What did you think you would like vs what you actually like

I think for a short time in the beginning i was really considering a minifee, but went with a luts doll-- later on I did get my hands on a minifee mika but-- I was already so used to my boys big head that it kind of just turned me off of most "slim" bjds...Now I worry way too much about if my dolls are in close enough proportion to each other lmao

 

Instead of high concepts and fantasy sculpts, I discovered I'm much happier with regular, "boring" dolls named Steve. I could go into more detail, but this sums it up perfectly.

 

I first started with a boy SD, then realized I loved dressing girls more than boys, body shape and all that. Got a bunch of girls. Then realized I wanted a boy now that I was more than a decade into the hobby and missed having a boy. Turns out I like character dolls. So that's where I'm at now, a mix of fancy lasses and boys based on fictional characters.

 

I thought my first doll would be an anime-like one because a doll like that was the one that draw me to this hobby in the first place. I even had designed a character for her as my personal little helper in the way of a persocom in chobits. It never happened.
Also, I had a full novel universe about vampire gods and I was eager to shell them. Never happened either.
In the end, I have a family which is one half anthropomorphic animals and the other half realistic MSDs and a Yo-SD (one of them is not even my original character, a thing I swore I would never have xD).

 

I fell in love with the Lati Blue line and originally would have happily goten all those dolls if I could aford it. I did get one full Lati and a head to hybrid with a Luts body to get some variety. After that, though I have tried to keep it to just one doll per company, I like the diversity. I did make it so they all went together for the longest time. I liked the mature mini size and stuck to it...
Until I fell in love with mature tinies. I only have on on topic, a Maskcat Joy, but they are a nice little group in their own right. It's like a separate collcetion from the bigger dolls.

So my tastes have not so much changed as diversified.

 

When I first started, it was with dolls that sort of fell 'in-between' the anime and more realistic styles, with larger eyes and more obviously 'doll-like' features. Over time I realized I actually really prefer more realistic looking sculpts and proportions, and so I've been working on re-shelling characters lately. I also didn't think I would want boy dolls, and now I have two, lol.

 

I thought I'd mostly like the super innocent big eyed girls with their lolita dresses.

Don't get me wrong! My first, Hyacinth, is very much a super innocent big eyed girl!

It just turns out I like super pose-able dolls whose features slightly differ from that style even more. My atelier momoni girls and their green skin or crooked smile, my Frappzilla Lupi of unidentifiable gender, that kind of thing.

 

When I first got into the hobby, I thought I might be into minifees...and I'm honestly not. I own all of one and he is an angry elf because his legs hate me.

I also thought I would never be into realistic dolls...and I have 2 Sartoria J dolls on layaway.

I thought I would only have boys and now I have an almost equal number of girls haha.

 

When I first found the hobby as a teen, I had planned to get a 60cm boy, but the plans fell through and I forced myself to kinda forget the hobby. Then in college, I remembered these dolls and got back into it, but I decided to start with some MSDs instead as starter dolls. I've sold one full doll and have the other listed now, with plans for a mostly 60cm+ collection, though mature tinies also interest me a lot. I'm keeping on MSD head who was a gift and will get him a friend, but they'll be my only minis (I may try a big baby MSD, the MYOU ones are adorable and Dika Doll Dobbie is a cute little deer and I'm weak!).

I also thought, because of my overwhelming disappointment with the Barbie's of my era and constantly wanting more Ken dolls, that I would only ever have male dolls. But, I do have plans for girls and I do find myself thinking up outfits and faceup ideas for them.

 

When I first joined the hobby I thought I wanted big eyed, plain-ish girls. That's what I got, I wanted a more expensive barbie I guess, all modern clothes and Lolita dresses. I also didn't like any boy sculpts.

Now I have a Cyborg, demons, and a fairy. One of my girls looks like she's come from the apocalypse and my very tall boy look like he's from a fantasy show. None look the same at all, and I live it

 

I didn't see myself liking elf ears that much; now most of the dolls I want have elf ears. Heck, I even bought some just because it has elf ears.
Another one is larger dolls; I started with YOSD and smaller since I didn't really like having dolls larger than that at first, but I find myself liking my MSDs more. I'm also planning on getting some SD sized ones.

