 2000s. The price and the whole 'ordering online from foreign stores' ultimately made me back out though. So I forced myself to be reasonable and stayed out of the hobby.

Fast forward to the pandemic (and actually having an income): a dear friends kindly let me handle a few of her dolls and patiently answered all of my noob questions . And that was all I needed to finally take the jump.
This time I wasn't afraid because it felt like fulfilling a 15 year old dream.

 

i wasn't afraid to start the bjd hobby, no

 

Honestly? Yes. I was really worried about the expense, which dealers I could trust, whether or not I could determine what a recast was...

 

I was terrified to be honest lol Mostly because the price and how much work goes into each doll. Wigs, face ups, eyes, clothes, interchangeable parts... It was much easier with more common 1/6 doll brands where the doll comes complete. I'm also horrible at commitment when I have soooo many options to chose from. And the size difference?! I would have to rebuild my collection of clothes, props, and furniture with higher price pointy and harder to find items, as you can't just walk into a supermarket and buy a fashion pack.

But thankfully the process feels a bit less overwhelming now that I officially joined the hobby. It can be challenging at times but is fairly enjoyable (except for my bank account)

 

I was afraid of the pricing. It was the biggest barrier of entry for me. I am still afraid of the people i live with mishandling my bjd when i am not looking.

 

Yes definitely, the expense worried me, which companies to trust, and preorders confused me a bit too
Now I am over all that for the most part and am really enjoying the hobby..

 

Yes, I was! I heard about BJDs for the first time when I was still very young. I get overwhelmed extremely easily and when I was younger, I felt like everything about this hobby was very overwhelming. There was a bit too much knowledge I had to know before getting my own doll. I'm very happy I did not start this hobby at a younger age, it wouldn't have been as satisfying as it is for me now.

 

I was a bit afraid to start this hobby because I didn’t know if I would really enjoy it after having made the investment in my first bjd. But I have no regrets and love this doll crazy hobby.

 

Yes and no.
I wasn't really worried about the expensive side, as I had been saving for the hobby ever since I first heard about it years before. The hobby was everything I loved. Dolls, photography, designing, art, sewing. It was all my favourite things combined into one. I had creative siblings as well who I knew would probably be will to help me too. I had a sister who painted and worked with clay. I had another sister who could crochet and knit. Everything seemed like a perfect set up.

But I still live at home and this was where the fear was. I was 17 years old, and my mother was very particular about money spending. She doesn't understand art or even the idea of a hobby. To her, it was all a waste of money. But don't get me wrong. I paid a weekly board and had a well paying job. It was all my own money.

So to start small, I just bought an msd doll. But even that got a lot of negativity. My mum thought it was a waste of money, that it took up room, didn't give anything back for the money spent, and that if I had been going to buy one I "should at least have bought a nice Victorian girl."

After that, I never showed her another doll. Although she made comments whenever I got a big parcel with the contents marked as "doll". So, cut to me being 21 and I still live at home. I only photograph my dolls inside. The whole secrecy act does take away the joy of my dolls and sometimes I regret them. I even stopped collecting Sd dolls, despite that being my favourite size, and I now only collect Yosd.

So, I was a little afraid of joining the hobby and now I am even more afraid of continuing it.

 

This is me reaching out over the internet and giving you, a total stranger, a hug. It sucks to live with someone who judges how you spend your money and diminishes the joy you feel in something you love. Having to hide away a hobby is quite depressing, when you want to share the joy it provides you. Especially when they think they're being helpful or 'realistic' about the situation.

I hope that at some point in the future you're in a place where you can have your dolls out and collect and interact with them in the way that makes you happiest.

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply .

I have gained a bit more confidence now that I have a Yosd collection. I have even begun putting some out on display. Once I get my driver's license, that will also open a lot of opportunities, including selling dolls, sending some away for faceups, and taking them out for photography. And further into the future, hopefully I will get my own place and display them as much as I like. And then I will even begin to be able to buy more unique dolls (I love monsterish/alien kind of doll sculpts.)

I suppose the positive thing is that I have to focus on just the few I have, rather than get carried away. So, in a way, I guess it does keep me grounded. But your words definitely make me feel better. I will continue to do my best with what I have, and look forward to future days!

 

i was really afraid tbh. mainly because of the family pressure not to be in the hobby. i joined when i was around 14 or so. and my dad bought me the dolls. he thought they were extremely weird and was not a big fan of them(especially my resinsoul yu).

i was also with a partner at the time that would shit on my hobbies. so when i showed them the dolls they immediately were telling me that they were weird and i shouldn’t like that. eventually i fell out of the hobby because of this pressure.

i’m much better now though! happy i’m here now. i’m still nervous sometimes about getting new dolls or showing them off to friends and that sort of thing. i still am a little afraid, even six years later

 

I think if I had started amassing a huge collection they would have raised more eyebrows about it, but since I somewhat fell off the hobby and showed them the dolls occasionally it's just another thing they add to the 'weird things my daughter likes' list.

My family weren't thrilled per se, but when I started making my own money and paying for things myself they didn't stop me. I was an adult and could get what I want. But they re-iterated to me to stay wise financially, so I actually saved up a lot of money, more than double what I paid for my first, before ever buying the doll. I'm glad they told me to now that I'm much older. To this day I get nervous when spending anything over $100.

