Would your collection be different if you started with a different doll?

The biggest change from my first doll almost 17 years ago to now is just the size. My aesthetic is still pretty similar, and my body/jointing preferences are about the same, too. I fell in love with my first doll the second I opened his box, I even cried a little. I just loved him so SO much instantly, and I still have him, despite him being my only current 1/4 adult and much preferring 1/3. I bought him in stock, so I got to ease into how wait times work, too. Considering what dolls were available at the time, and how hard I fell for him, I think any other doll would have been a mistake. If my first intro to the hobby hadn't been such an amazing feeling or I wasn't that impressed, I think I might have seen it as a waste of money, or had terrible buyer's remorse and just given up right then.

 

It would!

When I'm starting this hobbies I take my time and do the research first. At that time I'm thorn between a Grail 1/3 doll that had caught my heart for a long time (Like 10 years-ish) and a 1/4 that seem to be more suitable for the future project that I want to do with my dolls.

Back then if I start with that 1/3 girl, my collection would be only 1/3 and be much smaller than it is now. 1 or 2 doll maybe?

I would still spoil them a lot however

That said, this is about me in a parallel world who choose 1/3 instead of 1/4 to start. I won't regret my decision and am happy with my current collection though

 

I've actually had to restart my collection after losing all of the ones I had before. Some had to be sold to fund an unexpected move after a personal catastrophe. The few I kept they got stolen and I was so devastated that for almost 6 years I barely set foot on DOA.

It's only been the past 3 years that I've been stable enough to buy dolls again. After I got housed again a couple of friends very generously sent me some minis and one of them she continues to send me one or two birthdays/holidays every year. She's the BEST that woman.

Until this year I had nothing but MSD sized BJDs. This year I bought 2 Spiritdoll bodies and a white Korean body pretty cheap. One of the Spiritdoll bodies came with an opposite sex head. I really like this doll but I made the mistake of unstringing it to sand it and until my arthritic hands get better unfortunately it's going to stay that way.

The other one I bought a head for but it also needs restringing because one day the elastic for the arms just let loose and his arm fell apart. The cord needs replacing, I guess. The third body, the white one I bought to match a very beautiful and pretty rare head that I found from Moonlight Wonder. So far so good with her and she's even 3/4 dressed at this point.

Lastly, just this past month I got a steal of a deal on a Domuya Alice so I went from no SD sized dolls to 4 and I may still not be done because I'm eyeing a certain head as a replacement for the one head that I bought who's origin is questionable.

That wasn't the plan. I was going to stick to MSD sized dolls as they fit more into the small apt I have now but I really like SD sized dolls and I suppose having a small crew was inevitable.

But I did not actually go back and just repurchase the dolls I lost. I miss the Creature and my Saint a lot. I did the hybrid thing to be able to afford those and it was hard. I still love the Saint but I am thinking that if I ever go there it will be the mini version.

Other than that I'm pretty happy with my crew of new dolls. They have really helped me deal with the loss of my older ones and life in general. I'm ill a lot right now. I don't get out as much as I should. I'm fighting swelling and other issues that make it really hard to play and craft. I guess that and everything I've been through tends to make me pretty laid back about "which" dolls I end up with lately.

I would barely have BJDs if I didn't have some generous friends. I'd have my SDs but not most of my minis. I just don't feel like I'm in a place where I'm going to be too upset about anything much anymore except for maybe not being able to immediately restring the dolls that need it. If it takes me a long time to get a doll finished that's okay.

I was homeless from mid 2017 to mid 2021. In late 2018, early 2019 I was hospitalized and I nearly died from blood clots and pulmonary embolisms. I got into a shelter after that and finally got disability and I got housed in June of 2021.

It changed me utterly the experience. I'm no longer as fussy or as entitled as I once was. I'm very disabled, and my legs are so bad I have to use a walker. I can't help but be a lot more humble in my expectations after all that.

I'm just so lucky to be alive and to even have dolls again...

