That one turn-off

I have a lot of turnoffs, but the one currently bugging me is the thigh gap at the crotch of BJD bodies, mainly female bodies but also male ones. Some dolls have ... very wide thigh gaps, to the point I don't know how well they can sit/stand with their thighs closer together. I don't know whether this is a design thing for mobility thigh joints/peanuts or for posing, and I'm sure one can hide this under clothes. And maybe I've grown up with certain female behavioural etiquette drilled into me. But I find a big thigh gap quite unattractive and it turns me off from the rest of the doll.

 

I’m with you on that, specially of the legs are super thin.

 

There aren’t very many sculpting quirks that end up being dealbreakers unless the anatomy is straight up bad.

One that bothers me above all else though?

Necks too big for the head.

I’ve seen a lot of male dolls like this. Sometimes the head and body are both fantastic, but together they look awful. Usually happens when a company is using the same head sculpt on multiple sizes bodies. Heads should not be so small that you can see the rounded top part of the neck below the jawline.

 

To be fair people’s heads have less variety in size than bodies.

 

I like girls in the 70cm range but the stilt legs are getting ridiculous. Tibias longer than the whole upper body.

 

Yes! My Ringdoll Alice is like this. She just cannot sit very 'lady-like'. She's fine if her legs are out straight, and she stands great, but if I put her in a chair her knees open wide. I try crossing her ankles, or sitting her sideways a little off balance. It doesn't help. I always keep shorts as well as undies under her dresses, or she flashes the entire dolly crew.

There is also just the opposite one too. The knees will not open when the doll sits and it causes the sitting to look very awkward. Most people I know have a bit of a leg gap when the sit, they don't press their legs together from upper thigh to knee. It just looks very forced to me for some reason.

What I want is just a bit of a leg gap in sitting position. Not too wide with that 'hey look at me' gap, or not too clenched with the 'need to use the bathroom' pressed together.

 

Among my current Turn-Offs are the weird proportions and the general look of many male SD dolls. Overly long legs, slim waist, muscles, wide shoulders, thick neck, and then a tiny baby-faced head on top.

When it started going into that direction it looked still fine for a while, it had an artistic and appealing touch compared to the older dolls. But then then they overdid it. Bodies are getting bigger, legs are getting longer, shoulders are getting wider, heads are too small. Too much for me. ^^;

 

Like @lutke I love tall girl dolls, but from what my friends have been showing me from weibo, the tall pinhead girl is becoming a thing now

 

Extra un-utilized face space on a sculpt. It’s weird to explain, but some sculpts have this look like their features are just stamped onto a circle and I can’t describe it better than that, really, but it puts me off a sculpt because the doll’s face looks poorly planned. Like the person making the head didn’t scale it properly or something and the dolls end up with extra cheek or forehead space that looks weird to me.

Baby faces on mature bodies is uncanny valley for me sometimes too.

 

I usually like my dolls to have one or two features that I dislike, to add charm and character. If they are too perfect I tend to like them less, so I look for flaws in the dolls I pick. However, there are definitely certain features that are just a hard no from me. Main one is thickness. I'm all for body diversity and I love seeing stylized designs but I've learned I don't like handling dolls that are overall too big. I can do tall and lanky. I can do short and chubby. And anywhere in between is fine as well. But it's a physical thing. I had a doll that was 70cm and a real beef cake and omg was he beautiful but I really disliked handling him and ended up trading him with a friend (for a tall lanky boy xD). Now I know to stick to 70cm and under. I need to be able to hold them around the waist with one hand or it's just too much doll for me.

 

I get white skin so they look lifeless ahaha but I'd never choose it for a character that is meant to be living or in good health. At least not a human. I have my Dream Valley Apocalypse Horseman in White because I have plans to make a god from one of my stories out of his sculpt, but it's no human, that's for sure. I also got Baldwin IV in white skin but with a faceup, and he is also dying of leprosy sooooooo? I guess the lifeless checks out there too.

 

I have a lot of turn-offs, but my most prevalent one is limited articulation. I can't stand five points of articulation (head, shoulders, & hips only) because it makes the doll look stiff and robotic. I love full mobility that is similar to a real person because it makes the doll feel more alive in my opinion.

