What is it about your grail?

For me, a grail is a doll that you come back to time and time again and want to own or it is beautiful but not your aesthetic. Even if you have that doll when you see someone else's picture of it you're like "Oh, what is that sculpt, I really want to have it!" (I normally then realize "oh, I do have it!" or it is on my list of dolls I'd like to have). My first doll was a Dream of Doll E-an, I spent years looking at dolls and photos and trying to figure out if anything else held my attention the way she did, but once I received her I realized I just...couldn't. I prefer more realistic sculpted faces (which were more limited back then). Still, to this day, when I see pictures of her I am in awe and think she's lovely even if she isn't for me. I considered her my grail doll up until I actually owned her and realized I personally have different tastes. Now I suppose my grail would be Souldoll's Aehael (although I wish she was SD sized) because every time I see someone post a photo of her I fall in love all over again.

I do think that price point may have a factor, but to me, anything is possible as long as you save, especially with so many companies offering layaways.

 

I consider grail as your most wanted. It could be slightly or completely out of reach for one or several reasons. My grail is out of reach because it is not currently in production, and when it was, it was limited. I have never seen it for sale second hand since I began the hobby almost two years ago.

 

I used to ponder over this, but it does seem to mean different things to different people. For me it’s a doll I would love to own, and one that’s not completely outside the realm of possibility. Shinydoll was a grail for me, I discovered them when searching for dolls with good posing, and discovered they were no longer in production at the same time. But I hoped to find a preloved one, and eventually I did. Others are grails because they currently sit outside my price range; maybe one day that will change.

 

My "grail doll" is one that I will have sculpted myself! X)

Therefore it is out of reach due to my lack of time, skill (except in procrastination lol), and in some cases, access to materials.

Aside from my own sculpts, though, to me a grail doll would be one where I love both the body and head and wouldn't want to change anything. So far I haven't found a doll that I 100% thought was perfect, whether due to not liking the head and body the same amount, or wishing for better/more joints, or wanting a different size option or different resin color options, etc. I have a very short wish-list due to being exceedingly picky about these things.

 

For me, it's dolls that no matter how long time has passed, I still really really want to have the doll, but it is impossible or near impossible to obtain. I got one of my 3 grail dolls last year and actually joined DoA in hopes of tracking down the other two over time. No matter how long it has been (14+ years anyone) those 3 (now 2 since I have the 1) are my goal to own and keep forever.

 

Grail is, to me, doll that I wish I had but I am not likely be able to find one or unable to afford it The affordability includes odd size of the doll, excessively long waiting time. Although I did get to acquire my grail (Zee’s Studio Erato) by chance. Other dolls are just on my wish list.

 

For me a grail is a doll that is a combination of things. Difficult to obtain for whatever reason and more expensive than a "normal" doll. So a limited sculpt that was already pretty expensive to begin with would be a grail. I actually had the fortune to get my grail last year. But of course just a few months after I got her I found another one so now I am scouring the secondhand marketplace for him. I am always looking for my mom's grail as well.

 

In the past I didn't really subscribe to the "grail" concept: dolls are luxury items and no matter how much I want one, I can always live without it. That said, I currently have a grail, the first and only one so far -- and I define it as (a) a doll that isn't readily available and isn't commonly found, and (b) one that got away from me.

My grail doll is Vings (Dollvings) Seira. Not a doll I see much of (he's practically non-existent in the English speaking BJD community), and since he's sculpted by a sole artisan, he's only available for preorder. I discovered him in the last few days of a preorder, it was love at first sight, and I never signed up for a Taobao shopping service and moved money so fast to try and get him. Unfortunately I missed the preorder window by a logistical mistake - I thought I paid fully, but there was an additional fee that I saw too late, and by the time I paid for the fee the deadline had passed and my proxy couldn't place the order.

I was surprisingly upset about this. And I think it's because this doll got away from me. I really wanted him, I almost secured him -- but he escaped by a hairsbreadth and for a dumb reason! That's when I understood what a grail doll is.

Seira is a lovely sculpt, but I think it's less about the sculpt now, and more about the pursuit. I'm quite sure that Vings will open preorders for him again in the future -- but one never knows what sole artisans will do, so there's always that doubt in the back of my mind that Seira will never be available to order again. If worst comes to worst, I can live without him just fine... but also, I want him. So for now, I have a grail doll.

