What were your "gateway" dolls?

Blythes and Living Dead Dolls for me. I used to also collect Hot Toys, Tonner and Sideshow dolls as well as Disney LE and Designer Dolls. But BJDs are by far the ones I love the most

 

My gateway dolls were Azone PureNeemos! ^__^

I've found their Character Dolls through my Anime figure collecting hobby and subsequently fell in love with their adorable original characters! From there it was only a small step to larger animetic dolls such as Azone's own 1/3 size line and Volks' Dollfie Dreams. Once I learned about Volks I got to know Super Dollfies which ultimately opened my world to other ABJDs!

Those days of getting to know the BJD hobby and discovering more and more companies and sculpts and styles were such a rollercoaster ride ♡

 

Just Barbie, I suppose. During my hiatus from BJDs I tried getting into Monster High, but the quality just wasn't there and was continually getting worse as Mattel realized they weren't bringing in the money like before, and all the scalpers turned me off.

 

My doll hobby started with vintage and antique repro dolls, some of which were jointed, like Candy Fashion from the late 50's. Then I discovered Liv by Spinmaster and loved how they could pose, and their size was perfect for props and dioramas. My username on forums became Livdollcity and that never changed, even though I no longer own any Liv dolls. Then I moved on to Tonner Ellowyne, and I'm still a big fan and have a few in my collection. While looking at dolls on eBay, I came across Elfdoll Dami and had to have her. Once I held her in my hands, I was hooked, and the lady who sold her to me became a good friend, now of several years. Since then, I've collected 4 Elfdoll Lovelies and many others, and have fallen hopelessly in love with Volks.

 

It started as a kid with Barbies and anime figures until I came across Foolbot/Plastic Moon's Mr. Kitty on DeviantArt, followed by pictures of other dolls. I bought three Hujoo dolls (two Wings and a Berry) and fell in love with jointed dolls when I was 13. I spent a lot of time looking at different dolls and looking at company pages, dreaming about having my own large resin doll. At either 14 or 15 my mom bought me my first resin doll from Resinsoul after falling in love with Ringdolls that were far too expensive haha. Now 12 years later I'm finally getting a Ringdoll Don that I've always wanted and am keenly watching the second hand market for the other dolls I wanted so badly when I was younger and still want to this day. It's a shame the two I really want are incredibly limited and the third one has been recasted into oblivion which makes second hand shopping so much harder.

 

I played with Barbies as a child, then Bratz and Whatsherface dolls as a tween. I absolutely LOVED Whatsherface dolls and honestly? Whatsherface dolls to BJDs are such an obvious and natural progression from youth to adulthood when it comes to art dolls if you ask me. You drew on their face, changed their wig, changed their outfits, and collected their friends. Sound familiar?

 

Oh man I forgot about Whatsherface!! I loved that doll!

 

My gateway dolls were the Living Dead Dolls. I still have several of them on my shelf. LDD Wolfgang was always my favorite but I also loved the little satanist whose name I cant remember now.

 

I didn't buy any dolls between childhood and getting my first BJD. I also have no interest in related things like collectible figurines or most toys.

I suppose you could say American Girl dolls were kind of my gateway. I know three or four people online who either collect dolls or have let themselves get some nice ones as adults, and one of them let me play with her AG dolls. Neither of us are American so it wasn't something we grew up knowing about/wanting, but I loved the characters and all the gorgeous outfits. I was very tempted by Kaya and Luciana, the astronaut doll of the year. If AG had stores here, I might have got one.

However, I kind of fell down the doll rabbit hole online and ended up on a French forum where I saw Meadowdolls Saffi (the 18" version, so around AG size) for the first time. I was smitten. I had to track down this doll. I didn't know what BJDs were and at first I found all the joints a bit weird looking, and I about fell off my chair when I discovered what they cost. But the posability and gorgeous face ups ... ! After that, I couldn't settle for anything as wooden as an AG doll.