 

After twenty or so years of knowing about these types of dolls and actively purchasing some for a few years, I feel like I still like the same styles and have the same preferences. The only thing that changed was the dolls evolved. There is a bit more variety in styles. The bodies still remain the far stylized bodies that always were, and that will probably will never change, but there is a lot more facial styles to choose from and overall aesthetics as well. Anime dolls in the past for example, were limited to only Volks Dollfie Dream and there as a negative biased towards them. I have always preferred smaller actual true-to-scale 1:6 action figures, so I wanted a mature 30cm-ish doll, but those weren't a thing when I got into the hobby. There is still a very limited amount of mature tiny dolls (that actually look mature, and not baby-faced although that's the only style I own so far of mature-tiny, because I am really not going to get more resin dolls ever again! I did promise myself that, and I feel confident that I will.) I own more larger BJD but that was just all there was when it came to "mature" looking faces back in the dark ages, I will always prefer mature 30cm-ish dolls regardless of the materials or cost of the doll (although I do prefer other types of plastic, that aren't resin, soft-squishy plastics and/or silicone).

 

I thought I would never want anything but MSD, and now I only want SD unless it's a child to them. I thought I'd only want boys, but almost half my crew are girls. I thought I'd only want white skin, and I have everything from white to tan. I thought I'd want anime style, but really prefer a little more realistic. I wanted pretty femme boys, but now most of my boys are firmly masculine (even the pretty one). I no longer say I'd "never" or "always" want something.

 

I started with Volks and Dimdolls and rarely went outside of those, also girls only because I like sewing dresses for them. Once Dimdoll closed and Volks pumped out more then I could keep up with, I am into art dolls from two different makers, something I NEVER thought I'd buy into. I NEVER wanted boy dolls either and now I have three.

To answer the question directly, I NEVER thought I'd be into anime but Volks Nono is my favorite sculpt and I bought a Caron anime DDP from Volks and Mayu DD secondhand. Suddenly I like anime and NEVER thought I would.

 

I thought I would like mature MSD sized dolls and instead ended up liking the big 75cm boys!

 

Large-scale dolls with "fantasy-parts"... Not so much just sculpts with exotic ears or horns, but dolls with bits like hooves, dragon-claws, x-taur bodies or bird feet. When Soom and others first started producing large fantasy designs, I really thought I'd end up with a whole tribe of them just because they looked interesting to tinker with.

In truth? I only have a few large dolls who have those fantasy bits... A pair of hooved Heliots, a Chalco with Sphaler claws and a DollZone/Doll Chateau hybrid centaur. Plus a stray pair of Chalco hooves that no one is currently wearing, and that I may well never use. It turned out that the fantasy types took up a lot of space and were difficult to handle. I like the ones I have, but in the end I have no desire to add any more to the crew.

 

I’ve really wanted to bond with mature tinies since they’re so portable, affordable and diverse! But I’ve absolutely never bonded with a single one. Maybe Dollpamm Diva, but I have very specific reasons for liking her. I can’t get around how much I love the size, heft and majesty of SD sized dolls. And I also surprisingly love Lolita styles better than casual, which blows my mind

 

What a great question!
When I first got into dolls I thought I'd only ever want MSD sizes, but that quickly turned into me getting tired of what was available to me feature-wise with MSDs. The stories for my characters lean on the mature side, with dark themes, so I found myself looking at SD sizes nonstop because I felt they fit the energy of the characters better. I sold a lot of the MSDs I had and purchased SDs, which was shocking because I never thought I'd explore the varying sizes! I'm even interested in YOsds now and have looked at fantasy animal dolls.

I guess another thing would be the features of dolls. I think I lean more towards a realistic style or a stylized realistic, but when I first got into collecting I really loved that 'uwu' anime styling.

