What's something new you learned about yourself as a collector recently?

I've recently learned that I actually really like huge eyes and cutesy smiling faces! Everyone else is so serious or frowny in my collection and then there's my DZ Shoyo looking at me like And now I'm certainly looking out for more smily doe-eyed gals

 

I learned that I like sweet and cutesy dolls even more than I thought I did
I'd planned on my crew being gloomy grumpy little cuties (think adorable and angry) but now that it's finally faceup season and I've been looking at my dolls a lot, I've started to think I might skip the gloom and doom and just go straight for the sunshine and rainbows

Oh and I found out that I really, really like modding. There's just something so exciting making the dolls truly unique or hold poses better, or stand up straighter or or or... The possibilities are endless!

 

Short version: I have way, way too much doll stuff. But it's pretty cool stuff, so I find that I don't really want to get rid of most of it... Meaning that I'm basically my own inner-curator's worst nightmare. Or secretly a dragon hell-bent on assembling a prop-horde for the ages. Or maybe both... And I'm not at all sure rather I should be okay with that, or if I should be feeling some kind of "OMGI'VETURNEDINTOSUCHAMATERIALIST!!1" guilt over it. It seems to vary on the daily. o_0 (*)

Longer version: You don't realize sometimes just how *MUCH* stuff you've accumulated until you find yourself having to pack it all for a move. We bought a new house and I'm wrangling with the logistics of moving a collection that's very large by any objective measure, plus the almost-20-years-of-collecting-it pile of doll clothes, props, display-pieces and other assorted things that go along with a tribe the size of mine. That assemblage accounts for easily as many boxes and as much packing space as our entire library or my kitchen gear (and I'm a serious cook and baker, so that's not trivial-). I really surprised myself with how little of it I was willing to part with as I was packing it, though. I still like most of this stuff. I enjoy having it around, even though I rarely use it for photography or elaborate displays anymore. Keeping it feels decadent, and utterly materialistic and a little silly. Closet space is precious in the new house and on some level keeping this stuff feels like wasting it... But I'm not ready to part with it. So, I haven't. And some days that makes me raise an eyebrow at myself.

(*) No. I'm not a hoarder. Put down your Psych 101 books and stop clutching those pearls.... I have no trouble getting rid of junk, objects that no longer serve a purpose, broken things, books that need to move on, or other objects that I'd rather not have cluttering up my space. I'm still the unapologetic neat-freak at heart that I've always been... I just find myself not wanting to pare down my collection of doll items as much as I expected I would, and seeing the sheer number of plastic storage boxes that the collection takes up when packed is sobering for someone who used to be able to move everything she owned in one load in the back of a friend's pickup truck.

 

One of the first things my mom mentions whenever my bjd hobby comes up is "I don't know where it came from, she was never really into Barbies!" and for the longest time I've been wondering the same thing myself...where DID my interest in dolls come from? Because she's totally right, even now I still have no interest in typical playline fashion dolls.

But then a flip through an old yearbook from middle school on one of my work from home days had me laughing. They'd gotten a candid picture of me in an art club I was in, and right on my desk with me was a little figure of a digimon, watching me work...just like I had my doll posed on my desk that day! Turns out I'd always been like this, my toys are just more expensive now.

 

I learned that I'm not competitive and am fiercely independent, I dont care what anyone thinks of my dolls or me. If only this hobby could help me overcome my laziness like it did at the beginning.

 

I learned that my dolls are kinda doomed to forever wear the first wig I put on their heads. I've tried buying alternate wigs for various dolls, and have had exactly ZERO success with changing their hairstyle. Eyes, faceup and clothing style I can kinda shift around, but when I get used to a doll with a certain hairstyle, I can't imagine them with anything else. So, I need to be very, very careful about which wig I put on a doll when I unbox them, because chances are I'll be stuck with it forever!

 

I finally bought a 1/3 doll (A Feeple60 girl) after only owning MSD's and smaller, and oh. my. goodness. I thought I'd never get a "big girl" because they would be too big, but she is just the perfect size to sew for, photograph, all the things. I still love my minis, but there's something about having such a big doll that really changes the game for me. I want to swear I won't buy another SD, but I'm sure I'll end up buying her a friend at some point... They're like Pringles, you can't just have one.

 

That MSD's feel awkward to me anymore. I used to think they were the perfect size for me, so have quite a few of them. After months of photographing and handling my SD dolls, it just feels kind of weird to even pick them up anymore. They just feel so tiny and delicate. When I go to take their pictures, it feels small and clumsy. When I take the larger dolls pictures it is like zeroing in on small humans and it's much more comfortable to me.

I'll probably only ever get one more of the smaller dolls. Only because I have an outfit shoes and wig waiting for a boy. But they mostly they just sit on a shelf and look cute for me. Which is nice. But I don't have plans to do any major things with them they just feel frustrating for me to handle anymore.

