What Sets BJDs apart for you?

I grew up playing with a handful of Barbies and creating all sort of wacky stories with them. After that, I decided the dolls weren't as attractive to me as were the stories, so I switched to writing full time and gave up on dolls. That is, until I discovered BJDs.
One thing that always felt very limiting about other dolls to me was the lack of customization or, in terms of other customizable dolls like MH and such, the amount of skill and supplies you needed in order to customize them yourself (or the money required to have it done) as well as the smaller size and weight. And even with those other customizable dolls, I felt that once you got them customized, it was done, and you could display them but that's that, you couldn't change them anymore and they didn't have a wide range of motion.
With BJDs, I feel most of these issues don't apply. I'm able to change wigs, eyes and clothes with ease, getting a doll completely different even if I don't change the face-up, which feels exactly right to me. I can pose them easily too, and mine are big enough to be handled comfortably while still feeling a little bit heavy in my arms which gives them a certain presence, a certain realness, that plastic dolls don't have.

 

My personal reasons before I read the rest of the thread:

• It's the closest thing to "anime"/fantasy coming to life. 2.5D. I love just looking at how beautiful my doll is and how she exists in my world and environment.
• Unlimited customization and creativity. I like how she feels mine. Putting a doll together myself appeals to me more than fullsets. I'm normally sensitive around OCs and "have" to design / draw them initally myself.
• "Real" hair as opposed to plastic molded hair with figures.
• Poseablity and the option for different hand / body parts. Custom parts. Custom eyes.
• Clothes made out of real fabrics rather than plastic pieces.
• You can constantly take pictures of them and create things for them.
• My doll just feels very personal. It's why I want to move towards making all of the clothes, styling the wig myself, and doing all the faceups myself. I'm not completely opposed to commissions, but I just want complete control. The control and OOAK elements strongly appeal to me. I know my first faceup isn't really great at all, but I like how she's mine at least...

 

I used to have Barbie’s and monster high, and I got frustrated with the lack of articulation and the difficulty to make clothes for them because of how small they were.

Bjds seem perfect because you can pose them however you want, and my msd guy is so much easier to make clothes for so far since he’s a bit bigger than a fashion doll.

Being able to swap eyes and wigs is also nice since you can customize them some very easily too.

 

BJDs are basically everything I love about Pullips but bigger and better!

• Poseability / articulation. Also, sometimes poseability and stability don't go along, but Pullips can be... even more fragile.
  
• BJDs come in so many different sizes. In my opinion, MSD or bigger-sized dolls are easier to handle.
• The HUGE variety of face sculpts available and the detail that goes into it.
• Customizability. Making a doll my own. So many options. So many chances to be creative. It's crazy how two people can make the same sculpt look so different depending on their tastes and preferences.

 

This question is so thought-provoking, and I love reading everyone's responses! It's interesting to see what drew folks to BJDs in particular and how exactly folks got here.

My thoughts:

Articulation/Poseability

I first learned about BJDs in middle/high school, before the MTM Barbies came out. I liked playing with dolls as a kid but was frustrated with how few had elbow and knee joints, and none of those were double joints. I was also starting to get into photography as well as writing, and kept seeing toy comics and story photos online. The BJDs I saw had the most articulation of any doll I'd seen, and all of them had knee and elbow joints!

Nowadays, the options for articulation in playline dolls are much improved, with double joints and even thigh cuts popping up. And, of course, not every BJD has double joints, nor do their joints necessarily work well. But still, that was the initial draw.

Customization

Oh my god, what a pain it is to cut out a Barbie or Monster High doll's hair to do a reroot! Then sitting there doing the actual reroot... And you had to deal with factory paint, decide what to do with the original clothes (which, yeah, quality on that's been kinda garbage lately), and you might have to work around molded-on clothing or underwear. BJDs might have fullset options, but basically anything can be purchased as a blank slate. Or, for me, a fullset is more like a starting point than a "complete" doll! Everyone needs more clothing options!

The Artists

I enjoy that there's so many smaller companies and individual artists in the BJD space. It makes the hobby feel more personal, and more on the art side than the consumer side. Kind of like going to a local yarn shop versus a Michaels or something - you get to know people in your community, the work behind what you're getting is put forward, you know the story of it, and yeah the product may be a good sight pricier but it feels more like paying the dyer, farmer, or in this case sculptor or faceup artist or what-have-you, for their hard work, versus passing a few bucks to a corporation aiming for anonymous predictability more than personality.

Taking Time/Bonding

Ties into the above, but I enjoy the time a BJD asks of me. Time to think over their wig, eyes, general style. Take care of them. Make them things. They're not quite "rescues" the same way I'd grab a Barbie with a scuffed face, messy hair, and a chewed-on hand at the thrift store to fix up, but they need some one-on-one time and attention nonetheless. It's nice to put the doll together and to work with my hands to make it happen.

The Size/Feel

Varies of course, but they're nice to handle! Good weight to them, and I admit I love fiddling around with all their sculpted details, especially the hands! They can be fussy sometimes, but it's nice to engage my mind in working with them.

 

I've always been a storyteller, even as a small child. I was also an only child and an only grandchild, so what I lacked in peers to play pretend with, I used Barbies as a vector to tell those stories. Like most kids, I grew up and eventually outgrew the dolls of my childhood in favor of visual art and the written word. I came across BJDs when I was around 13, which was also when I started getting really into fanfiction and anime, and they were part of the groundwork for what would eventually become my adult personality.

What sets BJDs apart for me is that they are a league of their own when it comes to creativity. No matter what medium I wish to explore, I can do it through BJDs. My dolls' characters are like their own little people that occupy tangible, meaningful space in my head. It allows me to create grounded, interesting stories. It allows me to invest deeply in my characters. There is no limit other than my imagination for what I can do with them. That lets them stay actively interesting in ways that other dolls simply cannot.

 

I love BJDs deeply, because of their beauty, their posing, the amazing community, and the fact that the BJD hobby is an umbrella hobby that lets me use all of my artistic skills, while learning new ones.
Like to paint? Face-ups, body blushing, tattoos galore.
Like to photograph? The hobby lives for pictures of dolls.
Fancy a little sculpting? Resin is thick and can be carved, sanded, or you can make your own parts out of hard air-dry clay. You can also make your own props out of clay, paper, whatever the muse whispers to you.
Do you like to sew? Perfect hobby for you - the numerous body sizes mean that it may be difficult to buy clothes, but you can make them!
New dolls come out with engineering that just blows my mind - like Dream Valley's Moth doll, or Impldoll's new 1/3 female body. Oh, and jointed hands - those are astonishing to me.
Every time I receive a new doll or a new outfit, a big part of my enjoyment is scrutinizing all of the clever details that went into the creation.
This hobby is comprised of so many talented, smart people working to create beautiful dolls. I can't imagine another hobby as amazing as this one.

 

What sets bjds apart for me is definitely their flexibility. I am going to be honest that there is a lot of cool and cute dolls out there and that part is not exclusively held by bjds. However, for me I cannot find another doll on the market that can sit crossed leg other than one artist bjd I own. That is honestly mind blowing for me how flexible this line of bjds are. I honestly am going to collect the whole line of them because I love her work so much.

 

How animate they can look. With their mobility and appearance they feel like living sculptures.
They just feel so much more alive to me then other dolls.
I love how unique they can be, no two dolls even with full sets are quite alike.
I love their size and weight, I am into the larger dolls, and they just feel amazing to hold.
They just look so dynamic in pictures, as if they are breathing moving entities.