Were you nervous your first time? (Modifying/changing your doll, that is.)

Yes, yes, yes. I was waaaay too nervous to do a faceup, or take one apart, or...anything. Heck, I was terrified of opening the head to change eyes.

I've come a little way... I've done faceups now, and have gotten to the point where they look good (not great, haha, just good enough for me to not be embarrassed about them). Obviously I'm good with changing eyes now

However, I still haven't taken one apart for restringing, which is bad because one of my girls REALLY needs it. I don't even have any new string for her, though, so the point seems kinda moot. I would also like to try hot glue sueding and tattoos.

So far I've had zero interest in trying to mod a doll. I don't think I would want to do this to a resin doll, but I am VERY interested in buying dollfie dream standard heads and customizing those by changing the mouth shape and stuff. Maybe if I'm good at that, I can try resin dolls?

 

I wasn't nervous the first time I strung my doll, because I'd helped my roommate string her dolls before I got her.

But the first time I went to do mods to her default faceup? Waaayyyy worried. The edits came out nicely though, so I got a little bolder. My pukipuki had no face and I kept having to fix the faceups on her that I did, so eventually I got my roomie to give both dolls their final faceups.

But, when the time came to mod my Khorae's nose and pierce her ears? I hemmed and hawed for hours.

 

Hee hee.... I owned my first dolls for months before I even got it up to unglue the eyeballs, let alone take them apart for cleaning. Now I can dismember & reassemble an SD13 blindfolded, like a rifle. ^^

And it was a whole year before I got it up to replace my Shiro's faceup by myself-- my first faceup attempt-- it went lumpily. And I got myself into a total K-hole over it for about a week. But I eventually settled down & got used to looking at & living with my own results. Lesson learned: Changing something you have a long emotional attachment to is kinda hard! Would've been easier if I'd done it as soon as I'd met him, instead of waiting.

I don't do faceups often enough to do them really confidently or quickly. So I'm still nervous every time I do one. After almost 5 years. But by now, I know I can eventually turn out something that I like, even if I do mess up along the way. (Even on a tan doll!) Building confidence takes practice, and patience, so it is slow going.

 

im absoulutly terrified to think about restringing or doing anything to my little ones!! i would die if i messed up and did something worng, so i always just keep thte default faceup ^///^

 

I wasn't nervous at all. The very night I got Milo, I hotglue sueded him and tightened his strings. Since then, I've redone his faceup (three times ), restrung, and blushed him.

I plan on doing mods on him, too... adding magnets for wings and/or a tail. He's my first doll, but I don't really feel nervous about modding him. ^_^

 

For some reason, I was never nervous about doing anything with my doll. Within my first week I had done a faceup, body blushing, restringing, and eye changing. I'm a careful person, but the way I see it if you do your research, take your time, and do it right anyone can do anything. This philosophy has gotten me through my 5 years of BJD collecting and I never damaged a single one ^_^

 

I'm so terrified of messing things up that I try not to touch my Dollfie too much, lest the curls in the wig gets tangled. It's come to the point where she's more an ornament than a doll. -___-

I'm gonna have to take the plunge soon. Quite a bit of dust has accumulated in the wig, and it's already messy anyway despite my efforts.

 

2 days ago i started sanding a doll's head cuz i thought it was too fat. i was freaking nervous cuz i thought i would never get it right so i'd keep sanding and sanding so each sides are equal and that i'd make a hole in his cheek or that he would look TOO thin.
at my horror i realized that i could never make him equal on each side because he was made all screwed up in the first place. his chin point more to the right. his eyes, nose and lips are placed more on the right side of his face also.
so i'm just gonna replace the chin and leave him like that...

also i was stressed when i dyed my doll because i heard if the resin touch the pot, it might burn D: but i dropped parts many time and it never burned
AND, i also opened one of doll's eyes. i really thought i would pierce the resin or that with the knife i would make a huge scratch on his face.
it almost happened 0.0;;

(wow, i really should'nt write long texts. i feel it doesnt make sense xD)

 

The first thing I did with my first doll was give her a face-up. There are still pictures of that attempt, somewhere... O.O But when I first took Dai (my boy) apart, I was really nervous. It was the first time I'd ever taken any doll apart, and I was worried I wouldn't be able to get him back together.

