Mature 1/12 dolls, why isnt there many?

In the very early days, there weren't even mature 1/4s (and tbh the first 1/3 size dolls looked very young as well) It's been slowly evolving that we see different levels of maturity in different size groups, mature minis are now very popular and mature 1/6 dolls are coming up more and more as well. I think preference often moulds around availability and there just haven't been a ton of more "mainstream" options of adult-looking tinies yet.

Of course, it's also a technical question - a lot of companies still sculpt their dolls by hand, meaning that making and casting mature 1/12 is very fiddly as limbs and heads are much smaller and thinner than on child-like/chibi dolls of the same size (plus they are a pain to string, hence one might find more mechanically jointed 1/12 figures around). Sizing down has become a lot easier with 3D printing technology, but it's still a fairly new development as well and more popular with small artists than companies.

Sometimes, the availability of clothes and accessories also plays a part in collector's preferences so if there isn't much available for a size it's not going to be super popular or worthwhile to produce either. Tiny clothes/eyes/wigs are more difficult to make than bigger sizes, too (heck, it's still annoying to find slim 1/4 clothing/shoes sometimes), so anything very small tends to become more of a niche for collectors who like to make their own garments etc. The bjds that can fit into Barbie clothes can be seen around often enough but anything smaller not really also for that reason I guess.

All in all, I think it'll still take a while for tiny mature dolls to become more popular - but just as the bigger-sized bjds have shifted into that territory, probably some more will pop up in time as well. I assume if any of the more known companies start making something of the sort, we'll also start seeing more of them.

 

There are quite a few of them--they're just not widely talked about here on DoA, as they tend to be made by very small artists or have limited releases. Metis has made a few, for example (although they're not currently available--see both "small artist" and "limited release"...) Asleep Eidolon though has been releasing 1/12 scale versions of some of their sculpts lately. (Unfortunately, only as add-ons to the purchase of a bigger doll, so I've been safe from them so far...) And Granado makes 15cm versions of many of their boys, with 3 different bodies!

A lot of the mature 1/12 dolls are off-topic for this forum, too, because at that scale having inset eyes becomes really impractical or they're 3D printed in resin, rather than cast. (Etc.)