What do you do with a doll when you're not bonding?

For me, the character comes before the BJD. I research the heck out of sculpts before I buy them to be certain they match the characters planned for them.

That said, there have been some sculpts I've ended up not bonding with or felt were wrong for the character in mind. One of my first bjds is a case of this. I felt the sculpt was perfect for him when I first started shelling him, but recently realized the sculpt wasn't as close as I'd suspected. In his case, I like the head, so I might reshell that to another character. That character, however...I've got plans for reshelling him.

A couple others that haven't worked out, I'm not 100% sure what I plan to do with them yet. One might go for another character I have in mind, but the other I'll probably end up selling, which I have no issues with doing. If somebody can make something out of a sculpt that I cannot, I';d rather rehome it for that reason.

In general, I like to make certain that I'm not just having self-doubts in general before I bother to reshell a sculpt I'm not bonding with. Sometimes it's just that irritating little nitpicking voice in my mind that's messing me, and nothing to do with the sculpt or character itself. In those cases, I do what I can to be doubly certain the character/sculpt are the right fit before doing anything drastic.

 

What do I do with a doll when I'm not "bonding" with it? Sell it.

 

I either sell the doll or I may have it repainted if I'm not completely sure that I'm ready to part with them.

 

Usually the dolls I haven't bonded so well with are the ones that were more of an impulsive purchase because I found a good deal, or ones I haven't done as much research on. If I don't bond right away I put them away and try to think about why I don't like the doll and if there is anything I can do to change my mind.

After that if I still can't bond, I'll sell them.

 

This is honestly one of my biggest fears about the hobby. I'm sorry I don't have anything useful to add but thank you for posting this!

 

I keep trying to restyle the doll hoping I will bond. I did have one doll I could never bond with.

 

I will hold onto it for awhile, maybe try a new wig, faceup, eyes, or outfit depending on the doll. Once I place my finger on what is bothering me, it's easier to fix it, but sometimes it's a certain aspect of the sculpt and in that case I end up selling it.

 

Personally, I just wait and look at her daily. Some day I think of a character and she fits it nicely. Usually it's less than 6 months before something fits her. I remember reading how seeing something often makes you like it more. I would say wait for maybe a year and if you really can't think of anything then sell.

 

Sell it or go Sid Phillips on it with a dremel and epoxy to entertain myself

 

I have tried changing the character, different clothing styles, changes in eyes and wigs and for this one particular doll, nothing worked! So now my final options is to sell it and hope a new owner will appreciate the doll more than I ever could.

 

oh my I too had some trouble with bonding my doll. She is my first doll but she is kind of mistake since I bough male one but the dealer ship me girl one (though I decided to keep her)
At first I still feel excited, but when I capture her picture or play with her, I don't really have any feel, and it make me sad
I also think of selling her, but then, my first still is something really special so I decided not to do that. After that I try to change her, finding some inspiration when look at her, change her face up, change eyes and wig and outfit and even style.
And suddenly one day when I change her face up again,take pic,then an idea pop up to me so I stick with that idea and change her.
Now I finally find some connect between me and my doll.
Also I think if you do some family for your doll, maybe they will begin to connect you more. Or thinking a new design for him only. But if after all the method but you still can't connected, then I think it time to let go

 

Sorry, If there is already a thread like this. It was really hard to search for this and I could find anything.

So, a while back, I Purchased a doll head on impulse. I still have no body for it and I don't really have a desire to have it, anymore. I never really connected with him. I feel like if he had a body or something that I might have a better time bonding with him but I have no income and can't get him a body anytime soon.
I thought about selling him or trading him (I've even considered giving him away) but he is an old, yellowed head from a cheap company and I am afraid that nobody will want him or he might end up a practice head or something.
I just really don't know what to do with this head.

 

If you don't want the head and feel no connection then sell it. I have bought brand new and secondhand heads just for practice faceups some I've sold because I had no characters to go with them, there are others I still have and their characters are part of my group. I'm sure there is someone who will want his head and he will find a home.

 

I agree with @SteamWitch, I bought quite a few heads myself and I have sold some because I have no perfect characters for them, can't bond with them, or have no intention to develop them (or their character) further.

You can consider keeping him in case you find some uses for him in future, but since you mentioned you have no desire to have him anymore, you might as well sell him. I think you can't really control if he will end up as a "practice head" or not, since everyone has their own reasons for buying and own plans for the doll/head. But at least you can recoup some of the money you've spent on him, and he will find another home where someone can find another use for him. Some dolls may take a bit longer to sell, if they are old, has defects or not that popular, etc (a couple of the heads I've sold were unpopular or old sculpts and it took me a few months to eventually find a buyer lol), but if you hang in there, you might eventually come across someone who's willing to give him a new home.