 

As all 3 of my dolls to date were bought blank I knew that taking them apart for blushing, faceups etc was all in the cards...however, I was still extremely nervous...especially the first time I de-strung my 2 MSDs (worrying I'd never get them back together). As it is, only one of those 2 is now finished and she's since been de-strung / re-strung a couple of times so that I could experiment with how different grades of elastic effected her posability...and I'm no longer afraid to do it at all (been more afraid of getting her back together before my 2 year old son wakes up / realises what I'm doing and wants to "help"). My face-up skills are no where near what I'm hoping for them to become eventually and being aware of that fact makes me nervous about face-ups, I'll admit. However, practice makes perfect...I know I won't learn if I don't try.
I was also nervous about putting a dremel tool to a BJD head after some dremel trouble I had working on a Dal head before I progressed to BJDs. However, after some experiments on both resin and acrylic I am now not so nervous and know I have my sense of control back there.

 

Yes definitely. For the first year I had my dolls I didn't do much of anything to them. Recently I have been more comfortable taking them apart and yes even doing face-ups. It has just been in the last couple of months that I started trying my hand at face-ups. I have a very patient friend who is walking me through it and she keeps reminding me that I will not hurt my doll, I can always wipe it and start again. I think it is the fact that there are so many people in the hobby in the area who are willing to help and we have "work meet ups" that has really gotten me over alot of the nervousness.

 

I don't think I would be one to take sand paper to my doll or do face-ups. I'd be afraid to mess them up or something. But when I got my first I decided to take him apart because I was curious to know how he worked and was put together. The only thing I hated about it was that it took me two days to get his last leg on because I was having problems and just decided it could wait. Then when I did get his leg on I was like "Oh yeah! Who rocks now?" I was sitting in the living room at midnight and scared my Dad with the naked dollie.

 

Im asking this because i was in the process of doing just that and i was panicked and focused and annoyed and ect ect ect. granted i just got off a plane with little to no sleep and had spent the hours at home cleaning,boiling, and restringing my bb(and occasionally helping/hanging out with my older sis) instead of falling asleep buuuutt y'know i couldn't resist his cute lil face after being gone for so long v.v i had originally planned to wire him but i aint got no wires ~le sigh~ and hes a mature tiny ;-; isnt he supposed to not be hell to restring?? hes back 2 being floppy but at least he aint loose now. and hes headless atm bc i want 2 attempt to face him up........ lmao wish me luck. and share ur stories so i can get some peace of mind.

 

Oh my God, I'm screwed! I can't pull the string out of the leg so I can attach the feet to it! omg omg omg

 

Hello equii
I have only one doll, Iplehouse JID Amy and I restrung her 2 times.
I have to say I'm afraid to do it again... not that I would break the doll by accident but breaking it in rage you know
First time i restrung my girl, I used the restring manual from the company and it went quite well. She was tigher but sadly her right leg is always floppy no matter how tight the cord is
The second time i restrung her was real hell... she was sooo loose and I had to do it... I spent all night re-reading the manual and at one point I wanted to give her to someone else to restring her but I was strong and finished it

She is loose again (I don't know if I'm doing something wrong or if it's only how the doll is made) but I think I will ask someone to help this time

Sorry if my english is not perfect, I don't use it too often

 

Excitement and Confusion.

 

Despair, anger and disappointment.

 

Definitely panic. The body, when already strung, didn't seem like that big of an issue but when everything had been laid down in front of me I started to panic, everything had to go the right place and I have no guides så all I could do was trying my best. It was definitely not the best attempt I made but since then I've had to redo it countless of times since my DoC H. Kirill always becomes loose after a month max.

 

At first I was only stressed, and then once I had all the parts laid out, I began to panic. :P
I actually ended up calling a friend to come walk me through it, and that helped a lot once the next time I had to restring a doll came along.

But since then I have become pretty confident, even with the hot glue sueding. However, I have yet to restring any of my super tiny dolls, but I'm sure I will be freaked out when the time comes. And that will be its own adventure. LOL

 

"Oh my god this is the most relaxing thing ever!"

followed by years of restringing for everyone cause I think it is one of the most relaxing things one can do in this hobby xD