What doll got you into the hobby?

I still remember the day - I walked into the Volks store located previously in Torrence and saw Creamy Mami and Morisawa Yuu Super Dollfies. After that day, my obsession begun!

 

As a lot of people I thought they were kinda creepy. But after seeing a couple posts about casting and the process and seeing Dollfie Dream dolls for the first time in real life, I fell in LOVE with cutesy/anime-esque dolls. (tiny anthro, yosd, MDD, smaller scale etc...)

Got more and more obsessed and finally purchased a MDD a year later.

 

Ah, I'd always liked looking at people's BJDs, but not interested enough to look into actual sculpts and companies. But I'm finally in a place where I'm financially comfortable enough to get into this somewhat luxury hobby and my first boy was Luts' Icarus. I had no hesitation in wanting him :')

 

I don't know which sculpts I saw first, but I have a friend (who is also here on DoA) who showed me a photostory back in early high school. I loved the medium and how pretty the dolls were and how uniquely you could tell stories like that. I didn't really get into BJDs right away, but the more I researched and found, the more I liked them. Dollzone's Yuu is the one who really stole my heart and made me want to get him. I couldn't afford him for a couple years until I got into college and really started having part-time jobs, and even then I could only afford him as a head for several months.

But I still have him and he's lovely.

 

^This boy. Volks SwD Lucas was one of the dolls I saw and I was immediately in love. He was limited though and when I saw pictures of him in in 2005, he had already been sold out for a year. I thought that I would never be able to own this sculpt and so I decided on purchasing another doll.

That first doll didn't give me the same feeling SwD Lucas did. Long story short, I sold the doll I purchased and searched for my first grail doll. Really happy I own this boy .

 

The first doll I ever stumbled across was a Custom House Ai, which someone had posted on an anime-centric forum and described as a "super dollfie type doll." I thought it was cool looking, and so that got me interested enough to find out what that was all about, so I looked it up, and on Volks' site I saw Shirou Tachibana. This was late 2005, so he and the other Tokyo boys were quite new and popular. Shirou was the doll though that ultimately pulled me in and made me decide to enter the hobby.

 

Ringdoll's 2011 Frankenstein got me into this. I saw a panel about BJDs at a convention around 2013 or so and was curious. The ones there were so pretty and when I got home, I started researching them. None clicked with me until I found him. Unfortunately, he had long been sold out. It wasn't until summer of 2020 that I managed to track one down, full set, and now the doll that got me into this hobby, who became my grail, sits in my room with all of my others

 

It was October 2010 and I met a college mate that was waiting for her Ariadoll Narvy to arrive. As she learnt I could sew and the doll itself has special measurements, she told me all about it and I was hooked! About a year and a half later she put the Narvy for sale and even if I wasn't very interested, I felt like I had to buy it for the meaning it had. In 2012 I dared to start carving it, YES, CARVE. And this year I'm retaking the project with fresh and interesting ideas. You'll hear from me soon.

 

Oh man. It started with Pullip if we're going way back, but then I found Angell-Studio through that same google rabbit hole. Those were the first BJDs that I saw. My dad offered to buy me one, because he had some extra money come in and wanted to help start me and my brother in hobbies that we might not otherwise have the chance to because we were in highschool. The Angell-Studio website was down for whatever reason, though, and so I was panicked. I didn't know where else to buy these dolls. I stumbled across Dollmore, though, and the rest is history. I don't own any Angell-Studio dolls, but who knows. Maybe one of these days.

 

It might seem odd, but the doll that actually got me into the hobby wasn't one of the lovely fancy fullsets that were popular around the time I finally stepped in (they were actually a turn off for me!)--it was a simple little Bobobie Sprite. Because what I wanted wasn't a pretty fancy doll, I wanted to be able to make a poseable 3D interpretation of one of my OCs, whatever method that took. I'd previously explored kitbashing action figures, modifying playline dolls, and even the off-topic 1/6 Volks dolls, and rejected all of them for not having the right base to work from. I wasn't tied to BJDs in any way, I was tied to the end result. And it just so happens that the Sprite head sculpt looks very, very similar to that character, in a way no other BJD, playline doll, or anything else ever had for me. So 13 years ago, after a couple of years of glancing at and dismissing BJDs, I finally decided to try one out. And 13 years after that, he's still here.

