Artists with OCs! How close do your dolls end up to the characters you've drawn/written?

I have many OCs shelled as dolls now. As well as my main DnD character and a few in the works. Some things I've found may have to be compromised on. A big one is hair styles as it can be hard to get certain styles on a smaller scale. And also for certain things the scales may be /off/ from what you initially planned. An example being that the doll's shoe may look large for their size as compared to drawn shoes like you mentioned. The hardest part for me has always been finding the perfect sculpt.

Overall, yes I would say that the vast majority of my shelled OCs aren't exactly like I imagined them. I actually see them as better now. Seeing them in physical form has helped me figure out better styles I like for a few, and one I was playing clothes swap with two dolls because I was bored then come to find out that I liked the look of one of my others dolls being shelled as that OC. Sometimes they choose for you.

It greatly helps to not be such a stickler for specifics. Your character would never wear that? Well if you already have it, try it anyways. You may find that you (and they) like the look. It's like going into a clothing store and finding a garment you would never in a million years wear, but trying it on you find that it's so comfortable and looks so good on you.

 

I've been thinking about this too lately, and I've also moved in the direction of treating the doll version more like its own thing, simply to avoid the frustration of trying to perfectly match what's in my head. It's funny because my dolls were not characters beforehand- I made the characters for the dolls. But as the years went by, the concept of them in my mind evolved and sometimes they no longer matched the doll. I was also severely limiting myself with what I could do with the dolls. There would be clothes or shoes or wigs that I thought would be cute on them, but I didn't buy because they didn't "suit the character" perfectly. And honestly that's just... not any fun. Dolls should be fun! Nowadays, while I do try to keep my dolls looking "in character", I'm a lot more free with what I put on them. There's just so much more joy in the hobby when you're not limiting yourself to only what's perfect.

I am challenged by one of my newest dolls, though, because he actually is based on a pre-existing character. He's my Final Fantasy XIV character. His hair and eyes are a particular shade of pink that I'm having no luck at all finding in doll form. I do have a pair of pink eyes and a pink wig right now, but the color is too cool and not the coral pink they're supposed to be. I'm trying to decide now how much it really matters. I can buy fibers in the perfect color to make a wig, but I HATE making wigs. I could live with what I have and use photoshop to correct the colors when I take photos, but would I be happy looking at him in real life? I'm leaning towards accepting this incorrect pink, because even though it's not perfect, the doll DOES still capture his essence and I think that's the most important thing.

 

SOme of my OCs only developed after I got the doll in question, so it was never a real issue for me, but for Derenly - my boy Lishe - the character (an RP character I play on the Argent Dawn Warcraft server) the OC definitely came first. Finding the perfect sculpt would be pretty hard, unless I went the route of finding someone to 3D sculpt and print a head for me to match to the right style of body. For now though, he lives as my modded Lishe boy, and I view him as being a slightly stylised form of the character. Not a perfect match - but I can live with that. The doll's personality comes through exactly like Derenly - which I think is the real main challenge.

I'm also working on turning my Dollshe V2 Hound into another of my characters - though in Marius' case, the resin colour is all wrong. Marius is supposed to have tan skin, and my Hound is... decidedly not. But finding the right 70cm slender tan boy will take me some time - and like Derenly, right now the Hound version feels right, even if the resin colour is wrong, because the Warcraft RP OC was based on the resin version - who in turn was based on an OC I've had in various forms since the 90s.

 

I've had the hardest time with shelling human characters- but oddly enough I got super lucky with my oldest OC that I made when I was 13. He's a humanoid rabbit soldier trained from since he was a child. This sculpt from Dollzone matched well with his preteen version, and I found a body sculpt that was muscular for a 45 cm doll but still proportional for someone younger.

I really love him, but I did have to put him away in my dresser for safety reasons. I recently got a puppy and resin is super toxic if consumed.

 

I usually develop my OCs before getting the doll so when they get home is when reality falls over me and adjustments need to be made. The things that I've had to change over the years range from simply hair color or clothing style to a full character reimagining
It's been easier with anthro dolls for me too, as they've suffered minor to no changes.

 

More a writer than an artist, but oh man, the characters of my dolls and of my writing are totally separate! Different worlds, too.

