What rules do you follow to curate your BJD collection?

No rules or restrictions. In a hobby that, at least for me, involves no one but myself, it's hard to see any reason for either. Then again, I'm pretty bad at following rules in the first place...

 

If I keep going back to look at a doll again, and again, and AGAIN, for at least a few weeks, if not months, then it's ready to come home.

 

A rule I have set for myself is to make most of my purchases during promotional periods. This is to help save money, of course. There are exceptions to this, like when it comes to companies or artists that don't really have promotions or buying second hand, but generally I try to abide by it and it has saved me hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

I also don't buy dolls purely because they're on promotion, but rather wait for one I already want to have one. This helps save me from impulse purchases, as the one time I did buy a doll purely because of the promotion I definitely had some buyer remorse. He's still one of my lesser loved dolls, as I don't have a vision for him, so he kind of just looks generic. Have owned him for 6 years now, though, so I guess I guess I love him enough, haha.

 

My only rule is: Must have a character for the doll. Either OC or shelling an existing anime/etc character. I collect 1/6 and SD. MSD dolls don't appeal as much to me. This helps cut out impulse buys, although sometimes I have been impulsive to shell a certain character only to sell them and reshell again.

It helps a lot of sculpts I like are from smaller artists that only release a few times a year or I have to hunt second hand for them.

I have a few OC characters I have made just from seeing a sculpt but they were characters I was thinking of making but as soon as I saw the sculpt the story, etc just automatically came together.

 

I definitely have the same mindset. Some of my dolls definitely don't 'look good together' but I don't care.

The only thing I try to do is taking my time before buying. That's to avoid impulse buys.

 

My main rule is to keep my collection small, especially because I collect more than BJDs. I also stick to the MSD size.

Due to this I am very picky to who gets added to my family and like many have mentioned above I try to stick to more basic faceup so I can really dress up my dolls.

 

My rules are nothing bigger than MSD, must not go over $400 for a basic nude doll.
Must have normal human features, so no vampires or elves.
Dolls should all be proportional to each other, so no mature tinies or big MSD babies.
No closed eyes. No giant Barbie boobs, lol.

 

Financial restrictions are the main governing factor in my collecting habits. Also space. Currently I am only renting a room in someone else's house. My space is limited to my bedroom only.
Despite those limitations, soon after I began collecting I realized I wanted to create doll couples and family units. Unlike most of you, my dolls are not based on characters from my writing, but I do have backstories for each of them in my head.
I prefer dolls in the 58 to 62 cm range. My SD size dolls make up several family units: 3 married couples, a lesbian couple and a single mom with child. I have a few YOSDs representing the children of the married couples.

Until I move to a larger place, which may happen by the end of this summer, I can't buy any more dolls.

 

I have a few rules for myself, although my collection is fairly small so it's definitely subject to change.

1) 1/4 scale only. I have 2 Minifees and a 1/4 scale boy, and I like that they can pretty much share everything with only a few exceptions
2) I generally avoid fantasy dolls, only purchasing elf eared or vampire dolls if I have a specific character in mind
3) If the doll isn't a grail, I have to have a character in mind/solid reason for picking the sculpt
4) Nothing over $500, which is relatively easy since I only really buy blank nude dolls.
5) NO FLOATING HEADS!! I get so much anxiety over the thought of having two heads share a body. If I were ever to acquire an event head, I would have to immediately purchase a body for it.

 

I just bought my first bjd, and she has not yet arrived. My rules going forward will be the same as my rules for any other interests/hobbies I have. It has to be in budget. That's really all.
I have a small income, I do not exceed my income. I make lists of thing I want, for hobbies or art or life, and I prioritize. I do sleep on my purchases. If I buy something as expensive as a bjd I've been planning it.
Sadly real life/medical needs always come before happy pretty things.
Once I have enough money to go toward another bjd, I'll get the one I've been pining for the most.
Ad infinitum.

 

It's not really a rule about doll collecting specifically, I actually do this for all purchases, sometimes I describe it as prudent behaviour but it feels more like superstition sometimes.
Like right now I'm talking with someone about buying a doll from them, and I'm taking a week off just to think about it. I tend to be emotional about purchases, certain things grab my interest immediately, but I still need to be careful and ask myself if I really want it. Then if for some reason the timing doesn't seem right I will drop my plans, like how I wanted to order from Luts with the summer event but it doesn't sound right anymore because I can't find anyone to order with me.