 

I was in my latter stages of collecting Pullip & Co. around the time I first started taking an interest in and collecting bjds. That probably affected what I believed I would be interested in when I got my first—and MSD who's facial features were pretty similar to a Pullip.

Fast forward several years—a hiatus, a loss of interest in collecting Pullip & Co, etc. Upon returning to the hobby after that break, I discovered my tastes had changed drastically. Out with that closer to Pullip stylistic appearance, out with the MSD size, out with the more kid-like sculpts. Instead they were replaced with an interest in shelling some OCs I'd been developing around that time—OCs that were older, had more mature features, and would need to be shelled in SD scale.

Since then I've mainly stuck with collecting SD/70cm+ (a couple of my boys just measure over 70cm, and one is on an IOS 80cm body), with a few rare exceptions. I do still have two MSD, but don't have an active interest in get more. Maybe if I find another Minifee Mika/Mir on a boy body to be my current one's planned twin, or an in-scale dude who could be buddies with my Lumedoll Atik? I have taken interest in smaller animal bjds on occasion—

But, as it stands—I'm a mostly exclusive to SD/70cm+ bjd collector with a stronger interest in realism and shelling characters over finding some cute MSD on a listing and buying it.

 

I think a lot of the changes for me came down to changing tastes - I started out wanting to collect 40+ cm dolls, mostly boys - I had a Lati Blue (because Latidoll was the first company I was introduced to) and a Luts KDF, then also a Soom Super Gem. They were also all supposed to be dolls of the characters I was drawing and writing. My story-telling preferences started shifting, and I started buying more girls, but still MSD-SD sized. I did have a few tinies and they were my favourite to dress and transport, though.

The two big shifts that came that were really unexpected I only really realized recently. The first one was that I walked into the hobby expecting to shell my characters, then outfit them with character and setting-appropriate clothes. Which would have been mostly grand sci-fi type things (think the opulent outfits from Star Wars 1 and 2), but... I couldn't find ANYTHING remotely like it, and I fell out of love with sewing so I couldn't make it myself. My dolls hung out in fantasy or modern clothes, which didn't suit their characters. I also collected cross-company because I was looking for the "best likeness" and none of them even looked good together. Recently, however, I realized that I DIDN'T want to shell characters. The dolls are still roughly based on the same character concept as the characters in my story, but they didn't need to be accurate or the same, and that opened up the freedom to admit that I actually just want dolls that look very doll-like and have lots of frills and cute, historical outfits and stuff.

The second realization was that I wanted dolls that looked good together, and that probably meant sticking to a few companies... and also that I didn't want a huge collection, but rather that I just wanted 3-4 (I have 1 now that I plan to keep).

 

I started with YOSDs but when I got my first MSD Big Baby, I just ! Turns out that I love the proportions but prefer a bigger size.

 

I though I will be a lot more interested in anime-like BJDs, like Dollfie Dream. While I still find them beautiful, I ended up leaning towards more realistic sculpts. I also didn't expect to prefer boy BJDs as much. I'm waiting for my 4th one and no girls lol None of the girl sculpts caught my eye just yet but I'm hoping that's not the case for too long. I really want to start shopping for more girl fashions too

 

I first fell in love with bjd when I saw Lati Yellow dolls but when I finally was ready to enter the hobby I felt yosd were a better value and through my search I found iplehouse. So I thought I’d be into realistic yosd size which I do like still but I realized I’m still stuck on Lati Yellow dolls, I have a few other 1/8 that I really love but the Lati get me every time.

 

What a cool topic It made me actually dig into my "other people's BJDs" photo folder I have on my laptop, where I store what it says there literally: other people's BJDs. The folder is from 10 to 8 years ago, from the first couple years in the hobby, when I was downloading the doll pics I liked for inspiration. Here's what I can find there:
+ lots of Soom and Lati tinies. *super-cute faces unlike any non-BJD dolls*
+ lots of hot emo/Goth boys. *usually similar to my IRL my crushes when I was turning 20*
+ volks f16, migidoll, switch and dollshe boys in contemporary casual and messy, short hair. *Fur wigs, fur wigs everywhere*
+ soom Dia... soom dia everywhere xD
+ one boy (LM Chloe) dressed as a girl
+ some curvy Iple women
+ some MNF Chloe's
+my first bjd crush - Crobi Lance.