Most of my writing centers around characters who are nonhuman, and could only be called humanoid in having a similar body plan/proportions. I only see the rare cyborg here and there, let alone the many weird-shaped robots I have! So the dolls are their own little world where I don't have to worry about The Rules(tm) of my other worlds.

 

I tried it briefly at the start of the hobby, but I just gave up entirely when it became clear that my characters would never translate to dolls unless I actually sculpted them from the ground up. I have a very cartoony style with very deliberate stylization, and I think too much would be lost if I tried to translate it into the standard "BJD style". Elements that worked as an illustration (hair that defies gravity or realistic hair patterns, wacky clothing designs, emotive/floating glasses, etc) would look just confusing and ugly on a semi-realistic doll. The closest I could get would be an anime style doll, but they have their own limitations.

Not to mention some of my favorite OCs are fat men, which is something the BJD industry refuses to touch with a 10 foot pole.

I just decided that it would be more trouble than it was worth. So I made characters to match my dolls instead, which resulted in a much more easygoing collecting experience. It definitely feels different, more like a dress-up game or video game character customization than truly designing a character from the ground up. But it's still fun!

 

I have three groups here:
- characters that I made once I started collecting dolls, with the purpose of shelling them into dolls (majority of them)
- dolls I got because I REALLY liked them, and then made up a character for (a couple few)
- characters that existed long on their own, and one day decided I wanted as dolls too (minority)

For the first one, I came up with a story for my doll crew and from then on tried to make it come true. So I would buy dolls specifically because they fit character X, not necessarily because I really really liked the doll. Some of these dolls I would have not bought without that character. Despite that though, I still have dolls in that group that do not look as close to my mental image as I wish them to be.
Kazuhira for example does not look Japanese (or "Asian"), which is mostly because...there really aren't that many options. When I got him the only possible doll that maybe could have worked was Iplehouse Bichun, and while I like Bichun he didn't fit the character overall and the EID body was too short as well. Many years later and Sartoria released Jun...and he still is only just "okay", not a great match. While there are more Asian faces around now, they are still very limited and they are either female OR at most some Kpop idol lookalike. Only older Asian male sculpts I'm aware of belong to smaller Russian artist dolls.
So for years he has been a Granado Andrew, and I just kinda accepted that.

For the rest in that group, they either fit or have the right vibe that is close enough. I do reshell if need be, but some have been very stubborn or are kinda stuck in their form (usually due to lots of custom clothes tailored for an uncommon body, or because there is no better doll out there yet).

The second group is easier, because the doll came first. Their character is tailored to their face. I only struggle with one of them because I started to not like one of the sculpts anymore. It's still a good enough fit, but I wish I could find something that is very close to the current aesthetic but without the bits that bother me.

The last group is something I actually just got. I had OCs before I started with BJDs in 2008, but I never had any desire to own one of them as a doll and they had all been retired at that point too. All OCs afterwards were doll related, mostly belonging to the same big crew.
However, back in 2017 I took a hobby break and during that time ended up with another OC. I didn't want him as a doll for years, but gave in after some time. I have him and his husband here now, and I have exactly the issue with them you describe.
There is a lot of written/drawn material to reference from, but that made it very hard to find fitting dolls. Both of them are not perfect. One for example should have a slightly down-turned nose, but those are rare and I was limited by their size.
Their bodies are both just close, but not perfect either.
However, to me they are like fanart, or like the many art pieces I commissioned of them. Each artist had their own little interpretation, and as long as the majority of important details are there, they are still very recognizable as who they are supposed to be.

So in short: I try to get as close as I can, but accept that there are limits to how close I can get sometimes
Not only in regards to faces, but especially their bodies too. My dolls are mostly dressed, so if the height and overall silhouette fits I am already happy enough
Options are just too limited for anything that isn't hourglass female or sixpack male.

 

Even when I draw my characters, they never look 100% like they do in my head. And so it’s no surprise that a doll representation of them would be any different.

I’ve written four books. And my favorite characters are from a book series that I’m two books deep into writing. Normally, I have zero interest in shelling any of my characters as dolls. Any dolls I buy, I’ve bought purely based on aesthetics alone. There are no characters/personalities/stories attached to any of my dolls. They are just dolls.