I was really surprised by this. My original plan was to do both an SD and an MSD web comic, but now I just decided to continue with the SD dolls because they feel so much more agreeable to me. I feel more confident photographing them.

 

I like to draw fantasy creatures with odd proportions, and I learned about BJDs through pictures of DC dolls - that aesthetic is pretty much what I draw - but I quickly realized I prefer more realistically proportioned dolls. I think sculpture works best when the proportions are more natural. This made me rethink the proportions I use in drawing. In a sense BJDs are reshaping my taste in artwork.

 

I’ve recently discovered that I’ve (finally!) lost the urge to seek out new dolls with stories to tell. After all these years of adding roughly 3 BJDs per year to my collection, I’d lost hope of ever being able to stop. But suddenly here I am with a fairly large collection of around 60 dolls, and lo and behold the desire has finally waned. I adore my collection exactly as it stands, and none of them will ever be going anywhere. But could I really be done…really? Here’s hoping.

 

Joining the "You don't know how much stuff you've accumulated until you need to move" :')

I'm pretty good at organizing every little thing the moment I get it. Everything has a home or else it doesn't get to stay in mine mentality. I live in an apartment and we needed to move into a smaller unit in the same building and as soon as I started going through my racoonferretdragon hoarding type stuff I was just like

So I've spent the last year going over and over and over it all again to see what I can truly part with or not and the answer is... not much. So now I'm just crying myself to sleep about it every night wondering why I'm like this LOL. It took me so long to get to where I am - I have all my grails, I have collections of stuff from companies I love, I have clothing I've always wanted and everyone looks nice and proper to my standards. But there's just TOO MUCH of it. I never thought THIS would stress me out.

I've changed so much over the years too. I used to collect only romantic heads, white skin dolls (I love stark contrast), big boys etc and now I'm almost opposite. I'll never give up my boys, but I prefer open eye heads, minifees, tan and fantasy tones, etc. One reason I love the hobby is the ability to change! I love challenging myself to give something up or try something different. I love learning about myself through these challenges too - like learning that I can in fact do something uncomfortable and be alright.

I love my dolls and as much as I'd like less of them, I only want more lol. I thought I'd never get girls either, but that's changing! Slowly. Sort of.

 

For the longest time since I started in this hobby, I had this like notion in my head that all my dolls needed to be original characters of mine (I'm a writer before a doll collector) and that having dolls that were media characters or celebrities and such was unoriginal, lazy, and overall not something I wanted for myself (even if I had already written fan-fiction and that I was completely okay with).

Well, in the past year I learned that was the dumbest lie I could've told myself. Now my MSD-sized family includes my Marvel OC, but also Doctor Strange and Storm (who is a work in progress but it's filling me with joy) and I'm feeling the happiest I've ever felt with my dolls in years. I guess that what I failed to understand is that having them made into dolls was no different from fan-fiction because even if the base were other's characters, my dolls are my interpretation of them.

 

I've learned that I have lost all patience with floppy dolls, difficult to restring dolls non easy to sit dolls if a doll can't sit on shelf and falls front or back out it goes lol

 

This is so relatable, I suspect I'm going to be in your camp on this as well, at least with the wigs. I can't say for sure as yet since I'm new to BJD collecting, even though I've owned lots of dolls over my lifetime, and still have quite a few from childhood. But the resin dolls at 45 cm or taller are totally new experiences for me!

But I often file my dolls in my mind under their first visual appearance (facial features, hair color, etc.), and it can be harder to change that up without feeling a sense of unease that something isn't quite "right" afterwards. So wild how the brain works on stuff like that, guess life really is just full of all kinds of interesting variety!

I love the way you've constructed this concept, how owning dolls that belong to someone else's creative process is akin to writing fanfiction. It's so true that what you do with them is uniquely your own interpretation, and I'm really glad you're able to feel more relaxed about that and enjoy your dolls that much more!

My background is in history, and what's so neat about that field, imho, is how all of it revolves around making original interpretations around the facts we think we know, but putting them together to form new frameworks and ideas about people's experiences in specific times and places.

In a way, that's what you did, and I think it's rad!

Also, the way we customize the base model BJD we buy is ultimately our own interpretation from the start, too. And I love that concept overall.

I've learned that I often cycle through collections of things that seem wildly disconnected from each other, but then I'll circle back to something years later and fall in love with it all over again, usually from a new angle. Like with dolls, I owned an AG Samantha in my childhood, and I still have her, but she's just been on display for years as a beloved object.

Then I discovered BJDs a few months ago, when I decided I really wanted some visual representations of characters I'm writing, and now I'm back into doll collecting, and even talking with my mom about learning to mock up my own patterns. I'd given up sewing years and years ago, so it's like all of these things are returning at a time where I needed to rediscover them.

Plus, the big dolls are really neat! I was intimidated by the 60cm size and larger, but now that I own one and am handling her, I really like the perks!