 

I think it was actually the other way around for me. I got a BJD and then got interested in monster high and now made to move barbies

 

My mother set me up for an interest in dolls before I was born! She bought a late 90s Christmas set of barbie and her sisters in green dresses that came with a musical staircase. She gave it to me as soon as I was old enough. Ive always had as many barbies as I could fit in my room. I also played with a lot of Bratz dolls back as a kid. When I was an early teen Monster High and Ever After High dolls became popular and I started buying them to collect rather than play with. I also have a collection of ~10 nendoroids from my anime phase. At around 14 I discovered resin BJDs and decided I wanted some of those as well.

I almost don't really have a gateway doll since I've loved dolls since I was a toddler!

 

OMG me too Obvously, as I kid I played with barbies too. But now, 8th year in the hobby, I've had barbies for 4 years, since I learnt about the Made to Move ones

Do you hybridise the MtMs or keep them original?

 

The doll hobby began in my teenage years with Monster High. They were fun, oddball things and I was completely enamored! A few years down the line that translated into a fondness for Doll Chateau upon finding pictures of them and the rest was history.

I still have two MH around after all these years, my original doll that I customized (and recently went and redid) and an old Frankie. I have so many fond memories of them.

 

I think after getting an azone doll I decided i would finally get a bjd

 

I liked dolls as a kid but for me as an adult it was first Pullip (for only a fraction of a second), then Blythe (which I was interested in learning how to customize), which led me to BJDs. I think I became extremely interested after I joined this forum which was around the time I got my first Blythe dolls.

 

Blythe, the customization aspect got me interested in BJDs. Unfortunately as a newbie to the doll hobby I didn't realize the two (still relatively expensive in my newbie eyes) Blythes were factory Blythes until well after the fact. So I didn't want to make the same mistake and did a tonne of research before investing in my first BJD

 

My friends back in highschool (many many years ago) had Custom House bjd, which was my first exposure to the hobby. I had begun to save up for a Dollfie Dream at that time as their aesthetic was more pleasing to my weebish little heart. Unfortunately college expenses put that plan on hold indefinitely and bjd slipped from the forefront of my mind until I found a Jun Planning AIBJD by complete chance in a Tuesday Morning several years ago. I bought her on a whim and started looking back into BJD again. It had been a good 10 years at this point since I last really thought about purchasing dolls, and I was absolutely shocked at how many companies had both come and gone in that time, and the incredible changes that had affected the BJD community. I found a brick-and-mortar doll resale shop in a relative proximity to my residence, and planned a trip to visit so I could see and possibly handle a variety of dolls to get a better idea of what I was looking for. On screen I had like DollChateau and LUTS, but when I went in person I ended up falling head-over-heels in love with an MSD Lillycat. I think that was probably the point of no return for me.

 

My gateway doll was a Pullip Merl Nostalgia that I bought at a local convention. I knew of BJDs before, bu that was the first "expensive" doll that I ever bought and that let me get to the point in which it felt ok to shell out the money for a resin doll.

 

No gateway here. Dolls have been a big part of my life since birth. My mom collects antique dolls, the have always been around. I remember looking at doll magazines with her when I was a kid. I have the doll magazine she took with her to the hospital when I was born. She always had a subscription. First bjd I ever saw was in a magazine.

 

I always have been collecting dolls somehow, few years ago I was really into collecting nendoroids and figmas, then recently I got an Azone Iris Collect.

 

Like a bunch of others, I wasn't into dolls when I was a kid. Actually I outright hated them ^^; but the only thing available was baby doll things, and barbie and barbie-like things. I played with sylvanian families and fabuland a lot when I was small.

Then I got into Blythe. I don't know why, but something about her was instantly appealing. My first couple of Blythes were Asian Butterfly, and Kozy Kape inspired... Which shows how super long ago it was!

I also have a small collection of nendoroids, but I didn't start collecting them until after I got into bjds. I have some Ddung dolls too (I had to get the red riding hood set, because I am very into that). And I got way too many amiibos because I have a problem XD

 

As a kid I've liked and owned a few dolls from Barbie, She-Ra and My Little Pony.

As an adult I've started to collect Monster High and Ever After High dolls.
Someday I decided to finally buy some Pullip and Taeyang dolls.
They started it all that I would get back my interest in BJD, again.
Because for a very looooooooooooooooong time I wanted to have a BJD, but I always had no money left for that.
Now it has come the time to give it another try.

By the way I still have all of my dolls mentioned above.

