Things you thought would be easy but actually WERE NOT, and vice versa.

I can draw, and I have basic knowledge of make-up so I thought I can do face-ups easily. I sorta can, with the blushing and the glossing.

But the painted eyelashes and eyebrows. Sweet merciful god I could not draw a decent pair to save my life.

 

^this. Sooo much this.

I still haven't mastered the details for faceups. So much harder than I thought! I see others that only need a few tries to become really good...for me it wasn't that way at all..and I have a long way to go!

Also, putting eyelashes in. It seems like such a simple thing. Cut them to size, place a line of glue on the inner upper lid of the eye hole, place eyelash in. But I have so much trouble with it. orz

On the flip side, restringing was easier than I thought. (for SD's and MSD's anyway) And I was worried I'd have trouble posing and standing dolls..but that, at least, has always been fairly easy for me.

 

I didn't realize how top heavy they can be. So it's harder for me to get Nick to stand than I thought it might be. I thought it would be easier to keep him clean than it is though. D8

 

I found restringing in general to be much easier than I'd expected, except in the case of certain dolls with such thin limbs that the bore-holes were impossibly narrow.
But face-ups, definitely more annoying than I'd thought they'd be.

 

I was seriously scared of restringing my Elfkin... easiest thing in the world. I thought restringing my boy Ariel (MSD) would be hard. Nope, easy, especially as he has actual s-hooks (Bobobie Elfkin tinies and Isabella YoSDs don't). My next thing I'm sure is ridiculously hard? Restringing Asura who is strung so tight I'm not sure I can put him back together if I take him apart for some much needed sueding. Sigh. xD

Harder than I expected... putting on complicated fullset clothing. Way, way harder than expected. Also, cleaning MSC / Purity Seal off heads and body parts, even with 90something% rubbing alcohol and magic erasers.

 

At first I thought it would be easy to put clothes on my dolls and after 7 years, I still struggle with pants and SHOES! >__<

I thought it would be hard to re-string and blush them but I actually love to do that! it's so easy!

Right now I think it will be hard to do face ups, I'm scare to start!! but I'll do it eventually and hopefully, I'll find it easy...*crosses fingers* =.=

 

Harder than expected:
~Faceups! An art degree does not equal instant success...
~wig making! My first yarn attempt was a disaster. Much better now!
~clothing! I was used to flat ragdolls, not 3-D resin, so I had to learn depth
~sculpting my own head- was a total disaster

Easier:
~restringing. I stalled for 2 years before getting the courage to try and it was really easy!
~eye openings - I thought would be some big huge thing requiring all sorts of tools...it was so easy!
~prop making. reading tutorials made me realize such detailed things are often very simple tricks

 

So far... things have been exactly as I expected. What I haven't tried so far is modding my dolls. I think it's not easy, but I've been told that it's very simple, so I guess I won't know till I try it.

 

Making clothes has been harder than I expected. A fun challenge, but not the cake-walk I was somehow expecting it to be.

One thing that's been so much easier than expected was integrating BJDs into my lifestyle and family. There was no awkward phase at all! Just opened the box and BOOM! Instant family member!

 

Sewing dresses. My ex-boyfriend who does not sew is all like "it's just a tube" and I'm like "NO IT'S NOOOOOOOOTTTTT."

Face-ups are hard like I thought they would be, but face-ups on paper white dolls is harder! Tan dolls are so much easier to do than paper white dolls.

Gluing in the eyelashes is hard too. I keep gluing them to my finger instead. >_<' I can't seem to poke them in place with tweezers, toothpicks, or q-tips so I always end up using my hand and then there's bits of glue on my hand and well... oTL


Restringing was a lot easier than I thought. I was a little scared a hand would go flying across the room or something.

 

Harder:
- Faceups: OMG, I royally suck at them. Like, I can not begin to explain how bad.
- Resin matching: I love hybrids, to the point that I'd overall prefer them to a full doll, but they can be some tricky lil suckers!
- Putting on shoes: Seriously some of these kiddos just flat refuse!
- Wig styling: Sweet merciful heavens!