However, Dream Valley Rah got me (shakes fist). He looked exactly like one of the main characters from my series. Even the slender body-type is fitting. I already accepted that the doll version wouldn’t end up as an accurate carbon copy of the real character, but I think he’s close! Even with his clothes, face-uo, and accessories, there’s still something… off about him.

It’s the wig.

When I ordered him, I ordered his wig too and it looked alright in pictures. But in person, instead of a wavy Hairstyle, it’s a frickin’ bowl cut.

He now sits on my desk with his ridiculous bowl cut and motivates me to write his story while we both wait for his new wig to arrive.

Spoiler: Doll versus Character pics

Spoiler: UPDATE: Got a new wig for him and some new eyes, and now he's pretty spot-on! :D

 

I have a set of characters that come from a very established, written and drawn world. While my characters are never EXACTLY as I picture them (because sculpts are hard to match lol) the styling I try my best to get as close as I possibly can. Two of my dolls is almost an exact copy of the art I have done of them while some of the others are very close but still a work-in-progress. I just try to think less about exact facial features and, instead, focus in on the attitude they're supposed to present. That makes it a lot less overwhelming and frustrating to try and match to.

Spoiler: OC Art vs Doll Comparison

 

I'd have to agree with everyone here about not trying to be a 100% match to preexisting OCs. I lucked out and found a sculpt that matched my character's body and head very closely. I lucked out even more by finding a sewing pattern for his canon outfit. So mine is pretty damn close to looking perfect, but I still have things to get done before I can say I'm 100% satisfied with him.

I have another doll who I saw for sale and instantly a character was born in my head, and who will be a new D&D character once I nail down the way she dresses/come up with a faceup concept so I can send her off to get it painted. It's SO much easier to approach OC/Doll matching this way, let me tell you!

 

All of my dolls represent OC's (from the books I'm writing). I've had good luck picking sculpts that embody my characters, and since I'm an artist as well as a writer, I'm able to paint the dolls, make their wigs, etc., and therefore create a pretty close matchup. That said, I don't sew (yet), so clothing is a little harder to select, but the stuff I have for them at the moment seems to nicely suit their characters, although shoes for a couple of the girls are a bit harder to obtain.

 

Same here on multiple counts. Most of my OCs are some combination of fat, big nosed, and with facial/body hair so that tends to rule dolls out unfortunately. (And for the characters that conceivably could be shelled, my drawing style doesn't translate to Sims 4 very well, so I can't get my hopes up for dolls, sigh.)

So I also ended up making characters from dolls! It's been really fun but like you said, different - it's actually kind of interesting to have a "premade" design and come up with a personality/etc around it. Definitely different to my normal style. But I really enjoy the characters I came up with for my catgirl dolls, and even if something were to happen to the dolls I would keep them around as OCs.

 

Meshing my dolls and my OCs has been decidedly difficult for me, haha. I'm happy with the sculpts, but the outfits turned out to be tough. My first doll has a "canon outfit" I'm happy with, but my second doll doesn't really look like how I imagined her. The OCs my dolls are based on are from a historical setting, but appropriate clothes are either hard to find or not to my liking. Plus I found out I prefer dressing my dolls in modern clothing.
So I'm currently reworking their stories a bit to be some kind of "modern day AU". Hasn't been easy, but it's coming along. My upcoming doll is going to be a new character due to that, though.

 

all of my dolls are characters of my story. i do not buy anything, even if i like the doll. since i do have a story and draw just a little bit, i have a very detailed vision of how they all should like. it was a real challenge but i can say that all of them look exactly as i want. My main OC finally received a body with the type he should have from the beginning. It wasn't an easy task, i've been in this hobby for 9 years already and before that i spent years searching for the perfect shell for my main character. I do love stylization, which made the searching even more difficult, but now satisfied with results.