 

We had lots of Barbies growing up. They were shared between 4 sisters so obviously hair and clothes got a bit very messed up. My favorites were definitely Mulan and Megara and I kept them in pretty good shape with decent success (until my sister threw up on Meg ).

The first dolls I truly collected were My Scene Nolee dolls (I have three of her).
Maybe because she was Asian too? Idk I thought she was cool.

I sort of put down dolls from Jr. High up until I found BJDs in 2015.
But I've always had my fav dolls and collector dolls displayed in my room haha.

 

My gateway dolls we’re Smartdolls. I ended up with 4 of them before I moved onto resin. I still love smart doll but have no plans on getting anymore. There is just something substantial and otherworldly about resin dolls that I can’t get enough of now!

 

I loved Barbies as a kid, but Monster High Dolls are what got me into BJDs. I loved the gorgeous custom faceups, and I noticed that a lot of MH faceup artists also did BJDs.

 

I fell in love with BJDs in 2015-2016 but just coming out of college at the time and looking for full time work, it wasn't in the cards for me to jump into the hobby. I collected customized Blythe dolls and Pullips for a short time. They didn't quite satisfy my need for a BJD but were fun nonetheless. Once I got my big girl job and saved up, I finally was able to join the hobby!

Since then, I have taken to liking all kinds of articulated dolls. Even the new toy line Rainbow High dolls from MGA Toys. But, nothing (for me) compares to a resin BJD. It is my ultimate doll when it comes to articulated doll figures.

 

I really liked posable anime figures when I was in middle school, primarily Figmas. The changeability and the posing was super cool; I'd set up little concerts for my Vocaloid figures......similar product ads and character types were when I first learned about them. I never got into the anime-eyed BJDs however, oddly enough.

 

For me it was Nendoroids! I collect nendoroids and now recently they’re releasing nendoroid dolls which I find quite interesting

 

The first dolls I actively sought out were the teen Skippers of the 90s that had the Takara like faces with the big eyes. It helped they looked like Sailor Moon characters. Then I discovered the Volks and Obistu 1/6.

 

MH and EAH dolls are what started me down this path.

 

I actually wasn’t much into dolls growing up, but I eventually started to collect some porcelain dolls I found at Goodwill, and also began to admire my Grandmother’s Madam Alexander’s (their dresses are gorgeous!) Eventually, I discovered doll repaints and one of my favorite repainters reviewed a BJD. I knew then and there I wanted a BJD one day, and low I have one!

 

Delilah Noir by Ashton Drake who very much resembles one of Narin Narae's incarnations. She let me to resin BJD's and I fell in love with the whole customization thing...

 

I started randomly collecting My Little Ponies as an adult, because I had a deep love for G1 ponies as a kid, and the nostalgia when I saw G3 ponies on shelves dragged me in. This led me to search for information online, and I discovered MLP Arena, a forum dedicated to collecting them. On that forum was a subsection about dolls, where I discovered Monster High Dolls, and started collecting them. They were just becoming very popular then (late 2011.) A forum called MH Arena was started as an offshoot all about dolls, but mainly Monster High. This led to my obsession with Ever After High dolls, and then eventually Pullip family dolls, from others on that forum collecting them. Late 2016, I discovered Pullip Make It Own kits were a thing, and decided to try my hand at customizing a doll for the first time. I was also getting into watching YouTube regularly, so decided to search for tutorials on customizing dolls, and after a series of new recommended videos, ended up on Swandzz’s YouTube channel, where I really discovered BJDs. I knew they existed prior to this, but had never looked into them, because I couldn’t fathom paying that much for a doll at the time, so I didn’t really research them much. Sarah’s videos taught me so much, though, and truly got me interested in BJDs and the hobby/community, and it was actually her who gifted me my very first BJD after the most horrible event of my life.

 

Oh hey, someone else from the MLP and MH arenas!

I tried a Pullip Make It Own, but it didn't grab me as much as I'd hoped. So then I got a Jun Planning Ai, and fell in love with the pocket-sized cutie! That was when I knew I had to have a resin-baby of my very own. Still hoping for a Pukifee or Pukipuki Pong Pong to come along when I have the spare $$.

