Collecting in different scales

I'm very haphazard lol. They all exist together and I do not justify it. In the beginning there were 1/3 humans and everyone smaller was a fantasy race... but then a human character shrunk herself... and eventually I had too many dolls to fit into one story so they all sorta exist together and also not. I still like photographing odd sizes together though because I think it's fun lol.

I do suffer from "oh no X doll is all alone and needs a similar sized/stylized friend" but that's also just an excuse for more dolls, lol.

 

I have a lot of different sizes. I started with the ¼ dolls and smaller. I wasn't going to get anything larger. Those sizes work really well together if you have the more mature looking ¼ dolls be older siblings to the younger ones in pictures.

But then I started on the ⅓ and up dolls. Trinity was supposed to be my third and final 'uncle' but I have gotten a few more after him. The Uncles and Aunties are big, they make good parents and adults for the ⅓ and senior ⅓ dolls. But, that doesn't rule out the ¼ and smaller ones. Sometimes I put the ¼ dolls into pictures as children, some of the girls look more mature especially if they have larger breasts, this can be disguised with clothing. The dolls that are even smaller make great kindergarten siblings or even smaller children to the larger dolls.

I do have them separated by size for display. The ⅙ and smaller sit above my computer. The ¼ dolls have their own shelf. The ⅓ and above are on a different display. I use them the most for pictures, and I like to reach them easier.

It was weird for me at first to switch the ¼ dolls from teens to children because when I bought them I had more mature characters in mind. Because I favor the SD and larger dolls I am slowly making the MSD's less mature by changing the clothing and faceups so that they can fit in overall with my other dolls, but for awhile they were the odd dolls out. At least that is how it felt to me.

 

Whether big or small I love BJDs ^_^ I started with SD EID and then adopted small MSD into my family. Iplehouse, for example, offers harmonious dolls that replicate an entire family. Here I once imitated a Mother's Day:
Motherday (3)
But also a Granado seems realistic with an Iplehouse KID as father with daughter:
Lissa and Damian (1)
The topic of family has its charms.
But I also let my imagination run wild. For me, there is nothing wrong with letting an MSD elf from Youpla drive a sleigh with an SD "Snow Fox" IOS:
Don't be afraid of big animals (1)
One of my best combinations was to have my SD AiL Alice interact with a 1:8 TanitaDollOutfit BJD from a 3D printer. Basically, to recreate how I like to pursue my hobby. BJD in the backpack and with camera out into nature to take photos:
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree
There are hardly any limits to the world's most wonderful hobby. You can let your imagination run wild and do creative things. The main thing is that it brings joy and is good for the soul.

 

I generally keep my dolls of different scales apart from each other. Having them together and interacting throws me off, so I prefer to keep my display spaces all to their own scale. Sometimes I can get away with keeping dolls in a different scale further from the other dolls to give a kind of forced perspective, which is helpful when I only have one doll in a particular scale and only one place to display them. For instance, I had my Loong Soul boy posed far back on the top of my bookcase and my Babel Tower girl sitting with her legs hanging off the bookcase. Their heads are very different sizes, so they don't look natural together when posed side-by-side, but with the LS boy in the back, it looks like he's standing at a distance and appears relatively in scale that way. (Hope that makes sense.)
Though you mentioned what if they were the same character, and if that were the case, I might display them all together. I have a plush of one character displayed with an (off topic) doll of the same character, and I think the effect is pretty cute! Sometimes I see other collectors do that too, with multiple different dolls in different styles, and I'm always impressed to see the various imaginings of the same character displayed together.

 

I have a big ol mix of sizes and even within the broader umbrella of loose "scale", there's different proportions that make things a bit awkward posing even, say, the 1/4th crew together. The 1/3rds are even worse.

Tbh I don't collect based on a set storyline or character group, so it doesn't bother me too much. Some of them are loosely grouped in a similar "world", like the Moorlands Manor group, and those're all loosely in a similar size or "style" category. Some of them, like the ancient Egyptian group, are based on an aesthetic theme and scale and style are completely disregarded.

It is kind of nice collecting a wide variety because it makes the likelihood that if something I buy doesn't fit the doll it's intended for it'll fit someone else in the crew much higher lmao.