 

I think I'm very much a curator of my dolls. Curation is kind of built into the which dollmakers and new releases that I pay attention to, and how I make decisions about which dolls come home. I didn't plan any of this, it just kinda arose as I bought dolls and then reflected on how I was making choices.

No repeat companies in my collection. I like variety and I want to handle different dolls, but I also don't want to own a lot of dolls or turn into a revolving door collector. So the way to maximize variety in a small collection is to have every full doll represent 1 or 2 (through hybriding) dollmakers whose work I'm really passionate about owning, and/or (usually for bodies) made something that checks off my list of desirable traits. None of this is exactly planned: it just seems to be how I'm choosing which dolls to buy, I haven't gotten multiple dolls from the same dollmaker so far, and I'm pretty contented with this. (The exception are my two oldest dolls that I bought as a BJD newbie - 1 full doll and 1 hybrid body from the same company. This company influenced my taste a lot, but I've kinda moved on from them too.)

I like buying from dollmakers whose whole body of work appeals to me. Of course I'll buy a doll that I like. But when the doll is also a piece of work made by a particular artist(s) whose entire body of work/"house style" I admire, there's something extra satisfying about having them. Some of my dolls I bought after I followed the dollmaker and admired their work for a while, and then they released (or I rediscovered) something I fell in love with.

It's similar to how I curated my book collection... I love borrowing books from the lending library to read, but I'm more picky about which ones I own. I buy only books that I'll reread, and I've gone out of my way to find specific editions/imprints of some books. Turns out I curate my dolls similarly: most dolls I'm happy to enjoy in photos, it's only specific ones that I like and want to own. Even better if they can be 'representatives' of their dollmaker's entire works in my collection.

I use my doll characters and story to decide which new one is worth buying. This is my most important criteria. My dolls all embody characters, they're one cohesive cast in a single big story. This story is 'live' in my imagination, and I play and take pics of them a lot. This is the way I'm now enjoying them and I want to continue this status quo, so any new doll must join the status quo and add to my enjoyment. If they don't, they get sold - and the dolls I've sold have been ones that haven't inspired, or stopped inspiring characters or story in my imagination.

So I ask a potential new doll: are you setting my imagination alight? Am I so passionate about your face and the potential character I see, that I'm willing to make room for you in my collection AND in my head (because my headspace is already full of the current doll characters and more) AND invest my already limited energy, time and money into realizing your potential? If not, I'd rather pass -- I have plenty to do already with my collection.


I think that's how I curate. I have other criteria for choosing dolls, but they're more downstream to these thoughts. They're not really hard and fast rules, more like recurring methods. I'm currently quite pleased with my doll collection and how I'm spending money on resin, so it seems to work out for me.

 

When I see a doll and I throw all my carefully laid out plans with lots of rules and criteria out of the window, I know that's the one I'm getting. No joke, I've embraced it.
I've got a hard-ish limit of 5 dolls, and having only 2 spots left is making these decisions matter more.

 

I have a few hard rules around here!! The first is that I only do SD sized dolls—I’ve stretched this for an Angel Philia body with an SD sized head, who I’m treating like a small SD, but no one shorter than Toni makes the grade. On the flip side, no one bigger than Liriel (79cm Soom Mecha Angel hybrid) is allowed. The queen of Hell has to be the tallest doll in the collection.

So far, I also don’t allow myself to go over what I paid for my holy grail doll in price for any other dolls. Lilith was $1200, and so no other doll gets to cost me what she did, because it doesn’t make sense to me that I should pay more than that for a doll I probably want less than her.

To keep everyone looking cohesive, I don’t do anyone who needs above an 8-9 wig (except my iplehouse Kamau, who fits a very large 8/9 or a regular sized 9/10) or an iris over 6mm (yes, believe it or not, everyone on my profile is wearing 14 SI, 12mm, 12 SI, and 10mm eyes). I would possibly make an exception for vermilion, who is not supposed to look that human, so I might want a bigger-eyed head for her only.