 

When it comes to scale, yes I think my collection would be different. My first doll (Dream of Doll Lahoo) was 1/3 and 64cm tall, and I've been wedded to this scale ever since. I now love dolls in the 57-68cm range with 65cm being the sweet spot. Whereas I've owned 1/4s and 1/6s before, but just couldn't get into them and sold them all.
If this experience is anything to go by, I'd fall in love with whatever scale I started with, then find reasons why I love it and want to stick with it forever. So if I'd started in eg. slim minis, I might've continued with them today.

Stylistically though? Probably not different. I bought my first doll thinking that I'd like the stylized BJD look, then discovered I didn't and I wanted something a little more realistic. I ended up selling almost all the dolls I bought as a newbie including my first doll, and bought different dolls instead. So I've had a kind of restart already, and my collection today looks quite different from my collection as a newbie.

But I had much fewer stylistic choices when I first got into BJDs in 2009; if I got into BJDs today, I would've been able to start in the kind of semi-realism that I've always liked. And since more dolls are being made at different scales with this style, I might've begun in say slim 1/4 or 75cm, and stayed with that.

 

Somehow I doubt so.
I got my first doll (Dollmore Liebe Klum) as a teenager and never really did much with her, mostly because I lived in a rural area with limited internet.
When I got back into the hobby two years ago, only 1/3 really caught my eye. I like to sew for my dolls and 1/3 hit that sweet spot of being easy enough to sew for while having a particular presence for their size.
I find sewing for my Volks MSD/SDMs fiddly enough, so I doubt mature/slim minis or tinies would have grabbed me. On the other end of the size spectrum, I feel 75cm+ dolls are too unwieldy for me to travel with, and a lot of them have the pinheaded look that doesn't gel with my others. My tallest (and smallest head) is a Loongsoul 73cm and I feel he's going to stay the tallest in the house.

 

i don't really know to be honest. I've always liked some sculpts from Fairyland, another ones from Iplehouse and many of Dollfie. But I don't know what would happend if first of all I would see a Lusion or a Trinity since I started collecting SD sice. Maybe I would have like 3 lusion or so instead of 13 bjd of different sices? Maybe. but I will never know.

 

Probably? My first doll was a msd so I plan to try to keep my collection to msds in the future so they’re the same scale to photograph together. If I had gotten a sd to start I’d probably do the same for sds.

 

If I didn't start with Ara, I wouldn't have any boy dolls in my collection! He's still the only one, and I don't see that changing any time soon; there's some lovely boys out there but I just prefer the look of the girls' bodies. Heck, even if I did eventually get an Impldoll Avery, I might have tried putting the head on a girl body. I don't think my collection would otherwise be much changed, though. I generally aim for the same size for ease of clothing, but I have already broken that rule because above all else, I just get dolls that I fall in love with. I just don't know who I would have started out with; I got Ara to celebrate having paid off my student loans, and I think all the other dolls in my collection either didn't exist or weren't available for order at the time. Maybe Black Cherry Dolls Zeri, but I didn't hear about them until later.

I was about to say if I'd started with my DearSD Megu my collection would shift, but I got her secondhand here so I don't think I would have been able to get her to start my collection! If I'd gone more that cute, baby/toddler look to start in general, though, I might have more of those; there's a few dolls in that range that I adore but I'm not getting for space and again, would introduce more sizes to sew for.

If I had started with an SD in general? I might have stayed with that size. Smaller SDs though, not the big beefcakes, and I don't think I'd have as many dolls. Only so much space in the apartment and not as many SDs have captured me the way my MSD gang has. The only SD I can think of that I would for sure want to have brought home is an SD Megu, but that would just be swapping out the body of my DearSD, so not much of a change at all!

 

I think it would be at least close to the same. I think the only changes would be shelling certain characters to different dolls, as I recently realized a boy of mine would be better as another sculpt ^^;

 

Yes ! If I start with an iplehouse sd girl, I won't have my little ones (do not want to buy too many clothes of different sizes

 

I don't think so. I started with a vampire SD with elf ears (Doll In Mind Galahad) in 2008. I tried every size from tinies to 65cm tall in the first years, but finally sticked mostly with dolls in 55-68cm range (with some exceptions), with a soft spot for heads with fangs and/or horns and/or pointy ears.