 

I learnt about bjd when I was in high school. At that time I was more interested in the crafting part, and thought one day I would make a doll by myself. I still remember that one photo from a Japanese bjd maker's blog, a boy with black wig and black kimono. He has the long and up-pointing ears like some traditional Japanese spirits, and his eyes are so gentle that it melted my heart. Judging from my current aesthetic that doll is far from being exquisite or pretty(after all, it was made from clay and never got a proper sanding), yet the impression left by that doll definitely had some influences on my choice of dolls years later.

 

The minifees

 

Dollfie Dream - Miku.

 

I had that issue of Haute Doll and it got me interested in the hobby. I fell in love with the Hound, Bermann and Volks Johanna. I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy the hobby, so I looked for a less expensive first doll and bought a B&G Rin, Hiro in 2009. I still have him. Eventually, I scooped up several Dollshe lads.

 

I will never forget when I first saw BJDs. It was around 2004-2005 when I stumbled across a Japanese website with small photos of oldskin Volks dolls dressed in yukata. I've never seen anything like this before, and got instantly hooked! I remember being impressed with the amount of detail, their scale, and how they pose . I still think there is nothing more beautiful and fascinating than ball joined dolls, and this hobby as a whole!

 

I was first exposed to this hobby by a favorite doll customizer who unboxed a Myou Doll, and I found myself browzing Myou's website. I hadn't really liked dolls that much before that, but I thought they were gorgeous! I didn't actually get an Myou of my own until many years later, but I'm happy I was eventually able to get my Myou Michelle.

 

I was a member of a doll forum (not bjd) about 12 years ago and one member posted about bjd in an ot post. I had mainly heard of fashion bjd so I did not really know about abjd at the time. Someone posted some Lati Yellow and I fell in love but no way could afford $300 for one doll so I put it on the back burner. Once I finally came around to the idea of looking at bjd again and could afford them I saw basic Lati were in a way harder to get at the lower price range and I figured if I going to spend that much I’m going to buy a bigger doll. It’s a funny thing though, after you spend that much on one doll it becomes your new standard. Anyway, I came back around to my first bjd love and bought two Lati Yellow cuties and I’d say that they are definitely the doll that got me into the hobby.

 

the first ones i ever saw, where i understood them to be BJD were IOS Jaguar & Chaos, but Doll Chateau Mephisto.Pheles pushed me over the edge to actually buy my first one. he was my gateway doll to resin addiction...

I was lucky to get Methos (my Mephisto.Pheles) from a dealer's stock order after discontinuation, and found Jag and Chaos second hand later from wonderful DOA members

 

A few years ago I felt the urge to customize barbies/monster high, but I wanted the dolls to be more age appropriate for me and going into a toy store to buy them was a hurdle too big for me. I wanted to relive my childhood but in a mature way. So instead of actually buying and doing it myself I looked on YouTube to see how others enjoyed it. I came across a video with an image I recognized from my childhood. My best friend loved Blythes but never owned one. Her room had a lot of post cards with Blythes on them. I clicked it and I went further and further down the rabbit hole. Then I saw an image of the most beautiful doll I had ever seen! It was an minifee chloe. The video was a type of "get ready with me" doll version. I was so shocked by all the clothes, details and that a grown up was playing with her. That's when I did a lot of research and bought a secondhand chicline ineffa.

 

I honestly had to think a lot about this... I'd been seeing BJDs and admiring them from afar since the early aughts, but I can't think of a particular doll where I looked at it and thought yes, that's the one I want. For a very long time it was purely an observer interest on my part.

Beyond that I was indecisive for ages over pulling the trigger even after I decided I did want one, less from the cost and more of a fear I wouldn't enjoy it "enough" to justify the purchase, if that makes sense? I would say overall Luts most consistently had the dolls I would gaze at in a saved tab for weeks to months before finally deciding against buying a version of my own, though-- right up until I actually did.