Why Resin?

I do believe that it is a good question to ask, at least.
You get so used to something that you never stop to wonder
'why' it was made that way.(sorry I'm highly philosophical)

But I agree with everyone here that where there's a 'Normal'
way of doing things, ingenuity is born from the need for 'difference'.

I love the resin, and yes the prices are high, right?
But I would never compromise the beauty and mastery
of it to cut down the cost. I've learned a lot from this hobby
and 'saving money' is one of many skills you must acquire. lol

I do hope you find a good doll in your price range
though! So you can be addicted like the rest of here! XD

Take Care!

 

For me, this. And it was just brought home to me yesterday, in fact. I used to collect fashion dolls, too. I fell for SD bjd's because of the poseability and the more 'realistic' body shapes, but I still enjoyed my fashion dolls. But slowly, I have gotten rid of almost all my fashion dolls... Then yesterday, when my first MSD came home and I sat her next to my vinyl fashion doll, that was it. The last fashion doll is on her way out now.

To me, is is the level of realism inherent and possible. I have had vinyl fashion dolls with changeable eyes and wigs, but somehow they just cannot compare to the overall aesthetic of a resin doll. I love vintage fashion and I think resin can do it miles better than vinyl.

Also, not knowing where you are, I would, if it were me, try to get in touch with a local bjd group and go to meets. Many of us have no problem letting someone else play with our dolls, and it can such a fun way to see tons of different kinds of resin dolls.

 

Resin is a lot tougher than it sometimes gets credit for. Yes it can get dings, and it's a lot better if you don't drop your doll, but with reasonable care they aren't going to have catastrophic breaks. Resin is easily sanded and sculpted onto. This is not only great for modding, but also repair work. Yellowing seems to instill panic into people new to bjds, but again, with reasonable care (in other words don't display them in a sunny spot), it's often mild and not unattractive.

Whether or not weight is a good thing or a bad thing is subjective. When I want to sit on the sofa and hold a doll, I love the weight -- it's one of the things about my big Volks girls that appeal to me. However, if I'm doing a lot of walking around at a con or doll show or something, a lighter doll is easier to manage. Over all I consider the weight a pro rather than a con.

I have both resin and vinyl dolls and find that they both have great things to offer. I find that constantly comparing them to see which is better isn't particularly useful. I prefer to appreciate each in their own right as they are quite different.

Oh and posing -- that really varies from company to company as well as owner to owner as it does take getting used to an individual doll's quirks. There are also a lot of fixes to help posability -- wiring, sueding, KIPS, etc (and don't forget that the elastic tension needs to be right) that are very simple to do.

My mother has a lovely vinyl baby doll from her childhood whose poor limbs are completely deteriorating

Aside from the yellowing business, over time I'm actually less concerned for my resin dolls as the resin isn't something that's really going to break down. Though as long as Obitsu and Volks continue to sell replacement parts for their vinyl dolls, I suppose they'll be a-okay too.

 

I own both vinyl and resin dolls. While vinyl takes the cake hands-down for posability, I really love the detail and the feel of resin. Something else I noticed as to why resin is such a popular choice for dollmaking--French resin glows like real flesh, and resin in general usually warms to the touch. If you've had a resin doll in your lap for fifteen minutes, it's almost cuddly! The weight and warmth of resin contributes a lot to their realism. Or un/surrealism, if you would. :3

 

I think there are several reasons. Firstly, many people don't think about lacks of resin, but if they saw non-resin doll, they would say that it isn't "true BJD". For example, such dolls are off-topic on this forum. Secondly, appearance of doll and its image in whole (make up, outfit, accesories) is much more important than characteristics of material. What do you choose - beautiful resin doll or ordinary doll from another (more quality) material? I think most people choose beautiful.
Also, technology of making resin dolls is well-known, so doll vendors can concentrate his attention on what they want to create. Profit of making non-resin dolls is doubtful.

So, I think such situation is logical. May be another material has advantages in technical characteristics, but doll is not only technical characteristics, it is much more complex thing.

 

I had a small chuckle at the idea that vinyl somehow ages better intrinsically. Sure it does--if you properly care for it, just like resin--and say, most common materials that you can think of. (Nothing to see here. Move along...)

I started in vinyl BJD and expanded into resin. I must say that resin has a more skinlike appearance in general. But vinyl (specifically Dollfie Dreams) have a pleasant softness and are very lightweight (which I appreciate). DD stain like the dickens though and if you make the vinyl harder and more stain resistant (like the DD skeletons and joints), the vinyl becomes even less skinlike and you lose the advantage of softness.

They're just different mediums in the end.

 

I came to the larger dolls through a similar journey. My original dolls from childhood (vinyl Barbies) to collectible ones later in life (Silkstones). Then on to 16-17" fashion type dolls in vinyl and then some in resin. Both had different advantages and disadvantages.

Then I found the 60cm size dolls. I have one in resin - a CustomHouse Choa. She is lovely. She reminds me very much in touch a appearance to a 16" fashion resin BJD I have (OT for this forum). But I will say that I personally MUCH prefer vinyl for the larger dolls. I have 4 Dollfie Dreams and 4 Obitsus. I like the weight, the feel, the poseability...everything.

My husband also collects and while he prefers Obitsus over DDs, I love both. I like in the internal build of Obitsus, but the aesthetics of the Dollfie Dreams more. But I prefer BOTH to the resin (except I do love the one I have and wouldn't change her for the world).

I have older bodies that have aged and yellowed a bit and newer ones and both are fine with me. I like that my vinyls don't have seams to be sanded and I MUCH prefer the sculpts on the majority of vinyl dolls to those in resin. I think it is just a personal preference.