What my collection's been over the years were girly girls, goth or girly boys, cute baby tinies, plump-faced MSDs. mix and match.

What my collection is currently: 4 SD13 girls and 2 SD boys (one is a petite, the other a classic SD guy). The style? 80% realism, hourglass figures and cute legs of the girls, and boys lacking muscle definition, Loving vintage or contemporary, elegant clothes

 

Personally thought I would prefer male dolls, but after some time in the hobby find more interest in clothing and accessory shopping for 1/4-scaled female dolls. At the moment I have two and may look into a similar size in the future, but I am surprised I haven't picked one up yet. Nothing has really called to me like I expected it to.

 

I love the stylized dolls that are more stylized and slightly moddled after or "inspired by" an animal- such as dust of dolls appi line, some of the 1/6&1/4 lillycat dolls. But when I get one, I can never bond with it because it doesnt really look human. It's hard to explain. I think i prefer closer to realistic in style. I do love elf ears though!

 

I used to have only SD dolls. My first BJD was a Volks SD Mark. I thought he was gorgeous but I couldn't work out a style or character for him. Keep having 1/3 dolls for years until I realised that they were too big for me. Moved to 1/6 (in fact, my SD Kun now is a YoSD Kun ) and 1/4 dolls and I cannot be happier.
Who knows? Maybe in a few years I'm back to 1/3 sizes again!

 

Id thought that I would love anime styled bjds. Well much too my surprise I’ve never really vibes with any it didn’t help that the original character I wanted to shell was a guy and well anime styled guys are basically non existent. So over the years I instead obsessed over tall beefy guys soom idealians and the regular soom fantasy guys and I shelled my oc into that instead.

 

Originally I thought I would love Smart Dolls, but I learned more about the company and their practices, and never bought a second one. I also thought that definitely I'd only be interested in vinyl dolls but I've been really getting into resin BJDs from both Volks and Fairyland lately.

 

I thought I would love the smallest of the small, micro dolls. But they turned out to be my least favorite because of how hard they are to string, find wigs for and even install eyes. I've found I prefer 1/6 to 1/4 sizes. I do have a 1/3 and she's lovely but a little too heavy.

 

1/3 beautiful girly boys lured me in. I tried to convince myself to like tinies, minis, girls, vinyl, but I'm afraid my heart has gone right back to 1/3 boys with a few exceptions of very cute 1/3 girls.

 

I thought I would like anime sculpts, nope. I thought I would like cute yosd’s, nope (and yet I keep buying them). I thought I would like fantasy sculpts, nope. I thought I would like SD size dolls, nope (although, I have taken a risk on buying two.)

 

I thought I’d like full set dolls with fantasy parts, like those from Ringdoll and Dollzone, because of how gorgeous the companies have done with their promotional photos.

However, when I got such a set, it ended up in a dark display cabinet after assembling him, and I didn’t really know what to do with the doll apart from opening up the cabinet and staring at the doll every once in a while.

However, when I got to know more friends in the hobby, I came to realise that purchasing nude dolls gave so much room for customisation. It was so cool to hear friends share about the concepts behind their dolls, the different personalities and styles of their dolls, and from there I started afresh, sourcing for things that could fit what I have in mind.

Rather than giving my dolls a story and specific personality, I found it more fun to dress my dolls up in different fashion styles, and it felt like I could project what I’d personally want to wear on myself (but can’t because I don’t look good) onto my dolls!

I’ve always had SD sized dolls, but when I bought an MSD sized doll off a friend, it really changed my perspective that big is better. Having a smaller is so much easier to carry around, and easier to dress too.

Overtime, I came to prefer MSDs over SDs!

I’d totally bring my MSD on solo trips so I can do some doll photography, and bring my SD dolls out for doll meets as most of my friends are 65-75cm doll owners.