 

My collection is small, but the sizes have variety.

1 SD (Volks)
2 MSD size (Volks and Luts Kid Delf)
1 slim MSD (Souldoll Soulkid)
1 tall and very slim MSD (Rosette School)
1 YoSD (Volks)

(Technically I also have an SD13 boy from Volks but I never bonded with this doll)

Displaying them together never bothers me since they’re supposed to be dolls, not humans necessarily. That said, I’ve thought about giving partners to some of them, in which case I would want them to be a comparable scale and same brand when possible.

What makes this small collection more difficult is that aside from the two MSDs who are the same size (Volks MSD and a Luts Kid Delf) is that I can’t swap shoes or clothes with most of them.

My first two dolls were Soudoll Katie.A and Luts Kid Delf Bory girl — they were meant to be friends with each other, though Adelheid (Katie.A) is meant to be older and Jane (Kid Delf) looks very much like a child. The scale didn’t really bother me. I think if I had a more fleshed out world or story for my dolls, that this scale would bother me, and if my collection were a lot larger, I think I would group them more by scale.

I have my SD girl and YoSD sitting with each other, but they are both from the Rozen Maiden series are look great with each other (despite the size difference). It’s definitely making me rethink how I would like to build my collection over time and how to display them.

What often stands out to me the most with difference is not so much height or slimness, but head size and style. In this respect, it’s my Volks MSD and Rosette girl that stand out the most — Kira’s head is huge and Gremory’s is tiny.

sorry if my post is kind of all over the place

 

I have two different-sized crews (1/4 Marvel-adjacent human dolls and 1/8 anthropomorphic animals), each with their separate and very different story line, so in my case there is usually no interaction between sizes. It would be very hard for me to try to intertwine them, as I'm very story-driven and it wouldn't make sense at all, but I don't think it would be too bad if I took a photo of all of them together out of context. In fact, I'll try to take one big family picture at the end of the year.

As for display options, I keep them all in the same cabinet but in different shelves and even pose them differently. The 1/4 are in natural positions (sitting, hugging, etc.) while the 1/8 have stands and are simply standing there. Plus, my 1/4 are my current doll fixation, so they get more attention, pictures, written pieces of text, mood-boards, etc. right now, but even if the 1/8 are not my priority right now, I recognize that I find them easier to photograph cause I don't feel the need to pretend they're not dolls.

I technically also have a Yo-SD girl that used to be related to the 1/4 sized family and interacted with them quite frequently and looked great as a little sister, but her character doesn't fit them anymore and I have no plans for a new one, so she's a goner.

 

The secret is I got more to match them together. Lol
I do display all my dolls together but also with other dolls around their size and stylization.
When I play my dolls I usually focus on one at a time anyway I don't have a lot of space to play them cuz I have nosy pets, it's either on the floating shelfs or my little desk
Before I had more dolls they still look cute in my opinion next to each other's, I definitely consider my dolls more as cute objects that make me smile rather than representations from an imaginary world so maybe that makes a difference. It brings out their dollishness to see the different sizes together.

 

I enjoy having dolls in different scale more than having a cohesive crew.
The presence of bigger dolls is something else and I'll always prefer handling hefty, larger dolls. If I just want to dress up a doll and have her stay around, I'll near always go for Nadia.
I have abandoned anything smaller than 1/4 because at that point, things are too small and toy-like. But small dolls are stress-free to pose around and more immediate than something like 70cm which makes me think about safety as much as the posing I want to achieve. So depending on how I feel with my health, what mood I am in, how tired, etc. I've got some choice instead of having to decide that I can't pull it off for the day. Every now and then I even pick up my abandoned 1/12 collection because I want to fiddle with posing a figure with no mental investment at all. If I had a 1/6 doll, especially on the inexpensive side, I'd probably go for that one in those cases.