Easier:
- Restringing: Harder when I don't have help, but overall not too bad.
- Body blushing: Still learning things like chest hair on the boys, but overall not too hard.
- Basic sewing: T-shirts, camisoles, skirts, etc.

About what I expected:
- Anything above very basic sewing
- Explaining them to the curious people who stop me to ask what that is I'm carrying around

 

Hmm.
I was afraid of restringing until I was forced to do it with my Bobobie March, who has those pesky tiny arms and tinier arm-holes. So after that all the restringing I've done was a breeze. SD size is particularly easy.

Faceups made me slightly nervous until I realized that my work as a professional face-painter and special effects make-up demonstrator came in handy. At this point I occasionally go on a rampage and start wiping my dolls so I can re-do their faces...

Honestly, though, I didn't really think anything would be too hard. I've been modding and repainting toys for many years, plus I create human-sized costumes and doll-sized fashions (ugh. SO glad to have moved on to BJD from Barbie-size.)

I realize that this isn't really the point of the post, but my advice to anyone who is intimidated by any part of the hobby is this:

No matter what you do, use the best tools that you can get.

Planning to mod the resin? Get a really good filtration mask.
Want to learn face-ups? Get the right sealant (plenty of threads out there on this subject) and start with pastels and watercolor pencils. The pencils can be as vibrant and dramatic as acrylics and are a lot easier to work with (and wipe if you make a mistake.)
Dead-set on acrylics? Invest in some good brushes, and look for the ones designed for miniatures painting.
Working up your courage to re-string that floppy doll? Get the right restringing elastic, and at least two pairs of bulldog clamps/hemostats. A narrow but long ribbon helps a lot, too.
Resetting eyes? Get the right putty, good tweezers, and an orange stick.

And best of all: If you're not sure, have a friend over and work together. I did my first face-up stuff on my own dolls during a get together with other doll folks.

 

Sewing, I learned to use a running stitch in kindergarten and taught my self automatically to whip stitch but finding the time and motivation for it is taxing! Plus, I'm not very good with pattern reading...so yea

 

face-ups.

i am a complete amateur and it's incredibly frustrating because i thought i would be immediately good at them. this might sound arrogant but i was studying illustration for quite a long time (doesnt mean i'm a good artist, i know, plus it was mostly digital painting & drawing projects whenever i had a choice about it) AND i am very good at applying my own make-up (i get a ton of complements on my make-up if i put the time and effort into it... even my dentist said i had amazing make-up skillz, lol!). normally i would not boast like this because i don't want to sound full of myself or build myself up to be something i'm not- anyway, it's quite the contrary, i was all pumped up because i felt "i'm going to be so pro at this" but apparently i just can't put my 2 existing skills together to make an even semi-satisfactory face up so far and i feel like a total failure.

i will keep practicing as i'm a stubborn perfectionist and it's my dream to be a pro at face-ups one day, i'd like to be able to face-up all my own dolls instead of relying on company faceups (even when those are espeially nice at times)

edit: oh, and for what i found weirdly easy? restringing! i hate it like a bitch but i restrung my first doll without ANY instruction or professional tools at all, using only my intuition and a macgyvered bunch of wire hooks and a pocket pen-knife to do it... and i managed this really quickly despite my fears about it. small consolation, i would rather be good at face-ups and have someone else restring my dolls, orz.

 

^ That. The time and motivation part. I've been sewing for years with patterns and all sorts of different things, so the actual sewing isn't the problem. The motivation? Much more difficult. Especially since most of our dolls are boys, and not interested in wearing simple things like skirts.

We found restringing to be quite easy, BUT- there's three of us in our house. Lots of hands to help, which makes a huge difference.

My newest obstacle is not just resin-matching, but body-size-matching. I always thought making doll hybrids would be easy (with the noted resin match issues). Finding bodies that work well with different sized heads is...drama.


Editnote: For the record, our favorite restringing tools are pipe cleaners, plastic Christmas ribbon (the thin kind), and capped/clicky pens as placeholders for hands/feet/heads. XD Can't ever seem to get my 'real' Volks restringing tool to work when I need it.

 

Cleaning my doll head. I looked at tutorial vids and it looked so easy.... and while it wasn't some crazy hard thing to do... it wasn't *as* easy.

