What was the biggest mistake you ever made in the hobby?

Agreeing with celticlady. I have a B&G Ymir doll, I bought him out of impulse buy since a friend is selling him cheaper compared to the company price. When he came to me, I haven't even bonded with him. I just can't. I nearly sold him but decided to keep him. Though there are times I feel I no longer love him. Same with my crew's style. It was very difficult to choose clothes for my dolls since I don't have a clear concept. Eventually, I decided that my Chaos' would be a androgynous but he's straight. As for my second doll, Bijuu he'd be dress in cute clothes.

 

I'm sure someone mentioned this already, but my biggest mistake is wanting to buy a doll while waiting for another one. It has happened twice already, I order a doll from a company and in the meantime I get impatient or frustrated that I have nothing to work on so I end up browsing the second hand market non-stop, mind you I have found a couple of sculpts I actually wanted this way, BUT it could have waited.

 

My biggest mistake was purchasing my first doll out of impulse. I was just too impatient to start the hobby. However, my greatest mistake was not purchasing the mocha Brown Soseo when I had the chance. He will probably be re-released in the next millennium. That and I regret missing out on Soom's R.Amber

 

I ordered a doll a few months ago only to have it completely disappear during shipping! The seller didn't respond to any of my questions so it made the whole ordeal 100 times worse. Thankfully, I have a doll on the way from a reliable seller now. My mom felt so bad that I had spent my money on a doll I never received so she got me one for Christmas. (:

 

Oh my goodness, that's awful! It's lucky that your mom was willing to help you, and hopefully your new doll will arrive safe and sound this time.

 

I'll have to go with buying a head on impulse, and then going three years before finding a suitable body. Sounds like this is a common theme!

 

Finding out how well a magic eraser works at removing a faceup that you didn't necessarily want gone.
And also knowing nothing about MSC/testors and doing faceups without sealant.
Aaaaand modding an LE head.

 

I ordered these flawless, ice blue eyes that were exactly what I envisioned for my only doll.
Don't fit. Sigh. Not an outrageous mistake but still, I was so excited!

 

Tried to remove seams (on a white skin doll from 2004, he was new at the time, maybe resin formulations have improved since then) and it left huge white streaks that did not yellow along with the rest of him, so now I have to do a lot of restorative work on him to try to make him all the same color.

Also, buying a pale colored $160 Volks suit and a pair of $45 Customhouse boots, for the same doll. The Volks suit has something in the interfacing that caused it to turn yellow/brown over the years (you can tell this is the problem because it's only discolored in places that have interfacing) which makes it look like someone spilt coffee on it but only in weirdly symmetrical places. A few years after I got them, the boots came apart in my hands while I was taking them off his feet, apparently the glue had lost its grip. It made me realize that a lot of this stuff is really not archival quality, but there's really no way to know if something is going to fall apart or become discolored 5 years down the road.

 

My biggest mistake was buying too many dolls too fast. I definitely went overboard at first. I should have researched more companies and made more informed choices. I do not regret all my dolls but there are some that I could have done without!

 

My biggest mistake and regret was purchasing a recast doll. For a while I tried to stay 'neutral' in the debate on tumblr, back when it first started to get big, and I made friends with a few pro-recast people. I was saving for a particular doll but their recast dealer of choice had him for sale and they talked me into it with how much cheaper he would be and how I could put the extra money right away into customizing him. I wasn't exactly a huge fan of recasts but I thought "what's the harm in one? I've already bought a couple dolls from this company anyway."

Yeah I pretty much got him and felt so bad that within the next two days I just gave him to my 'friend'-- who wound up turning out to be the anon harassing one of my oldest and best friends on tumblr for her stance in the debate on anon. So not only did I spend 300ish dollars, I wound up giving it away to someone who it turned out was a pretty low person too.

 

Guess I can come out of the closet now and say my biggest mistake was not doing enough research and purchasing a recast as my first doll, which I do not have anymore. I didn't realize this till after I had done it and by then it was too late to get my money back. NEVER making that mistake again. EVER. I feel like a complete loser for not doing enough research first. First timer's mistake. I should have sought help from others before buying. Didn't even know what a recast was until after the fact. Still feel like trash for it. Made up for it by buying the real deal later on. I want to support the real deal and not some cheap knockoff.

 

For me it was giving a girl a faceup order she wasn't equipped to deal with. She seemed to understand what I wanted, we were on the same wavelength, and I send her examples of what I wanted, but what I got back was nooooothing like we had talked about. It was a full body blushing in a dark color so I'm not sure how to remove it, so I'm making do with it as best I can, but it was a big disappointment. My friend thought she did it on purpose because she thought she was a recast, but she wasn't a recast, this dollmaker just has its mark on the inside of the head I didn't want to make the girl feel bad, but I don't know how to fix her now.