Favorite style of eyes

I have a variety of dolls so it depends completely on the type and style of doll.

 

realistic/fantasy! i love seeing like the in depth iris building and stuff, but i also love the sparkly jewels and a rainbow of colors. It's also suuuuper cool when artists paint little motifs on the eyes (like flowers and stuff!). None of my dolls suit the type with little motifs, but they all have non natural colors with iris detailing, jewels and sparklies in them :3

I trend towards resin eyes because of this though ive seen some amazingly crafted glass eyes too!

 

I mostly buy realistic style eyes, I tend to go for resin eyes these days. I seem to mostly go for various shades of green and blue in terms of color, though I do love fantasy colors like purple and red. I do love looking at anime style eyes and eyes with glitter etc but they don’t really suit my dolls style.

 

I prefer realistic eyes, and tend to go for the acrylic eyes made fro reborn dolls as they look realistic and don't cost the silly prices that eyes marketed specifically for BJDs are sold for.

I don't like high-dome eyes as they are restrictive as to where they can be placed in the eye socket, and often can only be plasted facing staight-ahead, and they tend ot make dolls look crosseyed in photographs.

Teddy

 

I like the Eyeco ones. They’re silicone and kind of soft. I usually get the platinum glass (or soft silicone).

 

I like a mix of everything, because I own a range of everything doll-style-wise. I love anime, so I own a few anime-esque style sculpts, I also love realism and classical art, so I own a few sculpts that lean towards realism. It's the same with eyes; if they work well with the style of the doll, then I don't really mind what style they are. If only it was as easy to find the right sizes, proportions and materials in eyes I need, then I would be in doll-eye-paradise! Lol! DX

 

I have quite the variety of eyes but my favorite is resin fantasy eyes such as Oscar Doll, Swan Doll. If there is glitter, gems, etc. I love it.

But I also have some glass and acrylic and silicon eyes that look more realistic. Just depends on what my dolls want to wear!

 

I have a range of different kinds of eyes, the ones I own the most are realistic styled ones made with acrylic, because I have more realistic style dolls. But for Volks and other more dolly doll, I would chose those with glitter/flower/diamond inside, like enchanted eyes. I really want to get those Japanese glass eyes but those good quality ones are quite expensive and hard to get.

 

I love all kinds of iris colours - "natural" colours and "unnatural" colours like yellow, purple and red, solid colours or gradient/textured. The more vivid colour, the better. I'm a bit more fussy about the pupil -- still prefer human-type round pupils in black/dark colour. I'm not so keen on jewels or paintings/motifs inside the iris... yet. Maybe one day I'll be adventurous and try them out!

As for eye material... glass or resin, and I think that you get what you pay for when it comes to buying doll eyes. To me, eyes are the most important part of the doll that gives it most liveliness and expression (more than faceup), so I try not skimp on this. I rambled about it in my BJD blog.

 

I tend to go for dolls with big eyes so I can get lots of eyes to swap around in them. I’m still trying to find my style but I am addicted to buying eyes! I have so many. XD I absolutely love fantasy eyes since most, if not all of my dolls have a fantasy feel about them. I will browse on Etsy for hours just looking at them, though some can be a bit too expensive. I have quite a few pairs from GalaxyNook that are very shiny and sparkly. I find their eyes to be well made and good for the price they sell them at.

 

I choose eyes entirely based on what character I'm shelling. I normally stick with simplistic colors, but I do have a few pairs of realistic eyes. Currently I'm waiting on a body for my tenth doll and spent more than eight months trying to find eyes that could pass as his. I couldn't find any at all, so I ended up making them in photoshop, printing them and gluing them to glass cabochons. They're my first anime/cartoon eyes, so I guess my variety is growing!

 

I like glass eyes with a little detail and sometimes a little glitter/sparkle but I also have some resin eyes with realistic details. I don’t limit them to natural colors though, I like purple/violet a lot and I would choose multicolored irises if I find ones I like.

 

I really like realistic with a hint of fantasy. Most of my dolls' eyes are just realistic, but some are realistic with a realistic, lets say, snowflake- Realistic fantasy !

 

I tend to go for detailed eyes, be they realistic or fantastical. For the most part, my collection is split between acrylic and resin eyes, though I do still have a pair or two of freebie glass eyes! As much as I love the feel of the glass eyes, they don't tend to provide the kind of detail I like. And as cute as the eyes with things like butterflies and flowers in them are, I don't tend to have characters who could fit them!

So far, most of my crew has eyes where I went for realistic detail and color. The more fantastical ones are Ara, who has sparkly silver eyes, Nova, kind of, with her red-brown eyes (I was aiming for that owl look), and I commissioned a pair of rainbow eyes with a sparkly gem pupil for the bunny gal I'm waiting on.