 

I have to agree with the majority here and say face-ups were much harder than anticipated. I consider myself a decent artist, both digitally and traditionally, but painting on a 3D surface was something I had never really done before.

On the other hand, something that I first thought would be hard but find incredibly easy is clothes-making. I sew by hand (don't trust machines!!) so it takes a long time, but most of the clothes my resin kids wear were made by me. I've yet to attempt a pair of pants, though, so I may have to eat those words at some point in the future...

 

I thought faceups would be harder than they are for me... My first doll came in last month and I got to work straight away. I thought the faceup would turn out to be an abomination, but really there are only a couple things (including the entire body blush!) that I am dissatisfied with. Nothing major, but enough that I will wipe and spot-fix when things settle down, ha, ha.

 

Faceups turned out to be easier than I thought. I can turn my hand to most mediums to get a decent result, and though mine don't look airbrushy, I like what I've got and I keep improving the more I practice.

Painting over Apoxie to color match it.... AUGH. Way, WAY harder than I thought it would be.

 

Easier:
-Sewing, especially for Boobsy McBoobsalot my DDDy. Granted, I'm still learning a ton on every piece I do, but I had been half expecting to be swearing frequently while struggling with fabric pieces that don't make sense. Turns out that, while things like the grain of the fabric aren't the same, the basic principles of pattern drafting aren't that unlike unwrapping a 3DCG object. XD

-Preventing/removing stains. After making my decision to get a vinyl doll for my first, I was thinking she'd stain if I even looked at her funny. Between keeping zit cream on hand and testing all my fabrics with a spare hand before sewing, staining has been a fairly minor issue.

-Dressing the dolls. I'd seen a lot of people grouse about how long it took to put their dolls in their default outfits and how confusing the clothes could be, but I've never had any issue at all. (Maybe that's because of how guy-heavy the DD fandom tends to be? :/)

Harder:
-Faceups. I thought my past experience drawing and painting things would help. Nyope.

-Setting eyes in their sockets. I hate this part because of how long it takes me. I'll get one right, then tweak the other, bonk the first out of position, adjust that one, accidentally move the second. . .

-Photography. Granted, I'm using a lame little point-and-shoot, so I have to fight the autofocus *all* the time ("No, you stupid thing, I want you to focus on her face, not her cleavage!" comes up at least five times a shoot). But other things like lighting and continuity in stories I think I'd find tricky regardless. Thank god for whoever invented tripods!

 

Imagined difficult, but ended up easy:
- Hot glue sueding
- Restringing (except that one moment when I thought all hope was lost)
- Waiting two months for my second doll (I found things that kept me so preoccupied that I had to kind of get myself back into excitement mode when I realized my doll would arrive soon)
- Handling the dolls at all (I always thought they were super fragile, but they're not. They should be treated like a doll that costs a lot of money, but they can take more than glass could.)

Imagined easy, but ended up difficult:
- Aligning the eyes after changing them/the putty
- Sewing
- Face ups? (I haven't done one, but I've had my share of make up experience, so I figure things shouldn't go too bad... and I also have seen a lot of face up tutorials to see what I liked and didn't.)

 

Thought hard, but ended up being easy
Restringing!
Changing and positioning eyes (in general)
modding hands

Thought would be easy but is hard
Changing and positioning eyes on 14cm tinies
finding wigs for 14 cm tinies
photographing 14cm tinies

 

I recently also got my first doll and her eyelashes weren't glued on, they were stuck on with the eye putty. anyway, one eyelash fell off. I thought, okay ill just pull out the other eye and take off the other eyelash. First off the eye putty was stickier than I thought it would be so it took a lot of effort to get the eye out. Then, I had to put the eye back in and couldn't get it to align properly. It was harder than I thought.

Also, once I had a doll I thought it would be easier to resist buying another straight away but my fiancé is constantly trying to stop me from buying another one until after our engagement party and holiday we are going on.

 

Eyebrows and glossing on faceups. So hard for me!! !!

 

I thought faceups and making clothes would be easier...Boy did I get a wakeup call...

 

I thought posing them would be easy, but it turns out it's really hard to do, at least for me.

