Which do you prefer? “Cute” or “Hot” dolls?

If I had to pick I'd go with cute, but I'd say my dolls are somewhere in between. I think I would have been more likely to think of them as "hot" when I was a teen and had just started collecting, but as I see my dolls as aged 16-18 they all feel like babies to me now. (I'm sure my boy dolls like to think that they're hot. Blue probably thinks they're hot too )

 

I think you mean Cute = fairylike , toddler like , baby like , big head , small breasted big eyed anime like , sweet looking
Hot = mature realistic , big boobs anime , having the potential to be dressed in a way perceived as hot by people without eyebrows raised .
There is a whole genre of dolls that are neither of that , elderly looking marionettes /dolls are neither , joe dalton and lucky luke plushies my son has are neither (they are hillariously funny though) ,
I like both all the cute subcategories above plus some that are not cute but look quirky funny etc but I also like mature dolls cause some dolls happen to have adult sculpts representing well adults ... I never see those as hot or any other similar feel and never dress them in such a way . Imagine an iplehouse eid in a tudor gown would it still be "hot" or more pretty . Same goes with non-hot modern clothes without suggestive posing. I think the clothes are half the doll in most cases.

 

i prefer cute, but i think that's mostly bc i prefer more stylized looking dolls. most dolls that i've seen that go for a "hot" look tend to lean toward realism and that's not really my thing. but that's fine by me, looks like it's all cuties in my future

 

I'd say on average my dolls are more on the "hot" side, but two of the three have cute styling right now. It's the same way with people. One day you can be cute and girly, one day a little more on the sexy side. Don't feel like you have to stick to one or the other when styling your dolls (or yourself for that matter!).

 

I like my girls ultra kawaii and can go either way on boys. I think I just like boys....

 

I'd say "handsome" is a better descriptor for the boy dolls I like. With girls it tends to sway between "cute" and "pretty", but mostly pretty.

 

Definitely not on the "cute" side.I prefer striking dolls, and I have a problem with cute dolls : they don't stay cute very long in my hands ^^'. Anyway most of the time I'm not highly intested by cute dolls. I also don't always want handsome/beautiful sculpts. I mostly want them to have personality.

 

Cute for sure, though I like unusual dolls as well. When asked what comes to mind for a doll, I would probably first think of the Volks Four Sisters, and I suppose my perception goes from there.

 

I only have one doll that I would consider "cute" as she's got chibified proportions. But I got her not because of her cuteness, but because she's a munchkin cat centaur and....I am owned by a munchkin. The other ones....well, 3 of them aren't even mostly human?? I didn't get the anthro weasel cause I thought he was hot, though my eagle dude (complete with eagle head) I did get cause the curve of his back dinged something in my brain. One of my dolls is only a floating head right now, but it's a minime that I got because I find the character he's modeled after hot. Does that count? lol.

I guess what I'm saying here is I don't go for either. I get my dolls because something about them speaks to me. It's not "I find this doll attractive" or "I find this doll cute". I find those things will fade very quickly, or are so ubiquitous in dolls that they start to lose meaning - and aren't anything I'm actually interested in getting a doll for. The dolls I go for are the ones that are unique in some way, either by having a smirk that gives hints towards his personality, or the most delicate, most amazingly sculpted paw hands I've ever seen xD

 

I prefer "cute" dolls because I like their innocent look. They remind me of my childhood—I never grew out of dolls!

 

Either depends upon the type of doll. Most of my guy dolls tend to run hot rather than cute but there have been exceptions. Both really...

 

I fully confess I enjoy looking at my boys. I’d call most of them hot without question. XD

 

I don’t really like cute dolls—my understanding of the word cute is that kinda childlike, big headed, more chibi proportioned doll. I don’t like that at all, because I’m not a fan of children, so I don’t want dolls that look like children. My youngest characters are in their twenties now, so I don’t have any child characters to shell (though some of my dolls have adult children).

would I call most of my dolls hot? Honestly if we define hot as like mature and beautiful/handsome, I’d certainly say a few of them would qualify. A lot of them are distinctive. I don’t know who all is attracted to my very scarred, fantasy coloured, eccentric doll cast, but like, I find facial scars usually kinda beautiful, though I may be biased in that. If we define hot as in attractive, I’m not attracted to resin, so none of them would count.