Spoiler: My OCs as dolls

The first 'realistic' picture is Artbreeder + heavy photobash by me, gray sketch it's my attempt, colorful picture is a commission


Picture of the girl is a real photo + photobash. the only difference is a color of her hair, i changed it recently to the bright red. Boy with the read hair has two pair of eyes, demon and human version, same as on my art of him. The trickiest part was to find my cyborg. Only recently company started to make dolls in cyberpunk style, but back then it was very hard to get the right one. So i gathered him from 4 different companies

 

I have an OC who I had a mental picture in my head for years of what he looked like. Then Souldoll released their Chiron centaur years ago and as soon as I saw him I was like “It’s him! THAT is my Shadow King!” Never mind that he was an entirely different skin tone to what I’d always written/envisioned. They did have a white skin version but only the gray skin version seemed to fit. That sculpt inspired me to rewrite my character to match what Chiron looked like, even though I didn’t actually get the doll itself until just recently.

 

Besides my first three dolls, all the dolls I'm waiting on, the ones I plan on getting, and the one that recently arrived are established characters. I've done my best to find dolls that look like them. Some dolls just looked like the characters. Like, Charm Doll Lucas, MYOU Chasel, and Maskcat Doll Claire. For other characters, I'd look through what was available and see what matched best. Some things I can't get perfect. Like, I know I'm not going to find Andrian's haircut for a 1/4 scale BJD, and then I couldn't find one perfect for Charlotte, but I'm just going to change her bangs in the story and my future art to match. Then one of the ones I'm waiting on doesn't look 100% like the one TV show character I want to shell, but I really like the doll and he reminds me of the character. Some of the dolls I have to make adjustments to. Like the one I'm ordering for Andrian will need more freckles added, two I'm waiting on need beauty marks/moles added, and then down the road, I need to make "elf" ears for two of the dolls. Another doll I'm going to order next year, I'll order blank and paint myself. dream Valley Freyja is perfect for my FFXIV character especially since you can get her in grey, but the face-up is not. Then since I like 1/4 scale BJDs, they are all looking a bit younger and have rounder faces, but I'm fine with that because the main features match the character. There are some characters that I know will be really hard to find dolls for, so with my OCs, I'm sticking with the main trio.

Clothes, I'm not picky with. Charlotte just came a few days ago, and I got her a dress for her. In the stories, Charlotte always wears pants, but this dress really felt like her character, from the orange, to the flower details, and to the little rabbit. Eventually, I'd like to make outfits for the two TV show characters I'm shelling, but they won't wear them all the time. I plan on dressing them up with stuff that just fits the characters. Maybe it would be fun to make their outfits I've drawn them in down the road, but I'm fine for now. Even with my three that weren't already established OCs or TV characters, I see picking out clothes and buying clothes as what they would want to wear given the options available. What colors do they like? What styles do they gravitate towards? Do they wear comfy clothes only? I see it as a way to learn even more about the characters even if I already have pages written about them and have had them as an OC for years now.

 

May I ask what you play? I plan on shelling my FFXIV character next year, and it's going to be a fun one, so I get it. I didn't think I'd be able to at all since I play a duskwight, but I lucked out and saw that Dream Valley offers grey resin and have some dolls with long ears. Though, I'm going to be having to do my first face-up (unless I don't spend so much and can get another blank doll beforehand ).

 

My character is a Viera boy! So not too much of a challenge, doll-wise! He's tan/brown, which was easy to get, and his hairstyle will easily hide the doll's human ears. Probably my biggest challenge (aside from the pink color heh) will be the bunny ears, but that's not too hard to figure out. Before I even started putting him together I had to 100% accept that he will never be able to dress like the game version of him because... I am NOT commissioning people to make those complicated Final Fantasy outfits

 

I think it's near impossible to find a doll that's 100% an oc, down to the anatomical proportions. Since I'm so particular and it would be a waste of the flexibility with bjd customization, I've been thinking I would be better off having physical manifestations of ocs as custom figurines instead.

I try to make characters of my dolls instead of the other way around for such a reason, but it feels a bit weird to do so when I didn't sculpt the dolls. I do, however, have a natural gravitation to dolls that are or very similar to my own art style, so it's not like they're totally different from what I'm capable of drawing.

I really like the idea of shelling 'alternate' versions as OP suggested! That's pretty exciting and cute, and that way you could even have a cute msd version of a mature character if you wanted to, and easily travel around with them... Or a modern styled version of a fantasy oc, or vice versa

I hate to admit I'm still very particular about doll outfits even when I'm not shelling ocs, because I still want to make them into unique characters. I make things way more complicated for myself!

