your wishlist then vs. your collection now - how has it changed?

Oddly enough I still have most of the first dolls I bought eons ago & love them deeply. I wanted mature, somewhat realistic dolls which I fond in Souldoll, Luts & the slightly more stylized Customhouse. All my dolls were 1:3 size then while now I avoid the big dolls. My grails then were Narindoll Narin & Narae who I still have & Iplehouse Cocorri who I recently sold.

I no longer have a grail doll or even a wishlist. Beside the early 1:3 dolls I now have slim minis which still follow my basic aesthetic plus two Little Fees & a Peak's Wood tiny. I've been playing a lot with those these days as I can keep them out near my computer. Those tinies are a complete change of look for me & while I don't want any more, I'm certainly enjoying the ones I've got. My big dolls mainly rest in glass cabinets in a darkened room as do my slim minis.

 

I used to make these huge lists of dolls I wanted from specific companies. Some of those lists are lost, but I do have one I never came around to finish, along with pictures of each sculpt, have some 50 dolls that I at one point wanted to get home xD
Today I'm more moderate, sure, the list is still kind of long, but it's not over 50 different sculpts and only SDs. I have a healthy mix of Yos, MSDs and SDs I want to get home these days, from different companies than I did back then.
Tastes change (not overly so though), and artists grow with their craft and go in new directions with their work. Think I go more for semi-realism today, partly because it is so prevalent today than it was 10 years ago.
I still have a grail, one that I've had since joining the hobby, a DOD Elf Ducan. I know I've got the regular Ducan, but there's just something that makes me want this version so badly, but have yet to acquire it. I will have it some day, I can wait a little longer now that I have waited this long.

 

I still haven't been able to obtain a couple dolls I've wanted for years, but I have bought most of the dolls on my wishlist. My tastes have also not changed much. I started out disliking the aesthetic that is best displayed by Doll Chateau, and I have continued disliking those kinds of dolls throughout my time in the hobby. I have compromised a bit (bought Dollfie Dream Miku and Luka after previously saying I wouldn't buy Dollfie Dreams because I think their joints are ugly) but only a bit, for dolls that are made to be characters I really like (their joints might be ugly but it's Miku and Luka).

I think other peoples' tastes are changing away from mine though. The Super Gem and Little Gem threads used to be so active, and now no one posts in them...

 

It's... interesting. After taking a huge detour (of several years) I've returned to the sculpts I "originally" had in my wishlist. To name a few:

Unoa Lusis (the first BJD I ever saw back in 2004!),
Minifee Ante (was wishing for one before there even was one),
5th motif Venitu (wanted one when he first came out, didn't get one for... forever),
Volks yoSD Piccolo (the only yosd I've ever liked from back in 2011)
Doll Chateau Hugh (saw him when Doll Chateau was first created and desperately wanted him, owned one for many years but sold him, then bought another less than a year later :P)

That being said, as I matured, so did my taste in dolls... and if I had my way, I'd only buy the most realistic of dolls if I were to start from scratch nowadays, so dollfie dreams aside this is where my "future" wishlist is headed to now...

 

I gotten two of my minor grail dolls(Iples), they dethrone the major grail doll, it allows me to release a lot of "want" dolls. Their sculpts had the unexpected bonus for being versatile enough to resemble a host of characters that I'm fond of from various games, mangas and etc I also gotten my ideal sculpt to be the doll of my favourite character as well.

At current point I'm not actively looking for dolls even though one young chap is replaceable as he's not very attached to his sculpt.

If anything my wish list has become an outfit request list for the existing crew so that they can counter whoever it is who wants to go on the doll wish list

 

My wishlist then was consumed of pretty much only fairyland.
Now, it's mostly small artist dolls like Lillycat and Harucasting Maji. I've even got a few SD boys in there too, but Switch's Holy Soseo has always been a part of my wish list and since I've bought him (just waiting on him to be shipped to me ) I've been eye-ing some more SD boys.
It's pretty crazy how much has changed in the little span of time that I've been in this hobby!

 

I used to buy Minifee and Bunny head MSD dolls like Gokidolls Moonto. But now I've gotten a new Job and earn more and realized that it is so much more rewarding to get the dolls I actually want and have been admiring from a distance, like Harucasting dolls and Maskcat dolls. Also I have branched out into SD with Maskcat and I love it! Since I earn more I am able to afford more than second Hand minifee dolls :3 and buying 1-2 expensive dolls a year is more rewarding than buying a lot of cheaper ones just so I can save some Money.