 

I've never cared much for manhua style BJDs, but since a lot of good clothes are coming from China and I shop on Taobao, etc., the oversaturation of same-faced dolls have become such an eyesore to me. My biggest turn-off? White skin dolls styled in white wigs and white clothes so they're pale as a sheet. They're supposed to be angelic and pure or whatever -- but all I see are ghosts or sickness. The only exception is Ringdoll's Baldwin IV where he's literally diseased and his dark fantasy styling is chef's kiss. Still too bishounen for my tastes though.

 

I've learnt my lesson about side profiles If I can't get 3 views of a head that isnt also including a side profile, then I'm not taking that risk. I had a grail of 10 years drop into immediate nope, bc I had never seen the side profile in all the owner photos I admired

 

I actually like smiling sculpts, but there's a particular type of smiling sculpts that gets super uncanny Valley for me that I absolutely cannot do. They usually have too much/weird teeth and exaggerated eye squint, but I'm not even sure how to describe where these things go from cute to way too much. It's one of those "I know it when I see it" things.

 

‘Dehydrated’ sculpts.. I’m like ‘please drink some water!’ We can have thin and muscular dolls without them looking like they have 0% moisture o.o

 

I've seen some of those dolls. Since they're also open mouthed, it looks like they're screaming.

 

Pure white skin. Not crazy about that. Giant thighs , large breasts with a child head just feels wrong

 

I don't like it when the dolls show off their tits wearing a see though blouse.

 

My turn off is when the head is too small for the body. This is why I´ll never buy a Metis doll, even though I love the faces.

 

Personally, faces where the doll has their tongue sticking out / they're licking their upper lip or teeth aren't for me. For example, IOS Infernale is a gorgeous sculpt, but inexplicably it just makes me a little nervous to look at.

 

I know I commented a while back with a few annoyances but it seems I forgot about the horror that is ‘spoon hands’.
Usually they’re also too thin when viewed side on, shapeless, out of proportion and sit too deep into the arm so they look like an empty glove or make you think about that part in Deadpool when his hand is growing back.

 

Pin-headed big boys. Seems lately the companies making big guys in the 75cm+ range aren't scaling up the size of the head to sit on these huge beefy bodies. They try to mask it with clothes, and clever photo angles... but when you see the full doll in photos - it's comical how pin headed they look. Turns me off to the whole doll!

 

Bodies with the joint across the hips!! I hate that hip joint with a burning passion because it seems to never be useful for anything except popping out awkwardly and catching clothing in it. I also like some pretty hip bones, and that joint just breaks up the beauty. I have several hybrids just because the default body has that joint. Sometimes, it's tolerable if the doll is shelling a modest character who would never show their hips, and it's engineered in a way that it never pops out and barely even moves. But that seems to rarely be the case. I love my Migidoll St Vicente, but I want to throw that Guy II body straight out the window most of the time! That joint will not stop trying to eat his pants! I have been unsuccessful in finding a different 65cm matching body so far, but the hunt will continue.

They're a turn off to me even in the carefully posed photos! But I've also never cared for any of the muscular boys, even in real life, the hunky men have never been attractive to me, so maybe I'm biased? Or maybe I'm just spiteful because I adore my 60-65cm skinny boys so much and it's getting harder and harder to get good clothes for them since these "pin-headed beefy boys" hit the scene.

 

It's wonderful how hobbyists are so diverse and have different requirements! I'm all in for that hip/waist joint in a 3-part torso because of posing and how much it contributes to body language and expressiveness. When I pose my dolls, their ability to their slouch, lounge, arch their backs, hunch forward, stand contrapposto, shift weight on their feet is really important to me. I've never met a waist joint that I couldn't work with - some of my dolls don't have good waist joints, but I'm always glad they have them at all.

Whereas a 2-part torso has turned into that one turn-off for me, especially if it's the cut it at the underbust/right under the pecs. It's definitely designed to show off a pretty midriff, but the posing is so very limited. Humans don't bend at the underbust anyway -- when that joint is engaged, the doll's posture always looks wacky to my eye. I have two dolls with only 2-part torso cut at the underbust, and I'm constantly wishing that they had 3-part torsos, or that their underbust joints were cut lower, say, at the midriff. Unlike other limbs, you can't add posability to a torso without doing major modding. So nowadays, I go out of my way to hybrid heads to 3-part torso bodies. I've sadly dismissed some bodies that would've been perfect -- but the 2-part torso cut at the underbust is the dealbreaker that outweighs all the upsides.