 

Originally I prefered MSD size dolls. Then I got into SD size and I prefer them over the years.

 

I thought that'd I'd style my dolls to be decora/yami-kawaii like elfgutz (because their dolls are what initially exposed me to bjds back in 2014), but instead I started out by styling my dolls like regular people, then moving on to styling them like circus performers, and now I do mostly goth dolls, still with a few circus performers in the mix, and the very rare cutesy decora aesthetic.

 

Another rider on the "Only MSD" train. SDs were too big! There's no way I could ever own more than, say one.
Well, OK. Two actually fit together pretty nicely.
You know what, they should have friends.
...
These MSDs are too small. Is there an SD version?

Also - I swore I wanted only realistic mature female dolls. Doll Dreaming/Little Monica just sucked me into those sweet, big-eyed youthful faces.

 

I'm still very new but I've already discovered a few things!

What didn't turn out to be correct:

1/4 is too big for me! I thought I would like both 1/6 and 1/4
I thought I would like both resin and vinyl - I only like resin
I don't like normal or white skin tones

What I ended up being right on (so far):

I love anthro and anime style
1/6 size is perfect fit for me
I like shopping for doll clothes more than my clothes lol
Both boy and girl dolls - I want a mix!

 

Well in a way I think I like what I thought I would like, except that I like girl dolls more than I expected. I was drawn into the hobby by memories of a volks sd boy in a magazine and I liked the stylized, artistic face and that it was a boy. In my early years I experimented with different things, more realistic dolls and less, different styles and proportion, but 12 years later I'm close to back where I started: a preference for dolls with kind of large heads, stylized faces, big eyes, on the shorter, less thin and less muscular side of 1/3, just that I have both boys and girls.
I think my fashion preference has changed more than my taste in the dolls themselves as I move away from my original interest in mundane or subculture casual wear into something more retro, whimsical, fantasy inspired or something...

 

Same here! I don't know if I necessarily regret my 1/4 dolls, but I think I won't be adding any more to my collection. I have roughly equal numbers of 1/4th and 1/6 sculpts, and the ones I end up working on and making things for are all the 1/6ths so far. Kinda funny to think about this question specifically and self analyze!

 

I ended up not keeping my single 1/4 doll I bought to try out the size. So now I only have 1/6 size. I don't regret buying - I ended up just making myself pick some dolls to buy, because no other way for me to really find out for sure what I liked! I am glad you like them enough to keep what you do have at least.

This thread was very fun to read through, there's a lot of things I didn't think about~

 

Oh, what a fun thread. Let's see, I thought I'd like:

• 1/3+ dolls! Loved the sculpts and the aesthetics, but they're FAR too big for me.
• Elves, centaurs, high fantasy sorts of dolls. Not a hard no, but none of the ones I've gotten have really grabbed me so none have stuck around (except ones I'm having trouble reselling). Vampires on the other hand, just like I expected, I can't get enough.
• Similarly, fantasy resin colours! There are some really gorgeous ones but so far I guess they're not my style.
• Super intense faceups. They're how I got interested in the hobby initially, I love looking at them and I think they're awesome, but I seem to lean more toward natural looking faceups or simple makeup for my own dolls (like, basic lipstick and eyeliner for the ladies, but no intense eyeshadow for anyone so far).
• The typical big eyes, big head, very doll-like aesthetic. Again, I love looking at them, but in my hands they just don't bring as much joy as one that's proportioned more like a real person (maybe with some exaggerated features, sure, but not like the ones that I expected). These days even Iplehouse JIDs seem to have the "wrong" proportions for my aesthetic. Makes me very picky, but it'll save my wallet in the long run, I suppose.

