What did you think you would like vs what you actually like

I think for a short time in the beginning i was really considering a minifee, but went with a luts doll-- later on I did get my hands on a minifee mika but-- I was already so used to my boys big head that it kind of just turned me off of most "slim" bjds...Now I worry way too much about if my dolls are in close enough proportion to each other lmao

 

Instead of high concepts and fantasy sculpts, I discovered I'm much happier with regular, "boring" dolls named Steve. I could go into more detail, but this sums it up perfectly.

 

I first started with a boy SD, then realized I loved dressing girls more than boys, body shape and all that. Got a bunch of girls. Then realized I wanted a boy now that I was more than a decade into the hobby and missed having a boy. Turns out I like character dolls. So that's where I'm at now, a mix of fancy lasses and boys based on fictional characters.

 

I thought my first doll would be an anime-like one because a doll like that was the one that draw me to this hobby in the first place. I even had designed a character for her as my personal little helper in the way of a persocom in chobits. It never happened.
Also, I had a full novel universe about vampire gods and I was eager to shell them. Never happened either.
In the end, I have a family which is one half anthropomorphic animals and the other half realistic MSDs and a Yo-SD (one of them is not even my original character, a thing I swore I would never have xD).

 

I fell in love with the Lati Blue line and originally would have happily goten all those dolls if I could aford it. I did get one full Lati and a head to hybrid with a Luts body to get some variety. After that, though I have tried to keep it to just one doll per company, I like the diversity. I did make it so they all went together for the longest time. I liked the mature mini size and stuck to it...
Until I fell in love with mature tinies. I only have on on topic, a Maskcat Joy, but they are a nice little group in their own right. It's like a separate collcetion from the bigger dolls.

So my tastes have not so much changed as diversified.

 

When I first started, it was with dolls that sort of fell 'in-between' the anime and more realistic styles, with larger eyes and more obviously 'doll-like' features. Over time I realized I actually really prefer more realistic looking sculpts and proportions, and so I've been working on re-shelling characters lately. I also didn't think I would want boy dolls, and now I have two, lol.

 

I thought I'd mostly like the super innocent big eyed girls with their lolita dresses.

Don't get me wrong! My first, Hyacinth, is very much a super innocent big eyed girl!

It just turns out I like super pose-able dolls whose features slightly differ from that style even more. My atelier momoni girls and their green skin or crooked smile, my Frappzilla Lupi of unidentifiable gender, that kind of thing.

 

When I first got into the hobby, I thought I might be into minifees...and I'm honestly not. I own all of one and he is an angry elf because his legs hate me.

I also thought I would never be into realistic dolls...and I have 2 Sartoria J dolls on layaway.

I thought I would only have boys and now I have an almost equal number of girls haha.

 

When I first found the hobby as a teen, I had planned to get a 60cm boy, but the plans fell through and I forced myself to kinda forget the hobby. Then in college, I remembered these dolls and got back into it, but I decided to start with some MSDs instead as starter dolls. I've sold one full doll and have the other listed now, with plans for a mostly 60cm+ collection, though mature tinies also interest me a lot. I'm keeping on MSD head who was a gift and will get him a friend, but they'll be my only minis (I may try a big baby MSD, the MYOU ones are adorable and Dika Doll Dobbie is a cute little deer and I'm weak!).

I also thought, because of my overwhelming disappointment with the Barbie's of my era and constantly wanting more Ken dolls, that I would only ever have male dolls. But, I do have plans for girls and I do find myself thinking up outfits and faceup ideas for them.

 

When I first joined the hobby I thought I wanted big eyed, plain-ish girls. That's what I got, I wanted a more expensive barbie I guess, all modern clothes and Lolita dresses. I also didn't like any boy sculpts.

Now I have a Cyborg, demons, and a fairy. One of my girls looks like she's come from the apocalypse and my very tall boy look like he's from a fantasy show. None look the same at all, and I live it

 

I didn't see myself liking elf ears that much; now most of the dolls I want have elf ears. Heck, I even bought some just because it has elf ears.
Another one is larger dolls; I started with YOSD and smaller since I didn't really like having dolls larger than that at first, but I find myself liking my MSDs more. I'm also planning on getting some SD sized ones.