I haven't done much with group interactions because my photo setup is too cramped for a bunch of large dolls. I'll work on that soon and I'll go over this problem again at that point...
Candell gets away with being a 1/4 in the middle of 1/3 cause she's a fairy. Nadia is more of a 1/2.5 than 1/3 and she does feel out of scale with 1/3. She's slightly too big to pass as just tall and skews everyone else in the picture. When she's next to Mina, Mina looks like a child. Leona has a smaller head and her proportions are more realistic, so when she's next to Nadia she looks the most like she's been sized down a notch. There will be a few more dolls and they'll cover in-between sizes, and I assume the scale oddity will become milder then? But I'm fine with this sort of thing, honestly. I don't compartmentalize my dolls nor I want to force them together. I just get dolls on an individual basis and enjoy them as they are.

 

When I started, over fifteen years ago, I began in the middle with an MSD-size girl. Then I got distracted by anthros, small, mostly-animal featured ones. Somewhere along the line the humans started getting larger and larger and I kind of forgot about the little ones. I swore I'd never get into childlike dolls.

Until I did. I was suddenly accumlating YoSDs and even babies, plus I went back to enjoying anthros.

Since half my interest in the hobby is in photography, I've found that the smaller figures are often easier to handle and to focus on, especially if I want the entire doll in the shot.

I've assembled a lot of clothing, wigs, and eyes over time, so there is usually always something available to fit any size and shape.
And, of course, it's not just a matter of height, now we have fashion doll proportions, microBJDs, and near life-sizes.
I can often find ways to mix and match for a picture since there are many fantasy scenarios; a pixie with a mushroom doll with a caterpillar for instance. Then throw in a little boy or a robot!

Here is a good mix, a picture of my smallest doll (4.5cm) with one of my largest (70cm) I recently took for a "Proportion" theme in a flickr group.
#Proportion by Nadine, on Flickr

 

I'm like @Yami_Hanako, I'm highly story-driven with my BJDs, my crew is currently all occupying the same story-world and I take pics of them together. So they have to look in-scale with each other, and if they don't, I have to be able to rationalize different scales into the world-building and sucessfully suspend my disbelief at seeing the mismatch.

I'm doing both currently. I have mostly 1/3s who all more-or-less scale with each other, and any subtle mismatch I've been able to ignore to the point I no longer "see" the problem. My single tall mini is completely out of scale, but that's fine because it's a fairy-type creature amongst the more human 1/3s, and I've also visually styled them to look different to the others. I don't own 75cm uncles, but having handled some and posed them with my crew, I can also imagine them fitting in.

My one foray into very tiny BJDs (a 18cm doll around 1/8 scale) didn't work out, partly because I couldn't suspend my disbelief over having such a tiny doll amongst my 1/3 dolls. I would have to start a completely new collection centred around that tiny scale, which means I'd have to either create a new story for them, or view them more as figurines and shelf adornments. I wasn't willing to do that, so I sold the doll. I think the same would hold for any size smaller than tall 1/4.

 

I mostly just stuck with 1/3 scale and larger (think 65cm-72cm) and for the most part, my collection has stayed like that. All my dolls are interconnected by a story, and while I have several childlike MSDs, they are childlike precisely because they're the younger children of some older doll characters. They still scale properly with the big ones.

However, as yours truly's back began to hurt from lugging around heavy hunks of resin during outdoor photoshoots, I decided to shell out "portable" fashion mini versions of my three primary characters. They're not as heavily customized as their bigger versions since I wanted 1/3 to still be the main focus of the collection, but I love them nonetheless. Oh, and unless it was for special occasions, you won't find my fashion minis mingling with the bigger dolls.

Spoiler: Same characters, different scales

Secret Meeting by Yela Gatchalian-David, on Flickr


Adhara and the Thirsty Duo by Yela Gatchalian-David, on Flickr

 

Most of my current collection consists of SD-sized and 70+cm dolls with just a few MSD and YoSD. I display them all together, and it feels natural and comfortable to me. They’re all part of a single story, and most of them are stylized, so their proportions work well together — almost like characters from an anime or graphic novel. I tend to choose stylized dolls, and if one is MSD-sized or smaller, it usually represents a child or baby character. So even though the sizes vary, I try to maintain a sense of consistency across the group.

But, when i had small fashion sized MSD crew, i’ve always display them separately: i dislike how different they was proportionally and stylistically from the main crew.