Re-stringing was actually much easier then I had been led to believe.

 

Restringing. One became floppy mess so she sits cross-legged all the time. The other one is two tight and I'm too weary to attempt to fix either of them. I have done several attempts but I can't seem to get them to be neither floppy or tight.
Eyebrows too. I can draw them, but on a curved surface, nope.

 

Easier
- Restringing, I've read enough horror stories to be very afraid of it. Luckily it turned out to be not-so-bad
- General care-taking, I thought I coulnd't take care of my dollie. I was wrong.
- Posing. Maybe my doll is just awesome? Anyway I thought this would be a problem

Harder
- Face ups. Tried it once... Now I happily pay for people who actually know what they do
- Photographs. I knew I sucke but this much?
- Putting eyes on their places. They always end up wonky. Whyyyy?
- Wig styling. This is much harder than you think! GUH!
- Finding inspiration to sew. I know how and I have fabric but I lack motivation.

 

I thought Face ups will be easy... they are not, soooo time consuming for such a small thing (proper 0/10 brush make a massive difference and good over all tools)
Not scratching the body blushing is sooo hard, never thought about it until I noticed how easy it is to damage blushing. Maybe im just careless...
I thought changing eyes will be a pain.. well it seems to be the easiest thing ever.. same thing with eye lashes, dont have any problems with it.

 

Harder:
-Face-ups. Oh God, I was so wrong about this!
-Blushing fantasy parts and removing the blushing. All those little cravices...
-Painting apoxy
-Inserting / adjusting eyes
-Modding teeth and ears
-Sewing (I was never taught how, had to teach myself)
-Curly wig maitenance
-Sculpting
-Wig making
-Photography
-Posing

Easier:
-Restringing. I hate it, but it was not as difficult as I had anticipated
-Styling wigs, especially fur wigs (toothbrush ftw!)
-Cleaning
-Dressing them up
-Collecting (I thought I couldn't spend this much money on them or buy as many as I have).

 

harder--

Faceup-- I'm an artist, had an airbrush and all the paints and brushes. I can manage the eyeliner and the lower lashes, even, if I'm lucky... But the eyebrows and lip-lines just kill me!

Changing clothes-- I'm probably forgetting how it was dressing dolls when I was a kid, but I thought it would be easier to dress and change bjds... It always seems to take ages (mostly to find the right items, shoes, socks), and putting everything on... in the right order... getting things over the head without totally scraping over the faceup and lashes... I don't know, but it's like a total work-out every time I do it!

Posing-- How hard can it be? Well... Apparently, it's something that doesn't come easily to me. I'll have to think about it, and move things around, and they can still look pretty awkward.

Photos-- I always thought I wasn't bad at taking photos, but... my photos are pretty mediocre... I can't seem to figure out depth of field and exposure and lighting... agh.

 

I was so afraid of restringing my first doll, I thought I'd mess up and break him or something. I finally did it when he was getting all floppy and...it was so easy. Took less than an hour and he was a perfect poser after that.

Clothes are very easy to put on, even though I never played with dolls as a child. I simplify everything by removing the head, easy peasy.

Styling wigs...eh, kinda easy, pain to fix if you mess up though.

Photographing...well, there is no photographing to speak of since I don't have a decent camera. Might get one soon, so we'll see.

I don't do face-ups, sew clothes or do modifications...call me a lazy person who prefers to pay others to do the job for me. Too busy with other things.

Hardest thing for me would be adjusting eyes. It took me ages to find eyes that actually look normal and don't gap. Posing them correctly inside the doll so it doesn't look ridiculous is also tricky.

 

I have a really, really, really hard time positioning eyes. It takes me forever to get them even. Most of the time I think it's okay, and then I take a step back and her gaze is lopsided. I definitely didn't think it would be as hard as it has continued to be for me. ;___; I don't even feel like I'm getting any better at it. >_>;

 

What i find really difficult is to create the perfect face up... Sometimes when you are trying to make it more perfect, you do one small thing wrong and the entire picture is ruined xd also stringing the doll is pretty hard

 

Things I thought would be easy but weren't:
*Restringing. I spent most of my adolescence making jewelry out of fine-gauge wire and thread, so I figured that restringing would be easy peasy. Wrong answer. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars, go directly to jail. I didn't even take Johnny apart all the way, and it was still a living nightmare.