Things I didn't expect to like, but do:

• 1/4 dolls. It's such a comfortable scale that I'm not sure how to describe it. (Y'all know though, we're all doll people here. It's comfortable :> )
• Mature minis specifically. Like I mentioned, I expected to really like the doll-like, mildly exaggerated proportions, but it's almost all mature minis for me these days.
• Unoas. Their stringing and eye system used to intimidate me a lot but I've found I really like it! They're not exactly mature minis, not exactly the very doll-like proportions, but they fit in with both and I love them.
• Different kinds of resin. It's nice to get to hold the sort of soft-feeling very smooth resin, but I really love LUTS' very toothy-feeling resin, and it seems to hold poses better due to increased friction. Unfortunately none of their sculpts have really caught my fancy lately.

This doesn't really fit in either list, but I also didn't expect to plan to have more than a few, yet my list keeps rounding out at about a dozen (though not all the same level of priority). Also didn't expect to want to make canon characters from media I like, rather than just my ocs, but hey. they're my favourites and I can't help it.

 

The major one for me was 1/3 males: I initially thought I'd like stylized, anime-esque boys. The first two boys I ever bought were Dream of Doll Lahoo and Volks Kohya, but through them I discovered that I absolutely didn't like that anime-type style. I ended up selling both of them.

It took me a while to figure out what kinds of males I'd like... not the more stylized types such as CP/Fairyland, Luts, Dream of Doll and Dollzone, but definitely not the highly realistic types such as Iplehouse, Impldoll and Granado, which were starting to become more common when I was still a newbie. I wanted something in between stylized and real, but couldn't really put a finger on what I wanted.

Then I discovered Dollstown. The DT boys all hit that sweet spot: an idealized kind of realism, but still a bit stylized and doll-like. The third boy I bought was Dollstown Mui - who is still with me and whom I love to bits. So Dollstown single-handedly shaped my taste in 1/3 males, and I've been using the Dollstown aesthetic and my Mui in particular, to compare any other boys I want to get. I've since been able to find a few doll makers whose boys fit my taste, which is great.

 

I can easily interact with dolls of SD and mini sizes (very mini, my smallest doll is 3 inches). But I don't understand at all how to play with MSD. Several times I bought beautiful dolls of this row, and I couldn't do anything with them

 

I seem to have gone in the other direction than other hobbyists.
I always thought I'd like the as-realistic-as-possible dolls but lately I've realized I tend to like more the ones with slightly more cartoony faces. I don't mean full anime-like but slightly more stylized and exaggerated face sculpts. Realistic ones are very cool but for my taste they seem too expressionless.

My first doll was 1/4 size and back then I though that's the scale for me but as it turns out I like bigger dolls. Maybe because they're easier to make clothes to and photograph. Posing is more pain but it's worth it.

Overall I think I've kinda always known what I like (except the realistic faces vs. stylized faces, that was a surprise) so it's been slow but smooth sailing with this hobby.

 

When I first started I only had anime styled dolls and tried to dress them super causal. I have since jumped into sophisticated/girly dress style and have no regrets. Dolls with nice big dresses are so beautiful

 

I love looking at more stylised dolls, so it's nice to read that from someone in this thread imo! (I think I only like the realistic ones so much because they're my characters and they already feel real to me.)

I've also recently fallen in love with a single vinyl anime doll (off-topic but relevant to this convo i think), and came up with a sort of mascot character for her, so it's definitely not that I don't like them! I just don't usually feel the need to have them on my shelf.

 

I thought I would like the girl dolls with big fancy dresses and pouty faces, but I really like the big male dolls with fancy outfits and pretty faces.

 

There seems to be no set style for me. Lately I have been wanting a Marmite Sue managerie. I thought I was finished with fashion dolls but I guess not.

 

I thought I liked the more eccentric and strange BJD or the more realistic ones. I've never liked large ones, so MSD is still preferred and Yosd second.

Now...I like anime dolls. I guess I'm still a weeb at heart in the end.

 

I really like looking at people's dolls when they are all elaborate goth, or candy sweet fairy kei type fashions. I thought when I would first start to dress my dolls, I would go all out with extreme fashion statements and make my dolls extremely bold and colourful.

I ended up putting them all in basic street fashion, and I like it. I like the casual looks of my dolls. I like that they look as if they are going to go for a stroll, or skateboarding, or just a hang at the park.

