What do you prefer: Personality first or Sculpt first?

The sculpt seems to form the personality for me. I may be feeling like looking for an innocent personality, but some sculpts just scream a personality. For example: I am getting Soom - Yarn from someone on here. After looking at his photos, I kept his old face up because his personality seems to shine through it. I will edit it here and there, but he just seems to have his own littler personality.

 

Sculpt first then personality.

I've tried the other way but it never works! I just can't seem to find the right sculpts for my OC's. That, and the clothes/accessories/shoes/faceup/whatever never seems to fit. It's frustrating but I still like the new characters that I come up with. Only one of my dolls is an OC from Skyrim and at first the sculpt wasn't supposed to be anyone, but it just kind of worked out for my OC later.

 

For my peace of my mind sculpt first. I keep my bjd characters separated from my other characters.

I find quite easy to develop a personality after liking a sculpt and start planning from there. Of course now that their universe is made and I have a story line is easy to have an idea for characters, so I have ideas what type of characters and their connections with others I want to make. But I don't plan their looks, I prefer to keep them as concepts and develop the rest after I find a sculpt.

 

I *try* to plan their looks but for some reason it never sticks. I've bought several dolls that I wanted to look one way but ended up being almost completely opposite. I always feel like I'm fighting a losing battle! Lol.

 

Definitely sculpt. I can't imagine a character without seeing the face and "personality" that comes through.

 

That can happen even when a character is not a bjd, I have changed many character designs after developing them more.

I think one big point is that 'looks' is just a manifestation of personality together with static physical traits like bone structure, in this case the sculpt structure.

So the more you know a character the more they will change from the initial idea, something like a BJD that you can easily see and touch their face makes easier to be inspired by it. And sometimes you end up just getting a better character for that sculpt than the one you initially thought.

Face structers face a personality of their own, that is why we also get impressions of some people people more sweet, severe or even cold. And makes more interesting when this first impressions are proven wrong as well.

That is why I started to be just inspired by the sculpts, it more relaxing to work with than try to impose a character on them. Even when I get a concept idea I look sculpts and just think 'nope' sometimes lol

 

Character first, most often. I've found if I impulse buy, I don't usually end up keeping the doll very long, or I have a very hard time creating a character for them. Even if I just fall in love with a sculpt, I usually still need to create and develop the character long before I consider seriously buying them. I bond to my OCs much better than I do the dolls themselves, so a doll with no personality or character doesn't interest me much.

However, there are exceptions! Parker and Luc both started out as surprise gifts from my sister, then I had to find a character for them. I did end up bonding in both cases. My husband surprised me with Derby, and while her character isn't developed as much, I do still enjoy her and have written some details for her. She's mostly just my little travel buddy, since she's my tiniest resin doll and can easily be taken to places my larger dolls can't.

Piper was bought just so I could sew for Minifee A-Line girls, but I'm working on her, and I'm tempted to get a Doll Chateau girl, but I need to create a character for her first before impulse buying.

But under normal circumstances, I need to see the character in my head and feel like I know them before buying the doll.

 

I usually fall in love with a sculpt, figure out what style I want for the doll, then build a character around it. I did have two characters that I shelled into dolls, but those are the two exceptions. I don't have many OCs to begin with, but I love writing and drawing so creating characters from sculpts I liked just went hand-in-hand.

 

I choose the sculpt first, for sure! In fact, I don't really bother with personality until after I've figured out a style (name, wig, eyes, faceup, clothing, etc.) for said sculpt. If I buy a doll without having every inch of it's style jotted down, I won't bond with it. (I even make powerpoints with photo collages of inspirational style pictures sometimes! )
Most of my dolls don't even have a definite personality, come to think of it. On the other hand, my wishlist is full of dolls I want simply because the sculpt really appeals to me; for me to buy them I'll have to figure out their styles though, and then their personalities.

 

I fall in love with a face, and moon over it for months or even years, when it becomes clear to me that this is "The one" over all others, I start saving my pennies. Usually as soon as I open the box, the doll starts telling me who they are, their personal history, what they are interested in, and just exactly what I will be buying or making for them. It takes holding the doll in my hands to know who they are. Sometimes I day dream about who they might be before they arrive, ideas about names, things like that, but they are just daydreams. The reality of who they are emerges after their arrival in my home.

 

I'm another who falls in love with a sculpt, and then finds a way to develop a character for that sculpt. Sometimes it takes a while.

There are some sculpts that I love so much that I want to buy them in every possible skin tone - I'm not sure how I'd work up personalities for them, but it would happen.

 

Sculpt first. Personally, I find it's far easier to build a character around a sculpt than shell an existing one. I have a trio of original characters I'd love to shell, but I've given on finding a shell for the most important of the three. Ironically, I've had no problems finding shells for the other two. It's incredibly frustrating.

 

It really depends for me! Generally I'll try to shell an already existing character, but if I love a certain sculpt enough I'll find a way to develop a personality for it. I've come up with like 5 new characters already just because I saw a doll I really liked.

 

For me it's been sculpt before personality so far. Although, this may be because I'm not very driven as a writer and so I don't really have any characters that I want to shell. I have been dabbling in character creation a bit more than usual lately though, so things could change.

 

I always choose the sculpt first, and then the personality. That's probably because my dolls are not representaing a character from a story.

 

Personality over sculpt! I've ordered a Lucifer from Ringdoll, finally, and he looks just like my character! The next dolls i want will also need to look like the characters i have

I've yet to find a doll that i think i so amazingly beautiful i'd look past the fact that they didn't look like any of my characters and actually buy them.
Besides that pretty Eric from Iplehouse.. he's so haaaaandsome..

 

I found a sculpt I loved and then made the personality after.

 

Personality first since I usually pick dolls based on my OCs.

I get so lost when I've got a doll but no story for it.

 

I prefer personality first. Many of my OC's have a VERY specific look. For example, I am planning on buying an Iplehouse Soa, because she is exactly how I envisioned one of my characters, Lyric, to look. I can't imagine doing it the other way around!