 

It was a journey finding dolls for shelling my novel leads. The girl was rather easy, despite having an atypical body. Doll Chateau had an almost perfect body, and a head mold that could be coded as Black. Thanks to a commission, she has the piebald skin and scars which are a huge part of her story.

The other lead was a headache to find. Adult male not overly tall compared to the girl, so 75+cm was out. Athletic, realistic, but not idealized body, and a realistic PoC headmold that can look middle aged with the right faceup. Lots of searching and nitpicking to find a good fit.

While I've been working on this novel for years, I didn't have a clear idea of their faces. I can't imagine what doll hunting would have been like if I had exacting ideas in that area.

 

I'm not sure if I qualify to answer this, since my dolls' characters are written characters in my head, but there is no visual concept until they're shelled. I wish I had the skill to draw my dolls, but I don't. So for me, it's about finding a doll to match the character in my head. While it's never possible to get my doll exactly like the character, I do try to get them as close as possible. Some are nearly spot on. Others are not as much. I usually keep working on them until I get them close enough to make me happy, and if I can't get them right, I end up reshelling or losing interest in the character. Sometimes though, the doll might have little quirks that I end up adding to my character! Like Charlotte was meant to be about 5'7" in character, but the doll ended up being shorter than I expected, so I changed her IC height to 5'2". I had another doll in the past who had an uneven spot in the resin on his chin, so I made that into a birthmark IC.

 

For most of my dolls/the dolls I'm planning, I've kinda worked backwards. I fell in love with a sculpt, figured out what I want the doll to look like (hair and eye colour, faceup, etc....), and then I got around to drawing art! So therefore all of my art looks close enough to my dolls I guess since the dolls came first!

I do someday want to shell an OC right from the beginning though and I'm finding it hard to get the right sculpt, wig, clothes, etc.... Same with wanting to shell my favourite anime and video game characters!! There are a few that I would LOVE to turn into dolls, but I'm so picky and want it to be as accurate as possible. Also some characters I look at and think "They just wouldn't make a good doll." No matter how much I wish I could shell them! Ahhhh it's difficult lol

 

I feel like my doll looks pretty decently close to her drawn version? It might be because her sculpt is more realistic than the way I draw, so I suppose I tend to look at her doll form and think "this is what she would look like if she was real", so it doesn't feel like she looks that different.

I've definitely had to settle when it comes to wigs though, since for some reason a high quality, good looking 1/4 curled twintails wig is impossible to find with the bangs and front hair that I need. The wig she has now is just how her hair would look if it was down all the time, even though I almost exclusively draw her with her hair up.

On top of that, I don't really have the skill to sew a doll version of her regular clothes, but I tend to draw her in whatever most of the time anyways. I can dress her doll form in the kinds of clothes she likes easily because they're popular for her scale; lolita dresses, gothic clothes, etc.

Spoiler: Doll compared to my art of her

I think with this character I just got lucky enough to find a sculpt that was really close to how I see her. If anything, her doll form is honestly closer to how I see her in my head than my own art is.
With other characters I want to shell as dolls, I'm having a harder time finding good sculpts for them. I can settle with "close enough" for clothes and sort of with wigs, but I'd really dislike if the sculpt wasn't very close, so I guess I'm kind of picky.

 

I love the Viera boys. They look really nice. I'm sure he's going to look cute And yeah, there is no way I'm commissioning to have any of her outfits made nor will I try making them myself. I'm just going to stick to her favorite colors to wear.

 

Jack is my D&D character, and he's REMARKABLY like how I draw him (or the art I've commissioned of him)-- a little broader across the chest and shoulders, since he's a lithe rogue and not very beefy, but the model body I have him on isn't too muscular. Nose is a little different, but close. I need to change his eyes out for the brown ones I bought him, but he's so dang close to what I'd been imagining from the start of the campaign I play him in, and the resin tone couldn't be more perfect.

Deanna is pretty close, and the sculpt I'm eyeing for her male alter ego is similarly so, but Jack's such an unexpected level of perfection. I just wish there was something equally close to my drawings/mental image for his husband, I've put Gilbert on the back burner until a face that looks like his comes along.

