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.

 

I thought I would like hyper realistic dolls a whole lot more than I do, but turns out I like my dolls to be either stylized or somewhat stylized.

Yesterday I was browsing SartoriaJ’s website and it finally dawned on me as to why I really like their dolls but don’t want any — same with similar companies like Iplehouse and Raccoon Doll. They don’t quite look doll-like enough for me. I’ve seen so much talent from people who collect these dolls, and the dolls themselves are beautiful, but yea, they’re just ultimately not what draws me towards collecting dolls.

I used to really want a whole bunch of Iplehouse dolls, but every time I saw them in person I couldn’t figure out why I suddenly didn’t actually want them anymore, even though I still liked them. They feel more like artistic sculptures of miniature people rather than like dolls to me if that makes any sense? At least that’s how I feel when I think about what it would be like to own one. The sculpts I do like most from these three companies all have one thing in common — larger eyes than what is normal on a human. The ones that look more like dolls to me.

Something that also helped me realize my preference for stylization was a face-up tutorial/walk through where someone did a hyper realistic face-up. The work was so admirable, but I remember thinking that it was too much realism for what I would want on a doll and not something I would apply when doing my own face-ups.

My first doll was a Souldoll, a company that I think nails a blend of realism with a doll-like aesthetic — they are perfect to me aesthetically. I also found I liked owning more stylized dolls as well — not overly so (with exceptions). Back to Souldoll though — I did find what I loved most in this hobby early on, but it definitely took a lot of time to realize why I was so drawn towards their aesthetic. They’re not the only company like this, but it’s my best example. I don’t own any Supia dolls, but I also think they nail that blend of realism with doll-like.

 

When I first learned about BJDs, I was twelve and I had very little interest in boy dolls and liked gothic styling. Now that I’m a working adult with my own money to buy them, I plan on having more boy dolls than girls in the near future, and that I now prefer more realistic styling.

 

I thought I'd be 100% into slim/mature minis at first and that all my dolls would fit together and dress very cool and mature, and be excellent posers with lots and lots of joints. But somehow I ended up with a couple of old-school bobbleheads and have then just come to prefer them, as well as enjoying having dolls in different scales and proportions that can't all necessarily share things or pose on pictures together. While I appreciate the dainty aesthetics of slim minis still, there's just something super special in more doll-like aesthetics with a chunkier build to me, nostalgic even.

 

I thought I'd like only SD and 70+ dolls but eventually I have more MSDs now. And I even have 2 1/6 dolls. What haven't changed is that I don't like child dolls. My youngest characters are around 13 years old. I also thought I'd collect only realistic/human BJDs but now I have some fantasy characters. My big love is Doll Chateau because I've always liked slim/slender/skinny dolls. And I like DC aesthetics (like pointed ears or extra joints in wrists and ankles). I've never liked really buff bodies. A decent six pack on a male body is OK but too much muscles is no-no, especially exaggerated chest muscles.

 

I always knew I'd like 1/3 scale – I do have some 1/4 and 1/6, but these are child-scaled as opposed to mature minis and tinies.

Originally, I thought about having a doll I could twin or wear jfash outfits with, but it turns out most of my girl dolls don't want to be frilly!
You can make all the meticulous doll plans you like, but sometimes the doll just says "I don't think so" and the outfit you planned for months never looks right. Just the inherent perils of a hobby where you have to buy most things without seeing them in person

 

When I first started the hobby I thought I was going to love Volks and Fairyland. They were so popular. I loved their cute faces and their fullsets. However, when I decided to buy my own first dolls, I ended up really wanting something different. I ended up with artsy Bimong Narae, and I still love her. I thought I should also get a boy doll, so I can custom him and have man clothes (I want to get better at clothing design and fashion). I bought a Lati Blue because they are more mature looking but still MSD size. He's a cutie but he's not my guy yet.

I think I need expressive, human, charactery kinda sculpts. The soft cuties are great, I admire them, but in the end I find myself admiring the dolls the more custom they end up. The more raw. The more expressive the better.

That said, I am really here for customizing too, so for me any doll can be beautiful or interesting. Custom wigs, faceups, fashion, OCs, Body mods, etc. I also found that characters/stories were more interesting to me, whereas I thought in the beginning I would be more interested in the photography/editing side.

 

i honestly haven't changed really at all over 12+ yrs of bjd collecting-- i am almost boringly consistent as a person tho so that checks out

when i first started i was super excited to curate a collection of 1/3 dolls that would be more on the realistic end of things, and dress them in styles that are for the most part like real human sized fashion. a decade or so later, i have...a collection of 1/3 dolls that are all in the "somewhat stylized realism" category, dressed in a mix of streetwear and couture-ish fashion. i even have almost all the same sculpts i put on my original wishlist!

 

To echo thedarkeststar13 I haven't really changed over the years, the only thing I did move away from was the fantasy dolls. At one point I was heavily into Soom dolls and while I still have them & cherish them. After getting back into this hobby recently- I've really been focusing on a lot of what would be vintage sculpts that I missed out on when I first started the hobby. Also I've tentatively branched out to some newer- less well known companies in search of fresh blood for my collection since many of the companies I so loved (dream of doll, napidoll, not doll) to name a few are no longer around...

 

For some reason, when I started in the hobby, I thought I would like mature minis with more realistic-ish sculpts the most. Of course, I then immediately pivoted into larger anime dolls after getting one single mature mini, who now does not fit with the rest of my dolls at all. (still love her though!). In hindsight, I'm really not sure why I didn't consider that I would want anime-style dolls more...

 

What I thought I would like: fantasy dolls like fairyland. What I actually gravitate towards: SD boy dolls lol. I still like my elves and fantasy hybrid dolls but for some reason I LOVE a big, heavy doll.

 

I was originally into pouty looking dolls and thought I would style them in an elaborate, fantasy style. Like Fairyland fullsets, which I do love and have a few. But it’s not my main style, and they are the least displayed overall.

I like cheerful looking dolls in casual styles. Even my fantasy dolls dress a little on the plain side.

 

I thought I'd be into edgy DC/Dollzone because I draw a lot of dark fantasy but it turns out I like classic old school dolls.