Update (06/23): I've bought Seira! Vings made him available in their June preorders. In the 6 months I waited Seira became so important to me, I couldn't imagine not having him. I'm so relieved I got to buy him.

 

My idea of a grail is something so difficult to get that you will probably never obtain it in your life and no amount of throwing money at it will solve the issue.

I don't classify the doll I love most as a grail because I could have always thrown a couple thousand at the issue and solved it immediately. If we're going by the usual definition, Lieselotte is my grail. I put Lieselotte on a pedestal as a doll I couldn't own back in 2013 when I lost her lottery.

I've always thought her smile was extremely cute, but I'm positive my struggle and wait to get her is what made her so important and perfect to me. Actually obtaining her and having her in my hands made every other potential new doll much less enticing. No doll is going to be able to compare to her at this point.

So I'm with @aihre on this one. The struggle endured may be more important than the doll itself.

 

I think of a grail as a doll with barriers to acquisition. Maybe it was a limited that you missed the window for, maybe the company folded, maybe you're just not sure if the doll will be cast again, or cast in the color/size/etc you want. Maybe the doll is available but super expensive. Maybe the creator is somewhere that's difficult to get dolls from right now.

As for me, either I'm bad or great at picking grail dolls! I consider two to have been my grails:

One's an OT doll that I've been thinking about since like, high school. Kept losing track of the creator (I'm terrible at names), didn't have the money, so on. Someone posted about getting their own doll of that same sculpt from the creator and it was like ah! That's who it was! I followed the creator on Instagram in hopes of getting into the next preorder and seeing what other art stuff he was doing... then he fell into the "creator lives somewhere difficult to get dolls from" category. But he cast a few dolls of different varieties and was able to open a first-come-first-serve sale for them, and I got that sculpt that's haunted me for years in my favorite color of the batch!

The other's Volks Megu. I was watching a "history of BJDs" video series and I think the person recording it had a Megu? Either way, the Four Sisters sculpt came up a ton in that series. I just fell in love with her looks, she's the only Volks doll who's ever really caught my eye. However, I only collect 1/4 size, and for the life of me didn't see anything about Megu having an MSD version. (If there is... Look. I'm not the brightest bulb in the box.) I saw a secondhand SD16 (I think) version go up for sale secondhand and was so horribly tempted save for the fact it was so outside my size range and over a thousand dollars. Still was sitting there lovestruck, though. I wrote Megu off, only to discover late last year that DearSDs exist when a DearSD Megu went up on the secondhand market. Odd size, but at last! A Megu within my size range! I set aside my "no more dolls" rule for just this one more doll, and her charm's not worn off a bit since bringing her home.

So, again. Either I'm supremely bad at defining what a grail is for the dolls I like, or I'm sprinkling "somehow stumble onto your grails" luck on y'all so you can share in this.

 

I have some Grails that do exist, but were so unpopular there are probably only a handful of them, but more likely than not, maybe not even that many ever got made. I am a huge weirdo, however, that I wouldn't be able to own any of them, if by pure luck I saw one for sale. I wouldn't purchase any of the ones that do exist, because I am a germaphobe, and I would never pay to own yellowed plastic, even if I could stomach getting a BJD second hand.

Then, there's one that doesn't quite exist, and never really was "made." I got a custom DIM Minimee, made of the head (not quite the likeness I will was hoping), but I will never be able to get a body for it, because the character has an ideal eight-head proportion figure, and that's just not happening. I am no longer interested in purchasing any more resin, let alone something as massive as it would take... I did get one kind of, in a 1:6 action figure, which is pretty close, so I can definitely live with that. It is also my favorite scale of all time (and actually scaled and not just whatever, because I don't know what that actually means but everyone uses the term for no reason...). I am happy to leave my BJD Grails as objects I will never be able to get (I wish I could say the same about OT non/scaled figures). (:

Stupidautocorrectidontknowwhyievenrelyonyouanymore!!

 

For me, a grail is a doll that so completely mesmerizes me on sight, I’d be willing to move heaven and earth to bring it home. Ordinarily I must have a character already in place before I go looking to shell a doll. But this goes right out the window when it comes to a grail. With a grail doll I don’t care if I have a pre-conceived character…I’m just truly enamored by the sculpt itself as art. It shakes my sensibilities hard, and nothing short of the devil walking through the front door will stop me from trying to bring it home. It’s truly a love at first sight thing.

