Where does your doll store it's personality?

I agree that it is the head. Faces are what we connect with, we can be attracted visually to bodies, but the face is the key. I have a body that I bought because it was a great deal, I love it - it is fun to dress, but without a head/face it is just a mannequin. I bought a head for it that I love, but it is just a little to dark (I will be getting her a body asap) but she demands a body and hair and a name and stuff! They are each great little people (creatures? to be decided) but in their own different ways.

 

It was the face that sold my current order to me, not the body. The body I will probably change when I can afford to do so, to a better sculpt.

Bobobie dolls have very nice faces, but sometimes their bodies are a bit "meh".

Phil.

 

I think a doll's personality is embodied neither in the head nor body but in the mind of the owner because you can have the personality of the doll present without even having the doll, like if it's away somewhere or not with you yet.

 

Definitely in the head. Since my doll IS currently a floating head..well..yeah..and he DID seem to kind of have a personality BEFORE faceup.

 

Blank heads with characters in mind slowly receive their doll spirits and personality the moment they arrive. Once the face up is done I feel the doll spirit and personality stays with the head. Really helps when you have to hybrid or more heads than bodies.

Blanks without a character remain blank until something comes for them. Eloise spent 3 years waiting for a purpose and now fits in perfectly.

 

Hah..the personality is usually stored in the head I think..^^: I've had plenty of floating heads that when plunked on somebody else's body make that body behave seemingly differently! It might just be being crazy and attributing too much personality to something that is in essence of hunk of plastic but that's certainly how it seems to me.

A head can still have plenty of personality without a face-up..I just find a face-up helps bring it out more..sometimes my kids are quiet until they get faces and then they don't shut up.

 

I recently sent my only boy's head off to get a face up, and I just dont feel all that attached to him right now.

I think his personality is in his expressions...

 

so, either my doll is a pre-made char, so even if its just a head or body (or hand, or wig, etc) well the personnality exist.
Aiden came to me in one piece.... but i guess that even without body he'd have a personnality since it mostly comes from his first faceup (that i messed up XD)
and the fact that his face is super sweet and stuff (i just couldnt make him badass it wouldnt work XD)

 

That pretty much the same with me.
When you look at your doll,
the personality (or the profile) will show up in my mind :"P
something like....they are alive because me?

 

I'd say in my head/drawings/writings, but as for physically on the doll it's gotta be the eyes. If the eyes aren't the right/perfect ones, it's a no go.

 

I also agree with this~

 

Hmmm for me it's different for each doll. My leeke Mihael (nameless atm ) stores it in his whole head, like... his sculpt and eyes. Whereas Devany just stored it in her eyes, she changes personality as I change her eyes it's quite weird. My next doll is on layaway but I imagine hers will be in how I paint her faceup.

It's the same with bodies, sometimes they are necessary for the doll to look complete and sometimes they aren't. My Mihael would only need the head, although I doubt many (if any) of my other dolls would be the same. It's strange, the head being without the body for me so most of my dolls will need to be a complete doll before they have real personality.

 

It must be in MY head. Because one I've had over a year, who started as a head, got a body, has had 3 pairs of eyes, then got a new body, just got a new HEAD. And he's still the same guy.

The faces and expressions and the way they stand and all that contribute, of course, but really it's all me in the end.

 

They say eyes can lead into the soul. I believe this is true. When I was washing my doll before applying faceup, I had to take her eyes out. When they were out, it did not feel as though it was my doll. So, I say the personality is in their eyes - at least my doll does.

 

In my imagination, as someone else said. I can illustrate it with clothes, makeup, hair, accessories, and a setting. Who they are to me, is still in my mind.

 

i'm one of the few who found my doll's personality in his body!!! i purchased nicky as a new head + secondhand body hybrid, so his body was hanging out with me for a good month before his head popped along in the mail. i've never had original characters before buying my doll, so at the time the only thing i knew about nicky was that his name was nicky~ it was through dressing his body that i began to figure out his personality, because it liked to bend over and stick out its butt, totally nekkid. sass level 100.
things like this kept happening enough that i had a more or less fleshed out personality for nicky once his head arrived! i was actually really nervous that the aesthetic of his head sculpt wouldn't match the personality vibes i got from his body, but everything turned out perfectly in the end. now i'm very happy with my lil minx nicky

 

with mine, they don't become really fully themselves till they're finished. But, even blank some personality starts to crystalise. Enough for them to demand certain wigs or faceups hahaha. I'm certain they all have a mind of their own, because no matter what my original idea, so many of them defy me and become something else instead.
The doll I was dying and painting up last night for instance, I imagined as a sort of tribal imp kinda character with this really cheeky squished face she has. Well, first she ended up sorta plum coloured not red (such a pretty colour though) and then when I did her face she ended up way more glam than I anticipated. And looking at her, there's nothing about her faceup that's "glam" she just... she looks really mature and beautiful now rather than this impish thing she was previously. She has a lopsided grin and it gives her so much personality. It's like she has some of her self blank and white, but now she's red and faceupped she's completely herself, it's... like the blank contains the seed and the finished product is the flower blossoming.

They do whine at me if I don't finish them fast enough though hahah.

 

For a Christmas present I got a full sized human skull (I'm a student of a sort of medicine) from my parents made from this very cool polymer stuff that is so close to human bone that's is awesome! Instantly when I got him he was named Watson.
I also have a human torso (with removable organs) and his name is Van Gough since he only has one ear and that ear keeps falling off due to a poor connection to the head! Another thing I have is a mini skeleton who is named Skully.

So it seems as long as something I have has a head/face I name it; but this isn't always the case since I also sometimes name inanimate objects like my camera is called Zeus (since it's an Olympus brand camera and it is MASSIVE!)

Therefore I guess personality does lie in both body and head but is more prominent in the head/face

 

hahah that's awesome. I name ridiculous things too. Usually it has to have a face, or something that could conceivably be a face but we DID name the carniverous plant... which is a pitcher plant so definitely doesn't have any kind of face. It's called "bitey" and when I split it we got "bitelets" (so named by my father). So all the baby biteys, or bitelets are referred to collectively and i'm rather sentimental toward them. They're JUST plants but I dunno.. i'm attached to them, we've had them for like 10 years now and i've started to regard this thing as almost like a pet, it's a member of the family. A green, sticky member of the family that eats bugs and offers zero interaction hahaha.
But I will genuinely grieve if it dies, and that's not really rational for something that's a blooming PLANT.