Dollife Dreams and Careers

This was a really fascinating topic to read through, by the way. Everyone leads such different lives. :>

 

Edit: I thought about this a little more. I really like how there are no right answers, to be honest. It really goes to show how happiness is different for each individual. It's a really warm reminder of how lovely the world is because it's populated by such a variety of people.

 

Thanks for sharing, everyone. I don't think I'm in a good position to give any advice because I've just started my career (I hit the one year mark today, whoo!) and still feel like a baby deer learning to walk. Getting to learn about your stories though is actually very comforting because I'm reminded that no matter what kind of journey you are in life, it's still your personal journey and you make of it as you will.

As a child I want to be a pilot, but when got a problem with my eyesight due an accident, I drop that dream, I'm going to economic college with accounting degree, but I never imagine my self working behind a desk as a teller on a bank, hha, so while in high school until college I've doing a lot freelance job, like being a user or host or MC for some big event, that job give a enough money for my hobbies and my life, but the job it self give me an uncertain future, so I ask my self dis I'm gonna doing this for the rest of my live? or find more steady job, with a steady income, so when a big airlines company in my country needs supervisor for their cargo airline, I'm apply my resume to that position at first I thought I'm not gonna make it, due my lack experience on this field, but I think I give them a good impression on the interview, I was accepted in the company but not as supervisor, but as supervisor assistant, but yeah now I'm already work for them for 4 years, and now become a supervisor, and I meet a fellow collector here, he's a hardcore otaku, and he was a senior pilot here, hha, well all I can say just don't take a job that you doesn't have interested, but its not hurt if you tried one or two job that you think you doesn't like, maybe you will feel comfortable with the job or the environtment, good luck.. ( Sorry for my broken english)

As a child I want to be a pilot, but when got a problem with my eyesight due an accident

 

Small world, one of my friends in college had the same dream but also had an eyesight problem.

 

As for myself, I am a working on graduating with my Computer Science BS next May.

I've been doing paid research for social media mining and am currently also working a summer internship doing various things.

 

CS is something I like and have been good at so it was the obvious choice for me.

 

Good luck in all your career pursuits everyone!

Oh wow! I like that this thread got bumped up. My last post was sophomore me and now I'm a senior in college! I went from environmental science to accounting.

 

Any accountants here with advice?

 

was actually a dba couple of years ago, right now, I'm more busier than ever just thankful I take the risk. once in a while I frequent this hobbies to check on what I'm missing.

 

As for me I'm proud to say I have 2 firms in downtown Toronto, IT managed services, specializing in cloud and a Marketing agency for startups. haha If you are from Tdot let me know if you can refer me people for the services

 

 

Oh wow! I like that this thread got bumped up. My last post was sophomore me and now I'm a senior in college! I went from environmental science to accounting.

 

Any accountants here with advice?

 

If you just finish school, invite your friends, buld a small firm, commit for couple of years. market it to non-profit organizations, the money earned put into makrekting rinse repeat until you guys create a brand, then service financial intitutions. that's the story of my accnt

 

What I'm trying to say, start build your own product/service start early, ask friends and collegues.

Oh my, I've seen so many accounting majors ask me to keep an ear out for jobs for them, and not many ended up with jobs. In fact, one of them has been posting pictures of his trips to Chicago before he has to head back to Taiwan, his visa ran out. And our fearless leader of the Kendo Club still hasn't found a job after these years, I wonder how he's doing? I think the best thing you can do is yes, work on your brand like glassjaw recommends. A strong resume and a good network can get you better chances for jobs, so don't forget to go to a lot of public networking events in your area. My network has gotten me all three long-term jobs and two filler jobs I've held since graduation without my even trying, although I've learned since then that if you don't work to get a job, they might not be the best jobs. But they look really good on my resume and portfolio even though they were awful and low-paying jobs.