 

Happy to find you also on DoA ! For me it's just the space and financial problems, I do love my tiny dolls and fantasy parts, it's still much easier to manage sticking to one or two sizes of accessories (huge fan of accessories orz). Probably in 5-6 years, the different roads would lead to the same route, but until now, I am happy with my collection, while keeping a love for sd bodies.

 

My first dive into bjds started when I was 28 years old after only previously experiencing heavily commercialized dolls (Barbie, various run of the mill baby dolls). I discovered bjds from one of my Lolita meetups. She had a Smartdoll and that’s what got me into bjds. I wanted to try a doll smaller than a Smartdoll so after prolonged research I decided on a customized DDP. Looking back on it I felt like Wyvern was the perfect starting point (mid size vinyl) doll to help me eventually narrow more into my preferences (small 1/6 scale resins). I went up in scale (1/3 Smartdolls) and down in scale (1/6 Atelier Momomi Pitusas-4) and I only ended up selling 3 of my 5 Smartdolls in the end.

 

I think it would for sure be different. Especially since I started out just trying to get he cheapest dolls possible, so I started out with a 1/12 scale. Which I would not have done now, now I'm really only into MSD's or SDs (mostly msds but yano, i'm not opposed). I think also I would have taken my time, tried to get more second hand stuff.

 

I don't think so. After having some experience with owning dolls, I now know that though my first doll was beautiful and I still appreciate the sculpt, it's not my style in terms of owning preferences. I think I'm beginning to get closer to easily telling the difference between which sculpts I like and which I want to own. I could be wrong about this, but it seems that having a first doll that wasn't quite the right style hasn't prevented me from finding my way to a style I like.

 

I did this too, a lot of MSD's because they were smaller and cheaper. I finally took a plunge with the SD's and my first one was crazy priced and full set, but my mother gave me half of the money as a Christmas present so it helped. I don't even use the full sets of any of the dolls that came with them. As a side note, I really shouldn't buy full sets.

The rest of my SD's were Mystic Kids. Bobobie, Resinsoul, all cheap and they were all instock... I miss you Junkie Spot!

I really like the first original dolls that I got, I don't regret purchasing any of them, but most of my newer dolls cost about twice as much if not more, than what I paid for the SD's I used to purchase. I also don't mind the wait. I used to be very anxious about waiting. I think this hobby has taught me some patience.

While cheaper dolls can be great, I no longer just stick to them for the price. If I buy a less expensive doll, it because I genuinely want the doll, and not because of the price.

 

I don't think so because I want all of the dolls. Fun fact is, I will one day talk about my first bjd here. I like her; It's good that I have been fine keeping her in box because I had problems with another doll. Maybe I'll dress her and rotate her for display, next month. I want to see what she looks like, how she poses, and note any changes needed.

 

I doubt it as I had a negative experience (knowing what I know now, it probably wasn't that bad, but at the time it was bad for me) with my first doll, though that definitely didn't stop me from moving forward and collecting more!

I very quickly sold my first doll because I was disenchanted with her. I had problems with the face-up artist, and I didn't like the doll as much in person as in company photos. The face-up artist took a couple of months longer than expected and was very poor at communication but they did come through eventually. As I said I would be a bit more forgiving now, though the communication could have been better.

That all being said, I so often find myself interested in 1/4 girls and slim minis but I almost exclusively collect 1/3 girls. I have tried a 1/4 girl here and there but they never stick. There are some I find so beautiful or cute but I just feel like the clothing out there available for them is so lacking, while clothing for 1/3 females is so varied and versatile. I also have found that I am very fond of Volks Dollfie Dream (all Volks dolls) and I prefer a mature doll to a child, so MDDs wouldn't work for me.

So yeah, I wonder, but I think I would have eventually come to where I am now no matter how I started! Fun to think about, for sure.