 

The bulk and core of my BJD collection are mature minis and I have a secondary collection of mature tinies. They live in different worlds and and not usually displayed together. They are very different in scale and can't really share props, backgrounds or furniture.

I started with the minis back in the day and most of that collection goes well together and can be displayed as a group. I also have a Dollmore Narsha that, while smaller in size, fits in perfectly scale-wise.

My mature tinies are completely different in scale, so they can't really be posed with the minis, unless I make them into fairies, or something. They have their own little universe instead and don't mix with the bigger dolls.

I have one outlier, a Mara Creatures Ramunder, who is a very large troll doll. Him, I can use either as a big troll with my minis, or as a huge troll with my tinies. It gives an unexpected flexibility to an otherwise highly specialized sculpt.

When it comes to playing and managing resources, I mostly just do whatever I feel like at the moment. Sometimes I work on things for many dolls at once, sometimes I hyper focus on one.
I had collected minis for a long time before I got my first tiny, so I already had a good collection of furniture and props built up for them. They pretty much have all they need and storage space in not infinite either, so that part of my collecting has slowed down, at least for big furniture pieces.
For the tinies, furniture and props takes up so little space in comparison, that I don't need to worry about over collecting for a while yet. That is one of the big joys with the smaller scales, in my opinion.

 

From the very beginning I fell in love with the idea of diversity for these dolls. I wanted to be able to collect whatever my heart desired without worrying about size, scale, type, or resin color. So with that in mind, I created a fantasy world my collection could inhabit, something akin to an “Alice in Wonderland” sort of vibe, where everything and anything could happily coexist with one another in the same universe. And then I went about creating small decorative displays throughout my home for groupings of them to inhabit. This allowed me to gather smaller groups of similar dolls together, while still maintaining the general canon of them belonging to a larger world with the rest of the crew. This way no size is preferred over another, and all belong equally to my personal fantasy. Fortunately I love sewing and designing, so each doll has a wardrobe all their own.

 

I own a variety of sizes now. After almost 18 yrs of collecting, I have learned to embrace the dolls I like and not put too much pressure on them "fitting together". I try to display dolls of similar sizes/styles together in my room, but have also embraced a touch of chaotic variety in that respect too.

The one thing that has changed for me since I've embraced different size dolls is I'm way more selective about clothing. I try to find one very nice outfit for each of my dolls to have because I cannot afford a wardrobe for each... especially when sharing can be a challenge.

But honesty, I love multi-faceted collections. When I started the hobby I was way more rigid about what I would and would not collect... I think in an attempt to curate a very "perfect" collection. But with time, I just stopped caring about a very curated look for my doll collection... I like them being a hodge podge mess much better!

 

As far as display/storage goes, my dolls are segregated by size. We have four cabinets, and my minis take up two of them. The SDs have one cabinet, and my littles like to travel from cabinet to cabinet. Fourth cabinet is all vinyl right now but once I get my DDs out of there (long layaway sale) our shared DnD character SDs will move over there so my other SDs can have a little more breathing room.

I don't tend to mix mini and SD when I'm playing. They have their own stories/worlds, though the littles like to sneak in and cause chaos in either group.

 

I have mostly large dolls in the 55-70cm range, with most around 63ish cm. I do also have a pretty healthy amount of mini's, all slim similar to a minifee, and a handful of tinies either in the YoSD child-like scale, itty bitties like Puki's, or the slim fashion doll size. So it's a pretty diverse range of shapes and sizes, but I've always enjoyed the variety.

I store all my dolls in my bedroom, but I do separate by size, mostly due to how my shelves are set up. I have shelves spaced specifically to allow shorter (55-63cm) SD's to sit, and other shelves that are spaced for the MSD crew. My tinies and the rest of the MSD's all go on top of my dresser, though there are a few scattered on my book shelves..the sneaky goblins. My biggest dolls that cannot fit on shelves with the rest have in scale benches and chairs to sit on at the base of my shelves as well as a few who stand (with stands and without) around my cedar chest that holds things I don't need access to often. My room is 9x9ft so it's all carefully organized chaos.

I tend to just grab whichever doll calls to me for the day or week and they come out to hang with me in other parts of the house. I've definitely mixed sizes in photos and photostories, and they sort of group themselves by story. My doll list in my profile shows some of that grouping. I could never pick just one size!

