What do you call your doll when they're styled "OOC?"

Yeah I definitely get that feeling. I am so bad at picking names. Even when I was a kid I could never come up with names for my toys. With BJD I would make some character ideas and then end up defaulting to calling them their sculpt name. Now I mostly call my dolls by their sculpt name the only doll I don’t call by his sculpt name is one that already came with a character and backstory from his previous owners. Another doll the sculpt coincidentally had the same name as the character I based him off so that was an easy one!

 

I have a mix. Dolls who I KNEW would be a specific character get called by their character name, regardless of what they wear. My other dolls get called by their sculpt name. I'm okay with it because no one has a terrible name hahaha.

 

I just take it as *insert name* in cosplay ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ Sometimes the styling ends up so cool I want to keep it, too - humans don't stick to one thing forever, either, so I'm happy to have them look different sometimes, without changing the name.

 

Seconding treating it like cosplay!! I also have dolls that have changed characters—some of them multiple times. I usually treat the characters they were as totally separate entities. Cassandra is a separate character from being Kieran’s makeup head—even though her faceup was the same for the first little while. Sonnet is wholly separate from her past characters as Lavinia/Tacet (and right now her faceup is wrong).

I also have situations where characters I’m shelling have had a bunch of different faces—Aura has been so many sculpts, and none of them look all that alike. We’ve changed resin colours and everything. I treat that kinda like I’m watching a show, and the casting isn’t consistent. I just kinda pretend they’re all Aura. Any photo stories I did with old Aura incarnations are still her, but now she looks different. When I write about her, I edit old descriptions to match her current appearance, so at least that’s consistent.

 

As a holdover from being super active in fanfiction for many years, I refer to these stints as my "AUs" or "alternate universe" versions of my dolls. Sometimes I just need to take my little fictional (mostly) ladies and stick them in a different world for funsies.

 

I suck at sewing and I don't purchase doll clothes, unless they are the fashion doll mass-produced type (I consider myself a fashion doll collector , as in MISB one). So, most of my dolls are stuck permanently wearing things, their characters would never wear. Most of my dolls are based on Japanese licenses, so I most of the time can't get to them ever wearing accurate clothes (because I suck). I some times have them actually cosplaying other characters as well. So, I kind of don't mind if they don't look character accurate. I just call them either by the character I chose them to be, or the doll's default name interchangeably.

I was never into naming my dolls as a little girl, I was then a display "collector" type, I didn't play with my dolls. I only displayed them and never touched them other than for dusting (I didn't even changed their clothes). As an old fart, I got weirder and never even unboxed them. It wasn't until I discovered Volks, in the early 2000s that I even thought about assigning characters to my dolls, or giving them names. So, maybe for me their name and how they are dressed are not attached to each other, nor my emotional feelings towards the doll , so I don't mind it. I love my dolls, and I love the characters they represent or else I wouldn't have fanart doll versions, but it's not something I worry about, if they don't look or are not dress like their assigned characters all the time.

I don't feel it's weird or wrong either way, people just have different ways of interacting with their hobbies. As long as your way gives you enjoyment, and you are not hurting others, nothing is wrong.

I feel like explaining this bit, because I'm more recent years, people seem to get offended by just about anything. I always thought of myself as weird. So, I always assumed my way to be the minority, and never would imply others do their hobbies wrong. However, I have had individual responses that assume I feel I'm implying my way is superior, or the right way. So I wrote this thousand page reply to explain otherwise. (:

 

This is a great question and I enjoy reading the different ways people approach this!

Most of my dolls have their own, well established characters and backstories.
When I want to dress them in some way that is not compatible with that, I just think of them as mannequins while they don't look like themselves.
In my head there is a difference between my dolls dressing up in character (halloween costumes, fancy dress, traditional etc.) and my dolls dressed without character in mind (modelling for photos, acting as fit models for clothes made for other dolls etc). In the former case, they are just themselves in a costume, in the later, they are sort of turned off. I feel the same when I take a doll apart to restring it or do some other maintenance. It's the doll -not the character- that gets taken apart and put back together again.

I have one doll that is an exception. She has a name and a vague personality but no backstory.
She is a mature tiny and my only on topic doll that size, but she has a number of off topic companions that she can share most of her clothes and props with. I love crafting for this size, so if I want to share anything I made here on DoA, she is my only model. Because of this I feel she never really settled into a character of her own, not like my bigger dolls have, anyway. But I don't mind, she is a fun little doll in her own way and she gets to wear all sorts of different things.
I have two other on topic dolls in a similar size on order, so who knows? Maybe that will change when they arrive.

Another interesting take I have heard some hobbyists adopt is to see their dolls as actors. Sometimes even with a "true" character and name. And everything else is treated as just a role the character is playing. Some go as far as coming up with imaginary movies, plays or shows, making it a very fun variation on the alternate universe theme that provides very nearly the same freedom of expression, but without ever having to break character completely.

 

When my dolls are dressed unlike they usually dress I just say nit's them wearing a costume (like for a "Come-as-you-aren't" party or other themed event)

Teddy

 

I actually just had a practical experience of this, somewhat! I ordered a head and body for one of my OCs, but decided that the head doesn't fit the character. I'm making a new head, but in the meantime I've left the head on the body to keep it presentable. It turns out that for me, it feels really natural to refer to the doll by the name of the head sculpt! The head is a different gender and style to what the final character will be, so it definitely feels far enough removed to be an entirely separate entity.

It's not exactly the same as just styling the doll differently, but I'd like to think that I'd have a similar opinion of a doll having a drastically different wig/outfit/style to their "canon" personality.

 

Their name. They’re just playing dress up.

 

My characters aren't defined by their clothing, but I have enough boys that they don't really need to put them in super different styles. I call Hina "scary Hina" when she's in darker clothing, but its not out of character for her to wear them either.