 

I can say that anime and video game culture influenced my choice in career. I am super visual, so I realized I wanted to go into the arts. I really enjoyed the layouts of the characters and text, and I am super a lover of toys and colors and posters. Initially I wanted to be an Illustrator, but the lack of local Illustration programs led me to Graphic Design, which I adore. My senor year I joined the Advertising and Marketing club and found I adore advertising as well, which is a good fit for my major. Since then, I've been trying to get myself more advertising and marketing experience, but unfortunately, those jobs pretty much degraded really quickly. I had to quit my last job with a marketing agency because they stopped being able to pay me. For two months. And they still expected me to work and commute every day from the next city over.

Since then, I've been trying to not procrastinate on studying for the GMAT. I want to go back for my Master's degree in Business so I can get better marketing jobs and not just be another creative with no say in how things should look. Another motivation to work hard is if I get my grad degree, I can join Cobra and be a Crimson Guard. /gijoenerd

 

I sort of want to work for a toy company, but you've got to have some serious skills to be anything. I interned for a year for a local model kit company, and one of the Art Directors had worked for Mattel, but his background was not only in art and design, but also engineering. He also recommended to never work for the super huge companies, because they aren't fun to work for at all. My dream, however, is to someday work for Sanrio. I gotta work my way to the top! I'm currently stalled a bit though because I have a problem with some serious depression, which interferes with my ability to be productive in my off-time. It's also the reason why I got such a late start in my career. Hoping to get that helped out with while I'm back in school so I can get back to developing my goals!

...

 

Good to see someone also involved in marketing! And who loves toys haha. I'm starting school soon, and will be majoring in art marketing with emphasis on photography. I love the arts as well, but do not want to try getting a job in art alone. Hopefully the business part of marketing will help me along.

 

Do you have any advice or experiences to share regarding work in the field or related ones?

Haha, so much advice!

 

In my experience, and this is mostly working in small businesses, it's really helpful to have a really good range of skills, and to also have a great network. We have one photographer in town who does product photography for businesses, and he markets himself as a graphic designer as well. Mostly I've seen him deliver large, framed images of a business' trucks and vehicles for corporate headquarters, but his office (located inside an old movie theatre by the university) shows movie posters with advertisements of his services. Just as a graphic designer, I have additional skills in marketing, copywriting, photography, and web design, all of which I've used at work. Especially in the art side of business, people like us are expected to have more skills, it's kind of unfair.

 

In regards to your schooling, I also advise you to join a lot of clubs like my school's Advertising and Marketing Club. Doing so will get you a network of fellow college grads and teachers, and you can put it on your resume if it's looking a little bare. Doing large club projects and events also helps to build up your portfolio with something other than school projects, which is extremely important to be competitive right out of school. Also, get involved with public events and organizations, like your local chapter of the American Marketing Association. Around here, there's a large push to revitalize my home city of South Bend, so they have quite a few networking events, such as: Green Drinks, Grass Roots night, First Fridays, and more, where they aim to network people together to keep talent in the area and involve them in their community, instead of letting them leave for Chicago for work.

 

Do as much side work as you can once you have the skills and the camera to have 15-20 high quality pieces in your portfolio when you're looking for a job, and to put on your resume. It does require you start working your butt off even more during school, but by distinguishing yourself during the school years, it puts you above your competition in the job hunt, and shows to people that you're a hard worker with a passion for what you're doing. We also don't get paid a lot starting out, so try to keep the amount of student loans you borrow to a minimum. I've got three years of experience, 50k in debt, and everyone in the area wants to pay me $10 or under for what I do, even in Indianapolis. Entry level for us is minimum wage. Unless you work hard to develop your portfolio and resume past that point where you're no longer considered just entry level, you're going to be paid poorly when you get out of school. I would suggest you make sure to have a strong grasp on the business skills, like analysis and research, because they get paid better.

As a child I want to be a pilot, but when got a problem with my eyesight due an accident

 

Small world, one of my friends in college had the same dream but also had an eyesight problem.

 

As for myself, I am a working on graduating with my Computer Science BS next May.

I've been doing paid research for social media mining and am currently also working a summer internship doing various things.

 

CS is something I like and have been good at so it was the obvious choice for me.