I love looking for just the right pair of eyes. I feel it's easier to find The One than it is to find just the right wig, and as @aihre said, they do so much for a doll!

 

I used to swear by glass eyes until I bought AshuraDarkEyes' eyes from Etsy and fell in love with them. I still use glass eyes along with these resin eyes and also have few cheap plastic eyes so I use every kind of eyes except vinyl I think? I tend to gravitate towards natural kinds of eyes but can go wild on colors.

 

I would say my eye style goes towards "semi-realistic". I love realistic-seeming eyes with multicolored irises the most (say, the highlight part is blue in a mostly brown eye, for instance, or the outer ring is a different color than the inner). I need some pop of contrast and interest there for me to go "ooooooo". Gradients are my jam too lol. I can appreciate the eyes with crystals or butterflies etc in the eyes, but they are not my thing. I have a pair I got for a gift with a purchase, and I have...never even touched them. Though I am a HUGE sucker for glitter. Give me all the glitter, all the time!!!

As for eye material, most of the eyes I've gotten so far have been resin, though I don't have enough to really say I have a preference. I just go for the ones with the irises I like the most xD

When I was first starting, and I hadn't gotten my doll in yet, I thought I'd prefer the small irises for a more realistic look....but then he hated those, so now I look for strictly "normal iris" size lol. I prefer the look, and having more of the iris visible. Oh, I also thought I'd love having those "follow me" eyes, and I love how they look in videos and things - but find them rather too weird IRL. They also make my bird boy look cross-eyed which, while hilarious, is not something that fits his character lol.

 

I like resin animetic eyes that use pearl paper for the iris! They always look so shiny

 

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For my personal dolls I prefer realistic/semi real styles in either glass or resin. However I can really appreciate more experimental eyes with like crystals/designs, I'm just more picky when it comes to buying them for my dolls.

 

I love glass eyes. LOVE THEM. But sometimes an acrylic eye is what you need. 99% of my dolls have glass but for that 1%, they have to have acrylic.

Oh, and for style? It depends on the doll. A lot of my dolls are meant to look like, well, dolls so a larger pupil and kind of a doe look is what I'm after.

 

It varies depending on what I think will look good on the doll. More realistic eyes for semi-real dolls, and animetic eyes for the anime dolls. Sometimes anime dolls get non-anime eyes though, hehe....

 

As others have said, depends on the style of the doll for me!

A lot of my dolls lean toward a more anime style these days, so I like eyes that fit that aesthetic for them. I'm picky about anime eyes, but I'm not entirely sure how to describe the exact look I go for ahaha. I just KNOW IT when I see the eyes that are JUST RIGHT for a certain doll!

Currently my two more semi-realistic dolls have fantasy eyes rather than super realistic eyes. They won't be keeping the eyes they have at the moment; they're just placeholders. But when I do get around to picking up the eyes I want for them, they'll still have fantasy eyes. Waiting to figure out their faceups before deciding on which eyes they'll have in the long run.

 

I like eyes with big pupils, especially for fantasy dolls. I also like eyes with some glitter in them x

 

Personally, I'm not too picky with eyes at all I love simple glass eyes with the iris size on the smaller side, absolute *chef's kiss* if they are low dome. I also have a few pairs of cheap acrylic eyes that I'm pretty happy with, despite them not being super shiny and pristine... they still work incredibly well as puppy eyes that make me want to spoil the dolls and buy them everything I didn't really get along with the resin eyes I had, even though I love seeing product photos of them a lot (especially the fancy artistic ones!).

I think, all in all, I'm more concerned about the size ratio and fit in my dolls' eyewells than the detail and material; most of mine have rather small eyes for their size so one can't see too much detail anyway and simple glass catches the light nicely enough. I also have sleeping and dreaming faces in the mix where details are harder to see and expensive eyes would be a bit of a waste for them. I'd certainly be more considerate of the aesthetics and quality if I had dolls that needed bigger eyes, though!

 

When I started in the hobby, finding affordable and realistic good-quality eyes was almost impossible, so I settled for a certain company of resin-made eyes that used to do natural colors, but those were prone to get cloudy or dirty and didn't reflect the light as beautifully as I wanted.
A few years ago, I tried my first pair of realistic glass eyes and I have kept choosing them since for almost all my dolls (though it truly depends on the style of the doll). They are amazingly vivid and look amazing in pictures.

 

My favorite is fantasy eyes done in a realistic way, if that makes sense.

 

When it comes to color I like both natural and unnatural. Pattern-wise I prefer more realistic but due to me also only wanting glass eyes with a low dome and small iris, I've become able to settle for simple no patterned eyes as well. *suddenly realizes she has a couple pairs of eyes with glitter she loves* Oh, right, very fine glitter I'm apparently fine with even though it's not realistic at all.

