#American BJD

[purplevampiredoll]

portrait of msliterate inspired by a scene from alice madness returns🥀🗝️🔪🍰

http://www.instagram.com/purplevampiredoll

[tea-with-eleni]

Whatever do you mean, special interest? I can’t think of any random topic I know an ungodly amount about that has consumed a large quantity of my mental real estate for actual years.

[shariefaerie]

Doll Show! (and goodwill/my friend!!!) haul!!!!

This year the creator of strawberry shortcake was there. so there was a LOT of original strawberry dolls and toys, and a WHOLE LOT of ADORABLE costumes!!! I had strawberry shortcake toys as a kid in the early 2000s, but I didn't see any of those at the show.

Super happy with my purchases this year! I was also super lucky to have my tax return hit right before the show, so I went a liiiiitle overboard with the monster high dolls. Ghoulia and Cupid are grails, and Robecca and Spectra aren't grail status but they were right up there on the ISO list. Lagoona was just really pretty and had her fins and was only 15 bucks.

I got some skrm accessories as well, lagoonas knee pads and and wheel love gils knee pads, also ghoulias skates. skrm is so weird but one of my favorite lines, it's just so unique!

I got my very first (sort of) BJDs as well! I'll talk more about them in a bit because oh no i am in love.

Last thing from the doll show is an AG ballet outfit. it was only 15 bucks and something I'd been looking to get! so, yay!!! I had originally intended for it to be given to corinne, my (at the time) only American girl doll, but as you can see in the second pic, that has changed.

I have weirdly good luck finding AG dolls at the thrift, and today I got VERY lucky! I've actually found an Addy before, a PC one O_O but she went to live with my cousin, I was a bit sad to see her go so im happy to find another, this one is a 2008 but I really don't mind modern AG dolls, and shes so darling!!! I tried the ballet outfit on her last night and it belongs to her now x3 she's going to be a dancer.

Found another bratz board game! It's complete as well which is awesome. it wasn't used at all, for good reason, it's very convoluted, like monopoly but weirder. I now have Make Me Up, Mall Crawl, Passion 4 Fashion, Bratz Twister, and the 2015 bratz CIY Shoppe Game. even if i don't play them I like to have them for the boxes x3

My friend who I brought to the doll show with me gave me a few of her childhood hamtaros! some are fakies but they're all adorable! She and I also got the BJDs together, hers is the Sakura one and mine is the grey haired one, we ended up swapping faces for a while lol. I got one of the boy BJDs too, I definitely got my least favorite of the options but he is cute! He just needs new pants.

Overall, what an awesome day! I'm so happy I got to go buy pretty dolls and see my friends!!

[calochortus]

Enchanting Entrance by Dolldom Photography Via Flickr: with DAE Original's Viola

[agrosehamada]

Today was a fun day! Rose and I went out to go see Wish finally!

We also went to Build a Bear and got Espeon--her name is Twilight!

AND we finally got our Tidal Secrets blindbox mermaids from Kikagoods!!! They're so precious, and all settled into their new home!!! 💙

[martinsfrancisco]

[burinazar]

these days i do sometimes see people literally just parrot the western-machismo ideal of 'ewww, feminine men, gross everyone who likes men should want big manly men and if they don't they're wrongheaded. smh silly misguided people' while simultaneously, and here's the rub of it and the part that makes me feel like it's bizarro world, they've truly and genuinely convinced themselves this is a meaningfully anti-bigotry position of some kind. and that liking men who are soft or thin or feminine is an insufficiently-progressive low-key-bigoted position. because it's.... i don't know, inherently fetishizing, or something. fuck if i know. i think this is bizarro-world thinking to a comical degree

i speculate it's one of the many internet phenomena that result from people looking at what's popular in their circles of awareness and going 'well this must be the societally expected default and so the principled position is to advocate for whatever its alternative is (and surely the fact i personally prefer the alternative as a matter of taste is just a coincidence)'

and not realizing that..like.. even though their internet sphere has a lot of Lisa Simpsons reading their own personal fandom version of Non-threatening Boys Magazine the western world at large still definitely eschews non-traditional masculinity and expects everyone to favor manly men rather than willowy bishounen.

so you aren't actually fighting any sort of pressing Good Fight by getting mad that some people like or depict sad wet wimpy thin boys instead of all longing for a big beef-o muscle archetype, and you should inspect whether in fact the issue is just that you dislike that aesthetic/character type (or, in a fandom context, that specific character). which if so is fine and you can enjoy the kind of content you enjoy without making it a smug grandstand

[rib0mbees]

First BJD ever!! She’s a Ringdoll Miu!

Her name is Theophania River (Aka Tiffany). I’m very slowly deciding what i want for her to look like.

Does anyone have tips on how to make the dress fit better? It feels like it’s a bit large.