 

Hm, my OC that I have the most doll versions of is Julien. I've made him into 3 different dolls.

None of the dolls really look like each other. And none of the dolls really look like the drawings I've done of him either. Haha. (As someone said before, the drawings don't look exactly like what's in my head in the first place anyway.)

I actually like it that way though.
It's more like making versions of what he could look like than trying for a strict ideal. I enjoy seeing the variations and how changes here or there bring out different aspects of his chatacter and make him "branch off" so to speak.

It's fun to make a perfect replica too. Very satisfying that. But I think for my own characters I enjoy the surprises that come out of the little tensions of "difference".

 

Oh, I really like that! Having multiple dolls of the same character sounds like such a great way of playing with what you like and giving yourself room to discover something new!

 

Hi fellow storyteller! I cannot help with your plight for I am much like you. My dolls are shells of characters and as such.... getting them put together is not easy! If you look at my doll collection you'll notice that although I've been in the hobby for nearly twelve years a lot of my dolls are from the year 2018 onwards, and no, that's not because I wasn't buying dolls for 8 years, but because I go through an endless process of trial and error with a given character's shell. Dolls are bought, tried, sold, and other dolls are bought in their place until the perfect ballance can be attained.

As an example: Keiichi. Crobidoll Hobin. Got him in 2016, perfect since his first shell, but had to take him through numerous itterations of faceups and figure out exactly why I couldn't settle with his wig.

Kentarou: Mazarine Blue Laaon, been through 4 shells and 2 bodies until finally settling down

Durga: Iple EID Leonard, waited 6 years to bring him home because I could not find the perfect shell for him due to being a very particular combination of mixed race, skin colour, height, build... Let's not even begin to talk about his fashion sense. He still doesn't have proper clothes because I can't find suits ornate and gaudy enough for smaller dolls, never mind one his size..

Yukihiko: Switch Seolrok somnia, easy sculpt head-wise, but their body... uhhhhhh what a NIGHTMARE. Their body is very androgynous, vaguely masculine and with broad shoulders but displaying a little bit of breast and slightly curvy... not to mention that half of the time they're dressed in women's clothing, so I needed a body big and tall enough for their head, that I could mod to look like them, but also with curvy proportions that would fit typical clothes made for female dolls... And, like Durga, then there's the matter of actually finding appropriate clothes as, while the masculine side is okay on that front... on the feminine most clothes available are very girlish and Yukki wears mostly elegant fashion fit for a lady in her late thirties.

Have I mentioned that ALL my dolls/characters range in age between 30 and 55 in most cases with, like, 3 exceptions that are schoolkids????????

For other dolls, like my Genshin Gymnasium kids, I am -specifically- going for an AU version of the original characters, which while it has its own set of specifications, doesn't require me to commission incredibly beautiful and complex costumes for each and every one of them. While with characters that were dolls first (like my grails, usually) this isn't even an issue as they were built -as- doll characters.

So UHHHH... suffering, my friend, lots of suffering. It can be a frustrating journey but when things finally click it can be the most rewarding thing in the entire world.

 

I have found making OC’s after to be much easier. Dolls to me seem to have personalities of their own and can inspire OC’s in that way.

Based on trying to find shells for Kim Dokja (Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint) and Harlon Nayl (Warhammer 40k), finding sculpts to match characters already established has proven to be challenging and a bit frustrating. Though I’m not the most patient of peeps, so that doesn’t help either .

 

Most of my OCs are either middle-aged or generally don't conform to beauty standards so I have no intention of trying to shell them (at least, unless I figure out how to use Blender and get a 3D printer...). My art style is all over the place so they don't really have a consistent look to begin with, only consistent ages/genders/backstories etc.

Still waiting on the shell for one OC in particular but I've already made a toon version of him with the 27 cm Obitsu body and I'm pretty pleased with how he turned out. Still making clothes for him but he can wear Ken clothes + shoes so he has plenty of options lol

 

I usually establish my OC first and then try to find a doll head with the faceup that's closest to my ideal OC image. (I don't really care about the body haha). Sometimes when I try on some different wig/eye/clothing, I got ideas about a new OC.