Good luck!

 

Can't hurt to try listing him! There are lots of people who will buy a cheap head for practice, mods, a first doll, to repair and restore or just because they want a doll and are on a budget. Not everyone is bothered by yellowing or cheap companies--I have a ten year old doll who is very yellow, has scratches and was only $175 brand new, but he's still special to me and I still think he's as pretty as the day I bought him.

If you want him gone but don't feel like selling, you could host a giveaway on Instagram or Tumblr.

 

Why was my thread moved here? This wasn't my question!

 

Personally I buy a doll after months of thinking to be absolutely sure I want her, therefore I don't really have that problem. I "bond" with them when I see pictures before buying. However, what is great about the BJD hobby is that you can customize your doll like crazy. So if the doll comes out as not really your style, you can still change it, and maybe you will "bond" with her after adding your personality to it.

 

It happened to me.
I had a character created for a doll. I bought clothing, wig and everything for him but in the end, when he came home, I couldn't bond with him. I tried to change his body before I noticed that what wasn't working was the character, not him.
So I gave him a new personality, wig and style and now I love him to bits.
Sometimes a doll is not happy with what you have planned and needs time to speak up and tell you who he/she is.

 

I'm struggling with this right now. Actually, to be honest, I've been struggling with it for a while - and there's a big reason I can't sell them, which is that they were birthday gifts from my parents. And selling them feels a little bit like rejecting the love and money they put into the gifts... but so does just putting them away.

I bought the Luts Lemon as my first doll. I loved how she looked in Luts' images, and I thought I would make a character doll out of her with the character Veralidane Sarrasri from Tamora Pierce's The Immortals quartet. But it just... didn't work. I was new to the hobby and everything was very frustrating, but I wasn't helped by the fact that I actually had a falling out with Pierce's work around the time I actually got the doll. So, before she even got more than a wig for that character (so... a year?) I wiped that character, and made changed her name to Valli. At that point, she was part of a modern Northern European fantasy plot with two my friends who also own BJD. So, keeping that wig, she got a faceup, eyes, and the beginnings of a wardrobe. At the time, my parents also gave my another doll - IslandDoll's AnAn. She was a bit of a placebo, I know realise. The doll I actually wanted, IslandDoll's Veranoen, was far too expensive to do much more than dream about then. But I loved the AnAn too. She was originally named Eclair, and part of the Nordics-verse, along with my friends' anthros who also had pastry names. In the end, though, it was too complicated to keep up that verse - my friends had a system of rules in place for the magic and everything, and I felt like I just couldn't maintain it to the group's standards.

So I removed my dolls from that verse (which was later discontinued and dolls sold or reshelled, because it wasn't working for anyone.) I decided, a little on a whim, to have Valli and Eclair - renamed Winterberry - moved to a verse that matched what's technically my primary focus of study, Viking Europe. Valli as a young witch/medicine woman, and Winter as her bizarre familiar. I've had a lot of fun researching and making the outfits for Valli... but a year or so later, I'm still not. Entirely sold on her character. Part of this is because of a paradox I worked myself into. I don't want to write a generic Viking story (i.e. young warrior goes a-viking to fulfil some sort of quest, usually revenge or destiny) because it gets repetitive real quick and is a very male-focused kind of story... but at the same time, that's the only type of plot that particularly interests me! That, combined with the fact that I've been having trouble bonding with a) (cis)female characters and b) my own characters when they have no love interest to play off of (I am proud of neither of these things.) And I can justify it to myself all I want, but the fact remains that if they weren't gifts, I would probably have sold them off by now. But since I feel like I can't, I keep trying bigger and more challenging projects for them to make myself bond with them.

I think I'll try some of the advice shared here. I'll take them apart and clean/restring them, redo their faceups if I can find the sealant, change their names... Maybe put them away for a bit. Or just keep them as project dolls, rather than ones with actual characters... I keep thinking, "I could sell them and get X doll!" Or, "What if I did this to the plot... or would that just be repeating the mistakes of other writers?" Very frustrating.

Sorry this got a little long. I just wanted to vent.

 

Typically I try different face ups, eyes, and wigs. If it still doesn't work then I sell it and move on. These things happen sometimes ^^