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What do you wish you knew before getting your first DD?

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Meep

Thank you for all of these lovely pictures! I'm glad to see DD and SmartDoll can go together.

I told myself "only one" but, hahaha... 

 

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Poofiemus
4 hours ago, Meep said:

Thank you for all of these lovely pictures! I'm glad to see DD and SmartDoll can go together.

I told myself "only one" but, hahaha... 

 

Ha! Nope, that rarely works. One thing I never did was tell myself "only one ever"; what I DID say was more like "Only one at a time". I . . . mostly stuck to that? The one possible exception is that I did get two floating heads to rescue last November, but I've definitely been focusing more on one than the other for the past few months. 


In this household, sanity is considered a tresspasser.

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Meep
2 hours ago, Poofiemus said:

Ha! Nope, that rarely works. One thing I never did was tell myself "only one ever"; what I DID say was more like "Only one at a time". I . . . mostly stuck to that? The one possible exception is that I did get two floating heads to rescue last November, but I've definitely been focusing more on one than the other for the past few months. 

Well, to be fair, I did have one resin BJD for several years. I eventually bought others, but only when I found them secondhand and for cheap.

I think "one at a time" is a good rule of thumb.

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Poofiemus

It's a doubly good rule if you get dolls in different size ranges/proportions, because then you get a chance to not just bond with a doll but to make sure they have at least SOME stuff that fits them before you bring another into the fray, lol. I speak from experience on that one: first doll was a DDDy, next a DDII M bust, then an Obi50 S bust, a DDIII SS bust, an MDD, the only double (DDII M), a DD boy and a Smartdoll boy. Having time between each one helped me make sure that they at least each have an outfit, shoes, proper eyes, and at least one wig before the next one throws a wrench in the works. 

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In this household, sanity is considered a tresspasser.

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bulgogi017

Not fretting so much over pictures of the sculpt. Like many have said, the dolls look much better in person. 
Luka’s sculpt had things that shouldn’t have worked and certain angles made her look puffy. But when she came home, she was lovely. The small details were exaggerated on camera and weren’t even close to bad irl.

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geminirose

Echoing something I think someone already said on the last page -- impulse purchases are a one way ticket to Regretsville. Don't settle. Be sure the doll you're buying is one you really want before you spend hundreds of dollars. 

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moerunamida

This doesn't pertain to DD's per say but can be used as general advice, because it's a hard lesson that I've learned. I don't think it is something most people consider either.

 

When looking into buying your first doll, whether it be from Culture Japan, Volks, etc...do a little research on the company. What's their customer service like? What is the business owner like? How do they treat customers based on stories your hear? Is any part of you that feels uneasy purchasing a doll from X ? For example if you write into customer support, will you actually get support or get banned from the shop entirely because you caught the owner in a bad mood?

 

I wish that when I had purchased my Smart Dolls, I had done a bit more research, because I don't think I wouldn't have purchased them knowing what I know now. Granted, this advice isn't for everyone. If you can buy a doll and just disassociate it from where it came from, more power to you. I could not, sadly, and I ultimately sold off my Smart Dolls.

Edited by Deyja
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 r75s0k.gifCircle (Towa) Yui (MDD) Coralie (MDD) 88 (Kizuna AI) 1rukij4.gif

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Rumi

Looking at owner photos before buying a doll. Ive ordered a few and sold them off immedietly because they didnt look quite good in person or customized :( Also, checking yahoo auctions/mandarake/ebay/myfigurecollection/facebook. Seriously, if youd like to buy a very expensive doll, check all sites and compare them to save a bunch of money. I wish i knew this before ordering some of my dolls from japan and getting hit with 250 euro customs on top of the expensive price when i could just have bought from the EU. 