 

I have dolls of basically every scale. I love what every size has to offer! Tinies are great for travel, MSD has so many fantasy sculpts and are so posable, SD are so sturdy and imposing.

None of my dolls really have their own universe or interact with one another, yet, but I don't think their sizes would impact it much. Just like real life, we've people of all sizes.

I have my dolls scattered all around my living room, situated in any way they can fit, no matter the size. It's all kinda random.

 

I've generally stuck with a mix of slim minis and a few small SDs. I love them all, and I find that the different scales lend themselves to different methods of play. I can sew for both, and sometimes I'll squeeze one into my pack to take to work for the day as a desk companion, but it's so easy to take the slim minis outside for photos and the bigger dolls are so holdable! (Heck, what caught my interest again after a dive into quilting was wanting to hug my DearSD!)

I'm not super concerned about the sizes mixing; while the slim MSDs have their own little universe, the scales and styling there vary already, let alone between them and the SDs. In the end, I like them interacting with the real world as dolls, like a combo Toy Story/Borrowers situation. They do have separate spaces in the doll cabinet, though. The two upper shelves are spaced to fit the slim MSDs without them bonking their heads (much), but that means the SDs don't fit up there, so they hang out at the bottom of the cabinet.

 

I *mostly* collect 1/4, but the collection has certainly branched out in a couple odd directions over time!

They don't all interact with each other even within one scale-- the 1/4 fashion dolls exist in their own separate universe, Robin's 1/4 and could certainly interact with any mature mini, but story-wise she only really 'belongs with' an off-topic doll at this point. Vince isn't part of anyone's story and isn't quite an aesthetic match for my mature minis, but he CAN interact with all my 1/4 and 1/6 (and smaller) dolls.

I like each doll to have one 'friend' that they look right with, so that when I can actually set up doll rooms for photos, I can tell stories where they interact, and I love when they can use the same props or even some of the same pieces of clothing (though even within one scale they won't all have the same fashion sense), but I'm not fussed about making sure the whole collection goes together. Along with my various off-topic dolls (mostly fashion scale, some tiny), some of them will look good together and some of them won't, some of them will share props and some won't, but all of them make me happy.

 

I started out with msd sized, and then immediately fell in love with how tiny 1/12 dolls felt in hand so I ended up with a collection of two vastly differing scales by accident aha.

My dolls of different sizes are stored separately- mainly due to space issues. The small ones stay in my room on a bookcase, and my msd's chill on the sewing table. It would be nice to someday have a cabinet to display them alongside eachother. I try to style all my dolls along a fairytale/fantasy sort of theme so I think they'd look nice all together.

I especially like that I can juggle the two sizes between moods- sometimes I dont have energy for tiny parts so the bigger dolls are easier to play and diy for; sometimes I just wanna lug around fifteen tiny friends without needing a pram aha

I don't think I'll ever venture bigger than msd's as theyre the upper limit of my strength but I've been strongly tempted to branch into an inbetween scale of the two- It's been tough resisting the sirens call of a new scale to harmonize the two extremes. For now, I try to stay disciplined in just buying cute fits for the squad

 

I have all kinds of scales. Right now, all my SDs and MSDs and YoSDs are displayed together. My slim mature YoSDs are on a separate shelf because I ran out of space, and so are my two Dollfie Dreams. To me, they all fit together, which is making it hard to decide who am I going to sell so I can really enjoy them all.

 

It honestly doesn’t bother me at all that my dolls are different sizes, I buy them because they appeal to me in some way and not in order to ‘fit in’.
I started with tinies and slowly drifted into SD then MSD. My lot range from Pukipuki (1/12) to 62cm 1/3 hybrid. I did have a 66cm body for him but I don’t like it so he’s getting a 62cm instead.

 

All of my bjds are 1/4 or smaller so far, so they mostly go along when it comes to size. The only thing that looks less uniform is the proportions for my 1/4’s. I have some Luts KDF’s that have bigger eyes and more childlike proportions, so they do look a bit odd next to dolls with slimmer, smaller proportions. Honestly, aside from that, they all look very nice together!