[joshybearhuggies]

Miss Thang herself! Ugh! So much fun. This girl came about from pure FRUSTRATION! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Sooooooo I have an overdue commission slot that I have to complete already. My poor patron has waited far too long and I feel so uncomfortable making someone wait just because my life be “lifing”….. that being said I’ve ran into a little bit of a block with fashion dolls. I paint all manner of dolls but my most common patron would be the BJD collector. I felt a little clunky painting the fashion doll in question so I decided to take a mini break and paint one of my MANY fashion dolls set for a re-repaint.

This “Kira” sculpt was one of the fashionistas, she originally had blue lips! I’m drawn to her Afro and blatant mixture of African American and Asian qualities. I think I got her and repainted her eyes very fast, ended up redressing her one day and HATED the eyes lol 😂 I do this often, this is why I re-repaint allot.

That being said, this was really hard, trying to refashion the way I paint to once again accommodate this scale is a task. I painted this girl in a couple days…… slow movements and intentional brush strokes. For her I wanted her to feel like a fashion doll for fashion dolls sake. This aesthetic requires this nice blend of “fake” cartoony and a pinch of real… but only just a pinch.

I don’t feel like I’ve mastered this style at all, I will have to practice more before I’m happy. I will say I do like where I’m headed however. This girl is on a Poppy Parker body btw, I feel like it amps things up a little more, I adore this body, it’s my favorite Integrity Toys body of all time!!!!

She doesn’t have a name yet, I’ve just been calling her “Miss Thang” for a week or so 🤣 that might end up sticking if I’m not careful…..

[the-bjd-community-confess]

Some American hobbyists acting like only other Americans are in this hobby, and refusing to do business with anyone internationally??? Absolutely WILD, its like they've forgotten where BJDs even came from in the first place. I can smell the entitlement from here babes and it ain't a good look. 💅

~Anonymous

[marzipanandminutiae]

Okay. Sum total of objects recovered from my burnt-out apartment:

- three French fashion dolls (two intact, one whose head had gotten broken)

- two vintage Barbies

- 1 modern BJD

- One Royal Crown Derby Imari 2451 Tea Set, including a cup and saucer set used in the filming of the movie Crimson Peak

- One replica of Lucille’s robe and nightgown set also from crimson Peak, homemade (Badly stained, but I’m going to try my best to fix that)

- One blue cotton skirt with soutache trim, homemade

- One replica of the clasped hands belt buckle from a movie I’m sure absolutely none of you can guess

- one black wool suiting skirt that I guess I had intended to alter, from a thrift store

- 1 Bradley and Hubbard oil lamp, wired for electricity (more lamps survived, but I was concerned that was too much heavy stuff to carry out)

- One black wool winter coat with gold silk lining, homemade

- One green wool dressing gown with silk lining, partially finished, handmade

- One green cotton skirt, partially finished, handmade

- One white cotton nightgown, handmade, also badly stained

- assorted pieces of jewelry and an antique jewelry box that ultimately had to be thrown away due to the glue melting from water damage

- One broken porcelain candleholder in the shape of an art nouveau nymph

- One pair American Duchess “Wednesday” shoes

- One laptop, functionality uncertain but intact

- One journal

There’s a chance we will get more stuff back, like furniture, when they clear the house to renovate or demolish it. The landlord said he’d be in touch about when that might be happening, so we can come and snag our bigger pieces as they are removed. I know this will be especially helpful for me because the drawers in my dresser were stuck shut from water damage, and all of my corsets and historical undergarments were in there. Plus, like I said… There were more lamps

[dollsonmain]

WHY ARE THERE SO MANY?!?!?!?

[fairykukla]

She is very tempting.

Face up by Michelle Hardy! Outfit by Helen Kish!

I already have a Goodreau Mirror, and she's one of my favorite dolls. If one of you has any interest, this is a fantastic price for a full set doll.

[wingedpastafreakbat]

I Collect BJDs, Too. Trump's Second Term Should Alarm You.

We should all know by now that Trump winning the presidency this year is catastrophic for the basic human rights of minorities in the US (and abroad, let's be completely honest here). He is planning to enact a political playbook of draconian laws meant to 'bring back' a fictional ideal of the US, one that sees everyone subservient to conservative cishet white men. This is not fear-mongering, it is simply a cold hard fact that the people backing him financially have a lot to gain from instilling a form of government that solely caters to their whims and desires, and a lot of the Project 2025 playbook not only gives the power to white men in general over that of women, LGBTQIA+, and BIPOC people within our boarders, but will give power to the wealthy white men in this country who want to own everything, including our very bodies.

This should concern you. I don't know how else to express to you that it should concern you. There are not enough words at my disposal to express just how dire this situation is for all of us. And if you aren't concerned, and you're a BJD collector like I am, then allow me to make it personal so you can understand.

These tarrifs will result in much narrower access to BJDs as a whole.