 

For me it was the Pullip Dolls, Blythe and Monster High Dolls. I always wanted a BJD before even knowing that Pullips existed but they definitely helped me get through. I still have my Pullips and Blythe.

 

For me, it was Tonner and Wilde Imagination dolls, specifically Tonner's Deja-vu line and Wilde Imagination's Ellowyne Wilde line. I'd gone through a few on and off phases of playing with Barbies as a kid, but it never lasted and I normally preferred drawing and digging around in the garden for insects. Then I discovered I loved to sew, but I found 1/6 clothes fiddly. Also, I was frustrated by the lack of articulation in my old Barbies, and I didn't like their shallow, plasticky, fashion model aesthetic - and I was a teenager by this time, so the idea of so much as touching a Barbie embarrassed me! I collected Living Dead Dolls for a while when I was going through my Dark and Edgy Phase, but again the appeal wore off because of their limited articulation. So I moved on and did other things for a few years.

Enter Tonner's dolls. Admittedly I'd already been interested in BJDs before I discovered Robert Tonner's work, but when I did it really appealed to me because not only were his sculpts and outfit designs utterly beautiful, the price bracket was also lower, which was great for someone like me, who had with other hobbies as well! This was also what sealed my love for 1/4 size dolls. I find them easier to sew for without being intimidatingly big.

Unfortunately Tonner's dolls were also much harder to get hold of in Europe, and I'd only managed to get a couple before he decided to wind down the Tonner Doll and Wilde Imagination companies. I was not a happy bunny, and after looking for alternatives I just thought, "Well. Better take the plunge and get into resin then." It took me a few years of havering over budgeting my hobbies and deciding which sculpts I liked, but here I am.

 

My gateway doll was American Girl-- I used to have 14 of them! But since then I gave away most of them and only have 5. I wasn't playing with them and thought some kids would love them more than I did. That being said, I kept the ones I really played with: a Just Like Me (back when it was still Pleasant Company), Felicity, Elizabeth, Nellie, and Kirsten.

 

Hmm, growing up my grandmothers neighbor made porcelain dolls. She had ovens in her basement, and her upstairs was full of fabrics and sewing stuff. Every year on my birthday and Christmas I got a doll from her. I didn't like them, mainly because I wasn't allowed to play with them. They got floppy over the years and needed restringing, which I was not about to tackle, so I brought them to the artist for her to do and she ended up dying so I didn't get the dolls back. Which I was upset she was gone, but I didn't really miss the dolls other than that she made them.
I think the first proper bjd I bought was Graveside Flowers from Wilde Imagination. I was afraid to mess with her, she was kind of kicky and was yellowing. I didn't really know anything about BJDs other than buying the ones I really loved seemed so technical and scary! I started trying to learn whatever I could and ended up making myself paranoid because I was reading how they get loose and change colors and break easily. So I sold her and swore never again.
I think growing up with dolls I wasn't allowed to touch didn't help in my paranoia. I love the dolls I have, and they are my favorites out of the many types of dolls I have collected.
BUT, I am not sure which doll was my gateway? I can name which dolls I had that pushed me along, but not sure which was the very first. The porcelain dolls may not be considered "proper" BJDs, but they were strung, had inset eyes, etc., then there was Graveside Flowers, then I got an Iplehouse Dexter, after that I got a Pukifee and a few Lati yellows because Dexter was so big and overwhelming I figured maybe tiny ones would be better, but while they were cute they were too tiny...then I got My Meadow dumplings, THEY were fun and perfect size and that is when I realized resin wasn't so scary. I wanted more of an "older" type doll and I always loved fashion dolls and had many types as well so I went in between with Atelier Momoni. Now I have a Minifee coming, and a Tender Creation doll.
So I am thinking that My Meadow would be my actual gateway doll, as they were the ones I got that I actually played around with posing and started to relax on the paranoia about resin dolls.

 

Helen Kish, I got into Riley and friends who were 7” articulated dolls and then Ellery who is about 5 1/2” and made of resin. The articulation drew me but the resin one made even more of an impact, the detail and weight of such a tiny doll has me intrigued.

 

Monster High, Monster High, Monster High! I still love all of mine!

 

Pullip Dolls!

