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

Over the years, I have grown to prefer buying dolls secondhand vs brand new. My favorite dolls in my collections are the previously owned and the hybrids. There is something really rewarding about giving a doll a second (or third) life and having them fit in with your collection perfectly.

 

I'm still fairly new at the hobby, but I've learned that I absolutely adore tinies. 1/6 and 1/8 are totally where it's at for me!

I'm also very into older sculpts like Custom House and Rosenlied. Makes me a bit sad to have missed out on when they were still around and producing dolls, but looking for them secondhand is actually really fun and tickles the thrift-loving part of my brain, so maybe that's part of the appeal.

 

This was me until I recently found the type of male dolls I would love to own: faces that feature a combination of strong jawlines, pronounced cheekbones and brow bone, contrasted by hollow cheeks--like Demiurge Dolls and Granado's rugged men. Their sculpting makes them so distinctive and aesthetically pleasing to me.

Also, I've found that I'm not much of a BJD collector but rather treat the hobby as a medium for further enjoying the OCs I'm obsessed with. So while I continue to stare and gush about many pretty BJDs, I'm not tempted to throw any real money unless they serve my OCs in some way i.e. getting a body upgrade. I think it's enough to live vicariously through other people's excitement and their photos.

 

Two things I've realised:

1. 75cm is Enough Doll. I currently have three of them, all of which are supposed to be unusually tall characters, and I currently don't have any plans for a fourth. I might be open to one in the future, but I don't want anything taller
2. I enjoy my dolls more when they have at least one other doll to interact with, whether that's a friend, family member or just a smaller doll to antagonise them.

 

Even after so many years in the hobby, I feel like I've learned so many things recently about my collecting habits.

I found I actually love getting dolls with face-ups already done, usually second-hand. Sending them out for a face-up is exciting in its own right, but being able to look at the exact doll I want and knowing that's what's coming home helps me plan better. I just miss the rapport that comes from the excitement of gushing to an artist when the work is done.

SDs are a bit too big for me, but I still want 2 resin 60cm one of these days (hence hanging onto one of my floating heads). My Dollfie Dreams I also don't plan on adding more of, but even if I'm no longer collecting them doesn't mean I don't still love them.

And I am no longer afraid of hybrids! This took me way too long to realize, but it opened up so many doors for the artists and studios that only release head sculpts. It helps sometimes if I have to wait on a body because I take the production period to find wigs/eyes/etc.

 

I have yet to see any SD male dolls in person, but I do have a 71 cm on layaway. I saw a video the other day and the person had their hand on the leg of a 77 cm doll, upper body not even on screen, that had me screaming, "holy fuck, that's a BIG BOY!"

As a person with very small hands, I need to move my 60-65 cm dolls around with both hands and a sweaty death grip

In my experience, waiting for the faceups to be done is a type of separation anxiety as you'd be staring at your headless doll(s) for several weeks to months unless you decided to put them away and just "forget about them". But as I am deeply attached to my first dolls, I didn't want to do that.

 

I've learned that I have a weakness for 1:4 dolls, not just tinies. I just don't get to indulge much because of my budget.

 

I thought I was into small 1/4 dolls only, but suddenly am falling in love with a lot of 1/3 dolls. I wish I had more space.

 

I am also the camp of 75cm is Enough Doll. I recently bought a studio Naiko male body (waiting on head) and my Lord this is a huge doll. Even for me and I’m a tall, heavyset woman. After 2 decades in this hobby I’ve hit my size limit.

Also I’ve come to the conclusion that I will never like yo-Sd dolls enough to own them, except for a sei tenshi that is an unreachable grail.

 

That I have such a better time when I fully commit to not taking it seriously at all. I feel like every artistic/skill-based interest I've ever had was eventually poisoned by this mentality of feeling things were either perfect or worthless, i.e. my worthless vs apparently everyone else's perfect. Looking back on those things in my teens and 20s, I don't really see a person actually enjoying those things as much as being perpetually stressed out by what they represented about me as a person.