Edit: forgot a rule—I also don’t do characters that don’t already have “friends” elsewhere in my collection. Even if it’s only a tenuous connection to one of my other dolls. I don’t like dolls being solo (except my one anthro, who is a memorial for my late chameleon—seen in my profile pic)

 

I’d only get dolls of the same size, in my case MSD. Despite how pretty some SDs are lol.

 

I have some rules that I've developed over the years, but would be open to breaking some day if I ever have more space / money and a desire to really expand my collection. At the moment, I'm fairly content with staying within the lines I've drawn

• 55-65cm SDs only, with only 1 exception for the child of one of my characters who I hope to shell some day. I just love this size so much, and having cohesion within my dolly group. Grandfathered in is the Dollzone MSD gang (my first BJDs in 2006!)
• "Old school" aesthetics -- partially for cohesion, partially because I've struggled to bond with dolls outside of this style. I may admire other dolls at meetups, but even when I have bought dolls outside of a few select companies (mostly CP Delf or Feeple), they just haven't worked for me
• Character-driven: aihre captured my thoughts completely here. I shell important characters and perhaps 1-2 other crucial characters from their storyline. I don't shell characters that haven't consumed me for years and years
  • Related to character driven is that I'm extremely particular about bodies matching the character. It supersedes the need for good resin match or posability or whatnot

Things that tempt me that I know I cannot cave in for:

• Gorgeous fullsets -- I'll consider these only in a future world where I decide to buy dolls for just the aesthetics to display and not for the purpose of shelling characters. Unfortunately my gang all hang around in casual clothes lol
• Fantasy dolls -- DZ / DV / DC absolutely kill me here, but realistically, I know these dolls also won't be for me unless for display purposes
• Realistic / the latest trend of beefy dolls / 65cm+: So. Big. No. Space.

 

I’ve posted answer before but here are updated version:

Only full doll:
I get extremely frustrated with float heads…Hybrid has been a huge money loss to find perfect match.

Scale:
I strictly follow age:scale ratio. Yo for toddler (that’s what yo means anyways), young kid for MSD, grown up for SD. No taller than 60-some cm (even dolls gotta stop growing height at some point. 16-20 years old in 59-60 cm and mature dolls around 70cm is super weird to me.)

Head size:
This might be most important. I want all my dolls to blend good together. My long term SD dolls have about 21cm head circumference.

Style:
I admire any style. But t for my own collection, I stick to realism. I’ve owned different style dolls and couldn’t bond and got frustrated that they weren’t blending with rest of my dolls

 

My rules are likely to change as I grow more in this hobby, but right now my rules are:

-Only doll sizes 1/4 and under (I am certain this will change).

-A doll has to "speak" to me in order to get it. Trying super hard not to impulse buy at this early stage.

-No baby/child 1/4 dolls. I'm not sure why, but this particular aesthetic doesn't appeal to me.

I'm sure I'll have better rules by the end of this year! It's actually a goal of mine to really focus on what I like and don't like, so I don't go bonkers.

 

Oh well, I'd call myself a picky one when come to this topic.

So these are the rules I currently follow :
- I only collect 1/4
- Their ideal height are between 40-45cm
- They must be able to share at least 70% of clothes (that belong to their gender, of course) with the others
- They must wear 14mm eyes as default from company (Able to wear 12,16 or 18mm too is alright, but 14 is a must)
* The exception is given to the one with total closed eyes.
- They must be able to wear 7-8" wigs
- They must have human form. Fantasy parts are alright but they must be able to switch to 100% human (No permanent elf ears, for example)

and that's it!

In contrary, I don't have restriction about gender or skin color.

With these rules, I've spent my 6 years in this hobby with current 6 dolls (+1practice head) as my crews.

Extra : (This was not rule at first but it turns out likely to be so)
- All girls with sculpt name that once appeared in fairytale or mythology.
- All boy with sculpt name that has only 1 syllable.

 

My only rule is that their faces and proportions must look nice together. I don't mind having SDs next to MSDs but the style must be cohesive. I don't like mixing hyperrealistic with anime-ish sculpts, they just look super weird together.