Things I thought wouldn't be easy but were:
*Placing eyes. While doing research I heard over and over that placing eyes was hard to do. Some collectors even admitted that they hated placing eyes. I'll admit that placing eyes is a little on the tricky side, but it's not as hard as I thought it would be.
*Putting on wigs. I was afraid that my hands would slip and I'd wreck Johnny's faceup, but they didn't. Like eyes, wigs are a little tricky, but it's not a task I dread like restringing.

 

Harder than I thought ;
Sealing a face up with an airbrush and getting the right consistency of sealer to spray at the right psi without clogging up my airbrush or getting the face too wet.
Overcoming my own worst critic when it comes to painting tiny eyelashes and eyebrows.
Creating a character for my doll and getting everything ready before they arrive and they turn out to be completely different than what I planned.
Photography and lighting

Easier than I thought;
Restringing
Hot glue sueding
Eye placement
Making wigs
Making props
Sewing
Modifying

 

Just putting eyes in my dolls' heads with potty is hard for me! So once they're in there and set I don't change them EVER.

 

I recently painted a pocket fairy... such a headache. Faceups itself aren't so hard but on such a small head, even with my magnifying glass, took about half a day and I don't even consider it finished.

 

I'll say sewing is for me one of the most difficult things of the hobby. I've always been into crafting, like jewelry, art... but following patterns is not as easy as I thought it would be. I hope it's just a matter of time, but right now, patterns make almost no sense to me and I find really hard to figure out how I have to put all pieces together.

About sueding, it's a relief that I've read that some of you thought it was difficult but turned out easier. I've never done it and my girl definetely needs it to improve her poses. It scares me a little, but I hope it's easier than I think ^_^

 

I thought making an outfit would be easy, and i was very wrong hehe, i can't even get the size right with measuring. It is a nice challenge

 

I feel you! I tried to make jeans for my doll and since the cloth I used was very rigid, there was no way to make them fit well, so frustrating! >.< Now she's wearing a nice top and ..."panties" made out of a crap of cloth ¬¬' poor thing. I have to try it again.

 

Awww, we will get there though! You are right it is frustrating, but that will make it all the more satisfying when we make something awesome!!!

 

Harder

• Sewing outfits - So hard and time-consuming, but very rewarding. I have never sewn before so I guess I shouldn't be too harsh on myself!
• Buying pre-made clothes - seems very little fits the curves of an Iplehouse SID that isn't insanely expensive
• Placing eyes - it's not difficult but just takes longer than I imagined, plus that pesky S-hook gets in the way
• budgeting - I'm not going crazy with buying things but it still ads up very quickly!

Easier

• Getting to doll to stand - I thought this would be really hard considering the weight but I guess mine is just strung well
• General maintenance - I just use cotton gloves so I don't have to worry about making her dirty
• Putting on clothes - I thought this would be really tricky but with a large doll it is really easy

 

I was sure making clothes for them would be easy. I've been sewing for decades, and am fairly accomplished with it, but sewing at small-scale and for doll proportions has been a definite challenge! I'm getting there slowly but surely, but I'm certainly not used to it.

I also thought tinting white epoxy clay would be easy, but I've never succeeded at that!

On the flip side, I thought restringing would be really difficult, but I haven't had much trouble with that at all!

 

Easier
-Face ups: Drawing and painting are not my forte, to put it mildly, so I'm surprised how fun face ups are. I think it's because I went into it with such low expectations; I have no artistic training, and I can't draw a straight line with a ruler. I bought good supplies, but I honestly thought my face ups would look like something a blind toddler did with a blunt crayon. Instead, although not professional quality, my results are okay--nothing to be super embarrassed by--and I know I'll continue to improve over time.