I'm pretty new to dolls in general, but I actually feel like it's a hobby vs a stressor for once in my life. I just kind of do whatever with no direction, don't feel any need to compare my dolls to others', take a quick lazy photo and that's good enough etc. Which is kind of freeing. And funnily enough I feel like that attitude has been more conducive to noticing improvements in faceups etc over time. More willing to experiment/practice more often when it doesn't seem to matter so much I guess.

I don't know, example, I did a faceup on a new doll over the weekend. Sealant did something weird on her cheek at one point. 20-year-old me would have flipped and wiped the whole thing immediately; I just decided on the spot "oh, I could paint a scar here" and ended up liking it better with it anyway.

Then put her on the shelf next to one of my older ones, was surprised that she looked noticeably better than he did. Again 20-year-old me would have only been deeply ashamed by the older one in that situation, like the contrast just reinforced how terrible I was. "This one's bad already; how could I not see that it used to be even worse!" etc. But because I'm not that pressed about my dolls I just felt motivated to amend his face and now he looks a little better too. Very longwinded but it's been a nice sort of self revelation lately.

 

I used to be a massive collector in the sense that I was constantly acquiring new dolls, but now I think I'm more or less satisfied. I'll still buy a doll here and there, but the one I have on order now is the first I've bought in three years, so it's few and far between. I think at this point I'd rather work on the dolls I have and make new things for them than keep getting new dolls. New dolls just feel like a lot more work.

 

That as girly and feminine as I am, I basically only want boys! I'm interested in a few girls, but only because I want to shell them as very feminine presenting men. I just love my rockstar boys so much!

 

Here’s something I learned that really and truly surprised me…that those fascinating characters I’d long ago given up on have somehow managed to stick around in my mind, only to rear their heads quite suddenly when a perfect shell appears in the marketplace. Geez, I really thought I was done. I truly did! I’ve come up with no new characters for several years now…and whoever never got shelled for whatever reason, I simply gave up on and moved on. I was quite happy with my completed collection, because time marches on and trends in dolls change, and there you go. And then a forgotten old-school grail pops up in the marketplace and hits you between the eyes. It turns out that his character never died…he was just biding his time.

 

Delete

 

I enjoy body blushing. I HATE doing face-ups. Hate hate hate. So..... I'm finally biting the bullet and commissioning others to paint my dolls' faces.

I'll paint a whole head/body to color match, no problem. Sueding? Love it. Restring all day every day. Same with dyeing, sanding, and mods. But put a face in front of me and ask me to paint on some eyebrows, and I'm permanently frozen in executive dysfunction land.

 

I also like buying dolls with faceups already as a few others have stated. Having been out of the hobby for a long time, most of the artists I know of are retired or MIA so it's a little bewildering to know who to send to now. I've also had not the best experience recently shipping off for a faceup compared to before.. It'd just be nice to have the faceup to start with. Haha. I realize, only after experiencing all of my urethane eyes yellowing, that I prefer glass eyes because they're future-proof. And glass eyes have improved a lot in terms of quality compared to when I last shopped for them. Also I've thankfully never ran into clothing or shoes disintegrating (the kind made out of pleather) because I prefer cloth products but I will continue to steer clear of plastic doll products for similar reasons to the urethane versus glass logic.

 

I got my first bjd a couple weeks ago, and so far I've learned that I enjoy sewing! it always intimidated me before, but there's something about sewing on a small scale, with the fairly quick dopamine hit of seeing it on my new girl, that's motivating me more than I ever expected

 

I realised that I am really picky about clothes and how they fit a) a body and b) the character and c) how the dolls look together. Recently I bought a larger amount of clothes for the first time since switching to SDs. While I use the shoes frequently and absolutely love changing them and just looking at them really, the clothing I have yet to use... maybe one or two outfits stick but the rest? That surprised me a bit, as I thought it would give the uncompleted dolls a boost from sitting around naked and "unloved". And also that maybe I was to rigid in thinking "oh, I want to do it all myself". But the reality is that I enjoy the crafting part so much more than the buying one. Wigs, eyes, clothes I'd much rather take a few weeks to months but have them be (more or less) the way I envisioned them.