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

As someone new to bjd hobby, but not the doll hobby, I feel like in only a year I've been cycling through a lot dolls trying to finesse my likes, even though i've been on a fairly strict budget. Here's my journey and thoughts on BJD from a newbie perspective.

Part 1: Minifee Dupes
Starting out, I wanted to find dupes for fairyland Minifee but with curvier bodies (I loved the style but not the price). I struck gold with Myou dolls (my first was Wind on a female myou V2 body) and fell in love with their bodies right away along with some minifee-esqe heads like Doll Family H Yue Jian. However, I pretty much only restricted myself to Alice's collections options because I didn't know where else to go at the time. Although I loved how big myou dolls were for MSDs, especially after comparing it to a friend's minifee (which felt too small and barbie like in size), I didn't like how bobble-headed they seemed and childlike (even though by comparison they could be considered mature dolls).

Part 2: Dollife Dreams
Shortly after, I tried out a dollfie dream dynamite 07 as the size and weight intrigued me and I love the look of mature curvy anime women (that mature element was something I was missing in my collection it turned out)... However, I realized Vinyl and all the black gothic-style fantasy clothes I like to sew did not mix well and the vinyl just was too inconvenient for me to work around with how easily it stained. I also realized as cool as 1/3 scale is, they take up a lot of space I don't have to give up.

Part 3: Fashion-Scale BJD
That's when I accidentally discovered fashion scale bjds after ordering a withdoll head (Vampire Rachel), slapping it on an myou body, and realizing the small head on a large body looked very realistic and far more aesthetically pleasing to me (clearly I wasn't reading any measurements aside from neck girth to realize withdoll heads look very out of scale with myou/minifee size heads)! Turns out this more realistic scale was something that was actually sold (i.e. raccoon doll) and I loved it! I also found withdoll heads looked much more realistic than myous and minifees and had more easily available fantasy head options. I started creating semi-realistic, mature, curvy, fashion msd hybrids using those big msd myou bodies I loved from the start and paired them with normal fashion-scale bjds (my first of which was a secondhand Island Doll Long Qingzhi, perfectly in scale with my myou hybrids)!

Part 4: Fashion-Scale Bodies + Artist Heads
My latest part of this journey has been trying to find more options for small MSD scale, semi-realistic fantasy heads and more ethnically diverse heads from independent artists. I've been loving mayakdolls and LT craft heads especially as their scale and style works well with my withdoll and fashion scale heads.

Part 5: BJD Clothes and Styling
An add-on to my recent journey has been buying BJD clothing. Going into the hobby I figured I would sew everything but now I realize thats not super realistic for me. I've recently been enjoying buying fantasy style clothes and accessories from taobao via cssbuy! The prices and options are hard to beat and fit super well into my budget for getting a base outfit for my dolls. Beyond that, I want to challenge myself to make accessories, wigs and small clothing items to develop my characters further and make for fun alternative outfits options, all with the supplies I've recently purchased on TaoBao lol.

Overall, I feel like I've really niched down in this last year into a kind of difficult corner, combined with my strict budget, to find good options. I really feel like my ideal head type is very withdoll-esque, floating somewhere in between the realistic maturity of small raccoon doll heads and the surreal prettiness of minifee heads, combined with a curvy, larger-scale body type that really can only be achieved with hybrids (or available in the form of expensive art dolls that I can't invest in at this time ). However, I really wouldn't have it any other way as It makes the thrill of the hunt (for cool artist heads and limited fantasy head releases, secondhand and new) all the more fun, saves my wallet a lot of pain, and I overall just really love this very specific style. For now, I will continue to be obsessed with these mature, curvy, semi-real hybrids. I've also come to really appreciate the vast secondhand bjd market as It's allowed me to try out a variety of doll options and practice my faceup skills without losing money. I realize this is a super long post that no one will read but it was a great exercise to evaluate where I've come in my first year in the hobby. Here's a little sample pic of my favorite girl Avalon that accidentally spurred on my specific obsession.

 

I started out the doll hobby thinking I’d like 1/6 dolls but after getting my MDD I became enamored with the 1/3 scale!

I also originally contemplated on getting a resin BJD but I ended up with a MDD and I don’t regret it at all! I found vinyl to be a great material for me. There are more options for resin anime dolls these days so I might consider getting a doll with a resin body someday but I do find the idea intimidating.

 

I discovered BJDs when I saw pictures of Marina Bychkova's Enchanted Doll. I was in awe so I really wanted an artist doll, like Popovy or Marmite Sue. I wanted to dress my doll extravagantly and make a bold statement. I was sure that I wanted a work of fine art, not a "toy"!

Now four years later, I have eight cherubic YoSDs and I sew cute children's outfits for them. I love them to pieces. They got me through the pandemic and made me smile every day. I still admire the fashion-scale artists dolls, but it turned out I just want to play with cute little things.

 

I used to be really enamored with realistic face ups and stylists but realized eventually that while I still find them amazing to look at, I like my in-between stylized dolls. Also I collected mature minis for a bit but can firmly say I do prefer the SD13-SD17 size most.

 

I had a firm "I don't do tinies" rule. I started the hobby with SDs, had tried a few tinies of various makes/sizes and no dice. I eventually moved to minis, tried other tinies no dice. So I left the hobby for a while and came back and was firmly a NO TINIES collector.

...And now I am primarily focused on my tinies. It started with Atelier Momoni Pitusas. Small dolls that are super posable and can wear common playline doll clothes? I'm in! I have many of those. And a few similar scaled dolls. And then I discovered Jacoosun Rous and that was it for me. They own my soul.

 

I thought I’d love SDs. I thought I’d like YoSDs too, but not so much MSD because “they have the disadvantages of both” in my eyes.

Turns out. SDs are too heavy and big for me - and YoSD are just too young looking. Turns out… MSDs have the best of both in my eyes!

 

Not sure how much of it is my changing taste, but I thought I liked SD size girls in big frills and wasn't interested in anything else. Fast forward and I've never enjoyed this hobby more than now, with my collection of smaller dolls (mostly slim mini) and casual style clothes.

I still appreciate and like looking at Volks girls in fancy dresses, but back when I had a few I never knew what to do with them, and they would just collect dust. Casual clothes are more accessible, and give me much more freedom with mix and matching. Smaller scale dolls make it easier for me to pose them and take them outside for photo sessions. I realize now that I was looking for things to be pretty, but didn't consider any other aspect. Casual clothes and smaller scale make it much more fun for me to play with dolls

 

Expectation: I always thought "the bigger the better". But then I got my first two 1/3 and noticed that it was too big and heavy for me.

I also figured I'd only buy Dollfies because those were the ones I was most familiar with. Plus, buying from Volks seemed less intimidating to me for some reason.

Reality: I already bought dolls from different manufacturers and nowadays limit myself to 1/4 or smaller. So very different than initially planned.