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

Oh jeez this is such a good question - YES.

My first doll was a 70cm SD and I got so hooked on the big boys. I've had 3 70cm's now and 60cm seems cute to me lol. I often think if I had started with MSD's I would've stayed on that path since I noticed other people starting around the same time stayed with the smaller sizes. There were definitely a few meetups I went to back in the day where I was the only giant owner l

 

It's hard to say, but I think so.

One thing that I think would have changed the trajectory of my collecting would have been if I'd purchased a female doll first. I had a boy sculpt that I loved and decided to make my first doll, but once I had him I struggled to connect with him and feel inspired with his style, and he ended up sitting in a box for like six years until I was ready to give the hobby another shot. My second doll was a girl and I just felt so much more connected with her and excited to work on her. I don't know exactly what it is, but I just prefer girl dolls! I've acquired a lot more dolls since and basically all of them are female or genderless.

So to answer your question, I think I would have gotten deeper into the hobby sooner had I started with a girl, and the dolls in my collection might look a little different since my taste in dolls has changed since I first decided I wanted to try the hobby.

 

Had it been another MSD sized doll as my first, my collection would have still probably turned out fairly similar but I’m not sure if I would have gotten a second doll quite as quickly. I like sad faces on dolls, which my first has, and once I had her it wasn’t long before I felt like she needed a friend. My second was comparatively “cheap,” Kid Delfs were almost $100 less than Soulkids were at the time, and that made getting a second doll a whole lot more palatable at the time. Once I had a second, the gates were opened from merely having a doll to collecting.

If I’d started with a 1/3 scale doll, I think it would have been much much longer before getting a second. 60cm+ always feels so grand to me. I love both sizes, but SDs don’t fill me with the urge to collect the way MSDs do. I still think my grail would have been Volks Suiseiseki, but she especially has always felt very “independent” in her persona — had she been my first, I’m not sure if I would have had a collection at all, and instead only had her.

Where I think the biggest difference would be, had fantasy dolls been more common and obtainable, if my first had been fantasy, more of my collection would be (maybe). More so than fantasy, I like unusual so for this I think I would have still been drawn towards non-fantasy sculpts like Rosette Fir and Volks F-12, most of Souldoll’s sculpts, etc.

 

I think about this sometimes. I started with a volks sd13 which made me gravitate away from Uncle size dolls (70cm and up) and any realistic or mature sculpts and go more towards the big featured, big headed dolls such as Volks and others. I think if i would have started with a 70cm doll I would have had more mature looking dolls in my collection to match.

Just recently I bought the 50cm Baldwin IV from Ringdoll and that was a hard decision for me because he's much more mature and small at the same time, very different from the other ones I have, and I was debating on getting him BECAUSE he didnt match my collection, so I feel like I couldve been swayed if I started with something else.

 

yes! I started with a vinyl doll and it was a super easy first doll to get my into the community, if I had started with a resin dolly first off I think I would have been overwhelmed and made lots of costly mistakes that would have led to heartbreak and fear of messing up with future dolls that could hold me back!

 

If I did collect differently, I would have started with at least one MSD instead of so many little ones. Mainly, though, it all ended with my finances when I started.

 

I get this cause I started w a volks with a company face up so I was not going to mess up his beautiful face up just to do my own projects, so if i started with a blank doll or something I could have maybe gotten more into customization early on?

 

When I see this question, I think of character development instead of size/type.

A couple months before I bought my first BJD, a Volks SD13B Isao, I briefly considered ordering Haute Doll Hound. If he had been my first, would I have bought Isao?

Three months later, I did buy Haute Doll Hound, but that was after buying 5 other BJDs (Volks Megu and Heath, Elfdoll Soah, Min Del Re and Nabee). Would their present characters have been different, and what stories, if any, would I have written?

 

I like your take on the question. Honestly for me i feel like what other dolls ive gotten have not affected the characters of my previous dolls. It could also be because I had my Volks Heath for at least a year before truly developing a character and personality and had bought multiple dolls in between. BUT the doll I won in a raffle actually did help define my Volks Heath character wise so maybe...it couldve changed if I never had won her...