 

Most of my dolls are 60cm, I have one 50 cm and three 73cm and one 75. Honestly, I think 60cm is my max height now. Anything bigger just disrupts my whole room. It’s so hard to display 73cm+ dolls, I tried to set them up as like a family but their looks don’t really match and depending on the doll’s maker their heads my not be to scale with each other even though they are the same height. And don’t get me started on clothing styles. Some of my fantasy styles dolls just look weird standing next to a casual styled doll. It looks so displaced. Some people are cool with that, but I’m so neurotic it just bothers me. I separate them based on their outfits sometimes and overall I try to keep everything pretty casual, business or semi-formal looking so I don’t see one doll in like a jogger outfit and another dressed like they’re from the renaissance.

I have one 73cm doll that is one of my favorites and I could never part with him, but it’s so sad when I see him alone so I’m trapped now with at least two 70-73cm at all times now. The taller/bigger dolls are also extremely difficult to find new homes for too. I am still struggling to re-home a 73cm doll right now. It’s a big commitment.

TLDR: I’ve made a promise to myself that I will only buy 60cm or shorter dolls from now on. Life is just simpler this way and it makes it easier for me to pose dolls in different scenarios.

 

My scales, if I include unfinished projects, are everywhere, 1/4th, 1/3rd, 1/5th. I don't really plan on visual unity / characters being depicted with each other, so I don't mind, but I think with the large range of variety and the other scale doll I'm waiting on (75+cm / 'uncle,') I'll have a good enough range to decide which scale I like the most and then settle in from there.

 

I collect any size (and type) where the doll appeals to me (except 8 inch BJDs, for some reason BJD in that size seldom stay, no matter how much I like the doll itself), and display space constraints means they all inevitably have to mingle,


Although do I try to keep them roughly to family/freindsgroup, size groups where possible


Different sizes do interact in play - 1/6-Littlefee-YoSD-Petite Ai work as children with mature/slim mini size AND as younger children/toddlers with 1/3 size dolls, for example so my little-kiddie interact with both the 1/4 and 1/3 dolls. Most of my Teeny-tinies ( RalFee, Banji etc are fae creatures, so their scale compared to the others is pretty irrelevant. A PukiPuki can, for example, be a litle pixie companion to a 1/3 scale elf or human character.

I DID avoid gettng any slim-minis for a long time, way back in the day, because I already had distinct 1/3, 1/4, and 16 groups , but since none of my other doll types are rstricted by size, it seemed silly to restrict BJD on that basis, and a BJD/dolly friend pointed out that everyone knew how ga-ga I went over the 43cm Narae, whenever I encountered one online or at a meet, it was obvious to everyone but me that I was going to get one sooner or later... as it turns out, over a decade later, the slim minis are one of the sizes I play with least frequently so they're all now on my looking-for-new-homes list (even my beloved Narae, who is the only one left now), since dolly-space is really at a premium, and something's gotta go.

EDITED TO ADD: Also, more recent sizes, such as the "big-baby" (1/4 height but younger, chunkier bodies like Dear SD) work very well with some of my OT dolls such as Disney Animator/BJD hybrids and the 18inch articulate Fancy Nancy dolls, and they can share clothes with Sasha dolls, so there's crossover between BJD's and non BJDs too.

Teddy

 

I started off as an MSD collector, thinking larger dolls would be way too much to handle, and occasionally tried a YoSD/tiny. I found that I didn't like anything smaller than MSD, and then tried an SD on a whim, and fell in love with that size for customizing and styling.
But I have the thing where I have to keep them separate, it would drive me crazy to have all the sizes mixed together. Now my crew of MSDs are displayed on their own shelf, and they don't get mixed in with others. They're basically my 'collector' dolls now, fully dressed in a cohesive theme, and don't get moved around often. My SD is on my desk or an entirely different shelf, where she's easier to reach to adjust her or change clothes and whatnot.
I suppose the only exception is pet dolls-they're the only tinies I like, and I could easily consider them the pets of the SD and mix them in.

 

I collect Volks 1:3 and 1:4 scale dolls but these dolls also collect dolls .

The smaller one is an Azone Pureneemo. It's extra special when I can find a doll in both scales.