 

Good luck in all your career pursuits everyone!

Yes small world indeed, thanks god I got a job that still close with my interest, so I can still go to see how's the cockpit looks like, since sometimes I have to deliver the NOTOC (notification for captain/pilot) before loading the cargo on the compartment, ah anyway what your friend doing now? Glad you doing well with your job, it seems a really intereting field to work with. (sorry for my broken english)

Kind of late to the game to posting in this thread... hahaaaaa.

 

I've been into Anime/Manga since I was a child. I grew up watching shows like Pokemon, Digimon, Monster Rancher, Yugioh... for starters (which I think any other 90's would have watched anyways.) In elementary school my parents introduced me to Sakura Taisen and I was absolutely amazed! It was so different than everything that I had watched previously and started to get deeper into Anime.

 

Throughout school I was always interested in art, so it was only natural that I would aim to do /something/ creative. In high school I was an intern at Mattel painting pre-production toys, and was offered a contracted job during my senior year of high school.

 

I ended up going to college for Entertainment Illustration in hopes of doing storyboards for movies - however my interests have changed since then and I ended up switching my focus to game art. I've tossed around the idea of using my Illustration major to get into making toys but I'm still a little unsure about that w

 

Unfortunately, I took a leave from college for a few years to work and gain more experience since the tuition is extremely expensive.

 

Since then I've worked a bunch of odd jobs during my time off: Fast food, Market Cashier, Accounting and Logistics to name a few.

 

I recently got a new job earlier this year; and all I can say is that I've very happy here right now! I struggled a lot at my old job working in logistics since it was extremely restrictive and had lousy pay.

 

While my new job doesn't shower me with money; it's comfortable and it's in an environment that I actually enjoy. I feel a lot less stressed, and I get to exercise my creativity a little bit which is good. I don't even really know what my official job title is haha. I'm mostly running the company's social media accounts, and help around the office whenever I can.

 

Oh, my other job is creating art for a card game. I guess that counts.

 

Dang. I bet my grammar is absolutely terrible in this post I'm so sorry everyone.

My work is completely unrelated to my hobbies.

I'm a chef at a hotel, but I always wanted to be a historian. My mum passed away half way through my first year of college, so because it was just me and her, I changed to a vocational catering course so I could support myself. Three years later, here I am!

 

If things get tough, you've just gotta take the bad with a pinch of salt and keep your head up!

At the moment I am still a student. I succesfully got my degree in Graphic Design and now I am in my third year (still one yewr to go!) of studying to become an Art Teacher.

Next to my study I am working partime in retail.

You may think I would be able to use my hobbys in my (future)work, but none of that is true. But it doesn't make me sad or unmotivated, I love what I do and my work and hobby is apart. When I am at work, I work. When I have me-time, it can be hobby time (though family, friends and boyfriend also want a bit of my timeof course)

I work in television animation, making lots of pretty higher end TV shows for some pretty big name players in the animation bizness.

 

When I started school for animation I got into the habit of trying to study and understand things that I would try to draw, deconstructing other people's methods of drawing, the how and why they did things the way they did, then got into studying motion, balance, etc and started learning martial arts as a result of the study to get better at drawing. You can't reproduce what you don't understand.

 

 

That sort of mentality for learning has gotten me into a wide variety of hobbies that are quite diverse... cooking, music, military simulation gaming, race car driving and mechanics. It seems that every few years I have some new obsession interest that I dive headlong into so I can learn more about it.

Right now, I'm in the home stretch for my high school diploma. After that, I'm enrolling as a full-time student at a state university. My tentative plan is to study biochemistry and psychology, but I haven't fully figured out what I want to be.

I'll probably be getting a part-time job once I get there (right now, I'm too involved in my school's extracurriculars and advanced courses to manage a job).

If money were no object, I would spend my future job writing and travelling, and taking my potential DD girl with me. However, money is an object and I'm incredibly unconfident in my abilities, so the sciences are plan A.