Recently I'm trying to learn how to do faceup myself so that I can get whatever I want out of my OC ideas

 

I'm in the same boat as you, as a comic artist whose been drawing and writing these characters long before I decided to shell them as dolls

Usually, I'm operating with a train of thought of "good enough" or "I can work with this". For me, the hardest parts are clothes, and wigs. A couple dolls have been through several wigs and one still doesn't have a "good enough" one. Clothes I'm more lenient on, especially since, yknow, people change clothes haha so as long as I can find something close enough I'm not bothered. Since it's not a modern universe though it can still take quite a bit of digging, and once I just bit the bullet and made certain items myself -- you'd be surprised how hard it is to find a simple red skirt

In all though I think the hunt for suitable sculpts and items is fun though. It's part of the enjoyment for me haha. Some characters are harder than others which I've just come to accept haha.

Also I love seeing everyone's doll v. character art comparisons I only have the images on hand to do one.

Spoiler: Ironically, the one still without a good enough wig.

 

With some of my characters, I've changed their appearance to match the doll. Like, Emie and Lorina *are* tan Bambicrony Emilys now. They existed before hand, but the story changed to accommodate them looking so alike.

I have child and adult versions of my character Ilari, but I'm not perfectly happy with either of them. The adult version looks way too healthy for one. Man needs sunken cheeks and heavy eyebags. Also an upper eyelid line. He's got one drawn on but the younger version's is sculpted in and it's always bothered me. I wonder if I can get him modded...

 

Oh, I've thought about this a bit...

The three dolls I sculpted completely on my own were characters I would draw or paint (and eventually I did write about them, but the doll happened before that). I can paint/draw a face realistically enough to where I know exactly what they look like, so it was a big problem for me to find a doll that looked like them, especially back then in like, 2015? But despite all that, I now don't even think they were that good and don't look quite right anyway, even though I thought they did at the time. I even had sculpting experience.

I would like to try again with a human character and an existing doll, because I think it'd be fun to make it look like them. But, like others have mentioned, I'm like, do I care about the body type if they're going to be wearing clothes? Because if I do, that's going to be even more difficult. I have a character who is a dentist who I'd like to make, and I know I could find an outfit for her because I've already seen outfits that look like hers, and sort of seen heads that could work with some modding... But yeah. I don't know if I'd ever be happy with how they turned out because, I have paintings of her, I have so much put into her in my brain that I might just be disappointed and she ends up in the closet.

I'm getting a DC Violet that I bought just because I liked her, and wonder what will happen with the OC aspect of that, as I don't have a character that looks like that. I am tinkering with her design though and wonder if a character will come second to me getting the doll, or if I'll just view her as a decorative object, or lose interest, or whatever. I can't predict what'll happen but it'll be interesting to see if and how she develops in my brain.

 

I've two main OCs that I want to turn into the doll version. I must admit that it was hard to match especially when I want these two OCs to interact with each other but the dolls came from different makers. Previously, I bought two doll heads to play safe but was much confident that they will fit together despite different makers. I ended up disappointed...

One of my OCs has Asian features and smiles a lot while the other OC looks somehow feminine but intimidating. my experience urges me to look for dolls from the same maker. And after doing in-depth research, I found that Ringdoll Leo.Yama and Ringdoll Kim fit them so I might get this pair soon.

 

I started with trying to shell existing OCs but the dolls never fit my vision and I always got frustrated and sold the dolls. So now I go in the opposite direction. I buy the dolls I like and then create characters around the doll. It’s been way more successful for me and I find I like the stories I imagine with them a whole lot more.

I do however want to shell my FFXIV Lalafell character at some point but since I want her to look as close as possible to the game I’m either going to heavily modify an existing head or sculpt a whole new one. Most dolls in that cutesy cartoony style have eyes that are way too big.

 

Most of my comic characters are over a decade old. At this point they're fully formed in my mind and many are weird and specific, so I decided from the get go that I had no interest in shelling. Sometimes I think a sculpt might be modded into someone, but it would be forced. I think unless I started sculpting my own dolls I would have a hard time shelling, and as much as I think it's cool to have a physical manifestation of your characters, I think mine belong on paper?
It's much more fun to me to fall in love with a doll and let it come to life little by little on its own.