 

After twenty or so years of knowing about these types of dolls and actively purchasing some for a few years, I feel like I still like the same styles and have the same preferences. The only thing that changed was the dolls evolved. There is a bit more variety in styles. The bodies still remain the far stylized bodies that always were, and that will probably will never change, but there is a lot more facial styles to choose from and overall aesthetics as well. Anime dolls in the past for example, were limited to only Volks Dollfie Dream and there as a negative biased towards them. I have always preferred smaller actual true-to-scale 1:6 action figures, so I wanted a mature 30cm-ish doll, but those weren't a thing when I got into the hobby. There is still a very limited amount of mature tiny dolls (that actually look mature, and not baby-faced although that's the only style I own so far of mature-tiny, because I am really not going to get more resin dolls ever again! I did promise myself that, and I feel confident that I will.) I own more larger BJD but that was just all there was when it came to "mature" looking faces back in the dark ages, I will always prefer mature 30cm-ish dolls regardless of the materials or cost of the doll (although I do prefer other types of plastic, that aren't resin, soft-squishy plastics and/or silicone).

 

I thought I would never want anything but MSD, and now I only want SD unless it's a child to them. I thought I'd only want boys, but almost half my crew are girls. I thought I'd only want white skin, and I have everything from white to tan. I thought I'd want anime style, but really prefer a little more realistic. I wanted pretty femme boys, but now most of my boys are firmly masculine (even the pretty one). I no longer say I'd "never" or "always" want something.

 

I started with Volks and Dimdolls and rarely went outside of those, also girls only because I like sewing dresses for them. Once Dimdoll closed and Volks pumped out more then I could keep up with, I am into art dolls from two different makers, something I NEVER thought I'd buy into. I NEVER wanted boy dolls either and now I have three.

To answer the question directly, I NEVER thought I'd be into anime but Volks Nono is my favorite sculpt and I bought a Caron anime DDP from Volks and Mayu DD secondhand. Suddenly I like anime and NEVER thought I would.

 

I thought I would like mature MSD sized dolls and instead ended up liking the big 75cm boys!

 

Large-scale dolls with "fantasy-parts"... Not so much just sculpts with exotic ears or horns, but dolls with bits like hooves, dragon-claws, x-taur bodies or bird feet. When Soom and others first started producing large fantasy designs, I really thought I'd end up with a whole tribe of them just because they looked interesting to tinker with.

In truth? I only have a few large dolls who have those fantasy bits... A pair of hooved Heliots, a Chalco with Sphaler claws and a DollZone/Doll Chateau hybrid centaur. Plus a stray pair of Chalco hooves that no one is currently wearing, and that I may well never use. It turned out that the fantasy types took up a lot of space and were difficult to handle. I like the ones I have, but in the end I have no desire to add any more to the crew.

 

I’ve really wanted to bond with mature tinies since they’re so portable, affordable and diverse! But I’ve absolutely never bonded with a single one. Maybe Dollpamm Diva, but I have very specific reasons for liking her. I can’t get around how much I love the size, heft and majesty of SD sized dolls. And I also surprisingly love Lolita styles better than casual, which blows my mind

 

What a great question!
When I first got into dolls I thought I'd only ever want MSD sizes, but that quickly turned into me getting tired of what was available to me feature-wise with MSDs. The stories for my characters lean on the mature side, with dark themes, so I found myself looking at SD sizes nonstop because I felt they fit the energy of the characters better. I sold a lot of the MSDs I had and purchased SDs, which was shocking because I never thought I'd explore the varying sizes! I'm even interested in YOsds now and have looked at fantasy animal dolls.

I guess another thing would be the features of dolls. I think I lean more towards a realistic style or a stylized realistic, but when I first got into collecting I really loved that 'uwu' anime styling.

 

I was in my latter stages of collecting Pullip & Co. around the time I first started taking an interest in and collecting bjds. That probably affected what I believed I would be interested in when I got my first—and MSD who's facial features were pretty similar to a Pullip.

Fast forward several years—a hiatus, a loss of interest in collecting Pullip & Co, etc. Upon returning to the hobby after that break, I discovered my tastes had changed drastically. Out with that closer to Pullip stylistic appearance, out with the MSD size, out with the more kid-like sculpts. Instead they were replaced with an interest in shelling some OCs I'd been developing around that time—OCs that were older, had more mature features, and would need to be shelled in SD scale.

Since then I've mainly stuck with collecting SD/70cm+ (a couple of my boys just measure over 70cm, and one is on an IOS 80cm body), with a few rare exceptions. I do still have two MSD, but don't have an active interest in get more. Maybe if I find another Minifee Mika/Mir on a boy body to be my current one's planned twin, or an in-scale dude who could be buddies with my Lumedoll Atik? I have taken interest in smaller animal bjds on occasion—

But, as it stands—I'm a mostly exclusive to SD/70cm+ bjd collector with a stronger interest in realism and shelling characters over finding some cute MSD on a listing and buying it.