I keep my personal life separate from my work

 

Lol you can say that again. Cant imagine what the guys on the flightline would say if they found out I had a doll. Lol

 

Hahahaha! I am: male; straight; a competitive bodybuilder (at age 61!); a gun owner; AND ----> I am a Dollfie Dream owner. Yep, I post DD photo albums on Facebook, too. I've been very surprised at some of the pleasant comments my friends have made. That's been nice.

 

I have very few good things to say about getting old. But, one of the privileges of aging is that, the older you get, the less you care what other people think. Finally, you reach a point where you no longer give a **** what ANYONE thinks. I do what makes me happy. It's very liberating. Lily likes it, too.

Finally, you reach a point where you no longer give a **** what ANYONE thinks. I do what makes me happy. It's very liberating. Lily likes it, too.

 

Welcome to another "Elder"!

You two are awesome!

It's always nice to hear things like that. Thank you.

You're so welcome! It is nice to have cool people around.

I'm going back to school to study Laboratory Analytic. It's definitely my calling and the biggest inspiration of my life. I've already studied myself some cool papers as a Layout Designer but that was a bad decision I had to make at the age of 16 and it was all based on "what can I do? what can I survive?". This time I'm making my choice of school keeping the future and a healthy career in mind.

 

I've never dreamed of incorporating my hobbies and cosplay/anime/game interests into my career plans. Of course I wouldn't object to being a famous enough cosplayer or fashion blogger to not have to worry about money and it would bring in the bread and bacon. But that's not going to happen so I might aswell make my times worth.

 

I myself personally know that if I wanted an anime-related job I'd have to build it up from the ground myself and I know I am not capable of doing that on my own, neither do I have the passion. Also taking into consideration my location, I know a business like that would be an uphill battle and possibly wouldn't even pay me my rent. Not to even mention possibly having a financially secure and relaxed life.

 

I will always support and encourage people to study a career that'll financially support them.

It has been a long time since I've looked at this thread and I feel like I'm at the point where I can add my own feelings into the pot. (Just to warn you now, I don't know how long this post will be.)

 

As it stands at the moment I'm about 1 1/2 years into trying to get Naiomi's Closet open, and the work has been hard as hell. Every day I have to force myself past the mountain of doubt and worry that I can't ever get it open, or even get everything done to show off my work. Having a DD business, even just a part-time one is not for the timid. Often I worry that even my social interactions here on the forums will make me seem like an unreliable flake and have it negatively impact NC.

 

What is usually not seen or thought about is I'm just one person doing all the work of a small business. R&D, seamstress, fashion designer, photographer, post production, janitor, Owner/CEO, storyboard writer, proofreader, webmaster, advertising, graphics designer, product designer/developer, 3D designer, creative team, 'handyman', set designer, stage crew, customer service, sales, quality manager, critic, researcher, lighting specialist... the list really could go on. Every single project I think of doing for my own DD kids, I have to think about how to resize it to all the various DD and Obitsu body sizes and types just because of the assumption that if it's in my photos that it would frequently be assumed to be in the store.

 

I've had to take an immense amount of time trying to decide how the products for NC should be sold. Do I do it the same way that everyone else does, or do I try to do something different (and more risky) that could set NC apart in the future? It is such a hard choice to go against much well meaning advice to just be like the crowd, but this is my business and I need to build it in a way that it has sustainability for the long run, affordability, as well as availability. Doing things differently also means that it could open up possibilities for other creative individuals on the forums to enjoy the hobby even more. That is one of the hopes I keep clinging to all this time, putting my faith in the fact that if I do what I'm good at that it will offer opportunities for others to do the same. I would love to see people learning new things, expanding their skills, and having easy and fun projects to build their creativity on.

 

I don't want to be a person who just cranks things out, because that's not what I'm good at. Even if I attempted it, I'd be burnt out and have another breakdown after 6 months. There are people who are good at that. I'm not. However I am fully aware of my strengths in creating ideas and seeing how to assemble everything to make the project work and pulling the resources together. (This is why my personal DD collection keeps exploding as well.) I can combine that with many of the print on demand type companies (Spoonflower, Shapeways, Ponoko, Snapfish, Zazzle) to end up with some really amazing things that I have some confidence that people will love. I want NC to be a place to spark people's creativity, and since I'm doing this business for people I think of as my friends, I'd love to see what ideas from everyone else will inspire me in return.