At the end of the day, resin and vinyl are much the same material anyway...just a different composition.

 

As someone who owns both vinyl Dollfie Dreams and Resin BJDs, I can say that I have much more love and appreciation for my resin figures. They feel more "alive" to me and, like creating a character for a book or RPG where you know all sorts of details about them, I can feel who they are a lot more than I can my vinyl dolls. They are all gorgeous to me, but if I had to choose only one kind of doll, it would be the resin ones.

Also, Volks was making Dollfies (the little super-articulated barbie sized dolls) before they made Super Dollfies. Just throwing that out there as it might have had an influence on the design of the SDs.

 

Reading all through this, I have two points:

1. Don't rule out American-designed dolls because of that one in vinyl. Of my 5 favorite resin bjds that I own, only 1 is ON-topic here (Fairyland LittleFee Elf Ante). Don't assume Asian designers are automatically better just because they're Asian. There are many many esthetics that are stunning in resin, and American and European designers are doing some amazingly beautiful dolls.

2. I disagree that resin is easier to paint on. Resin is easier to re-shape, but vinyl takes my method of painting like a perfect creamy substrate. Resin faceups give me a headache from grinding my jaw at the resin; vinyl, however, I can do with a smile and in my zone. Vinyl is a lot harder to RE-paint, because it absorbs color, making some of the painting permanent. With the type of dolls I've made for sale, that's an advantage because the coloring looks like it's in the "skin."

Done yattering now.

 

I personally like the resin better because that means you have to take good care of it to prevent any problems happening on your doll. To be honest, I do not have vinyl doll and I do not really know how they pose. So far from what other people sayind is that vinyl dolls are better poser, and I believe that. Everything has its pros and cons that one cannot expect everything is going to be perfect. I like resin better is because it can shows much more detail that amazed me. I am not sure about vinyl but if it can amazed me like rosin does, I will definatly go for it.

 

This thread is interesting, great to read everyone's reactions, and love for their dolls.

Silk: think you managed to completely misunderstand the sentence of mine that you quoted. I am saying that every little piece of an articulated ball joint doll takes hours to sculpt, so resin is better because you can pour into moulds and reproduce that original sculpt, I'm not sure you can with Air-Dry clay or whatever other mediums Ryo Yoshida and similar artists use. That was my whole point!

 

It depends on the doll -- DDs and Obitsus are amazing posers because of their internal skeletons. However, some vinyl bjd type dolls are strung with elastic and would be more comparable to the resin dolls in that department.

 

D: some of these dolls have too much detail for me to handle..... O///O

As for my preference on the topic I prefer resin. I do have some vinyl dolls and a porcelain doll but resin seems to be the best quality. Yeah my vinyl dolls can swan dive off tables and be completely undamaged but if they fell onto tar and got nicked or scraped I couldn't just stand it out like I could with a resin doll.

And of all of my dolls my resin msd boys pose the best. My vinyl dolls don't stand well on their own.

 

This is the best thing ever. Lord have mercy on the fool who dares assault anyone carrying one of those E.I.D beefcakes.



The use of dolls as a potential deadly weapon aside, one of the major attractions of BJDs is their ability to be customized to the extent of one's imagination and beyond. Vinyl can't always be used and abused and manipulated the way that resin can be. As an artistic medium, resin has more to offer.

 

I think its the presence of resin that makes it special. It has a weight that vinyl and plastic lacks, and a solidity that procelin doesn't.

Being in the room with a BJD, you just can't overlook them.

Plus, i've tried customizing a plastic action figure (I was never a doll collector, only an action figure collector) and carving down plastic is fliippin hard.

However, I also spent some time customizing one of my resin BJDs. The experience went much better (and I actually finished what I started >.<)

From what I can tell, all vinly dolls that are remotely comparable to Resin BJDs lack the amount of detail that usually goes into a good BJD. Its just not within the capabilities of the medium, from my understanding.

Hard plastics could accept the same level of detail, and at larger sizes (like my 43cm Jack Sparrow action figure) they get heavy. However, I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually do a strung hard plastic doll. Perhaps for most bjd artists the technology in creating hard plastic pieces is beyond most of thier available resources.

 

@Vonbonbon: Again a perfect example why I shouldn't respond to posts when I'm sick. But I swear it sounded like you meant Yoshida's dolls alone, not all other bjd's.

Anyway, my point still stands. I often forget how much work goes into these dolls too, especially when a company poops out a new mold every other month.
That's the downside of resin I think. If I look at Ryo's or Yoshida's dolls (or any other sculpture made of clay), the time it took to complete them is almost tangible. When a final product is made of resin or vinyl however, I loose this 'connection'. Somehow, the imagery of machines (whether justified or not) is interfering.

(by the way, Vonbonbon, like my previous post, most of it was not directed to you)

 

Just to point out that resin like vinyl is a type of plastic, a very different type, but a type of plastic nonetheless.

I do have a question though, when everyone mentioned vinyl are you referring to the soft kind or hard vinyl as well? Does hard vinyl act/react/handle differently then soft vinyl, minus the feel of one compared to the other?

 

Resin dolls even 'feel' beautiful. Especially fresh resins tend to have that roughy texture and smell. As they get older, say, 5 years, they yellow dramtically and loose unique resin feel and somewhat transform to vinyl feel. At that point, you usually sand them with finr sandpaper or pay companies to exchange with new ones.
I know some people who handle their bjd wearing gloves. While it protects dolls from minorly scratched or dirtied, the owners often miss out on intimacy department.
Personally I thought it's silly to refer dolls as if they are children, but now I love love love my dears so much I dare not call them 'it.' I recommend actually seeing them before buying. It's so much different from pics.