 

I'm intrigued by the discussion of the semantics of "cute" and "hot!" And this is quite illuminating as to how we perceive our dolls, and how for some it changed over time.

I'd personally say I'm a big fan of cute. I think the majority of my dolls fall in there, but they are sometimes different forms of cute. Megu's got toddler cute down. Nikki is "foster cat brought in off the streets" cute. Most of my slim MSDs are a sort of like... comic book character cute? Adventurous and charming and designed to be recognizable/"iconic" in their own way, where I can like, look at a piece of clothing and go "oh that's so Nova/Clover/Tian Ni!" and if I take them out to pose for pictures or something, they've got a personality I want to communicate. But they're not necessarily cutesy. Papyrus from Undertale cute. Hopefully that describes the vibe somewhat accurately, heh.

The couple that don't fall into cute, I'd say are more "cool." Those would be Thalassus and (still-unnamed) Fang. They are pretty sculpts, and could be styled to be more cute, but my design goal for them is "unwillingly immortal space pirate captain" and "classic rock biker gal" respectively. Maybe there's a degree of "hot" in there as well, in a way. Not in that I'm aiming for them to be attractive, but "cool" and "hot" tend to have overlap.

 

Depends on the character-- and then, styling goes for a lot. Like... I wouldn't call my MNF boy 'hot' as a hunk of resin, but as a character Pete thinks of himself as sexy! Meanwhile, if I had to assign my FID girl to either 'cute' or 'hot' as binary categories... then I guess I'd put her in the 'hot' column, even if her character would be just as likely to describe herself as 'adorable'.

I don't really have a lot of child characters/want to do much with child characters, so my collection leans mostly towards mature, but some of them are still more cute. My new girl is definitely a cutie, even though she's got a gorgeously sculpted body and COULD be styled to be more sexy-- once I had her dressed and got the right wig on her, she clicked into that cute vibe. But someone with the exact same doll could lean the other way. So my preference for mature dolls doesn't lock me out of playing with cuter styles! (and of course I DO have some variety outside of my general preferences, because even if I don't have a lot of interest in child characters, sometimes it's fun to have a little bitty guy you can pose with miniature toys and such just for the cute photos)

 

Like others have said, I feel like "cute" and "hot" are both incredibly subjective adjectives and my tastes don't fit neatly into either. I definitely have some that fall under "cute," like my sole MSD or my anime girls, but I can also see how some of my dolls can be interpreted as "hot," such as my RS Mi or Crobidoll Lance.

I think better descriptors of my taste are "refined" and/or "interesting." I like dolls that have striking features, such as strong noses or atypical eye shapes. On the whole, I think my dolls look very elegant and carry a lot of presence when completed, but not in a way that feels curated for social media. The aesthetics of each one varies a lot while maintaining a loose sense of cohesion within the group when displayed together.

 

My taste probably would fall under the category of “hot”. I like realistic dolls but without (too big) real life imperfections so they could be called idealized realistic.

That’s very interesting! This would merit it’s own post. Would love to see how you interpret each of them.

 

I consider all my dolls adults, but they are all cute to me. I guess a "hot" doll is just some flavor of cuteness in my eyes. It's a tiny little plastic person shaped object, I can't feel that kind of attractions to it, they are all babies that I want to spoil mature looking or not. even if it's nude or wearing lingerie I still think of it as my cute baby.
as for the stylization it's really a diverse mix imo but what's shared is most of them look smiley or otherwise content, to me that is so cute to look at.

 

It depends on the doll and the character, but I've been trying to have cute girly girls for more than a decade and just didn't worked for me. I love to see other people dolls under this style, but I cannot manage to give this look to my dolls for some reason.

I tend to go for casual looks for my young adult/adult and cute for my 1/6.

I must admit that those +75 resin boys wearing "hot" looks (big pecs, cheeky faces, etc) make me giggle at my 37 years old LOL so I guess I'm at the same point with these as the cutesy girls. I just keep it plain for me and enjoy seeing other's dolls I guess xDDD