What originally got you into BJDs?

The very first bjd I saw was a dollfactory ari bobo mouse. It was a photo on flickr someone took of it really styled nicely in a dollhouse craft room. I was in love. I had just had a baby, so an over 100 dollar doll was not going to happen. A few years later a great artist friend, cedarheart was posting all her lovely bjds on flickr and I finally got the bjd bug. I started seriously researching them and now I've been in the hobby since 2013. Anthros are what started it all though really...

 

I love dolls since i was a child. My big hobby is dollhouses. I need inhabitants for them and i am making dolls . But i am not happy with them as they are not able to have a different position. So i was looking for help and someone in a miniature- forum told me about enchanted doll. That was it. I was looking for instructions, as i need dolls in 1:12. That´s the way i did fall in love with BJD.

 

I began collecting 1:6 fashion dolls back in 2008, and was an active member of a doll forum that supports any and all doll collecting. There were a few BJD people there posting photos of their dolls, so that sparked my interest, and I bought my first BJD, little Soom 1:6 minigem Aren, early in 2010. Later that year bought a couple of the slightly larger Sleetwealth Briar.

I could wish I'd gone over to BJDs at that point, but I was totally hooked on buying fashion dolls that came with every last little detail done for you. It took a few more years before I realised what a bind I was in with those dolls, because while I wanted to make clothing for them - I had/still have a fabulous stash of fabrics - I was never going to actually make anything in 1:6 fashion doll size because it's too much of a challenge for me. I need to line clothing and finish seams nicely, and those dolls are just too small for that sort of detail.

So I began to look at BJDs with a view to getting some 1:4 and 1:3 scale girls. I was a bit hesitant about going bigger - they do take up a lot of room! - but once I had the magic of my first Minifee in my hands, there was no going back. No doubt in my mind that these are the dolls I want to work with.

 

My girlfriend got me into it. When we got together, she already had several dolls, and I just kind of slid into the hobby bit by bit, loving it more and more. After a while, it was decided that I was going to adopt the one doll she had, that she had no interest in, because he didn't fit with the character she wanted. That was my beloved Ceth, my first doll, but not my last

 

A college friend of mine (she eventually invited me to this site). I was actually not too into it until I started doing research and fell in total and utter LOVE with an Iplehouse Gentle Freesia.

 

For me and my daughter, It all started with Barbie, then monster high and ever after high, then redoing face ups and rerooting hair, then pinterest searches for inspiration led us to these gorgeous dolls! Which my initial reaction was "Holy cow that is expensive! No way!" Then all of our dolls just paled in comparison and after watching unboxing videos of BJDs and being so curious about how they feel and move and loving the professional face ups...it just seemed like it was all worth it. We needed to start somewhere so we both chose affordable dolls that were available from dealers in the U.S. and we chose MSD size dolls to begin with because they were larger than our other dolls but not HUGE in comparison. But our future dolls will probably lead us to the SD size dolls. I know that my daughter is now dying to have a minifee Celine and I would love a grown up looking SD. But I'm very glad I finally gave in to exploring this hobby. They are so artistic and precious and I am a sucker for feeding my daughters imagination, especially since she is 14 and on the cusp of adulthood.

 

I guess there was some doll interest for me before BJDs. A friend of mine and I did repaints and OOAK costumes for Barbies for a couple of years, mostly just to amuse ourselves. Back in high school we also did a really interesting art project once - we sculpted and fired heads/hands/feet for dolls out of clay and then made bodies for them out of any materials we chose. I remember distinctly when I was doing that project that what I really wanted for its body (but couldn't afford) was a posable wooden artist's mannequin. It's very understandable that when I discovered BJDs, I freaked right out about the artist's-mannequin-like posable bodies. Only these were much more beautiful than any mannequin. This was the type of doll I had always dreamed of!

 

A friend of mine showed me pictures of her dolls at a Lolita meet. i don't know how we got onto the topic of dolls but i was unsure about buying one mainly because i LOVE bjd's they are so beautiful but i worried about being judged (I'm an idiot i know xD) but she basically just told me to do it. just do it. so i did xD

 

My friend from California was talking about them one day on IMVU, then she showed me a picture of one and I was immediately hooked!