 

I have switched completely. I was always super drawn to resin dolls and now my primary doll wants are Dollfie Dreams and other off-topic equivalents! I blame actually getting a Dollfie Dream (I mean, it's Miku!) and falling in love with the anime-styled face.

That being said, I am getting interested in resins again, but I seem to be wanting more of the MSD size so I can try making clothes from the old Victorian doll clothing patterns I have. I want a nice posing, lovely "dolly" doll. And I've always liked Volks and Delf sculpts the best because they look more like "dolly" dolls to me. That's how I landed right in the middle of seriously considering a mini in the Dear SD size. I'm not even sure what size that is considered because I've been out of the loop for so long. Chubby MSD? Big Baby? Chubby Baby?

 

I definitely collect different dolls then I started with. My wishlist used to be all ¼ and smaller. I still even have one final ¼ doll on that wishlist, but it's just sort of on hold indefinitely.

My wish list now consists of ⅓ and up dolls. I had never expected to be a collector of the bigger dolls when I first started out. Now here I am making my future wishlist with only the larger scale dolls on it.

 

My wish list then vs. now still hasn't changed - but it definitely increased! I still feel a bit sad that Dream of Doll is no longer in business, it will definitely be a challenge for me once I start looking for my OG wish list dolls.

 

i've been a bjd collector for 12 years now, and for the most part i have gotten exactly the dolls that were on my original wishlist. i haven't gotten rid of any dolls either, nor has my general taste in dolls and doll styling changed. the only change is maybe just that a few dolls have been added along the way that didn't exist yet when i first made my list/plans. overall tho, i have stuck to building pretty much the exact collection i planned out when i started with just a few stylistically consistent additions. i'm mostly done now; i kind of liked Iplehouse Bibiane when i started and never got one, and i don't have the purple Soom Migma i always wanted either, but Purple Migma is kind of a pipe dream and always was, and if i really really wanted to add Bibiane that bad she'd probably be here by now, so...

some of the first dolls i ever put on my wishlist were Elfdoll Rita, Angel of Dream Yuki, Bobobie Charisma, April Story Adrienne, Supia Muriel, Iplehouse Audrey...and i have all of them. i am honestly super happy with my bjd collection and feel super lucky that i got to fulfill my original wishlist/plans

 

My tastes stayed the same, though I've been in the hobby for just about a year and a half.
Dollstown, AiL, Maskcat, I like that somewhat "old world" semi-realistic aesthetic. Some things have changed and I'm not going to get everything, but I'm still picking dolls I liked way back when I started.

 

I don't remember what was on my old wishlists since I've been in the hobby since like 2010, but my wishlists have changed considerably in size. I used to make wishlists that included interesting-looking dolls that I might like to buy if I had the money, but after years of doing this I realized it was sort of moot point. Most of them I'd only remember when I looked at the list, and I wound up taking them off anyway.

Now I only put dolls on my lists if I have planned them down to the outfits they'll wear. These tend to be dolls I keep seeking out to look at over the course of months or even years, but not always. Pruning is still an important process for it.

 

I joined the hobby in the late 00s, then went on hiatus for about 10 years, and returned in 2022. So there's a clear divide between my collection then (newbie days) and now.
I haven't kept my wishlist from newbie days, but I recall it comprised "kinda interesting dolls that maybe one day I want to own if/when I have the money." And I recall that the dolls I actually bought were not from that list at all: they were dolls that caught my eye and fancy at that moment in time, so they bypassed the "kinda nice to have"s.

Then, when I came back from hiatus, I was still buying dolls that I fancied in the moment, without any regard to what was on the wishlist past or present. So I've done away with any wishlist of head sculpts: if I haven't bought that doll already, the time to own it has passed, there's no need for me to keep a record of "maybe I'll buy this someday" (I won't). (Though I still keep a list of doll bodies to hybrid to.) Likewise for the wishlist of my newbie days: I still like looking at those dolls, but I have no interest in owning them anymore, the time to do so has passed.

And my collection now doesn't resemble my newbie collection, partly because I'm more settled in my doll tastes now than I was as a newbie, and partly because the BJD aesthetic has shifted in a direction that I like more than the 00s aesthetic. Of the 8 dolls I bought as a newbie I only kept two.

 

No, still the same. I haven't been able to get them due to financial constraints. Hopefully I can this year or at least next year.

 

I first bought a BJD in the mid/late 2000s but was never active in the hobby until 2 years ago when I got her out of her box, thinking to sell her, but instead she acquired lots of friends. Oops...