 

I’ve carefully collected a crew of diverse fantasy characters over the years, so it’s only natural that their eyes reflect that diversity as well. It all depends upon their specific character, and I’ll hunt high and low to find the perfect eyes to draw out that character. Interestingly enough, when it comes to the cute fae types of tiny Fairyland dolls, I’ve found that their acrylic company eyes suit them very well because they have a lot of life in them for something so small. But once the dolls get bigger, I start looking for more special eyes in resin or glass. I’ve gotten nice quality glass eyes from Luts in a plethora of colors. And for resin eyes, I have EDs, Oscar, Swandoll, Mystic, and Mako eyes which are all excellent quality. I’m also a big sucker for anything glittery or bejeweled or with fancy bits in them (because, yeah, fantasy.) One of my favorite pairs is in my angel boy. They came from Swandoll and I got them slightly oversized for a more innocent look. They have tiny crosses in them which is perfect for an angel.

 

I love glass eyes. And prefer them in semi realistic style.

 

Glass eyes, as their sclera stays white over the decades, with irises as realistic as glass allows, without any glitter, crystals or what not.

 

Mostly realistic, with some iris color detail instead of completely one color. I like low dome eyes because they can be positioned in more ways.

 

Glass realistic eyes, low dome and small iris, in any color, even the more fantastical ones. My favorite is a set of violet ones that are just a little too small for my 65cm girl (first time ordering eyes, so of course they were the wrong size), so now I need to buy another doll that they will fit in - that's how that works, right?

 

So far I've basically purchased resin eyes because I like the detail and the customization, but I'd love to know where people are buying realistic glass eyes. The ones I've seen usually are very simple in iris pattern and have irises that are too large to be very realistic.

 

I like all styles. Sometimes real sometimes fantasy. Depending on my mood, doll & accessories

 

Sadol eyes are my favorite and they always have been.
They had these cool "Summer Hawaii" eyes years ago but I wasnt active. but I found "Summer forest" (just as beautiful) later on. The Christmas 2022 "Dont worry" eyes were cute as well, the naming for their special eyes is so...sentimental?

truuuly unique. I will never move past gemstone eyes they're so fulfilling to stare at.

 

I really like the fantasy / realistic eyes. Usually I don't mind what kind of material it is.

 

It very much depends on the doll but I do have a tendency to go for semi-realistic or fantasy.

I also prefer low dome for the same reasons others have mentioned and mainly glass or resin.

Colour wise again it depends on the bjd’s style but I do tend to give them eyes that look slightly unusual for the doll in question. The eyes are where the soul resides so I like them to reflect that. I’ve even been known to use hematite beads as their slightly metallic almost black shade makes for wonderfully other worldly eyes especially with fae folk tinies.
I’m not a fan of overly glittery or motif types but will buy shiny if I feel it enhances or it’s subtle and there to give a slight lift.

Maker wise as I change my mind a lot I stick to lower priced mainly but would love to be confident enough to buy some of the breathtakingly beautiful and realistic eyes you see nowadays made by such incredible artists like Tianba!
I do buy a lot from Candy Kitten though as she’s such a lovely person to work with and makes beautiful eyes.

 

Most of my guys are some flavour of fantasy so fantasy eyes is what I lean towards. I also make eyes so whatever I want for them is easy enough (in theory) to make. But I also have several boys wearing Oscar Eyes, Enchanted Eyes, Metis, Dreaming Tree and other companies. As long as the eye works for the character, I'll use it. My newest boy is wearing a pair I made for fun about 2 years ago that I never thought anyone would actually wear both because of the size (18mm) and style but they're perfect for him. And that's not the only time something like that has happened with eyes I've made.

 

I love a nice pair of glass eyes! They suit so many looks- fantasy or realistic. It's perfect and I never seem to get tired of them.

 

I prefer glass eyes with fantasy colors, because all my dolls is fantasy

 

Mostly all of mine are more realistic. I really want some more fancy fantasy looking ones though, I just don’t know how often they’d get used.

 

I love my Kanis glass. Not fancy like modern resin eyes and have no follow-me effect due to a low dome, but look by far the most realistic amongst the ones I own.

 

I like many eye types. Glittery is hard to find a doll for, but sometimes it works out.

 

I love dark eyes. Eyes with stark contrast between the pupil and iris are unsettling to me. But, somehow, the black eyed children aren't.

There are so many beautiful, detailed resin eyes out there, but I don't want to get a pair only to have them yellow in a few years' time, so I stick to glass eyes.

 

Realistic/ semi-realistic eyes and glass. Low dome if possible and nowadays even more ideal if they're completely round, that way I can make a system to move them without having to open the head all the time. I hope this fully round balls become more popular in the future. Glass is the most durable and worth it for me.