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blossom

Obviously the first mistake i made was to think i would only get one.. 😹

but i think it was also my excuse to start collecting MDD.. because i used to collect Pullip dolls and i bought a lot of them! By the time i got my last one i actually took a break from dolls’ world so i barely looked at her and they were all stored in their boxes for maybe 3 years? I never really regretted them though and didn’t feel like selling them but sometimes i did think it was a shame to have spent so much and never even look at them!!

anyways, after my trip to tokyo i got totally pulled in the whole anime doll aesthetic and i tried really hard to ignore it because i didn’t want to end up buying tons of them since they are way more expensive! I also had just recently bought a pullip doll i had wanted right before taking my break, i had actually more plans to go back to collecting Pullip than starting with DD- and yet.. i impulsively bought a paradoll (i sometimes forget that 🤦🏻‍♀️) hoping it would be the anime doll that saves me from falling into DD.. as expected it did not work at all and a month later i was ordering my MDD 😹

and now, 8 months later, i am waiting to receive a DDP
 

and for the whole character phase, i am actually used to build the personality before finding the doll that would fit it but strangely it was really hard to do so with DD!! It was the first time i had such a hard time building a personality.. maybe i’m not satisfied with my MDD’s eyes or maybe it’s the wig? She’s adorable though.. but there’s something bothering me! Maybe because i was used to customize my Pullip dolls here and here and they felt more like mine even if i didn’t Fully customized them unlike my MDD which is a standard model! But i don’t feel ready to try and customize on DD heads, i’d rather wait a bit more! I think it will be easier as i get more clothing though because i had only one outfit for her so far and i barely have any accessories too ☹️ I hope i’ll be satisfied quicker with my DDP!

well, that was way longer than expected 🙈 but all in all i can feel i won’t be stopping at 1- now 2 dolls! i have also invested in a glass display so i can at least see them when i don’t have time to pick them up for a shoot or anything ^ ^ 


𝕓𝕝𝕠𝕤𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕕𝕠𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕖𝕤 ꒰ 𝒾𝒸𝒽𝒾𝑔𝑜 𝕄𝔻𝔻 ༘♡༉ ꒱

𝕨𝕒𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕗𝕠𝕣   ꒰ 𝒜𝓇𝓊𝓇𝓊 𝔻𝔻ℙ ꒱

*(*ˊᵕˋ)* ₊˚

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Heshiko

I wish I'd known how much more fun it is to get a doll with only a cute look/outfit and customize her, compared to a doll based on an existing character. I bought an Azone 50cm Akuma Homura as my first ever doll, and I loved her... but I never really was able to do all that much. I have this innate aversion to dressing her up differently, because she represents this existing character and that was how that character looked. Then, when I bought another Azone doll on complete impulse (I still don't know why... she was just cute) I fell in love. in the first three months of owning her I spent more on outfits for her than I did on her, because that's what I've found I love about this hobby. She's still my favorite, and I dress her up in different outfits constantly. She's the reason I'm actually in the hobby today.

A couple years later I bought another Azone based on an anime character (Iroha Tamaki). She hasn't changed out of her default outfit since.

It's been the same with DDs. I commissioned a custom doll with outfit based on Hashiri Nio, and once I got her all set I couldn't bring myself to change her clothes anymore. I barely touch her. Before her outfit was finished, I dressed her up plenty... but now that she's fully Nio, she just sits there.

I dunno if anyone else has this hang-up but it's something that I've become really aware of lately. I don't think I'll buy another licensed character because of it, honestly, no matter how pretty they are. 

That or just never finish them so I can enjoy dressing them up before they're "complete" because that's how my brain works for some incomprehensible reason 🤣

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blossom
12 hours ago, Heshiko said:

I wish I'd known how much more fun it is to get a doll with only a cute look/outfit and customize her, compared to a doll based on an existing character. I bought an Azone 50cm Akuma Homura as my first ever doll, and I loved her... but I never really was able to do all that much. I have this innate aversion to dressing her up differently, because she represents this existing character and that was how that character looked. Then, when I bought another Azone doll on complete impulse (I still don't know why... she was just cute) I fell in love. in the first three months of owning her I spent more on outfits for her than I did on her, because that's what I've found I love about this hobby. She's still my favorite, and I dress her up in different outfits constantly. She's the reason I'm actually in the hobby today.

A couple years later I bought another Azone based on an anime character (Iroha Tamaki). She hasn't changed out of her default outfit since.

It's been the same with DDs. I commissioned a custom doll with outfit based on Hashiri Nio, and once I got her all set I couldn't bring myself to change her clothes anymore. I barely touch her. Before her outfit was finished, I dressed her up plenty... but now that she's fully Nio, she just sits there.

I dunno if anyone else has this hang-up but it's something that I've become really aware of lately. I don't think I'll buy another licensed character because of it, honestly, no matter how pretty they are. 