 

One of my biggest fears with getting NC open is that there isn't a huge selection in the beginning (but a more in-depth look is that there are a staggering amount of options.) The problem with that is if they don't see the potential I have, therefore NC will look mediocre at best and they pretty much won't return. I've never watched a one person online store begin and grow so I have no idea what expectations people have in the beginning. Not even knowing what the baby steps should be has been really hard. I could take the time to get 'enough' things up for me to feel like what I assume people to expect, but that could take me another two years of hiding in my little corner not talking to anyone and worrying myself into oblivion. I'd love to just work on drafts of clothing I want to do, but because of the way NC is, I don't feel like I have the option to use fabrics out of my sewing stash. Since people generally want what they can see I'm trying to only have my Spoonflower fabrics in the pics on the site so requests aren't made for things that just aren't available. Plus I've got a lot of fabric from old clothes in my stash that I wouldn't feel comfortable selling to someone who thought it was new.

 

It isn't all fun and game either. I've had to learn business to pursue a hobby I enjoy and find rewarding, but on a personal level I do not enjoy business. My mom was the business major, not me. And yet there is so much I've had to learn simply to make all this work. Spending days at a time working on HTML & CSS is really murder for a dyslexic. I have no distinction between my 'work' and my home life. The hours are long and have cost me so much more than I've even been able to get in return so far, as is the nature of starting a business. All the decisions and all of the choices rest completely on my shoulders. I never feel like I can take sick days because there is always some small detail that can be worked on, idea to better fleshed out, or someone to respond to.

 

So how is this any different from someone who decided that their hobby would make an idea job for them, only to find out it was a horrible decision? I haven't been working on this so long because it's an 'enjoyable hobby.' I do it because it's what drives me. I wake up with design ideas racing through my mind that excite me so much that I can't sleep. Being able to make small scale versions of fabric prints that I loved as a kid, many of them that just aren't found anymore. Turning my years of 3D model meshing I taught myself for The Sims 2 into real world objects that I can hold with my hands instead of just staring at the pixels on the screen. Taking my love of dollhouse furniture and scale it up for a not-so miniature world to fill out my photos and photo stories. Having complete freedom to design retro or just plain funny fake food packaging because I love the challenge. I really don't have to worry if no one likes what I do, because even without NC I'd be spending my time doing the same exact thing. NC just gives me the opportunity to share it with everyone else so they can have fun with it too. I love being happy. I love making people happy. I work hard so NC can do just that.

 

~Sister Kyoya

This is a really interesting topic, especially since any time I tell people about my interests (outside of doll people, close friends/family, and conventions) they think collecting dolls and toys in general is super weird and sort of creepy.

I work in the beauty industry as a hairdresser and my career is also my passion, I love what I do. I consider myself very lucky for that. I have been a stylist for 8 years now and its very rare that I meet anyone in my industry that likes anime or anything like that. I have had a few clients that were anime fans, collectors, or something along those lines, and thats always fun to be able to bro down while they get their hair cut/colored.

I also work very part time, (think 2-6 weekends a year) at conventions. I work for a vendor called YES anime and that is a super fun/exhausting/rewarding job. I love getting to see cosplayers all day. I actually decided to buy a Dollfie based off of a nice gal that had her Dollfies with her at the con. After seeing and holding them in person, I was hooked!!! So I guess you could say one of my jobs actually got me into this hobby!

Oh wow! I like that this thread got bumped up. My last post was sophomore me and now I'm a senior in college! I went from environmental science to accounting.

 

Any accountants here with advice?

 

Wow bumping an old thread but my very first post in this thread was freshman-in-college-me studying visual communication design, sophomore me in environmental science, senior me studying accounting, and now I am an associate at a big firm. It'll be a career to grow with until I am 100% sure I know what I want to do with my life