 

I've rediscovered my love for tiny pets and anthros! I had a few in the past and sold them off years ago, but this year has just been a tiny explosion over here. (And I've discovered that I'm dangerously addicted to Penny's Box centaurs...I've tried several blind box dolls and at this point I've sold off all my little human girls to get more centaurs....) This has been a wild ride for me, since I've really only had interest in 1/3 humans for years!

I've also learned that dyeing tinies isn't too hard, and I'm not really afraid to try anymore.

Aaaand I've learned to stop limiting myself to a certain number of dolls. Long long ago, I had around 39 at once and it was overwhelming, I didn't care for over half of them and didn't even properly finish them. I had a ton of cheap terrible hybrids in bad wigs with eyes that didn't fit and low quality clothes and accessories because I had the "quantity over quality" mindset. Because I was buying so fast, I didn't put much effort in their characters and would end up with a full character just being something like "Her name is Danielle and she's in college" and nothing more. I'm the type of hobbyist who needs fully fleshed out characters, so that prevented me from really enjoying any of them. I sold off most of them and started over with a smaller crew and told myself no more than 19 at a time. And for awhile, that worked. I'd try to stay around 13-16, and usually when I started creeping near 19, I'd start getting that overwhelmed and unloved feeling again and sell....it cycled. A lot. But I've recently realized it's actually not the number that stresses me out, it's my connection to them. I can manage around 23 and enjoy them all because they're fully developed characters with ongoing stories, the right wig and eyes, a full wardrobe of clothes and they are the sculpt/body they should be. It's less about the number and much more about putting in the work and bringing them to life as they should be.

 

Another thing I'm learning... I've always wanted to keep a small-ish doll collection, and turns out I don't need a strategy to achieve this, I just need to follow my enjoyment.

I'm not a collector personality and I don't like rushing into things quickly, but when I came back to the hobby in late 2022 after a 10-year hiatus, I went kinda crazy with buying resin. Before I went on my hiatus I bought one doll at a time, and never had more than 4 dolls at once. But I started 2023 with 3 dolls and ended it with 7 ... at one point I was waiting for 2 full dolls, 1 doll body, and 2 floating heads concurrently. This is a LOT of resin for me, thinking about it stressed me out a bit. And the temptations and FOMO were still coming!

I'm the analytical sort (scientist by trade, what can I say... ) so I tried to analyze on my doll-buying patterns and figure out ways of saying No to new doll temptations. Turns out that I didn't need a 10-step plan, I just needed to do whatever I enjoyed most in this hobby, and if I don't enjoy it - don't do it. Indeed, at some stage, I stopped being eager to buy new dolls. I got much more interested in playing with the crew at home, and when I thought about spending hobby money I found myself wanting to spoil my crew instead of buy a new doll. When that shift happened, the temptations dropped to nothing, it became much much easier to say No to new dolls and opt out of FOMO.

So I don't stress out anymore about "oh no, what if I buy a new doll???"... partly because I'm back to my original pattern of slowly buying dolls, and partly because enjoyment feels more relaxed and fun than a strategy. And it's proven effective: currently I'm having fun playing with my dolls and spoiling them, and I don't care anymore about all those shiny new preorders out there - I'm actually quite contented to miss out on them. It doesn't mean never buying dolls either - if I get a hankering for a new doll and think I'll enjoy having it, there's nothing wrong with following that enjoyment too. So I didn't really have to stress about keeping my collection small - it's happening naturally by itself.

 

Something I've learned about myself as a collector recently is that I don't actually like the cattiness that can result when cliques form - I recently had a falling out with an online friend group in part because the hypocrisy was starting to get to me, but then also because some of that cattiness was starting to get directed toward me - so it was kind of a double whammy. After I separated myself from the situation (in this case, by leaving that online space), though, I found that I didn't really miss it as much as I would have thought. I was so worried that being on the outside looking in would be devastating, but, actually... I don't really seem to care? I still enjoy my dolls, and interacting with people on other online platforms, and chatting with IRL doll friends (who I might only see in person every couple of months, but who I've still managed to form deeper friendships with than I ever did with the online group). All this is to say, I think the lesson learned for me was that I'm more independent-minded than I thought. But also, that spending time with people that seem to bring out the not great aspects of my personality (not just in terms of spending, but more in terms of gossiping, mean comments, excluding others) isn't really something I want to be doing.

 

Before I began collecting I said, "Those people with huge collections are crazy, I will probably have a couple and end it at that." The joke's on me, I was wrong, the list of dolls I am hoping to buy in the future is not getting any smaller because there are so many beautiful sculpts out there and artists with amazing talent, it is so frustrating. I also thought I only liked my dolls a certain way, but after the purchase of my Chloe, which was secondhand, I figured out that I was wrong, I don't want dolls with larger busts that are super femme, the smaller chests like the fairyland B are more approachable and nicer in my opinion and when it comes to what I want from my collection. I am ever-changing and so is my preference for dolls, and I have come to accept that.

 

I thought I was squarely in the elegant-retro, frilly dress camp, but I've bought modern clothes this time and I enjoy the shift in style.