Harder
-Sewing: I wasn't exactly expecting it to be easy, since my sewing skills are minimal, but I'm surprised just how hard this is.
-Eyelashes: Why is this so hard?? The eyelashes stick to my finger, the tweezers, the doll's cheek...everywhere except where they are supposed to be. The last time I attached some, it took over 20 minutes to do just one eye. When those lashes were in place, I heaved such a huge sigh of relief that I accidentally blew the lashes for the other eye off my work table never to be seen again. Since I didn't have any other lashes on hand, well, little Ylva sure looked special for a couple weeks.
-"Completing" a doll: It really takes me a long time to find the perfect wig, clothes, shoes, and everything else needed to complete a doll.
-Wait times: Wait times just kill me, and they make me want to shop, not only for items for the incoming doll, but for additional dolls, too. Waiting is harder to deal with than I thought it would be, and I haven't even had to wait all that long. I don't think I could stand to wait 6-9 months, though I know there are people who wait more than a year. I'd go nuts and probably buy 15 extra dolls.

 

I thought faceups would be easier, given all my experience drawing and painting, and the reborn dolls I've painted. Nope. Totally different. I can blush ok, but the eyebrows are insanely hard. I decided I'd rather send them out. My eyes and hands can't handle small detail work anyway.

I thought restringing would be hard. I was so scared. It was easy compared to what I was imagining.

 

Sewing clothes for sure. I've sewn quite a bit, I thought knew what I was doing and that it would be pretty easy. Yeah, not so much. I'm too scared to restring my doll or, heaven forbid, attempt a face up.

 

Sewing. I've been trying to make a pair of jean shorts for my girl all week and it just isn't happening. Starting to think I'll need to go with stretch denim or tights or something

 

I thought stringing/re-stringing a doll would be hard. Nope, not at all. On the other hand, placing eyes so that they don't look weird is much harder than I thought. That's why I prefer (re-)stringing a doll over changing its eyes. *gg*

 

same here! I tried too and it was impossible to make them fit >.< If you use stretch denim it'll be way easier, I guarantee!

 

For me, staging photostories was/is much harder than I expected. Of course, it doesn't help that I have some wonderful online friends who are really into dollhouse minis and photography and set the bar very, very high for amazing photos.

Faceups are easier than I expected for one reason - if you mess up, you just wipe it and start over. I make cloth dolls, too, and you have one shot at getting the face right or else you're making a new head.

 

Eye-mods! I got a a head second hand and it's eyewells are in need of repair. So, I thought, 'Oh well it just needs to be scraped out a little bit and sanded." I was wrong, I ended up taking too much of one side off, and i don't even want to touch the head right now until I can find someone who's a pro at Mods.

 

easier: face-ups

harder: making clothes

 

I'm with a lot of the others on faceups. As an artist I figured since I'm decent at drawing BJD faces already, I shouldn't have a problem. It was fun, but the entire process, which I wanted to complete in one day, took me six full hours from start to finish.

If I'm doing another, I'm going to have to organize my time a bit better. Much harder to do decently and efficiently than I initially imagined.

 

I thought restringing a Mirodoll npdy would be easy specially with the arms... but NOPE! It was once hell of frustrations.

When I tried my first faceup, I thought it would be easy as I've watched so many videos and I have a background on doing makeup on humans amd facepainting... but I was WRONG!

I thought getting a second doll was fast... I then realized my budget does NOT prove all the time.

 

I didn't think it would be too hard to make my own doll shoes but I find them to be so difficult that I just buy them instead. I've also tried making eyes with poor results, when I thought it would be easy. On the other hand, I thought it would be hard to make my own doll wigs, but it's not and actually a lot of fun!

 

Not gonna lie, I thought making clothes would be easy, and I was SO WRONG.

 

Harder than I thought :
Photography - aperture, f-stop, shutter speed?! is this even english?
Sewing - measurements. how do people do them
Wigs - when the colors right, the style isn't - when the style is right, the color isn't

Easier:
Making eyes - i was sure the proccess would be way more complicated but its pretty straight forward
Restringing - same as above
Face-ups - I've been doing drawing for years and the only difference is that in this case it's a 3D surface

 

I'm a cartoonist so I thought hey drawing a faceup should be easy. I looked at different tutorials to see what kind of materials I should get. I purchased all the material and started to draw the faceup and it was terrible. Only portion of the face that was correct was the lips.