 

I've been interested in jointed dolls since I got my first one for Christmas in 1958. Did you know there were jointed dolls that long ago? My doll, Michelle, was a 20" Dollikin and I she had a large wardrobe. When I went to college my mother gave her away, but when eBay was first starting up (back in the days before categories - when it was just one long list of assorted stuff) I tracked down a replacement. Next thing you know, I had 13 of them. Over the years I managed to reduce that to 2 and THEN I discovered BJDs. Here we go again! Here is a picture of Sussette and Michelle. Dollikins by Victoria Davis, on Flickr

 

my first Anime doll, TOYNAMI's 2001 "Tenchi Muyo!" Princess Ayeka, the doll that inspired me to learn how to hand sew
and get into collecting/customizing Anime dolls;







my first step beyond her, in 2008; TSUKUDA HOBBY's Full Action Doll Series "Mamotte Shugogetten" Shaorin;






my OBITSU BODY 26-based girls today;

 

Mmm. I had barbies that I was not allowed to modify as a child, so of course fashion doll customizing was fascinating to me as an adult. When eBay first began to boom, I recreated my favorite childhood barbies with my favorite outfits.. those were my first dolls as an adult. I also obsessively designed soft dolls and clothes for them as a kid, stitched a few. Volks fashion doll blanks led me to Volks resin, and it was a swift downhill roll into indulgence from there I also have a thing for Tonners.

 

i had a couple of nieces i hung around when i was a kid who had average Barbie collections,
and a little sister that had several, but never really played with them.

by the time i got into Anime dolls in the early-2000's, however, the only real use Barbie was to me
was for modifying their fashions to fit my TOYNAMI Tenchi Muyo! Princess Ayeka.

everyone's got to get started somewhere, and, for me, it was with an old Barbie wedding dress found at a thrift shop;

 

I never really liked dolls when I was a kid, with the exception of the American Girls Addy doll. I never thought about this, but I think that definitely set the bar in my head for realistic outfits!

 

Monster High! I wasn't super into dolls as a kid, but my young cousin got into Monster High dolls pretty shortly after their creation. I really fell in love with their poseability and offbeat fashion, and wished I had dolls like that when I was young. From there it was a jump from collecting, to customizing, to discovering BJDs.

 

Collecting antique porcelain dolls was what got me into researching other types and now i collect a little bit of everything!

 

A friend of mine was the first introduction to BJDs. They knew someone who had one back on the early to mid 2000's. The speedrun that ends with me owning dolls now, started oddly enough with buying a few Gen 1 My Little Ponies for the nostalgia. Then finding out about customizing after searching for how to fix up the ponies in rougher shape to seeing videos of people customizing Monster High dolls. Then seeing resin Ball Jointed Dolls in some of the videos and going, "Ooo what are those!"

 

I went the other direction, myself. I didn't like dolls growing up, didn't like them when I was older, but loved the idea of using them as a 3D canvas for character creation, which BJDs are literally made for, so I just dove straight in there, and have since picked up some various other playline-type dolls, and recently a Nendoroid too, probably all stuff I never would have even really looked at unless I'd gotten into BJDs.

 

I started off with porcelain dolls and Barbie dolls. My family on both my mom's side and my dad's side collected porcelain dolls and other collectibles so it was in my genes. The porcelain dolls that I liked the most were the more realistic ones that had more well made outfits, face-ups, and all that. I just hated the fact that if we didn't packaged them the right way whenever we moved, they broke apart. With Barbies, it was always the search for one that looked more like me (I'm Filipino-American mixed with Spanish and French). Then I got like a high end Marilyn Monroe doll and a Scarlett O'Hara doll which lead me to searching through the high end/collector's market (always admired Tonner dolls) but couldn't really afford most of them at the time and relied on birthday and Christmas gifts or saving up for a long time. Of course, having a little brother, I also enjoyed "having" original GI Joe, original He-man, old school Voltron, and the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures. Those were fun playtime memories with my brother. Then when the original Star Wars trilogy was rereleased, I started using my funds on their more expensive action figures that were about Barbie size as I loved the details in them.