I’ve had 3 of them during my collecting years. First was the Dollzone Anson (see my avatar.) I saw her initial announcement here in the DoA news, and I was thoroughly blown away by her uniqueness and artistry. I did everything I humanly could to scrape together funds, and then haunted my doll dealer waiting for them to activate her “ buy” button, checking every hour on the hour for days! When they finally did, I ordered her so fast, I swear smoke was rising from my keyboard! I was so glad I did too, because she was suddenly cancelled by the company after only 3 months owing to shipping issues with her delicate petals (this was prior to the use of moulded inserts in shipping bjds.) She was so special to me, I restarted my entire collection and built it around her. I completely adore her to this day.

Another grail for me was my limited Luts BabyDelf Daisy Elf (those ears!) When she was released I was at my absolute limit financially speaking, and although it broke my heart, I just couldn’t swing the funds in time. It took me 6 years to find one, and now she has a special place in my collection and my heart.

And my third was the gorgeous and very artistic Dollzone Sawarieda mermaid. I was absolutely gobsmacked when I saw her. But I was concerned about her size (100 cm!) and she was more expensive than I thought I could afford. So I talked myself out of buying her. Then I began to regret it, but by then there was no way to get one. They’d pop up rarely in the marketplace secondhand, but their price was always quite high of course, And I could never swing the funds. But after 6 years, Dollzone rereleased a very limited number of her (only 17 worldwide) and I was able to order her through a dealer with very generous layaway terms. It will take me a whole year to pay her off, but she’s so worth it!

 

I have a lot of dolls that I would love to add to my collection but only one grail, but the odds of ever finding him in his fullset which is as important to me as the doll sculpt itself is slim to none since he was released many years ago and some of the fullset would have probably deteriorated over the years, on top of that the company completely dropped off the face of the earth.
I might be able to locate the sculpt but my sewing and wig making skills would not be up to the task of trying to recreate everything that made me fall so in love with him.

 

My grail, as others have said, is a combination of factors:
~ Love at first sight
~ I just missed his order period
~ He's extremely limited
~ He's discouragingly expensive and hard to find second hand
~ I've loved him for years and years and yeaaaaaars
~ I stalked any photos of him I could find and had a folder saved of my favorite ones
~I tried to give up on him and just could not
~ I thought I might actually pass out when I saw him for sale

Basically, I'm obsessed
He's my forever grail. He's mine. He was worth the wait. Yep. Still my grail.

 

I've been interested in the hobby for years but only recently have gotten my first doll, so I'm still learning all the terminology. I was under the impression that a grail doll was a doll you really want, like more than usual. If we're going with that definition then I already have my grail doll! If we're talking about a doll that's more on the expensive side or that's hard to come by, I don't have a doll that I want like that. There are some expensive sculpts that I like but when the price goes past as certain point, it's kind of a turn off for me. I'm not super interested in limited time items or rare sculpts either. I'm super happy with my one doll and currently don't plan on another. But who knows! Maybe in the future I'll have another grail doll.

 

my grail is definitely the sculpt i envision for when i'll make my own bjd.. i feel like i'm abnormally picky, so imagining a grail is impossible unless it's exactly to my expectations/wishes

 

Ah, a grail doll to me would be... a combination of things? First of all it would be one I really, really want. One I fell in love with at first sight, usually, and that I can't stop thinking about. Often I 'fall' for dolls because they are the perfect representations of my characters. And then there's those dolls that my love for them defies all reason! So, a grail doll would first have to captivate me entirelly, body and soul!

Next, they would be hard to get, as in not readily available from a company, not popular, and/or rarely seen secondhand. I can always stay disciplined and save for a doll and buy them when I can afford them, or do a safe layaway like the working adult I am! But if the doll was limited, discontinued, etcetera, there's an active element of having to try to find it. In essence a "quest" for your "holy grail".

And for a tangible example; I've waited over ten years trying to hunt down my vampire Sweet Gale Cyril and he consistently remained out of reach (very limited, never sold again, the two times I saw him secondhand I didn't have the financial means) until I finally managed to bring him home this year! And god has this made a world of difference to me as a collector. It resparked my love in the hobby bringing me out of a long period of inactivity... And, heck, I practically cried when I took him out of his box, I don't think I've ever had such a strong emotional reaction to a doll in my life. So this solidified his status as a grail (now finally obtained) for me. I definitely agree with those before who mentioned that the journey is certainly part of the experience.

 

I consider a 'grail' to a doll or sculpt that is either highly wanted or difficult to obtain.