Custom face ups for Smart Dolls

I think you mean to post this in the brigadoon section, smart dolls aren't on topic /doawiki/index.php?title=off-topic

 

I might be wrong but I remember hearing that Danny Choo bans you if you customize his dolls. That's probably why you never see custom faceups.

 

I'm pretty sure Enchanterium on youtube has customized several Smart Dolls

 

The big reason you don't see customized SMD as much is the approach Danny took in marketing them vs BJD companies. Volks heavily encourages customization and storytelling even with their limited dolls within storylines. You may not have heard "another yourself", but that is the meaning behind the term. They want you to make their dolls your own. Not all, but most companies will sell you blank heads, bodies, whatever you want, to customize and create the doll YOU want. BJDs were made to be customized.

Danny doesn't do this. I did start to see custom painted SMD when he offered chaos bundles, but he's not encouraging it. It almost feels like it's wrong to wipe a (factory painted) SMD head within the community. In fact, he reuses a lot of heads and sells them by different names based on their faceups. The dolls are more catered to fashion doll collectors rather than BJD owners. You can even find SMD owners who have never heard of BJD!

Citation, please!

 

There are a couple relevant threads about it on Doll Dreaming if you search. I'm wary of posting links here because it might count as inciting drama, but the info is out there.

 

Not customizing and having frowned upon turns me off. That's been the whole point behind spending $$$ on a big doll.

Out of all my on topics and their little vinyl Volks and Obitsu cousins the only doll I didn't do myself or would never even think of redoing is a second hand BJD who has full body blushing and two face plates with freckles. The artist did a great job making a character out of her.

 

I’ve worked on 5 Smart Doll heads so far, 3 Chaos heads and 2 Cortex heads.and is also drastically modded by me…


First the drastically modded Chaos Envisage head. The pink eye glows in the dark



Here are the two cortex heads, one styled after Oh! my Goddess, and the other is a mermiad



And two more I painted. Both were chaos heads that needed to be cut and cleaned up

 

@IzabethS that scary bunny mod is great! What did you use for the additive mod?

 

Thank you! I used Aves Apoxie Sculpt in super white (the regular white is greyish), which is a two part epoxy clay.

 

I've seen a lot of posts by Danny were he's encouraged customizations. Also in person at conventions, he's been excited to talk and see them too. So no worries from there, customize away!

The community around them though seems to be a mixed bag. Thankfully with all the chaos and blank heads being easier to get this is dying down more. You still get people who freak out over it though.