One day in like 2005/2006, I found Haute Doll magazine at Barnes & Nobles with a truly Asian/Pacific Islander looking doll on the cover and my world opened up to BJDs. The magazine no longer publishes anymore but I get nostalgic thinking of how much it introduced me to ABJD ranging from hyper-realistic to anime-ish. I'm now collecting Nendoroid with my husband and looking at other BJD like dolls/figurines which is fun as I feel the doll/figurine technology has gotten so much better over the years.

 

my mom raised me rather unconventionally, for a boy.

early on, in the mid-1980's, -i was around 4 to 5 at the time- mom got me plush dolls, My Little Ponies and the like.

i recall especially the COLECO YOUNG ASTRONAUTS Cabbage Patch Kids Astronaut girl,
and the Rainbow Brite "Patty O' Green" i had then.

with all of that thrust upon me at such an early, impressionable age,
i suppose that a future fixation with Anime character-themed dolls 30 years on was surely a foregone conclusion indeed...

 

My gateway dolls were definitely American Girl dolls. I had a big interest in them in elementary school. My parents let me use a vhs tape camera to film my doll videos and stories with, I don’t have the footage anymore.

I wanted to see if other people made doll videos and eventually I found Americangirlstar1 on YouTube. Through her videos, she introduced me to pullips, and eventually BJDs. I don’t think she’s been interested in the hobby for quite some time now, though.

I don’t have any of my original pullips or American Girls, except for my first AG Nellie.
My mom got rid of my other 5 AG dolls when I moved out, and I sold my pullips when I got into BJDs.

 

My gateway dolls weren't even dolls at all but My Little Ponies. I had a lot of dolls over the years but somewhat gave up on collecting them as I grew up though pony collecting continued on.
As an adult I was still adding to my childhood collection of ponies, and through pony websites I started learning about new dolls and I believe my gateway doll as an adult collector was Blythe dolls with this girl.

And from there it was a slippery slope into doll collecting.

 

as mentioned above, original, mid-80's MLPs were among the first toy lines my mom bought for me.
i must have had 15 of them or more, hard to recall exactly. i do recall Applejack being my favorite.

today, while i'm not really a fan in any true capacity, i do like modern MLP's Fluttershy,
so much so, even, that i spent $20 some years back on a mini figure gift set
so my 1/6 Anime girls could have a well-scaled doll of her;

 

Barbie - specifically, Signature Barbies (the collector versions), because they helped me get past the "dolls cost $20" mindset.

When the Fashionistas came out, I had to have all of the curvy dolls, which sometimes necessitated buying second hand. As an official Old (tm), I was both highly amused and astonished that dolls I played with as a kid were selling for so much.

A BJD popped up in my search results one day, and I just fell in love with their beauty.

And it's all gone downhill from there...

 

I liked most dolls. Not Barbies or anything but pullups and lots of anime dolls, etc. I was searching for a certain sized ones when I came across a Loongsoul vampire and a Soom. Luckily didn't rabbit hole immediately, but shortly after I discovered a group and I oopsed into a doll I really badly wanted.

Then I rabbit holed.

 

i never exactly enjoyed a "dolls are $20" phase per se, as i had spent a little short of $90
for my first three Anime dolls, the TOYNAMI Tenchi ones mentioned above.

again, that was back in the very-early-2000's, and, after some side-steps along the way,
i got into genuine Japanese OBITSU BODY-based 1/6 Anime dolls in the early-2010's,
with a MegaHouse "the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" Mikuru Asahina for around $140,
and generally, prices on the girls i've obtained since have hovered around $60/$100+ shipped,
not including the $200 or so combined (shipping included) i've spent on modern OBITSU 24/26 bodies
to bring my favorite girls up to a state of near-perfection that is likely to be the best i'll ever enjoy...

 

I have to admit to some jealousy that y'all knew about Obitsu and other quality vinyl dolls as kids. Granted - there's no way my parents could have afforded them. But once I started working, *I* could have bought them, and as a kid, I wasted a lot of my disposable income on dumb stuff I don't even remember anymore (food. I think it was mostly food).

 

From around age 12 to 14 I was obsessed with Bratz dolls. It was the first time I got into doll and I was really into collecting as many as possible. My dad was bringing me to toysRus every other week and would sometimes come home with a new surprise doll for me (even though my mom disapproved)!
Here's a picture of my old collection with my first BJD Login • Instagram