 

I actually can't remember when I discovered BJDs! I know that several years back, I saw some at a convention and found out what they were, but never really researched them until fairly recently. I was into Monster High dolls for a bit, so customizing dolls wasn't entirely new to me.

 

I was looking around on youtube and found myself in the lolita section,there was this girl with a Luts doll and she'd dressup and it amazed me and after that I've been hooked

 

I collected action figures and some Taeyang dolls. While I was browsing online I saw some bjd pictures and could not stop going back to look at them. It was not long before I ordered my first and from there on I was hooked.

 

I've always loved dolls! I ended up seeing bjds on instagram, googled them further, followed accounts, saw yt videos of unboxings etc. I didn't really feel the urge to REALLY get one until a year or two had gone, when I also saw them at a convention. By then I'd done a lot of research too, so thats good, I guess.

 

Eversince then, I been collecting a lot of vinyl fashion dolls. So I subscribe to some Fashion doll magazines. The first ad I think when I saw these Gothic Lolita looking dolls called Volks Super Dollfie. That's the first BJD that I encoundered and my obsession begin with resin ball jointed dolls! Like "gotta have it!"

 

I think I have known about them through the anime/manga community and going to various cons, and a friend of mine actually owns 3 of them but they haven't been in her apartment for quite a while cause of space.

But I hadn't given it much thought until the end of 2016 when I got more interested in them when I was searching around for ideas to a "prop" for a future cosplay (which I am now planning on turning toward Hujoo instead, cause of price issues) but I am really looking forward to the day I can buy one and shell one of my OCs into them!

 

There was an article in a doll collector's magazine about BJDs, specifically Volks dolls. They displayed them so beautifully in the pictures and they almost looked real. I thought they were unattainable due to the price, but my mom was supportive of me starting the hobby young, so I bought my first doll a year or so after that, I think? I got a Den of Angels account via an invite from someone who worked at Kerby Lane Doll Shop, a local shop that's since closed down (they were Volks dealers too, I believe). I miss that store so much...

 

I've collected fashion dolls for more than a decade, so I've been sortof adjacent to BJDs for a long time. That is to say, I've known what they are, admired pictures, etc. But between the price and the size (I really like my playscale dolls, and was always afraid that something SD sized would be way too big for me. And of course, all the sculpts I liked were SD sized), I've never really wanted to actually get into the hobby. I've just stayed on the sidelines and admired them from afar.

But then Soom released Aslan, and I fell head over heels in love with him in a way I've never fallen for a doll before.

I didn't buy him at the time, but it's been more than a year and I'm still in love. So when I got a line on one in the secondhand market, I took the plunge. I'm currently making payments on him, and he'll be my first BJD. Here's hoping everything goes well!

 

I saw my first my BJDs on a german Manga and Anime forum, if I remember correctly it was around 2005/2006. They were so cute and I loved the possibility to customize them with different wigs and eyes. I discoverd the Volks website (the only company-name I knew at that time), looked up the prices and rejected the idea to buy one. In addition to the high price their standard dolls weren't that appealing on the photos. Later I got to know other doll companies like Luts and Dollzone. With Dollzone releasing their MSD-fullsets in late 2007, I had the option to obtain a fully equipped doll from a german dealer and I finally got my first doll in spring 2008.

 

For me, it was watching Monster-High face-up tutorials on Nicole's Dream. I think her face-ups are so cool and want to do some myself. She also does face-ups on BJD's so when I saw them on her channel, I was hooked. Prior to this, the only time I had even seen a picture of a BJD was while looking through google images of Anne Rice Characters. Her characters are apparently pretty common BJD subjects.

 

I blame instagram for getting me into bjds... and a lot of other things *shakes fist at instagram*
I saw someone using a doll to make practice garments and a lightbulb went off in my head. I hoard all these gorgeous vintage sewing patterns, but I will never ever have the occasion to wear some of them. But I could still get the thrill of making them if I re-size them for a doll! And that is how I ended up with my first Raccoondoll... her proportions are pretty much perfect. Then I fell down the rabbithole for real and ordered a Souldoll Kid girl and a Dollzone, and now I'm trying to rein myself in!