I got into the hobby right as the popularity of it died in the 2010's. I didn't feel like I connected to anyone else in the hobby, and the dolls I had didn't give me the joy they originally had either. I ended up selling almost all the original ones that I had gotten. Losing passion is always a risk in any hobby. My advice for you from personal experience:

1. Budget. Don't think about just the doll, but all the accessories too or if you'll want additional things for it.
2. Pick a sculpt you'll be able to handle. Are you going to do a lot of your own customization? Do your own faceups? Clothes? Eyes? If not, I'd suggest thinking about picking sculpts that have standard measurements so it's easier to find clothes, wigs, etc for them.
3. Pick the right size. Don't pick a doll that will overwhelm you. I personally can't handle anything over MSD size because I don't have shelf space nor do I know how to handle larger scaled dolls. On the flip side, small sizes can be hard to take apart or fix and are a little harder to customize since they are so tiny. Tiny ones are portable and larger ones aren't. So there's pros and cons to each.
3. Invest time into the doll. Actually spend time on it. If it doesn't have meaning to you then it won't have meaning to anyone else. It will stay a hollow husk on your shelf if you don't breathe life into it. And then it will really feel like a waste of money.

It's a commitment. And I won't sugarcoat it: It is expensive and can be time consuming. But it can be rewarding and a great creative outlet. I hope this doesn't deter you from the hobby, but I think it's important we talk about things realistically from time to time.

Hope this helps!

 

I wouldn't say I was nervous or afraid to start, but super overwhelmed with the sheer number of options and variety to choose from. There was so much I loved, but the price point isn't really something that I felt you could do a "try it and see if you like it" super easily. I spent a good amount of time trying to research every company I could to get a solid idea of where I wanted to jump in first. And I think I ended up making the right decision!

 

I might afraid of. I will consider about cost, since I am still a student. Also I need to think about the time consuming. Starting a new hobby, is not easy. But in general I like to start a new hobby, it will help me to make new friends.

 

Absolutely. My first doll I spent around $800AUD all up.
I was afraid I would get her, and then not bond with her.
The BJD community in Australia seems a lot smaller too, and I often can't find dolls I would like here locally at all. I would much prefer to try and buy locally, but it's hard to here.

That said.. I loved my girl, and ended up acquiring another 4 a year later

 

I am ! I'm still a beginner, and i don't have any doll, yet. I am a cautious person in general, especially when there's sooo many parameters to take into account, and i'm also super picky aesthetically. So i thought i'd have time to learn more and be a bit more confident until the day i'd find a sculpt that i'd like.
Problem : i have found a sculpt that i really like and i'm not ready the way to order is also directly from the seller with no website, so even if i know they're legit, i have a lot of questions to ask and things to check beforehand.
I am an adult with a stable job, so the price, while being taken into account, is not a block in itself. Rather i think it's a deeper fear of "what if i do / buy / try all of this and in the end...i don't like it / i'm lukewarm about it" and in summary of this perfectionnist feeling, "what if i'm dumb because i didn't know when i should have known before trying it !".
And to this, my own feeling, i reply with the golden shield of Marie Kondo (actually, a tumblr user pharaphrasing her, about the sunk cost phallacy) : "those things have served their purpose to you, even if their only purpose was to teach you that you do not like that thing".
If i end up putting money in it and not liking it... well then i'll know ! and that'll be more knowledge added to my life. And i can just resell it later, or think that well, it happens, it will not have a problematic financial impact on my life.
And if i end up liking it, then it will be a nice, and i hope long, new bringer of creative joy in my life !

 

I never thought of getting a BJD as joining a hobby or getting into a hobby. I didn't even consider that getting a doll would put me into a hobby. I wasn't nervous about joining any hobby at all. The first dolls I saw were Soom Idealians that were full set, and they seemed costly, so I wasn't expecting to buy any BJD's at all. Although, I knew when I saw the dolls I thought that I really had to have one of those.

When I saw Dollzone Carter and those little sharp pointy teeth, I knew he was the one. He was on sale, and $200 plus shipping, still seemed a lot of money to me. I was a bit nervous, what if I don't like the doll? I adored him, but still didn't really consider myself a part of the BJD hobby, just because a had a doll.

Now I have a lot of dolls, but still don't feel as if I am fully into the hobby just because I collect the dolls and occasionally blab about the dolls on various forums. I don't go to meet ups, I don't do conventions, I have only made a few doll friends. I am not that antisocial, it's just that life circumstances prevent me from joining in a lot of these activities that would bring me together with other BJD collectors. So, I always feel like I am on the outskirts of the BJD hobby. I do consider myself a doll collector, but I don't feel that just collecting the dolls puts me into the hobby.

 

I was definitely very nervous! I spent over a year deciding if I even wanted to enter the hobby at all, and then it took 6 months and a holiday bonus to save up enough to buy my first doll. I still had a moment of anxiety right after I put in the order that maybe I had made a terrible mistake and was wasting my money, but I reassured myself that my interest hadn’t waned in a year and a half since first seeing the doll I was buying, and I had been perfectly content to save up the money with nothing else I’d rather spend it on, so I wasn’t being impulsive or reckless and was just making a bigger purchase than I’m used to. By the time my doll arrived, those worries were long gone and I was just thrilled to have him safely home!

 

Agreed! I looked at the prices and i was in PAAAIN like "omg i cant be in this hobby, i cant afford this hobby???" but once i found one affordable and i could have my first one, i started finding great sells on insta/discord/mercari that let me continue the hobby in a more 'im too broke for this hobby what am i doing' way >w<