That or just never finish them so I can enjoy dressing them up before they're "complete" because that's how my brain works for some incomprehensible reason 🤣

I totally relate to that outfit problem honestly 😹  i don’t own a DD based on a character yet but i have a few i would really like to get and i worry about going passed their characters at some point!
but i’m not getting a character DD anytime soon so i have time to figure this out ^ ^ 

i think it’s easier for me to get a character DD if i’m not planning of keeping her in her character rather than having her as her own character! I don’t know if that makes sense 😹

  • Like 2

𝕓𝕝𝕠𝕤𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕕𝕠𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕖𝕤 ꒰ 𝒾𝒸𝒽𝒾𝑔𝑜 𝕄𝔻𝔻 ༘♡༉ ꒱

𝕨𝕒𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕗𝕠𝕣   ꒰ 𝒜𝓇𝓊𝓇𝓊 𝔻𝔻ℙ ꒱

*(*ˊᵕˋ)* ₊˚

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kino

I'm fairly new to this but I had wayyyy more fun once I stopped limiting what type of clothes my doll "would" wear, experimenting with outfits/eyes/wigs is so much fun and it made me fall in love with my girl even more <3

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Lina

1. I wish I'd know just how -big- they are! I am obsessed with dioramas, and even in 1/4th I didn't find it impossible to make space for one or two, and I have oodles of props for my 1/6th scale crew. But I don't think I was prepared for how much bigger the dolls were. When you break out a measuring tape and measure above your MSD, it doesn't -seem- like it's that much. But it is.  I've had to abandon a lot of the plans I had for my 1/3rd dioramas because I just frankly, do not have the space. After I move I'll have even less for quite awhile, but I plan to build a custom room just for my doll things in the future and will be accounting for my diorama passions in that.

But as it stands, my 1/3rds won't be getting much more than a few pieces of furniture, and had I known that I might not have gotten quite so much nice furniture for myself that I'm now not willing to part with.

2. How much more fun they are than resin, generally speaking. My resin dolls feel so incredibly fragile compared to my vinyls. I don't feel like I can be as risky, Especially since my resin crew is so much older, color matching if they break will be so hard. My vinyls also pose amazing and I just love it!

3. That stains aren't the end of the world. Before my first stain, I treated my doll like glass, and found I didn't really enjoy playing with her, and she was treated just as delicately (If not more so) than my resins. Once I got my first stain and went through the dream rescue process I kinda realized stains are just the name of the game, and there is a fix for it, so I got over it. As it is right now, I don't freak out over stains and even sometimes ignore the ones under clothing until I need to do another treatment for one more visible.

Edited by linainversetsg
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RikunFrances

Honestly?

Just how easily they could stain. This is more like a "should have listened to people" sort of thing, but having resin dolls I was under the impression that "it couldn't be that easy to stain, right? People are just blowing it out of proportion!" and then the first day I got my body I stained it. I wasn't necessarily devastated as I was just frustrated with my lackadaisical attitude that ended up staining her. I definitely take better care of my vinyl now, but starting out I wish I had listened.

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Guest

If parts broke, how to replace them.

If I knew that my DDII would break a week after getting her I would of gotten a DDIII.

DDII Internal Frame Parts are SUPER hard to come by so i just took a week to figure out how to fix her.

 

Luckily she's good now! 

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AtelierMoe
On 9/6/2020 at 4:09 AM, RikunFrances said:

Honestly?

Just how easily they could stain. This is more like a "should have listened to people" sort of thing, but having resin dolls I was under the impression that "it couldn't be that easy to stain, right? People are just blowing it out of proportion!" and then the first day I got my body I stained it. I wasn't necessarily devastated as I was just frustrated with my lackadaisical attitude that ended up staining her. I definitely take better care of my vinyl now, but starting out I wish I had listened.

Hahaha I could have written this exact message...