 

Writer here! The dolls go rogue and change details that I then have to amend in my written versions. Like Kieran deciding to have short hair was an accident of wigs, but that’s canon now. Coris didn’t have a canon appearance, so I based their appearance in canon off their doll once I’d shelled them. Ness went from having a side-shave to having all their hair shaved off. Aura, who is biracial but was white-passing in the original fic (her dad is literally paper white, and her mom is a black woman) now takes after her mother, other than having her dad’s hair. Addi has shorter hair, and wasn’t butch until I started dressing her doll and saw how well it worked on her. Zariel’s entire appearance in my campaign deviates from her canon appearance because I got a doll that I felt worked for her.

on the flip side, sometimes changes in character make me have to change something about my dolls! When Ilya came out as trans, I had to mod the chest on his body. Vidania having a relatively small chest lead to me having to Frankenstein a new chest on her body. Acyra being a big buff Paladin lady lead to me having to mod a buff male body female for her. Adonis being a somewhat tall but very curvy man lead to me having to mod the chest on another female body to give him the right waist. So sometimes the writing wins out and I have to mod dolls to look right.

 

I was very particular about making the doll shells of my characters look exactly as I pictured them at the start, but after awhile, I gave up fighting because they oftentimes found styles of their own and I ended up having the doll versions be alternate versions of my characters.

 

I love this thread!
I actually got into BJDs by feeling the need to shell some of my OCs in dolls. So far it's taking a bit long because I really want them to look like how I draw them and it's hard to get to this results (custom made wigs, clothes, eyes, faceup on sculpt that are as close as possible... whew!).

Here's Louisa my main OC, I still have to adjust lots of things on them but they're pretty close to their original 2D counterpart!

Spoiler: Original art VS BJD

 

As far as her face, Fairyland's Mio is a perfect match for the OC who I share my username with, although she should be a little plumper than any of FL's bodies. She's not quite as round as I am in real life, but she isn't skinny.

And two of my other dolls were the inspiration for the nieces of one of my other characters in one of my stories.

 

I do a web comic BJD story.

A lot of the first parts of the story was written with the dolls I had in the beginning, but as the story expanded I got other dolls to fit the the character roles. For the most part I have been able to find dolls to what I originally had in mind. Or I see a doll that fits perfectly into the story, and then write a role into the story for the doll. Sometimes a doll just seems to belong.

But, recently I was planning a love interest for one of my dolls. I even had a certain doll picked out. Then suddenly something snapped in my when I saw a totally different doll from what I had originally planned. nothing about the two dolls look the same. The storyline will will be headed in the same direction but the new look changes a lot about the character and even the concept of certain aspects in the story. I think the new doll is better for the character roll. It was just an odd experience for me to 180 on a character concept because a different doll caught my attention.

 

I was lucky and very happy to find a bjd that looked exactly as how i imagined my oc to look like! all i had to do was paint her (since she has vitiligo) and make her wig and i was super happy that she ended up looking like how she does when i draw her. im very excited to make her other outfits whenever i have the chance.
im also going to be buying another one soon (honey21 delf bonbon) since it also looks a lot like one of my ocs!

 

3 dolls had characters before the doll existed. Liam and Verona were both middle school drawings before the dolls, so it was easy to transfer my extremely simple drawings of them to their dolls. Volta was designed as a character with RG Williams in mind. I kept my ideas of him vague before securing the doll because I didn't want to long for a doll I would have extreme trouble obtaining. It just happened that Volks released the open eyed version in WS, which was a little bit of settling, but I would have wanted both open eyed and RG anyway.

3 characters were created to match the dolls. Both Hina and Cheby had no character and worked their way into the story of Liam and Verona. I wasn't actually intending to give Hina a character, but she looked like she was stealing Liam. I spent months figuring out how to justify that and she became a character. Rio had a base idea made between buying the doll and receiving him. He's incredibly off to the side in the story, though.

There's 2 more characters I would like to shell. I know the face sculpt for one, so I will draw and write about him to my heart's content. For Volta's wife, I'm attempting to keep my ideas and her face vague because I don't know whose face to cast as her.

@digiv1ce You got really close with your shell!! Impressive!!