Even in the 2 years I've been more intensely in the hobby, my wishlist has changed now that I know what I like in terms of heads and body engineering.

My taste in heads leans more old school (I have a lot of Volks dolls), and I learned the hard way that 1/3 doll heads in 7-8 wig size aren't going to fit in with the others, no matter how much I like the sculpt.
I can see a more realistic proportioned doll that looks beautiful, like Ringdoll's Baldwin IV, but I have to say no and admire it from a distance. At least the trend for realism is saving my wallet...

I also like stability in my bodies – they have to be able to stand unassisted and be posed that way quickly with minimal fussing. I've sold a body because it wouldn't stand unassisted no matter what I did, and it was so frustrating I had to handle another doll every time after dealing with that body to remind myself this wasn't the norm!

I've also learned I really prefer a hip joint on my dolls instead of just an underbust joint. Dolls with a hip joint tend to sit more naturally for me and don't rock the way dolls without one do, plus I feel the bend in the body looks more natural at the hip than halfway along the ribs.
I have a floating head I'm trying to find a body for with a slightly difficult resin colour, and finding a body that meets the standards I have for engineering while also being close in colour is not proving to be easy...

On reflection, it's interesting to me that my wishlist has changed mostly from a practical perspective than a change in aesthetic tastes.

 

I've been aware of and actively planning to join the hobby since 2009 and purchased my first doll in 2013. I have had many, many years in the hobby to pine, wishlist, desire, and plan, just to scrap it all and start over again. I think daydreaming about all the "what ifs" involved in choosing a doll is half the fun! The possibilities are endless!

Back in the early days, my wishlist was a lot more varied in terms of style, sizing, and aesthetics, as I had no money and no frame of reference for what I liked/wanted in my collection. It's very easy to go "OMG I want ALL the dolls" when you don't have money to slap down on any of it. Once I got into the hobby proper and had several years to try things out and mess around, my tastes and preferences became more refined, which narrowed my scope and wishlist. I still like a lot of the dolls that got progressively cut from my wishlist, but I know they wouldn't work out for one reason or another.

My current collection does consist primarily of dolls I wanted back when I was first really getting into the hobby, though! I think those early years were highly influential for developing my taste, and I still find myself heavily drawn to the late 00s-mid 2010s era aesthetics.

 

Man, my collection now is DEFINITELY very different from my old wishlist-- I have broad tastes in what I like, but I do prefer more mature sculpts in 1/4 or smaller scale when I can find them. I do love the young and/or more cutesy-stylized dolls I do have, and I like having an eclectic collection that they can fit into, but I definitely used to look at a lot more 'anime' looking dolls that I can't actually see myself adding to my current collection.

I do still find myself attracted to the occasional doll that falls well outside the mature/realistic mold, ESPECIALLY if it's an anthro-- I can't resist a cute little critter or catgirl/boy, so my collection is going to remain very eclectic, I'm open to my tastes continuing to be very broad. But it's definitely shifted over time, especially as in the time I've been involved in the hobby, there have been SO many more doll artists putting out those more mature minis and tinies in all kinds of aesthetics.

 

I first found out about bjds around 2007-8 or so, looking at all the beautiful photos on deviant art. I had 0 money for them even if I did try to save up but I remember having a long wishlist that unfortunately died with my old computer. I don't remember them all but there was a Minifee Shushu and a DoC Petsha there and I'm pretty sure some other then-very-popular sculpts that you can't easily find these days.

When I started collecting for real a couple of years ago, I thought I wanted to focus on mature minis, so that's what I did for a bit, and that's what my wishlist consisted of. However, after finding a couple of old sculpts second hand, I ended up moving in a more nostalgic direction because it was fun to visit the past like that - none of the old dolls I own now were what I wanted as a teenager (I had no interest in DZ or Volks then, as far as I remember), yet the couple of times I've had a chance to snag an old Minifee sculpt or a DOD doll, I've ended up not getting them. I guess my tastes have changed while the interest in a certain era remains, and my collection would still be different had I had a chance to buy bjds in early 2000s. It's even different down to the little things like having used to prefer Unoa Lusis and now only having eyes for Sist

In any case, I hope the little me is happy I got to collect dolls after all, and is not too sad that I don't have a Petsha or a Shushu.

 

my wishlist when i first stated was 99% vinyl dolls (dollfie dream anthy, rei, len, etc) & a male ringdoll, now ive moved towards soft looking resin dolls (super dollfies and koeren bjds) but i do still dream if a ringdoll someday & i have stayed true to 1/3 through my whole doll journey