Finding Matches?

If it's 15 years old, first pray it is Volks matching. It's much tougher if it's not. Personally, I would give up at that challenge...

If the head maker also makes bodies, you can get marketplace access and wait for someone to post a body around the same age from the company. Most of photobucket images are gone, so it's hard to search the archives for matches. You can post what you know and ask for help with specifics in this subforum: /forums/photo-reference.19/

 

Seek out your most local BJD group that does IRL meets and let them know you're trying to get a resin match done. Bring the parts to the meet and compare them in-person to what other people have. Hopefully you'll have enough of a sampling to get a decent size/color match.

 

The marketplace once you have access is a great place to look for older secondhand bodies. It'll be rough, but you may be able to eyeball close-ish matches from there.

It is hard when different company's resins (and even different batches of resin from the same company) age so differently, so I think being flexible with say a 90% match is also key. That, and potentially using a faceup to make up the difference, which is what I did for my circa ~2006 Lishe head

 

I have quite a few older dolls (new to me, but made in early 2000s), some or which I've hybrided recently. Different companies' resins age very differently, I've noticed, so matching something up is a lot of trial and error (mostly error). Even if something matches something else in theory, it might be that they have yellowed very differently - even well stored resin will have changed colour over 15 years so it's all quite unpredictable.

Most second hand marketplaces are online so comparing parts can be difficult - sometimes you can ask the seller to take a bunch of pictures in different light situations for comparison, which can be helpful, though. If you are after a body nearly the same age as your head, Yahoo!Japan Auctions/JDirect, Dollyteria, Mandarake and DoA marketplace are probably the best places to start searching for older resin.

Another, probably less stressful way would be blushing, airbrushing or dyeing parts to match as you'll have a lot more choice. Few companies, like Resinsoul, also offer mixing their resin after a sample (usually one will send them a head cap and they will match to it) - in case you want a brand new body.

It's tricky but not impossible! Good luck!

 

With very old resin, you’ll be hard pressed to find an exact match. You have no idea how another person has stored their dolls, so even if they were made the same year, the resin might still look different (especially with white and tan resin). Your best bet might be to get a body that is somewhat darker than your head and blushing the head to match (which is easier than blushing the whole body to match the head), or air brushing the head with paint to make it lighter (which requires a fair bit of work and expensive equipment).

it might be worth looking at hybridizing your doll as well (meaning that your head is from one company while the body is from another). I did this with an older Minifee body of mine and a Souldoll head; neither one fit a newer resin from their respective companies, but they matched each other really well ❤️