What does bonding mean to you?

As a person who stablishes emotional connections to the things I own and care for, I think that'd be my definition of bonding.
I become very attached to certain things like books, decorations, videogames... to the point I couldn't imagine myself selling them or giving them away. That same feeling applies to dolls and it helps me to tell the 'right ones' apart from the ones that simply aren't doing it for me for whatever the reason.
Being a character-collector type, it certainly surprised me that I could bond with a sculpt but not the character I created for it. Being able to realize that has saved me lots of headaches, but it also means bond with both the sculpt and the character to be completely happy with that doll xD

 

What do you do in that case? If you still bonded with the sculpt, do you turn it into a different character?

 

I am new in the hobby so I knew nothing about bjd . Vinyl dolls and resin dolls . So my first doll was vinyl . Angel philia Emmy . I really liked her from the pictures but after she came to my house , I could not hold her , I did not like her at all . So bad quality for me , so difficult to make her posing . I instantly sold her . I could not bond with her . But my second doll was resin my sweet minifee Ingrid from fairyland . She is so lovely and even after one year of having her , I did not get bored . And I guess she will stay forever with me .

 

That's exactly what I've ended up doing in several ocasions. It took a lot of effort and sometimes even tears because the characters worked for me until a certain point and on my mind it felt like I was betraying them or giving up on them (I know it's silly but that's how my dumb creator brain works).
Now that I can see the whole process in retrospect, it's the best thing I could've done because I was unknowingly ruining my interactions with those dolls (I didn't feel like taking photos of them or even taking them out of the cabinet). Now that they have new characters I feel happy with, I enjoy all those little things again.

 

Aw I understand the feeling...Given how much work has already gone into bringing a character to life, having to start over is a lot. But it's good you're happy with the new ones now!

 

It's like a piece of art. You're bonding with it emotionally like you would with everything you love. Someone bonds with their cars, a piece of old furniture, a beautiful painting, and so on ... When ordering a BJD you just look at the studio photos, we can't often see the doll or the sculpture in real before making the purchase, and then the impression we get looking at these beautiful photos don't always live up to the expectation.
I've done it, and so has many others.

Being such an expensive hobby, I've learnt to be thoroughly when researching a sculpt by looking at as many user photos as possible, on every social media. To avoid being disappointed and to be sure that this is a sculpt I really want. Not just some impulse which pass another day. Doll is art to me, every detail counts. I love sculptures, either it is dolls or statues.
I keep them all displayed around my house, and look at them with joy every day. Over time I sold the few that wasn't right for me, I still have a couple left, I'm just too lazy to post them. But my other collection shines toward me, with all it's beauty, which is a true "art love relationship"

Remember, a small change in the faceup, another wig, another eye color, maybe another size? Another set of clothes? All these minor changes can change your whole dolls appearance to such a grade that the doll you didn't like, could be your new favorite

 

Nice thoughts and comments. Enjoyed reading.

 

To me, bonding with a doll means you feel a connection more than just liking your doll in one way or another. Inspired to do things with it, always feel the need to take pictures of the doll.

 

For me, it's being excited to do things with my doll and feeling like they have a personality taking shape. The best example is Julian, I bought his head years ago because I loved the sculpt. I tried to let him be an incubus shapeshifting character so I could do whatever with him, but that just resulted in me not wanting to do anything at all with him. When I changed him to the solid character of Julian Devorak Then I finally painted, him, found him eyes and a body and all that.
It's relatively easy for me to bond with a doll if I have solid plans for them. If their story is looser I'll lose interest.

 

I always think of bonding with dolls like The Velveteen Rabbit. In the book, the rabbit was so loved that he became "real" to the boy, like we bond with our dolls and love them and give them characters and personalities, it brings them to life in our minds. I hope that makes sense xD

 

Yes! I completely understand/feel this. When the character and personality comes together and they start to take on a life of their own it becomes so much fun! I imagine mine critiquing my styling skills or wondering why I suddenly have the urge to make cat ears for them

 

For me, nothing's ever described bonding better than Marie Kondo. She describes things that spark joy as giving you a "Kyuu!" feeling, like this excited little scream of joy you get in your heart whenever you touch and hold an object. Every doll I've had to sell did not elicit this feeling when I received it. And this might not be the same experience for everyone, but for me I've never been able to work with a doll long enough for this spark to happen after the initial box opening.