 

This is so funny to me because that's exactly the style I love most! It may not have as much poseability, but a pretty body matters to me more than posing. One of my girls has no torso joints at all, she's a single piece from top to bottom (Dreaming Doll 2014 Elva Girl Body A Type, just in case anybody wants one, or wants to avoid one!) and I love it. Yeah, it makes posing stiff sometimes, but the way it's sculpted and considering I use her as my "Barbie doll" character, I think it works in her case.

It sounds like you and I just need to trade all the bodies we hate to each other! haha!

 

It might just work out! Especially since I, too, adore skinny 60-65cm boys -- and share your frustration over their declining clothing service.

I actually quite like single-piece torsos without any jointing - I once had an old Ariadoll 14year girl with a very beautiful single-piece torso, and wasn't fussed about her lack of mobility. I suppose I'd rather have complete lack of jointing where the unbroken aesthetic is the point, or 3-part torso where the doll can do plenty of versatile poses.

 

Personally, I dislike dolls with expressions; I'm not sure why, but I prefer their faces to be neutral or have a smile. Also, I don't like ginormous dolls, my first ever bjd was 1/6, and I thought that was huge, but lol now I'm waiting for a 1/4 doll to come in

 

I can't get into the ultra-masculine and muscular male dolls. I need them to be a little soft/androgynous for me to like them.

 

Yeah, I myself have a hard time with dolls that have exaggerated facial expressions. While I do appreciate the craftsmanship of those dolls, I want my own to be versatile, darn it!

 

Top of my list. Pointy nipples. A little bit of something to stop the boobs looking full barbie, sure, fine, but if I have to make doll sized pasties to put on tiny nipples because otherwise they're going to show through all the clothes, I'm irritated. And yes, I could just sand them off but I am a weenie when it comes to modding and I shouldn't have too. It's especially annoying when the doll is otherwise small boobed, just because of the extra bulk needed to cover them up.

Runner up - elbows that don't have any side to side movement. They're usually double jointed so they can touch their face and things like that but they can't cross their arms inward or do jazz hands because all the rotation is in the shoulder.

Honourable mention - single jointed hips. Did not realise how much I needed double jointed hips until I got a doll with single jointed hips. Am I planning on replacing her hips and thighs with 3d printed ones so she can pose better? Absolutely.

 

Big hips and butt. It seems like every slim mini girl body has them now. Don't get me wrong, I find big hips on a pear shape very beautiful BUT they do not suit every doll character.
For example you can look for ethereal skinny dolls to fit an unworldly type character and you cannot find slim hips and butts to save your life. Their upper body will be slim and willowy but the bottom is an exaggerated pear shape. It drives me crazy. For some girl dolls I would like slim boyish hips.

 

The modern trend of male pin heads on bodies sculpted like doritos, with overly exaggerated shoulders. Yikes! When did that become a thing?

 

@QuietYurei Ha I have similar gripes with the new fuller bodies having thick thighs but sticks for shins. Maskcat 62 is pretty much the only body I've seen of that type with sensible proportions IMO. Also DDD Marionettes!

 

Agreed with the pinhead giant dorito boys and giant hips on slim girls.

I can deal with a bit of dorito torso in 70+ boys if the body poses well, but the head has to be closer to ID75 size than 7-8.
70+ boys also seem to be getting slimmer at the waist and legs – my ID75 looks very thick-thighed and thick-torsoed next to a Dollzone Thin Muscle 75 (it cracked me up at a recent meet when a friend said "where are his organs? In his pecs?")

Likewise, I'm fine with curvy girl bodies having large hips (I've seen 2D Doll's 68 girl in person and she's beautiful), but a slim body with a giant backside is a bit jarring, especially if you're trying to sew pants!
Large hips/buttocks also affect a doll's balance, which can lead to a permanent case of "chest and booty out" pose when standing, and it's not just the girls who have large buttocks and chests now...

I love tall girls, but my pet peeve is what I call "greyhound legs": a lot of 65+ girls seem to have spindly stretched out legs to give them the extra height instead of the legs and torso being remodelled to be more proportionate. The calves end up longer than the thighs, and where the natural ankle would sit is also stretched out in a kind of uncanny way.