I still love to look at peoples elaborate dolls, it just doesn't feel right for my own dolls.

 

When I got into the hobby I really wanted my dolls to have a Living Dead Dolls vibe- gothic, irreverent, sometimes creepy or gory. Now I'm collecting cutesy anime dolls in pastel colors.

Honestly I've always been more attracted to cartoony styles, but I never really saw myself getting into anime. I am VERY picky about anime and I hate a lot of anime tropes... ESPECIALLY super cutesy "moe" anime tropes. But for some reason I don't mind it as much on dolls. I also underestimated how much stylistic potential anime sculpts actually have.

 

I thought I would like cute and strange fantasy-styled dolls... Which, I guess to an extent I still do and am fascinated by but turns out my style is mostly regular boring old men.

I also thought I preferred MSD sized dolls, as me, myself, is extremely short. Turns out that yes, MSDs are easier to handle and I do love the ones that I own but there's nothing quite like my 75+cm giants, even though they are super hard to move and pose and dress.

 

My style really hasn’t changed although I’ve collected a wide range of sizes and types to populate my imaginary fantasy world. From the very beginning I was drawn to the more stylized, big eyed, small mouth look. I want my dolls to look like dolls, and I resist letting too much of that pesky reality seep in. I did try a more realistic sculpt once because they were the hot thing…it turned out to be one of those “hate it, box it right back up, sell it within 24 hours” scenerios. And I never did that again.

 

One realization that has come with time is that DIY can get stressful and frustrating. Sometimes it's just nicer to pay someone else to do it. Also I used to think the bigger the better, but I'd never get another doll over 60cm.

Interestingly I think what I like has actually come full circle. The first bjd's I loved were Volks girls, but when I joined DoA back in the day I was heavily influenced by all the pouty modern emo boys circa 2009. I acquired one boy in particular under such circumstances that I never quite bonded with (though I'm trying to give him a second chance). After a many year hiatus, I realized that all I really want are big-eyed girls in frilly dresses.

 

ohhh my gosh I definitely feel the stress of DIY. I WANT to make all my dolls clothes but have yet to manage more than one single pair of pants, sigh. (Though I definitely want to do faceups for my not-girls; for some reason my girls get company faceups and it's great but the rest Need Something Else.)

(I've had a similar experience with sizes and "oh no wait that's not my style" too!)

 

I thought I would want realistic and elegant dolls.
Instead I've found I want anime dolls, and all the sculpts I want are generally more anime/cartoony.

I also thought I'd only go for SD/DD size, but I now have MSD and YoSD as well.

 

My first BJD love was a CP/Luts Dark Elf Soo. I was very into the conventionally pretty, huge-eyed girl dolls at the beginning, and I really wanted a big one. Now, even the mini size is almost too big for me- I love mature tinies, and I really love interestingly stylized bodies. Especially the pear-shaped sort with chunky legs. Still a fan of pretty girl dolls, but a somewhat less anime-inspired prettiness.

 

I think things have come in waves, in which decisions I made were bad/expensive! A lot of the downstream was funded by selling off the upstream decisions. It means I have had a lot of dolls come through my hands.

• I like MSDs! (Buys a bunch of DoD)
• I like SDs and slim minis! (Buys a bunch of CP delf and minifee/Narin)
• No more MSDs, let's go SD only! (Sells all MSD)
• More realism is where it's at! (Changes over collection)
• Maybe I'd like tiny size? (Buys a couple YOSD size)
• Nope, I like stylized SDs (Changes over collection again)

Some of this had to do with how things have developed or come available in the hobby over time. I wanted to try things out, and since I wasn't good at finding meets it was hard to imagine how I'd feel handling that kind of doll until it was in hand.

I absolutely have some regrets about selling some things, but I also think I made the best decisions I could in the moment.

 

I'm also in the "thought I'd love one size, actually love another" camp. I was drawn to bjds when looking at pictures of tinies - the smaller the better! But when I started seriously contemplating a purchase all my big wants are 1/4 mature minis.