Artist doll vs company doll

From my understanding, and someone please correct me if I am wrong:

Artist dolls are often designed, sculpted, sold, and have their social media/storefronts managed by the same individual person. They often have to send their dolls out to casting companies to be casted after it is sculpted, and some of them even do the faceups themselves (though others commision this out). Which is usually why there are less dolls produced.

Company dolls work as a team to produce their dolls, but don't be fooled by the term "company" as some companies are smaller than others. But-- there is often different individuals for different parts of the processes for the produdtion of the doll, but they in turn are able to produce more dolls due to having more hands on deck.

I personally have a mix of both

 

I wouldn't say that they are two separate things, really. It's more of a gradual thing.
Some artists work completely alone, but most have at least some help.
Many do the product developement thing themselves and work the rest like an entrepeneur, getting the casting done by a casting company, getting face ups done by artists, some will hire help to manage web shops etc.
The step over to a small company with one or two employees isn't a big one.

Here in Sweden I would say the biggest difference is how you pay your taxes, but that will vary wildly depending on where in the world you live.

 

No, not really.
They are all done by human artists, after all.

 

The aesthetics and posability of dolls will differ between doll makers/companies, as in some are more stylised while others might be more realistic. And there are some makers that place more emphasis on the posability of their bodies.

But these differences aren’t because they are ‘artist’ or ‘company’ dolls.

 

While they may not be much of a technical difference in the sizes of the teams in some cases (small teams may still be labeled 'artist"), there MAY be a difference in:

- availability
many artists prefer to work in small batches, so only a few may be available at a time

- time
due to working alone or in small teams, you may have very varying wait times, as any irl issues (illness of a single team member etc) will be immediately more apparent in the time it takes to make your doll.

- cast quality
while good, some artists will offer special b-grade or artist cast dolls. Some of them may be lower quality than company cast ones (/ ones cast by a casting service), as the artist is rarely a professional resin caster in the beginning. This is more relevant when buying secondhand though, as the artists strive to only sell the dolls that do not have flaws for people who have preordered.

- color variance
due to small batch sizes and the low amount, more colors may be offered, or the existing colors may vary more than with larger companies. There may also be a higher amount of limited-by-preorder colors available. It's more common to see artists offering 'fantasy' colors than it is for larger companies.

- cost
a large portion of artists live in the EU or in the west in general, making both materials and labor costs higher. This can have and effect on the price.

Any differences between artist and company dolls should be looked into in a case-by-case basis, though, and it's wise to look at what they've done previously (and especially how they've handled customers that have had issues with their order). Both the companies and artists have huge differences in all these areas, and it's not really fair to say any of these specific ones would apply to all or even most of them.

 

I find myself leaning way more towards artist produced dolls, as the designs are very unique and sometimes strange or niche, while company dolls tend to be sometimes on the safer side. This is not always the case though, as a lot of company "special" dolls or event dolls will be very interesting and wild with the designs. That being said, most of the time artist dolls basically become collectors items---it can be increasingly fustrating when only one run is made and then no more is produced. Usually this is due to the artist either moving on to other designs or leaving the hobby/art all together...both of which are perfectly fine but it does put a strain on those searching for unique BJDs.

Also, with artist dolls, you have a very very small chance of finding them second hand because of the small numbers. Sometimes an artist will produce a batch of only 10, or even less, and those are the only ones that end up getting made. So even if you do find one for sale second hand, chances are the pricetag for that doll is also going to be high, given its availablility.

Additionally, demand often times is a lot higher than the capacity of what the artist can create, causing preorder slots to sell out in days, hours, or even minutes depending on how popular the artist is. Which, again, also creates a strain on both artist and customer.

Long story short, if theres an artist doll you like that you know for sure you want, grab on and never let go, because chances are you'll only get one window of opportunity.

 

I tend to like artist dolls myself. The only hard part for some people may be finding a body that matches the size or exact resin color of the artist doll head. Some artists list what bodies will match on their site. I like how unique artist dolls look and how their features are often different from a regular company.

 

This is interesting. Do the preferences lean generally more in one direction than the other? Would be interesting to know if a poll has ever been done on this.

 

My question is, how do you know if it is a Company doll or an Artist doll? Some of them are obvious; like, Kish and Co. I assume is a Company doll, correct? But let's say a doll comes available that I do not recognize the name. Then how do I determine if it is a company doll or an artist doll? Thanks all!!

 

The short answer is : Research.
Look up the maker. You also have to define to yourself what you mean by artist vs. company. Laws differ from place tp place, but even a solo artist is usually encouraged to start a company if they intend to make money on their art, so where do you draw the line? And as mentioned before in this thread, there ins't really a definitive line between the two. Many companies is a one man business and many artist have a few helpers.
There are the completely independent ones that does everything themselves, there is the entrepreneur who does design and sculpting but outsources everything else, there is the fully fledged doll maker that has their own professional casting facilities and there is all sort of inbetweens. Sometimes a few companies share one caster, or one company casts both thir own dolls and someone elses and then there is companies like Haru that started out as a casting service and only later started to sculpt and release their own dolls as well. So where do you draw the line? In my opinion it's not as simple as something always being one or the other.
So perhaps the better question is, why does it matter to you and what aspects of it is it that matters? Experience? Casting facilities? Business model? Number of people involved? Exclusivity? No wrong answers here, just something to help you narrow down what you are looking for when you start reading up.

 

I like both, I think there is something to be said about buying a smaller or home artists’ work. However, every bjd company has an artist or team of artists working with them/for them doing the intial sculpting, testing, face ups, etc. So really either way you are buying an artist piece.

 

I definitely lean toward artist dolls. I believe it's more common to see artist dolls being worked on from sketch to sculpt to final cast than company dolls (though there are exceptions, especially with the nuances discussed). Seeing that process really endears me to the doll as a work of art and a labor of love, and it provides a lot of additional time to be excited about receiving the final product!
There's few artist dolls which I'll probably be looking for for a while...

 

@Lillith
Thank you!