I'll use Volks as an example: Volks has a store based in the US, in Los Angeles. They send this store batches of dolls and clothes and wigs and eyes and replacement parts periodically to help keep them stocked. When they run out of a thing (unless that thing was being phased out/replaced/discontinued), the employees make a list of what they need, use their own profits to pay for it, and then Volks would send them new stock to fill the gaps. When the tarrifs take hold, this new stock will be more expensive, since Japan in general will be forced to pay higher import tarrifs. That means the US Volks location will have to spend more money on the restock shipments, which will in turn make the dolls more expensive so that Volks can maintain a substantial profit margin; but these tarrifs will backfire, because a 20%-60% increase will not translate to good profit for Volks, which means the US location will be shuttered to keep Volks from hemorrhaging money, which means your only option would be to buy your dolls from Japan... and you'd be paying the extra shipping money, because it will still cost Volks extra money to ship dolls into the US. This may result in Volks choosing not to ship dolls to the US at all, meaning you won't be able to buy any of their dolls again unless you can find a third party willing to spend their own money to send you these dolls at even higher prices that include the profit THEY need to make for doing so.

Lots of doll companies are not as big as Volks. A lot of them are considerably smaller. The smaller ones will cease operations in the US entirely right off the bat. Some will hold on, but eventually abandon us as a market. A lot of independant BJD artists in the US will not be able to make and sell their dolls because there are no well known (non-scammer) resin workers who will be able to help create a solid product the way that companies like Volks or Ringdoll or Lutz or Minifee can offer. Recast companies will also cease operations in the US, because they still need to import the recasts from the counterfeit suppliers in other countries who won't be able to afford the tarrifs point blank period. So if you thought that recasts would be an option, think again (they shouldn't be one anyway, but that's a different convo that we aren't gonna have right now).

Dolls have always been a luxury, I admit. It took me seven years to save up and buy the three girls that I have. One of them is just a floating head. She may never get a body now, since I can't afford to buy one right now and may never have the chance to do so by the time the tarrifs hit.

These tarrifs, these policies, will affect vast swathes of non-American products, like snacks, drinks, food, entertainment, and toys. One of the big ones that overlaps with the BJD community, anime and manga, will likely vanish, as it will likely be deemed 'too adult' by the religious extremists in power. You will lose access to these things and you will not have another chance to get them for a very very very long time. By the time you do have the chance, some of the BJD companies whose market focus has been the USA might be completely gone. SmartDoll, for example: their company relies on US consumption of their products, and they market HEAVILY to the US market because we are a really really easy demographic to market to on the global stage. Danny has staked a LOT of his company into our willingness to buy his extremely westernized anime dolls. They are not very popular in Japan, and he focuses very little on other markets where his negative behavior isn't as readily tolerated. Unless he does a massive pivot to a different market... SmartDolls will be gone. I won't speak on how I personally feel about SmartDoll, but I know that a LOT of people love his product, and will be utterly devastated when they can never buy them again.

So, if you are in this community and voted for him, you should be worried. I know there are people in this community who did, because I've seen the alarming uptick of conservative rhetoric in this community first hand. At the end of the day, you are probably just as disillusioned with the US government and chose to vote accordingly. Even if that meant voting for a felon who has a vetted interest in toppling our current democratic structures and isolating the US economically and cleansing it ethnically and religiously. You will lose access to your dolls.

Be ready for that.

[queenofsquids]

Hi, I'm new to BJD and was wondering where you get things like stands, shoes, socks, unders, etc? Looking at clothes I mostly see outfit pieces, not the smaller things I'm looking for (but maybe I'm not looking hard enough. Like I said, I'm new, I just got my first 1/4 imomo)

Congrats!

I find shopping difficult too. I mostly get these type of things from Aliexpress.

The cheap stands I use:

The expensive stands I use:

Some shoes that have fit my imomo:

Socks and unders usually fall into my clutches from thrift stores. I'm not positive of the original dolls they're made for but I would guess 18" dolls like American Girl. I also sew a lot of my own socks. If you shop Aliexpress for those, I think 60cm bjd panties would go over the chubby 1/4 imomodoll hips.

Good luck!

(Anyone else feel free to chime in)

[bealittleimprobable]

PSA to users for the "Coquette" tag

"Dollblr" is the tag for doll collecting on Tumblr - it has been for many years now. It's about dolls - Barbie, American Girl Dolls, BJD, antiques dolls, that kind of thing.

But it keeps being flooded with people talking about coquettes, Lana Del Rey, and older men.

It looks like there's some bundle of tags that has been picked up and copy/pasted or something, but could you please drop that one? The posts I see have nothing to do with dolls, doll collecting, or anything like that.

(Apologies for being in your tags but we've tried mentioning it under individual posts and it's a slog. Hopefully this can clear things up.)