 

I read the whole thread and really enjoyed the replies! Since I was a kid I've made up imaginary characters/OCs and told stories in my imagination. So it's kind of a gone case that my BJDs embody OCs too, I can't have a BJD that's just a pretty toy without any character attached to it.

To me, "bonding" is building attachment to both the character and the physical doll itself. I play with my crew a lot, I love to change their appearance and outfits, pose them, take photos of them. As I do that, I'm also developing the imaginary character represented by that doll, telling stories about them, so I get more invested in their personality/backstory and worldbuilding. That in turn influences what kinds of clothes, props and stuff I buy or make for my dolls... and how I play with them later.... and so on. Pretty much everything I do with my dolls builds my attachment to them.

Unlike some of the replies here, though, I discovered that I can't separate the physical doll from the imaginary character. The doll sculpt originally inspired the character, the character shapes the doll's appearance and styling, and they keep on feeding each other to the point where they're completely intertwined. I "bond" to both things. If I sell the doll, I'm also removing the character from my mind -- in fact, for every doll that I sold, its character has pretty much ceased to exist and has never returned to my imagination in the same form. The opposite was also true: I never expected to lose interest in a doll's character, but it's happened -- and the doll became just an empty shell that I had no more reason to own. (Not even prettiness saved those dolls from being sold.) I don't think I could re-shell that exact character short of buying the exact doll that I used to own.

I think bonding can grow and develop over time -- and likewise, bonding can also diminish and disappear completely (as I discovered when I sold some dolls). But for me it's more than just attachment to a character, it's also attachment to the doll that houses it. They're inseparable.

 

For me, I usually fall in love with the sculpt and if there's a character, it comes second. I know I'm "bonding" with a doll if I see the sculpt and start thinking about the character it will house. Also, I know that I should probably go for a sculpt if I'm reluctant to put clothes on it because the sculpt of the body is so interesting/cool/different - that means it's a good candidate to come home and not just be admired from afar on the internet.

 

For me it’s definitely a sense that the doll “fits”, sometimes it’s instantly like when I got my Soom Sard, it was love at first sight and he fit right in with my other dolls, some like my Iplehouse Ron it took more time with but now I consider him an integral part of my main collection and then there are dolls like the Dollshe 28M guy I had who I was dissapointed with when he arrived and didn’t feel inspiring to me at all so I eventually sold him on a few years later.

 

I personally feel this. I know some people are built far more empathetically then me so they have a more "genuine" bond to the doll itself, but looking at dolls I always find myself seeing them as characters I like or characters I've created. Very rarely what the company has set up for the doll, lol.

My child has a bit of an interest cause your parent hyperfixating will get you to notice, but I recently got him his own doll because I showed him an artist who does custom heads and my son was not immune to the FNAF fandom. (Here's a plug Namihu - Etsy please checker her out, her work seems very good.) He's already bonded because he is fond of the character, he picked out a body, and now sees the incoming parts as his Sundrop fellow, not as a discontinued body from doll chateau.

I found this artist trying to find someone who could get a head 3d printed for me for a body I bought but the face does not match the character and I feel any head made to fit my character would end up 90%epoxy since the face is bulkier then what I see for alot of mainstream dolls. This body embodies a character. It embodies more then just the resin.

I very rarely hear someone to collect like people collect action figures that sit on a shelf, but very much something to love and interact with

 

Everyone has such interesting thoughts and ideas on the subject!

It’s taken me awhile to figure out how this works for me and it still is taking time! But for the most part, I’ve determined I like a doll for its artistry, and then see if I can build a character from it. If I’m trying to shell a pre-existing character it doesn’t seem to work…I have to let the sculpt tell me who he/she is! This has led to a lot more happiness over my collection in general since there isn’t so much pressure to shell…it’s more like I just have to let them be until they tell me who they are

Since figuring this out, I’ve seen/purchased a few sculpts that spoke a character to me by just looking at them online. I knew they’d be good choices because they *are* those characters. From here on out, I won’t buy a doll unless they “speak” to me from pictures!