For me, it's something I have to remind myself every time a girl comes in the mail. It's ok to kinda regret buying her because you don't click the first second you have her in hand. It's gonna come, maybe it's just time, an outfit, the wig looks weird and needs to be styled better... I have cold sweats every time something doesn't work instantly, and have to really calm myself. My DDH10, when I decided to repaint her, her eyes didn't fit her anymore. I spent days anxiously looking at her waiting for her new eyes, wondering if I should regret repainting her, if I messed up her faceup etc. Turns out she just needed new eyes xD Same for the bodies. I always find them awkward and floppy or posing badly etc... Posing comes with practice, and every DD body is different. It just takes time ^^

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lildollface

Honestly, ditto on the staining- I just got my new MDD f-3 Liliru and I sat her down on top of her own box. 5 minutes later, I freaked out because there was a dot of pink stained on her inner knee 😭 

 

Honestly I feel like I should have done a lot more research on eyes. The default Liliru eyes are 22mm and I thought that the 24mm eyes I bought from Volks wouldn’t be too bad, but boy was it a pain to maneuver around her head! 

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DreamDollDesign

I didn't do this, but easily could have. My first BJD was resin, and I was so intent on snuggling with her and treating her like a typical (but biiig) doll that I just wrecked her, honestly. Her wig was ruined. And her faceup was garbage too. I'm glad I didn't do that with Miku, although the temptation is huge. If wigs weren't so delicate, I'd probably snuggle her, too.

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Orenjiina

Not so much now because I’ve done my research a bit more but when I was younger and just started to become interested in dolls, I didn’t realize how customizable they really were. Like I thought I could only buy character dolls and they’re weren’t any characters at the time I was willing to spend that much money on. Had I known how easy to was to customize dolls or how you could buy different parts and create your own doll, I may not have waited so long to get into the hobby.

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Poofiemus
On 9/26/2020 at 11:44 PM, lildollface said:

Honestly, ditto on the staining- I just got my new MDD f-3 Liliru and I sat her down on top of her own box. 5 minutes later, I freaked out because there was a dot of pink stained on her inner knee 😭 

 

Honestly I feel like I should have done a lot more research on eyes. The default Liliru eyes are 22mm and I thought that the 24mm eyes I bought from Volks wouldn’t be too bad, but boy was it a pain to maneuver around her head! 

I put 24mm eyes in both Fate and Nanoha. . .wound up sanding the sides of the eyes down to make placement easier!

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In this household, sanity is considered a tresspasser.

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mayaiincho

Of course my one answer is how much is I'd be spending on them. I'm glad I have very little expense and high income otherwise doing drugs would be cheaper (maybe...)

Imo it was very expensive to finally find the right image of my custom doll. I went through around 15 wigs and 12 different tints of blue eyes before I was finally able to settle on it. 

If anything, I love leeke's blackberry wigs and kkworkshop also offers that black purple wig which is of a very similar color. Then of course blue eye. I've settled on this image and I love it. Not sure id change it now :)

ZcZiV37.jpg


looking for - , Marisa Short Wig, full set Beatrice or default face + eyes & Sasara Fullset or default face + eyes.

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Dollvari
Quote
2 hours ago, mayaiincho said:

Of course my one answer is how much is I'd be spending on them.

So true the hidden costs🤣

Quote
2 hours ago, mayaiincho said:

I went through around 15 wigs

Same thing happened with my 1st DD, so many red wigs Lol.

 

 

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Miruna

That the wigs not only stain the head, but also create ugly dents (even official ones). I hope a wig cap will prevent this problem in the future.

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BeyondTime
5 hours ago, Miruna said:

That the wigs not only stain the head, but also create ugly dents (even official ones). I hope a wig cap will prevent this problem in the future.

Dents in the vinyl will usually clear up with time as the vinyl expands back to its original shape.  

  • Thanks 1

The difference between Dollfie Dreams and Heroin? Heroin is illegal, Dollfie Dreams probably should be.

“Empty wallets, full hearts.” That’s probably an apt description for the effects of DD addiction

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mayaiincho
On 11/23/2020 at 11:01 AM, Miruna said:

That the wigs not only stain the head, but also create ugly dents (even official ones). I hope a wig cap will prevent this problem in the future.

I've had those tape on my dolls for a long time (6months +) and they leave a indentation also but usually disappear after several days after I take them off.

And yes be careful about dark clothes and wigs with dark wig caps. The wig I almost always have on my Alsty has a pure black wig cap, it can stain a bit but I have a silicone wig cap I got for free with my large purchase from coolcats.


looking for - , Marisa Short Wig, full set Beatrice or default face + eyes & Sasara Fullset or default face + eyes.

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